In 2001 I made a life changing decision – in consultation with my then 14-year-old daughter and my retired parents. We decided to swap our welfare secured life in cold and rainy Denmark with an unknown future in Sunny Southern Spain in the pursuit of a simple laid-back life style in the sun.
Ten years down the road I find myself reflecting on how this worked out in reality for three different generations?
In Denmark, my parents could barely afford the daily newspaper, but in Spain, they can afford the car that was unattainable on a minimalistic Danish pension in Denmark. Their taxes are not worth talking about and they get free medicine. They can also afford having a social life. They go out for meals and tapas frequently and sit on the pavement cafe’s under the orange trees and chat with friends.
On the minus side, the horror of the future, if bad health should make it difficult to look after themselves – are frightening.
A Spanish nursing home is not an option for those who have lived most of their life with a north European consciousness. There are large dormitories and a lack of privacy that make the Danish debate on the quality of nursing homes appear as luxury problems. And the foreign, private nursing homes are only available to those who have money. They start from 2.000 Euro a months.
Changing country, language and school at the age of 14 turned out to be a much bigger bite to chew for my daughter – than we had anticipated. Forget about Danish integration and supportive language teaching. In Andalusia you start school in Spanish, and either it works out – or it doesn’t!
It didn’t work out for my daughter. And it doesn’t work out for most teenagers. She dropped out of school before finishing her basic schooling. Prior to this we had an exhausting and miserable time with tears and discussions each and every morning. She didn’t want to go to the ‘state prison’, which she called the school because it was fenced with locked gates. And before she got to the point of mastering the Spanish language, she had already missed out on the learning, and was way behind.
On the plus side, which we didn’t realize until the feeling of disaster began to fade, were some uplifting facts. Vanessa, who has now turned 23 , speaks fluent Spanish, English and of course Danish. Additionally she already has an impressive work experience. She has worked at an English hairdresser, at a Spanish cafe, a Scandinavian post office, an English real estate, and in a Spanish pet shop. Most important perhaps was her hard earned acknowledgment: that without education you only get the worst paid jobs.
I am very proud of my daughter, who finished her school via the Internet with top grades, and is now continuing her studies in the United Kingdom. I miss her on a daily basis, and she didn’t want to go, but Andalusia is so recession stroked that there are no way she and her new little family can make a living here at the moment.
For me as a single mother without a Danish income in my back pocket, it has certainly been no bed of roses either.
I don’t think I have ever had to run as fast and work so hard as it has been necessary to do here.
The first couple of year, I had my own company, but not enough capital to wait for the turnover to be profitable, although I worked 2 other jobs on the side. After closing down my business I worked at a nursing home, I did private cleaning, updated the website for an estate agency and worked as a freelance journalist on a magazine on Costa del Sol. Still I could hardly scratch by!
Why am I still here? Why haven’t I gone back “home”?
Well first of all I met the love of my life in Andalusia. He is Anglo/Irish. For us “home” is Andalusia. That is another thing most people who hasn’t lived here don’t realize. There are more than 60 nationalities just on the little stretch of coast from Nerja to Torrox.
And what about the future?
I haven’t had a job in more than 2 years and the same goes for my partner, who had a work accident. Yes according to the European Union we should be covered as European citizens who have paid our taxes and social security for years. (More than 500 Euro per month). We are, in the eyes of the law, entitled to sick money, unemployment benefit and social welfare. It just doesn’t happen in the deep south of Andalusia! We have the European Unions declaration of rights – but no way of enforcing them!
We have been building an income online for the past 3 – 4 years, and we are still here. We are still struggling to get by, but it gets better month by month!
What is it that makes it all worth while? How do I make it credible that even in the darkest moments, I couldn’t dream of returning to Denmark, which still has a big place in my heart – or starting a new life in my partners country of origin.
There is something about Spain! Something that enters your blood. I can be forced to stop driving for 10 minutes because the road is blocked by a goat flock on their way to grazing. I’ll be late for wherever I am going, but it doesn’t matter: there is always manana!
We live in the mountains now, but I used to live in a small white village called Torrox.
The streets are steep, and in some places no wider than a Danish bicycle path. You can hear the cock’s crow, the goats bleat and the non repeatable sound of a donkey, and in the siesta time between 14 and 17 the smell of fried sardines, in the hot, deserted streets of Torrox, sneaks into your nostrils.
When I stroll through the village, I am greeted by the women who sit outside their houses talking, laughing and peeling vegetables. I don’t really know them, but they know who I am – because I am a foreigner, and they know everything about me. Who my boyfriend is, who my daughter is, and who her boyfriend is, etc., and they have no inhibitions when it comes to asking direct questions. The fact is, they keep themselves updated, so they can update the rest of the village. But it does not feel like snooping, it feels natural. It feels good.
I do love the velvet hot nights in July and August. The days are so incredible hot that if you don’t happen to be in the sea or near a pool you will want to hide beside a fan or in a room with air-condition or simply have one cold shower after the other. But the nights from 22 – 02 o’clock are beautiful. That is the time to have your meal outside on your terrace or on a pavement café.
