Poor Spain

Earlier this evening I posted about a lovely holiday we had a couple of years ago in Spain; we were with good friends, we had good weather  we ate well, drank well, had a brilliant time. Everywhere looked smart and clean, everyone seemed happy and doing well… but that was several years ago.

I was listening to The World Tonight, just after ten o’clock this evening and there was a report tonight from Spain which is suffering from the most awful financial crisis. There were people being interviewed who had entered a lottery to get a job… cleaning the streets. One man was interviewed who had been an electrician before he lost his job; how did he feel when he got the job picking up litter in the streets… ‘like a man’ he answered.

Every week I teach English voluntarily to adults who come from abroad, we have Bangladeshi women whose husbands have restaurants, Chinese people who also work in the restaurant trade, a lot of Polish people who are doing menial jobs and want to improve their English so they can improve their prospects .. and over the last six months lots and lots of Spanish people  People with degrees, people with professional qualifications, people who are trained and experienced… but are out of work in Spain with no hope of further employment as 25% of the workforce is also unemployed.

Poor Spain, a wonderful, beautiful country…