New Friends en Espana

I awoke this morning to cooing pigeons, barking dogs and crowing roosters in the Andalusian town of La Roda. I think the dogs woke me, but as I lay there half asleep I was visited by a Spanish house fly. It was odd because I have been hassled by many American house flies while in that edge world between sleep and wakefulness, and they usually do a great job of irritating you to wakefulness. Not this time.

The fly landed on my bare arm, and I shook it expecting its inevitable return. It was strange because the fly had the courtesy not to return. For almost a minute I waited, but it had decided to go elsewhere and leave this foreigner alone. So I have decided that Spanish flies are quite civilized, and much less irritating than their American counterparts.

Perhaps this is the reason that window screens seem non-existent here. The louvered windows of my daughter's new house would serve to exclude large birds, but not much else. I am so paranoid about keeping our screens closed up tight at home because the house would instantly fill with buzzing insects (especially at night) that I felt a little uneasy seeing no way to keep the little buggers out of the house while letting the cool evening air in. But now I see that these are a different breed of fly.

As I lay there in bed contemplating all of this with the morning light streaming in the windows, I remembered the legendary status that "Spanish Flies" had when I was a teenager. Legend among the virgin young boys in the neighborhood was that this was a powerful aphrodisiac, and if taken by a girl, there would be no way to protect yourself (who would want to?) from her sexual advances.

Now at age 60, I have a different view. Here in Spain it seems that the fly and humans have come to a mutual detente. Perhaps they even take siesta with the rest of the population?

That's All!