It's 2 am and I'm not sleeping. Luckily Rosa isn't playing her English pop music tonight. I'm burning incense because they are smoking in the bar downstairs. I don't know where Sherie is. She must be working. She always goes and works in the wee hours of the morning.

The other morning I went upstairs to find a bucket to do my handwashing. Rosa was making a guiso and had it cooking on the stove. So she came over and started talking to me all about her children. I was a captive listener for a while. It was a Spanish kind of morning. Light was coming in through the skylight, into her hovel of a kitchen up there. She seemed happy and chatted away about her son Eduardo and about Jose his friend, (the two owners of the bar), and how they both used to love weight lifting (the stew was for them... they need it, she said. If she didn't feed them, they'd just eat montaditos). Jose gave it up, but Eduardo, despite his age (about 50) still lifts weights. He has an earring in one ear and kind of a brush cut. They both are really nice guys. I can't be upset at them too much for renting out such a hovel, because they probably don't see it that way; the state of it is probably something they would be totally happy living in. Eduardo's mother is, anyways. She does his laundry too.
She has a daughter, married with several small children. The daughter has a black belt and teaches Judo. She joined the volunteer police force, and Rosa mentioned how she had to go do these kind of obstacle courses in the countryside. She also wanted to go as a peacekeeper to some country where they were always bombing things, back about 10 years ago, somewhere in the middle east or Africa. I did not recognise the name, despite her saying it several times. A female friend went, but her father didn't want her to. I guess Rosa must be divorced... though that seems highly unlikely for a woman of around 75 - 80, in Spain. Perhaps it was some other kind of father, or maybe she refers to her husband that way. The daughter has also done all kinds of fairly high end waiting of tables. Now, however, she works at the airport, in what capacity I couldn't decipher or rather, Rosa didn't make clear, though she does get up at 4 am to go there. Rosa occasionally goes to cover a gap in the day when neither her daughter or son in law can be there for the kids.

Today I sat in Plaza San Lorenzo. It is the best place in all of Sevilla. It was 3:30 and Wednesday so the Sardinero (bar) wasn't open. Neither were the two churches, and a lady stopped to ask me whether I knew if they were open. She told me she never could remember either what day they were closed, though she had been coming there for years. She was really lovely. She told me she was 86, and her father had been a doctor, so she knew to use olive oil to keep her skin young. She pointed to her chest and arms, and indeed, her chest was surprisingly wrinkle free, though her face told her age. She had the most incredible straight posture, and something in her manner like a young girl. It sounded like she said she would get cookies thrown at her if she crossed the plaza. That was probably a hole in my Spanish understanding, which is otherwise pretty awesome these days. "Pegado por tortas", she said laughing, several times, pointing in the direction of the bakery on the corner.

I realised when I visited Marta and Alicia that my listening skills had increased a lot just during August, living in Lebrija. I didn't use English at all the whole month, except to write it on the internet. I understood pretty much everything Marta told me about her adventures in a rather experimental orchestra psychological project, even though she talked fast. In an attempt to increase the connection between members of the orchestra, they did stuff almost like therapy, trust games and so on, with an international group, some of whom didn't have a language in common to explain to each other what they liked most about themselves or such things.