Impressions of our Spanish course – Interview with Enid (Part 2)

The second part of the interview with Enid and Ciaran is about Enid and her exciting life in Málaga.

Enid, what is your favorite book?

My favourite book is probably the young-adult classic “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton with my favorite author being Judy Blume, who I actually got to meet in Key West, Florida and she was so amazing, a fantastic author and a wonderful conversationalist. I also like to read both non-fiction and fiction with two of my favourite non-fiction authors being Bill Bryson and Jon Krakauer. Some recent reads that I have enjoyed include “Autobiography of us” by Aria Beth Sloss, “One” by Sarah Crossan (another young-adult read) and “The rules do not apply” by Ariel Levy. I also enjoy anything by Jodi Picoult or Elin Hilderbrand.

And do you know a Spanish or Latin American author or book who/which you can recommend?

There are many Spanish and Latin American authors that have their works translated in to English and they are well read by patrons in the libraries that I have worked in over the years in Dublin. Some popular authors include Carlos Ruiz Zafón (The Shadow of the Wind), Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the time of Cholera) and also Isabel Allende (The House of Spirits) who is a Chilean author. But of course the most famous is possibly Miguel de Ceervantes who wrote “Don Quixote”. The International Dublin Literary Award is presented each year for a novel written or translated in to English and it accepts nominations from Public Libraries all over the world. Books are longlisted and then shortlisted and it is one of the highest value awards for writing in the world. In 2014, Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez won the International Dublin Literary Award with his book “The sound of things falling”, while in 1997 the award went to Madrid born Javier Marías for “A heart so white”. 

Have you seen a special library in Málaga that you liked?

Normally I enjoy visiting lots of libraries when I am on holidays and am in different countries. However, due to Covid many libraries were closed or had restrictions on numbers of visitors over the past while, so I have not visited them. However, I passed by the library in Pedregalejo and I thought it looked very nice and modern and it seemed to be of a similar scale to some libraries in Dublin.

What does a typical day in Málaga look like?

I like to get up about 7.30am and have a coffee in bed while I go over some Spanish language work on an app that I have found useful. After that Ciaran and I then take the dog for a walk, stopping off somewhere for a coffee and a chat where we go over our plans for the day. Later I do some work on PIGSY’s social media and add content to his instagram, twitter and Facebook feed. Ciaran also does this, as managing and staying on top of his social media is a two-person job.  We tend to have breakfast about 12pm – we like to cook eggs on our BBQ for this.  In the afternoon, Ciaran does prep work for his art or maybe goes to the art shop for art supplies. From about 2pm to 6pm I am mainly working on the business end of Ciaran’s art. I answer emails, add content to his website and do other general work.  Since I’ve arrived here I’ve worked on a few big projects. I updated the  PIGSY website and branding along with introducing a range of merchandise based on PIGSY art. It has been fun selling things like enamel mugs and face masks printed with PIGSY art and there has been a really great response to them! And so later on in the day, about 6pm I start to make the dinner. Ciaran goes to the studio about 3 or 4pm and I would expect him home about 8.30pm or so. We then have dinner about 9pm and following that we try and watch the news in Spanish and get to bed about 10.30pm.

We heard that you are volunteering in a charity shop, can you tell us a bit about it?

After being in Malaga for a month or two, I decided that I wanted to do some volunteer work. I had a few reasons for doing this. Number one reason was that I have always done volunteer work at home in Ireland and I wanted to continue this here in Spain. I had seen a sign up in the Cudeca Charity shop that they were looking for volunteers and so I decided to volunteer with them as I thought that it would help and give me the opportunity to speak Spanish. I also thought that it would give me the opportunity to make friends here in Malaga.I volunteer on Saturdays and work in the Cudeca shop at Plaza de la Merced. I’m really enjoying working in the shop – I’ve met some really nice people and I like the work.  My tasks include assisting customers, organising clothes on the rails and I have even been given the opportunity to dress the window. I try speak as much Spanish as I can in the shop and each evening before I go in, I go over all of the Spanish words for different items of clothing and other useful words. Cudeca is an organisation that provides services for people with cancer. See here for further information and also opportunities for volunteering https://www.cudeca.org/en/get-involved/become-a-volunteer/

Can you use something, that you learned in our Spanish course in your workplace?

Libraries in Ireland receive visitors from all over the world and Dublin is very multicultural.  Currently I am not working in a public area of the library but if I was working in the library I would certainly have the opportunity to speak Spanish to Spanish speaking patrons in the library.  Additionally many libraries have foreign language collections and I think that knowing the Spanish language would be very useful when cataloguing the Spanish books within these collections. I also think in general it is essential to keep challenging oneself – particularly as we get older. Language learning is great for brain health and development so I am enjoying the challenge of learning Spanish and hopefully I can continue to use what I learned in the future and on my return to Ireland.

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