The Smell of Spain

#23: Back from Espana

Just got back from Espana. No, not the country. That place in the armpit of Manila which smells of cats.

When we were young, we used to visit one of my aunts who lived in Espana. If I remember correctly, the exact location was Galicia. Listening to the sound that these words make now as they slide from my brain to the screen makes me think of some charming place far away. Far away, true (since it takes an hour to get there). But charming? Not.

Every time my dad told us to get ready to go to Galicia, I would feel a fever coming down. The place reeked of the smell of cats - yes, cats, urine and all. The esteros were murky and passing by one of them would knock the air out of your lungs. There would always be puddles with floating things you couldn't identify. And the dry part of the street would always have hardened black dirt and things of various colors you couldn't identify either. I told myself that if I got old enough to have a choice, I would refuse to ever return to Espana.

This morning, I went there to oversee a campus raid we did for my brand at the oldest University in the country. My excitement over seeing our Clearasil models in their fashionista attires, depleting tens of thousands of stocks of Clearasil samples gave bounce to my step as I walked from my car to the school, across streets and streets of the same icky things I saw when I was little. I actually almost forgot I was in Espana. That is, until I got a whiff of the smell of cats.