Madrid Protest

Still in Madrid today, left it too late to get accommodation in Salamanca so I'm delayed by one day. Could be stuck somewhere worse though! Today we dropped Fi off at the airport for her plane to Lyon to go skiing. Skiing's not for me though so I'm going to spend the next week traipsing around Spain until my flight home from Porto on Sunday.

On the way back from the airport we noticed a protest developing on Calle Atocha. I tried to jump out the car at the traffic lights, desperate to get shooting. Many of the public services, including fire fighters and airport services, had come out on to the street to protest against the privatisation of their businesses. At the moment in Spain, working as a civil servant in the public sector, you are guaranteed a job for life, with a pension at the end. However, if these companies are privatised there will be no such life guarantee. Workers will become more dispensable, their jobs will be held at the whim of the Big-Man in charge.

The atmosphere at the march was peaceful but ridiculously noisy. People everywhere were smiling, waving flags and drinking wine. Some even had their children in tow. Looking up from the bottom of the street you could see a river of flags. However, there must have been about four thousand shrill whistles piercing the air at any one time. Stepping into Calle Atocha was like temporarily sampling a life with extreme tinnitus. An orchestra of loud noise. If the whistles didn't do it for you then the air horn section and sirens would have. Any break in the noise signalled only one thing, the pending BOOM of the giant firecrackers.

I made friends with one of the firecracker culprits. He gave me his e-mail so I could send photos to his company and in return he would wink every time he threw a firecracker to let me know when to get the shot. I took hundreds of photos in the space of an hour but I picked this one for Blip, as I think it sums up the general idea of the protest. The colours, the crowds and the situation.