samuel.bowles.es

This afternoon I traveled by train for the first time since the attacks on Thursday. The journey to a friend's house for lunch took me through Atocha Renfe. And as I returned home I changed trains on a platform that has been turned into a spontaneous memorial to the victims. Two posts are surrounded by letters, pictures, flowers, candles, and images of saints and virgins. A crowd of people who were waiting for the same train spent the time in silence reading what had been written and thinking about those who died.

I read messages that ranged from the sentimental, to the spiritual, to the political. One mourner held G-d responsible writing simply, "Where are you G-d when we need you? Where!?" while many others held the current government to blame using words like fascists, liars, and guilty.

The politics of the day were obviously on everyone's mind as the voter turn out was around 77% - a much higher number than that of previous elections. The biggest surprise though was how much it seems these events have directly effected the outcome of the election. Almost every political commentary I have read and every Spaniard I have talked to leading up to the election has believed it was a foregone conclusion that the ruling Popular Party would win. Tonight common wisdom proved wrong.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who ran for the opposition PSOE party, won the election this evening. The win has been characterized as a vote for peace, a vote to get Spain's troops out of Iraq. This wouldn't surprise me at all based simply on anecdotal evidence. Most of the Spaniards that I have met have been firmly against the war, president Bush, and their current president, Jose Maria Aznar's relationship with him. The environment here is in no way anti-American but it is quite anti-Bush.

Tomorrow I teach English to a class of ten civil servants. We will spend the time discussing the tragedy, the election, and the future of Spain. I'm very curious to know how they have been feeling over the past days - I just hope none of them have been directly effected by the terror. Hasta mañana.