Hello all as this is one of two last Blog from me in Spain as I will be leaving for Canada on Monday I thought that it only appropriate that I summarize my time in Spain, as well as my observations and research findings.
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First of all my personal summary of Spain;
When we arrived it was a hot dry place with little vegetation and what existed was hardy and covered in prickles. Not how I remembered it at all but then again last time I was here I was younger and did not pay much attention to anything.
Now that I am leaving it is a wet cold place, not as wet as England, but still with the wet winters the temperatures went from hot one day to freezing the next day.
It literally went from me walking around in shorts and a singlet one week to, "hey look it´s snowing on the mountains over there".
So the weather has been interesting, another thing that stands out to me in the time that i have been here, is the cross section of people and stories that have occurred here over the years. From the stories of Don Quixote, of a crazy old man roaming around the countryside, to the lack of trees. The story goes is that a squirrel use to be able to cross the country going from tree to tree with out ever having to touch the ground as there use to be that many trees but in order to make the Spanish armadas all the trees were harvested and now there seems to be a sever lack of tree. There are so much history and so many stories for every part of the country that you travel to. It has also been interesting to observe the generations that are currently exist and the influencing factors that cause the trends that are currently exhibited.
The youth are largely unemployed despite being educated, as a result the children remain in the houses of the parents for a long time living off allowances that the parents provide, which is a stark contrast to the upbringing i had where you learned to fend for yourself as early as you could. I see youth that are babied for longer when i was that age i was married, paying rent, paying studies and had my own car.
It is interesting how the slightest change in economic means causes a complete shift in an entire generation, and will be interesting to see how the tread plays out as the youth stay young and babied for longer while the aged are aging faster and getting to the age of retirement while still trying to support their children.
Back to the adventures that i have had while i have been here, i have been from the mountains to the beach, from the cities to the country, i have seen the modern and the historical and it all culminates to give a depth of culture with is evident in a tolerant and laid back culture.
Well that's enough of my observations,what i want to do now is create a set of criteria that can be used to measure any country against I am going to base it on maslow's hierarchy of needs and how easily those needs are met.
For your reference below is how maslow's hierarchy of needs works.
Research Findings
Maslow´s Hierarchy of needs
1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.
3. Love and belongingness needs - friendship, intimacy, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends, romantic relationships.
4. Esteem needs - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.
5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.***
What I did was to create a survey and pass it around the office where I work in order to gauge what people think, by doing so i attempted to remove any bias.
Note* the Sample size was small and the people who actually completed the survey the majority of them were foreigners so the following results are more indicative of the opinion of an outsider living in Spain rather than a Spanish person living in Spain.
Below is an image of the table that I asked my colleagues to respond to.
The following is the Graphical representation of how my colleagues felt about Spain over all.
What these results show is that the survey sample believed that Spain is a Safe place to live and that both their Physiological and Belongingness needs are also fairly easily attainable.
However with regards to Esteem needs and Self-actualization they we scored rather harshly with feedback showing that you need to work for these things with some feedback indicating these are near impossible to achieve in Spain.
One thing that i would like to comment on that came out of this survey was that, Safety was the easiest thing to achieve and overall safety is usually something that we ourselves can not control.
Well i hope that you found that interesting, and i will try to use this criteria to produce a report for every country that i visit from now on.
In Summary
So to summarise i wanted to just add some photos from previous Blogs that were taken from different parts of spain
Well that is it guys for Spain for now, I hope you have all enjoyed it.
Next stop Canada
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Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change,
interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's
always changing!”
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
