Roar… Ssss… Woof!
What do you think of when you hear these noises? You’re at a zoo? You’re on a Noah’s ark themed Otley run? No. Apparently in Spain these are the calls of mating season, and I don’t mean the animal mating season. Just a few handpicked street noises that replace your average screeching car tyre, screaming toddler or even ‘wolf whistle’ in Leeds. Don’t get me wrong, I adore being whistled at as much as the next girl (i.e. not at all) and I speak fervently of it: offensive, degrading, embarrassing and downright annoying, but oh what I would do to hear that sweet, sweet bird song once again.
I arrived in sunny Spain over two months ago to begin my year abroad experience. Placed in Málagain the South, after originally applying to Oviedo in the North, a stroke of serendipity meant I was dragged kicking and screaming (okay more like skipping and singing) to what I would describe as my dream city. Quaint yet bustling, traditional yet modern and muy muy Spanish, Málagahad me in its grasp from the start. Admittedly, in the beginning I feared that I would be swallowed up by football shirt-wearing, ear-pierced, San Miguel-swigging Brits, as the airport here is known as the ‘Gateway to the Costa del Sol’. Much to my surprise and relief, there wasn’t a ‘Brit abroad’ in sight (obviously I don’t count). I was in my element, relishing the deep olive skin and sultry accent of the local lotharios. With Antonio Banderas being a born and bred Malagueño, a part of me hoped I would meet his long lost illegitimate son (and the other half of me prayed never to meet Picasso’s – Málaga’s other claim to fame). However, the reality was not so idyllic.
Calle Marqués de Larios, Málaga
It is known the world over that the Europeans on the continent have a much more, how shall I put it, ‘friendly’ culture. You know the kiss on each cheek, or in the words of Michael McIntyre, the two kisses on each cheek and subsequent cleavage face plant. However, somewhere the Spanish seem to have lost in translation the subtle boundaries between the friendly and the hideously inappropriate. It must have been one of my first days in Málaga and I’m walking home from la fruiteria* with another Leeds Erasmus student, when we hear a raucous affair of animal noises from behind us. Naively assuming it was a bunch of school kids, I turned around to be met with a gaggle of fully grown Spanish men re-enacting what appeared to be a scene from Peppa Pig. The worst part was that we were the subjects of such cacophony. Not to be a caviller feminist, but WHO DOES THAT? The last time I checked it was 2011. We are not Neanderthals any more, nor do we groom each other, nor do we communicate in grunts and hand signals and we most definitely don’t bark at the opposite sex.
Our immediate reaction was to burst into a chorus of Spanish expletives, (clearly the first thing you learn when you go to Spain), then the ignominy of being barked at kicked in and followed us home like a cloud of Katie Price perfume. Who has told Spanish men that this is the way to get a girl’s attention? I mean, skin head builders whistling from a white van on Otley Road is not how I envisaged meeting my future husband either, but animal noises!?
Due to my innate lack of confidence, a part of me speculated that they were using such calls of the animal kingdom to refer to a dog like appearance. It wasn’t until it happened when I wasn’t in a torpid hungover state that it dawned on me that this is their impudent mating call. These attempts at ‘pulling’ continued day in, day out. We’d often be cooed at, as though they were summoning cats to their milk. Indisposed to even respond now, such events have regrettably become a part of life here in Málaga. It’s safe to say, if I had visions of being seduced into the throes of passion by an amorous Spanish Señor they would have been well and truly shattered.
But hey, we still have endless supplies of great weather, even better tapas and friendly priced sangria to fill our long days here. So like some Pollyanna once said: “Who needs men when you have food?”.
Okay, I think I just made that up, but it’s true!