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Comment by Kevin Walker on September 8, 2009 at 4:32pm

Ooops sorry!

Comment by Delanna Reed on September 8, 2009 at 3:31pm

Kevin,
Since the local dialect is difficult, I can understand why you don't speak it. When I was 20 years old I spent a month studying Spanish in Salamanca and came away with a decent ability to speak Castillian. Of course, I had several years of schoolwork to prepare me.

By they way, it was Delanna who wrote! :)

Comment by Kevin Walker on September 8, 2009 at 3:09pm

Hey Penelope. Holidays are great aren't they? I have lived in Spain for just over 4 years and I am ashamed to say that my spanish is not too good, even though I live in a very Spanish area. My partner is fluent and he does the talking!! hee hee. I am trying to learn but the locals speak a dialect that is so hard to understand for me...but I am English....we expect everyone to speak english!! only joking. I do work in spanish schools but as their exposure to English. I do throw in some words and phrases in spanish when the going gets tough. But I am sooooooo ashamed!

Comment by Delanna Reed on September 8, 2009 at 2:12pm

Kevin,

I assume you speak fluent spanish since you live in Spain. Do you also tell stories in Spanish?

Comment by Delanna Reed on September 8, 2009 at 2:11pm

Penelope,

I left work the day we were writing back and forth and managed to stay away and offline for the holiday weekend. Yeah! So, to answer your question, I live in Johnson City, TN - right next door to Jonesborough, home of the National Storytelling Festival.

Comment by Kevin Walker on September 2, 2009 at 4:21pm

Yes, we too try to live an ordinary life which illustrates to the "uneducated" that we are just like anyone else. But I do count myself lucky on the fact that I live in a place in my life where I can do this....both physically and emotionally. Not really political but not hidden in any way. I live in a very spanish town where gayness is not openly accepted but is fine as long as you don't talk about it. But our neighbours and the townsfolk have shown only warmth and a welcome to us as we live openly as a couple. Some even ask if we are going to get married, as Spain has now made it legal. There is a little town not too far from here that is run by a comunist mayor....and it is a very successful, happy and well run place. He has offered to pay for a honeymoon for the first gay couple to get married in his town!! hee hee....just love it!! Sorry, I digress.

Comment by Penelope Starr on September 2, 2009 at 3:36pm

Delanna, where do you live?

Comment by Penelope Starr on September 2, 2009 at 3:36pm

I'm interested in how to be part of the solution. I ran the senior program at an LGBT community center for a few years and was a "professional queer", as we liked to call ourselves. By being a good role model and challenging homophobia in my former day job, my storytelling events & my life, I hope to "normalize" people's experience of a LGBTQ person. I know that I'm the exception. People think I'm brave but I just think I'm doing what I need to do. I once lived in a small city in Kentucky and quickly realized that was not the place for me and returned to "civilization".

Comment by Delanna Reed on September 2, 2009 at 3:18pm

I think that homophobia is pervasive across the country. We find specific places that are opening up, thank goodness. I would have to say that the south is usually the bastion of right-wing conservativism. Fundamental Christianity is very strong there (here!).

Comment by Penelope Starr on September 1, 2009 at 3:23pm

But same sex couples can get married in Iowa, the very middle of the country, so where, really, is the heart of prejudice and discrimination, and how to challenge that?

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