Wonderland

"So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality."
Lewis Carroll, "Alice In Wonderland".


There are many Alices. They come to Wonderland but find it to be not quite the reality. There was a conversation today that was one of the most insightful I have had since being here. She - British - has lived here (Puerto Pollensa) for many years, is married to a Mallorcan, has a son at school, and knows the school system well. Hers is one opinion, one perspective. It is worth relating though, in a way, I am almost reluctant to do so.

Puerto Pollensa is not as it was. Puerto Alcúdia has usurped it. Even the old town of Alcúdia has upstaged the old town of Pollensa. The town (Puerto Pollensa) is riven by cliquishness. Were it not for the son, she would go somewhere else. But even the son is a problem, a problem in terms of his future. He goes to the Institute next year (the secondary school), the one where 90% of the first year had to repeat. And so many have to repeat, not because the school is necessarily poor, but because many are unmotivated (children of those with finca after finca who indulge their offspring who can expect the booty without school effort); but because the discipline is lousy; but because the children of incomers (foreigners, like those of the British) often need to repeat as their language is not up to it and they, the children, suffer an inferiority complex as a consequence of the language issue. But moreover, there is the wonderland life that is to blame. The children see the sea, the fun, the laidback style of life and they see that as the future with no real effort needed.

She. She would prefer to be in Palma to bring up a child, as far as education is concerned in any event. That is because Palma is "serious", a place of commerce and work rather than play and indulgence.

This conversation was loaded. Disillusionment. I make no comment on the Puerto Pollensa versus Puerto Alcúdia divide, but it's not the first time I've heard this. This was not what really intrigued me. What did was the way in which she dismantled the dream, the wonderland of what is meant to be one of the island's finest places; dismantled it in terms of how that very wonderland hides the reality of life for children, the reality of what may face others who come not only to Puerto Pollensa but to other places on the island (including Puerto Alcúdia). The wonderland is meant to be a place to raise children, a place for their futures, but what is that future? Is it a "dull reality" of low-paid work that the present has failed to address? It was an extraordinary observation; extraordinary in that it was new to me.


QUIZ: Yesterday - Steve Strange (but could also have been Rusty Egan). Today's title? There are possibly others, but I'm going for one by a Scottish group who have been here before.

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