Community Facebook Pages..

Generally community Facebook pages can be very useful, especially to disseminate important information quickly during emergencies such as a pandemic. That was the intention of the one for the community I live in.

Following the pandemic ending it has been maintained by a few English women. Some of the information that is posted is quite useful like local fiestas or how to contact the authorities etc. But mainly these days its filled with patronising toot.

I live in a small community in the countryside made up of a Spanish, German, Dutch, Welsh, English and increasingly more Belgian. By saying increasingly for the Belgians I am in no way suggesting I am unhappy about this. Quite the opposite I embrace living in an international diverse community, which was once an English enclave and now the invaders are being driven out. I love the dilution, just love it. As I said our community Facebook group is ran by just a few English women. So straight away you can see that there is no diversity in the 'Admin' post holders. Any information we get fed is from and English perspective.....And what has become almost like Little England, on Facebook anyway. You only have to watch an episode of the Vicar of Dibley and a scene from a Parish Council meeting to get a feel like what our Community Facebook page publishes.

Rubbish dumping is generally a problem here in Spain. Its possibly attributed to the way the domestic waste is collected. In Spain you find a large number of huge bins dotted around the place for you to dispose of your rubbish and recycling. You are only allowed to put certain items in these bins , for example garden waste isn’t allowed to be deposited in these bins. In our area you take your garden waste to the local recycling centre. Same applies to bulky household items you can either take them yourself to the recycling centre or you are permitted to place them next to the bins on two specified dates each month, these dates are advertised for each town. You can only place your items next to the bins the day before the collection date and only household items like beds, sofas, washing machines etc. For some reason items such as bathroom china is not permitted to be disposed of in this way. Maybe its because if you change your bathroom you need a licence to do this from the Ayuntamiento (Townhall), who in turn give you a permit to dispose of this type of waste at the recycling centre.

Inevitable people do not follow the rules for rubbish disposal and frequently bulky household items whether the permitted type or not are left by the bins at all sorts of out of sync dates. The items that are allowed to be disposed of in this way will eventually be collected on the dates for our area. Any items that are not permitted to be disposed in this way are just left.

I really disagree if items bulky items are left for collection out of sync and the same for items that are not allowed to be disposed of in this way. It makes the place look untidy. However it is the Ayuntamientos responsibility along with the police to investigate and follow up any breaking for these rules.

What you find with our community Facebook page is within five minutes of the rubbish being dumped at the bins there follows a patronising post to all of us good people that dispose of our waste correctly. We are told time and time again by the Admins of the group how we should dispose of our waste. The irony in all of this is that the person or persons that have dumped the waste is possibly not a member of our community Facebook group. This is because only people that live or own a property in our community are allowed to be a member. So anyone just driving through and taking their chance to dump the waste will not even see the post from the Admins.

Instead of reporting the matter to the authorities so they can sift through the waste and maybe find evidence of the perpetrators, there then follows a clear up operation. Whilst in theory there is nothing with a clear up operation by local residents, after all we want the area to look tidy, we are never going to solve the problem without the authorities knowing the full scale of the problem. There will just be a continuous cycle of the problem. Waste dumped, patronising Facebook post, clear up operation, pat-on-the-back post and photos on Facebook showing the clear up operation. I'm not the egotistical type, I don’t need to draw attention when I do good, I just do it silently and anonymously. I like it that way, I just feel its more of a genuine and authentic act. But in a world of egotistical people I can see how some people with too much time on their hands need people to see what they do, lap up the gratitude and be told what a wonderful job they have done which makes them feel they are worth something to society.

This just one instance of the Admins and their patronising tone on our universe community Facebook page. They seem to think they are the Ayuntamiento. They most certainly are not. I have learnt with a lot of things here in Spain that involves the English preaching. DISTANCE. IGNORE.