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The Dumpster-Fire Politics of Living Abroad
The inevitability (and responsibility) of getting swept up in another country’s politics.
Two years ago, I stood on my apartment balcony in Barcelona, Spain, and watched a group of 40–50 young people with dark clothes and bandanas tied around their faces as they dragged every nearby dumpster from the sidewalks to the middle of the crosswalks and set them on fire. Within minutes, three massive dumpster fires blazed, sending up plumes of black smoke that forced a woman on her own balcony across the street to retreat inside.
As the flames grew, police vans stormed the intersection and the fire-starters ran in every direction. Several vans clipped the flaming dumpsters themselves in what looked like an attempt not to catch, but to actually run down the fire-starters. I didn’t see anyone get hit but, by then, it was too hard to see through all the smoke. Having moved to Barcelona from the United States, I felt a familiar rage rise in my gut towards the police and their blatant escalation of every situation.
The fires on the street kept growing after the fire-starters and the police were long gone. I could hear sirens throughout the city, but the fire departments appeared to be too busy elsewhere to make it to our street. I could feel the heat from my second-floor…
