Traditions know no frontiers ...

Photo: Delia Padrón - La OpiniónPurely in the interests of promoting understanding and harmony to a wider audience (which, I feel sure was their original intention too), I've nabbed this photo from La Opinión today.

The photo shows two of the immigrant youths, currently in Tenerife's care, during an outing to the Las Teresitas beach yesterday. It looks as though they are participating in the Canary Island native sport of lucha canaria.

In fact, they are fighting - sportingly - in the style of their own country of origin, which, say La Opinión, "demonstrates, once more, that frontiers are a political invention and that traditions are not heritage of a particular race or people."

"Multiculturality, whatever you say, is a fact."

Indeed, another Canary Island native sport, juego del palo (Canary Islands Stick Fighting), a tradition with more than 400 years of history, looks exactly like that which we would associate with the very English, Robin Hood and Little John.

You know, the longer I live amongst "foreign" people (yes, I realize I am the foreign one here), the more I realize how alike we all are at the heart. We are just one big family. Pity we can't manage to be a happy one, isn't it?

Del Océano Tenebroso a Las Teresitas