In the meantime, the Spanish people and their government have a lot to do to make their country stable and strong again. If you were to visit Spain, you would see why the Spanish people love their country so much. You could also understand why so many different nations wanted to conquer Spain. Spain is a very beautiful country and also a country that can produce many good things. It has minerals such as iron, lead, copper and sulphur in the earth. In the south, it has a warm climate that helps grow luscious crops of oranges, lemons, olives and grapes for wine.
You might like to take a trip from one region to another by riding on a little donkey as Spanish boys do, or in a little high-wheeled cart pulled by a donkey, the way little Spanish girls might do. Your donkey would probably not have a saddle, but just a rug or a straw mat folded across his back, and he might wear a headband of bright red and blue wool woven into a gay pattern to shade his eyes from the sun. You could carry your food and clothes for the journey in a pair of straw bags hung one on each side of your donkey's back. Along the way, you would see dozens of other little donkeys and burros. The burro is a donkey-cousin but even smaller. Donkeys and burros work with the Spanish men and boys in the fields or carry stones to help build new roads, or carry jars of water from a well to someone's house. These gentle little animals work to earn their keep in Spain.
Suppose you start your trip in the north. At the very most northwestern tip of Spain is the region of Galicia, which everybody thought was the end of the world before Columbus showed them it wasn't. People in Galicia call themselves "Gallegos," and they live in a country of rocky seacoasts, where the ocean pokes long fingers called "rias" back into green hills and fog rolls in almost every day. In Galicia and the neighboring region of Asturias, fathers earn their living by fishing or by farming, and mothers make all the clothes for their families from cloth they weave themselves. Families live in houses built from stones cleared from their own fields. This is where the bagpipes are played while the young people, gaily dressed in red and green, dance their lively dances.
This northern region is quite different from the sunny south, where the climate is very hot in the summer and never really gets cold in the winter. Here in the south is Andalusia, where mountain ranges may have snow on their peaks all year round, but down in the valleys and plains sweet-scented tropical flowers bloom in bright colors every single month. On the hillsides, grapes are grown to make wine, or silvery-green olive trees make groves against the red earth. This is a region of horses and good horsemen. Here big ranches stretch along the river banks and huge black bulls are raised.
The people of Andalusia are full of music, dancing and the love of life. They live in white houses built around courtyards full of flowers, with windows covered with designs in black wrought iron. Black-haired Andalusian women wear black lace mantillas draped over their heads, a kind of veil and shawl. They like to carry lacy fans and wear long flashing earrings. Lots of gypsies live in Andalusia, many of them in caves in the chalky-white hillsides. Gypsy girls wear long red or green or blue dresses dotted with white. They fold bright-colored silk fringed scarves around their necks, and they love to wear many gold bracelets. Andalusia is the region the Moors loved the most, so this is where you'll see many of their lovely stone buildings full of lacelike carvings.