As promised, Tenerife Magazine are offering another fab prize for December- a five star one bedroom apartment in Pearly Grey Resort, Callao Salvaje, and entering is easy peasy. All you’ve got to do is sign up (or already be a member of the Tenerife Magazine Facebook page) and also sign as a fan of the Ingane Yami Facebook page.
Ingame Yami is a charitable project to build a special village for young AIDS orphans in Durban South Africa – definitely a worthwhile cause – which is strongly supported by Pearly Grey Resort and all its staff here in Tenerife.
I find it quite touching that the entrance requirements for this month’s Tenerife Magazine competition does not include becoming a fan on Facebook of the actual sponsor, Pearly Grey Resort or anything specific to Pearly Grey at all – all associated publicity is aimed at Ingame Yami.
Especially for that, I would urge you to become a fan of Pearly Grey as well – though as stated you do not have to do so to enter the competition.
Here are the links you need:
Tenerife Magazine December Competition
One Week, 5 star accommodation in Pearly Grey Resort
The Pearly Grey Resort is perched on the cliff top looking out across the Atlantic, with great views of La Gomera. Your 5 star one bedroom self catering apartment, has the pick of the views, and has all modern comforts for one lucky couple.
How To Enter
It’s FREE and simple to enter our competition, you just need to be a Facebook member of Tenerife Magazine. We also need you to sign up to Pearly Grey’s Ingane Yami charity page. This is a special project to build a village for AIDS orphans in Durban, South Africa.
Competition Rules
The draw will be made on 11th January 2010, and is for a one bedroom luxury self catering apartment for one week. The prize is valid for one year, subject to availability, and is not exchangeable for cash.
And finally, I am pleased to tell you that the winner of the Tenerife Magazine launch competition for a week’s holiday in luxurious Sands Beach Lanzarote, Debbie Schilling, was finally found. Whew! Thought for a minute I’d have to bite the bullet and volunteer to go myself. (Oh dream on!)
When the news broke on Friday of the death a three year old neighbourhood girl, supposedly from child abuse inflicted by her step-father, I was as quick as the next person to believe in his guilt. Like the other mothers standing around, I wondered how this atrocity could happen in our community, to a child that went to the same school as my own, and yet we noticed nothing wrong?
I didn’t stop to consider what evidence had been gathered against 25 year old, Diego Pastrana Vieco, I only knew that the safest place for him to be on Friday was in the hands of the police because there is nothing more vindictive than a mob of mothers looking for blood revenge.
As it happens, the poor man not only had to suffer the pain of the death of a loved one, he also had to defend himself against the most despicable charges that it is possible to bring. The child Aitana’s mother and natural father stood up for Diego Vieco and said he had never harmed her in any way. At a time when the shock and pain of losing their daughter had not even sunk in, they were at the police station fighting on Diego’s behalf.
How did this horrible story happen? Aitana fell from a swing and banged her head. She was taken to the children’s clinic in El Fraile but was not sent for an x-ray from there. A few days later she went into cardiac arrest and Diego took her into El Mahon where they treated her and found marks which they thought to be suspicious, possible indicating child abuse and sexual assault.
Aitana died in the early hours of Friday morning and forensic examination confirmed the report by Canadalaria that there had been no sexual assault and no child abuse. Burn marks on her back were likely caused by an allergic reaction to cream and any bruises and scratches likely attributed to the fall that killed her.
Diego Pasterna Vieco’s lawyer has indicated that there may be legal action taken. There is no doubt that the system failed somewhere and what happened to Diego Vieco is something you would not wish upon your worst enemy – but I wonder if the doctors at Mahon are totally to blame.
In cases where a doctor finds marks on a child that may be suspicious he surely has a duty to bring the matter up with the relevant authorities. God knows, we would fall upon them and rip their reputations to tatters if they were to fail in this duty and a child that had passed through their hands were to die of abuse shortly thereafter.
But kids attract scratches, cut and bruises like honey attracts bees. I imagine there must be many more suspicious marks on kids than there are actual cases of child abuse. Surely, there must be regulations in place to protect the anonymity of families or individuals who are under investigation at least until such times as charges are to be brought?
That’s where the system failed this young man and the family of Aitana. Instead of the community pulling together to support a family in its bereavement, it turned instead into an angry mob fuelled by ugly whispers that blew like wildfire through the school, passed from child to child, child to parent, parent to parent.
As one of the parents that stood there in shock last Friday, I have learned a lesson that I will never forget. No matter how vicious the rumour, or ugly the accusation, it is important to hold tight to the maxim of ‘innocent until proven guilty’.
The death of a three year old girl in the Costa Del Silencio, of suspected child abuse, has left the community in shock. Admitted to Mahon on Wednesday in cardiac arrest, the child’s body was found to have marks of a suspicious nature and the police were called in.
The 25 year old boyfriend of the child’s mother is being detained and questioned by police. He denies any wrong-doing, claiming that burns on the child’s body were due to overheated bath water and the bruises because she fell down so much.
Aitana died in the early hours of Friday morning. Her school held a minute’s silence for her on Friday, as did several government offices.
The tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 killed 230,000 people. The enormity of the loss of life is hard to digest. It is hard to believe that that many people lost their lives in one cataclysmic event. But is it any easier to imagine the 260,000 men who will die in Western Europe this year from cancer? Or the 277,000 women in Central & Eastern Europe who will succumb to the same disease?
In fact, altogether across Europe over a million people will die this year from cancer. Worldwide, the figure is somewhere near 8 million.
According to the UK CancerStats site more than 1 in 3 people develop some form of cancer in their lifetime. The good news is that the average ten-year cancer survival rate has doubled over the last 30 years and more than seven out of ten children with cancer are now successfully treated compared with fewer than 3 in 10 in the 1960s.
Also according to the CancerStats site, cancer is the number one fear amongst Brits, topping that of heart disease or terrorism. How much scarier then must it be to contract the disease while living in a foreign country, with minimal medical insurance and perhaps not much in the way of family support?
The annual Walk For Life in Tenerife raises money in support of the Spanish cancer charities AECC and Amate. In a sea of pink solidarity, men, women and children walk the 3.5 km from the Mediterranean Palace to the Sal Y Tien plaza. As it says on the Carrera por la Vida website “Once a year, to walk is to support!”
As an expat in Tenerife, you might wonder if these charities are available to you should you fall ill with cancer. For the answer you should read the moving account of one British pensioner in Tenerife Magazine who received such support from AECC that she says they made a terrible time bearable.
Whether you are in town as an expat or a tourist, all you need to do is show up – in a pink t-shirt if you have one – at 10.30 on Sunday 13th December and join the walk. Sponsorships and donations are passed on to the relevant charities under the guidance of a Notary and with full transparency so you know every penny is going to the aid of somebody who needs it.
You might also announce your participation on the Tenerife Magazine Walk for Life participants page on Facebook.
This could be YOU!
Have you seen the new Tenerife Magazine yet? It is FAB! Being 100% virtual, I can’t say it has hit the streets running but the very first issue comes with a brilliant competition giveaway – a holiday for up to four at the gorgeous Sands Beach in Lanzarote!
All you need to do to enter is become a fan of the Tenerife Magazine page on Facebook. The draw is to be held on November 30th and results will be announced via Facebook.
It is hard cheddar if you are not on Facebook, I am afraid but not to worry. I have it on good authority that the next competition will be run through a different medium – maybe Twitter. Perhaps the next competition will even be for a Tenerife related prize?
So there we were, obviously a shifty looking crew, me, two kids, a grandmother and a big daft dog with a halter-type face mask on. We were plodding along the street at snail’s pace, the dog, huge as he is was neither pulling nor showing any interest in anything other than his ‘weans’ as he likes to keep an eye on them when they are gadding about.
On the other side of the street, a wee hairy mop of a dog was yapping its head off and slinging bribes in our direction, but Tito, to his credit, didn’t blink an eye at it.
That didn’t stop a police car from coming to a stop a couple of feet ahead of us and the coppers inside it, giving me a stern talking to about the fact the dog didn’t have a muzzle on. Actually the face mask he was wearing gives me more control than a muzzle would and also effectively pulls his mouth shut if there were to be any trouble. The pc on the other side of the car got our and bobbed about shouting that this was a dangerous dog. “No, he’s not!” my mother scoffed while Tito threw himself to the ground with a huge sigh of boredom.
Only a couple of days before an elderly lady had been mugged in the area by three local boys on a scooter. One got her round the neck, while a second grabbed her bag. In total they got away with about €150 in booty but they left the woman feeling very shaky and upset. Worst of all is that the locals say even the police know who the wee thugs are but can’t touch them because they are under 16.
Meanwhile, Tito’s eyes had glazed over and he rolled on his side totally disgusted with this interruption to our pleasant family walk. We were finally let off the hook after being threatened with a steep fine and assorted dire penalties if the dog was not wearing a muzzle the next time they saw me with him.
Do you think it would have made a difference if I told the police that Tito was under 16?
Spanish labour law tends to come down on the side of the worker but that is only true if you know what your rights are and when they have been trampled on.
Take one boss I know of who happily agreed to a Spanish worker taking some vacation time. Off the employee went to spend two glorious weeks with family on the mainland only to come back and find she had been fired for not turning up to work. Because the employee did not have a signed letter stating the vacation period she could not prove that the boss’s permission had been given for the time off. Her non-appearance at her place of work was just cause for firing her and the company did not have to give her any severance pay (finiquito).
The same boss later called a British worker into his office and asked him to sign a paper. The document written entirely in Spanish was notification of dismissal and included a clause which stated that the man was being fired because he was slacking off. In signing it, the worker was ‘admitting’ to this fabricated transgression and therefore blew any chance he may have had at receiving severance pay (finiquito).
This employer, whom we shall call The Joker for his predilection at playing tricks on his employees, is a wily old bird. He juggles employees between companies, holds back salaries to afford materials for production and is currently conducting a manufacturing business in a place that is unsafe to work.
You have to wonder why The Joker has not been denounced yet. I can only guess that the staff he mistreats are afraid of not finding any other jobs in this current economic climate. Is it better, to work for pay that will come late than not to be working at all?
I know that the company in question provides services for some of Spain’s major tourist attractions – including several here on Tenerife. Would they still give the work to The Joker if they knew how shoddily he treated his staff? Sadly, I guess the answer to that question is yes. I am sure The Joker is undercutting his rivals to the bone and if the marketing department of the large tourist companies can save a few thousand euros on production who cares how The Joker manages to keep his prices so low, right?
As an expat in Tenerife or Spain, you should be aware that it is not a good idea to sign any document that you do not understand.
If you feel you have been unfairly treated, wrongfully dismissed or had unlawful deductions made to your salary you do have 20 days to take the case before the labour courts (Magistratura de Trabajo) but your rights may be seriously affected if you have signed any document that would allow your employer wriggle out of his obligations.
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