I, who have already put a six in front of the figure that states my age, have so far come out cheap for the public health system. If you count all the care, tests, treatments, and interventions I've had throughout my life, since fortunately there haven't been many, the economic balance is favorable to IB-Salut. But I won't deny it: I've started to have little things. Unimportant trifles, parts that wear out from continuous use of the machinery. And since it's better to prevent than to cure, I've started to go for a few check-ups. Among the doctors who have visited me, there have been a couple of South Americans with whom I have had no problem when I addressed them in Catalan. They answer me in Spanish without any problem, nor do I. On the second visit, one of these doctors plucked up the courage to stammer in Catalan, and I encouraged him to continue because he was doing very well. The Charter of rights and duties of the healthcare user from the Government tells me that I have the right to obtain information, verbal and written, in understandable language and in the official language of the Balearic Islands that I choose. I have not asked the doctors who have attended me for anything more than what they have done: that they understand me when I address them in Catalan. Thank you very much. But to the public Health system, to the health administration, I do ask - I demand - that the documentation be delivered to me in Catalan: written appointment and referral letters, diagnostic reports, informed consents, analysis results, medication instructions, therapeutic advice. Well, no. Impossible. 

In the midst of the tiresome debate about the name and the unity of our language (will it never end?) It's common that, when someone says "Menorcan yes, Catalan no," someone else asks why the same isn't said of Castilian Spanish. In Extremadura, in the Pampas, or on the streets of Mexico City, it's often said that everyone understands they speak the same language, regardless of the variations in vocabulary, phonetics, intonation, and syntax. So why isn't the same criterion applied to Catalan? And it turns out that, indeed, among Castilian speakers there have also been attempts at linguistic secession, which are quite entertaining.

The late Guillem Frontera, in the interview I conducted for the tribute collection coordinated by Damià Pons and published by Ensiola, insisted on convincing me that, despite the feeling we Menorcans sometimes have, because each one fears what belongs to him, Menorca has withstood different sides of the same onslaught. In comparison with what has happened in Mallorca and Ibiza, Guillem praised the prudence of the Menorcans, the slow and measured steps toward tourism without abandoning other economic activities, from farming to industry, the continuity of associations, the preservation of a humanized and vibrant landscape. A whole series of virtues, Guillem said, that generate in the foreign visitor the sensation of stepping on a civilized land, and that make Menorca a luminous, profoundly Mediterranean landmark that persists amidst a disfigured environment.