Mireia Estapé has been helping people read for over twenty years. She does so using a specific method: easy reading, which is aimed at people who have difficulty following a standard text, such as people with disabilities, the elderly, or newcomers—her specialty. Estapé explains that it's work that must be done "with the heart." It requires patience, creativity, and empathy. "You have to know how to convey that studying a language isn't like studying history. It's something else: it's living it," she says.

"It's no longer in danger of extinction. I'd even go further: it's at an all-time low." Joan Gassó is president of the Association for the Promotion of the Catalan Donkey Breed (AFRAC) and has spent his entire life dedicated to the country's most emblematic animal: the Catalan donkey. Now, however, he laments the institutional neglect they experience and says that those who care for them "do what they can" while no one pays attention to them. The result? There are fewer and fewer of them. In fact, AFRAC claims to have 348 registered, although they acknowledge that there may be some more that are not controlled by the association. "Only four of us romantics are holding out," he asserts.