(I am retro-posting this entry – I wrote it on July 30th and will manipulate my blog’s date and time marker so that it reflects that fact!)
I just met several interesting people at the top of the boulder-covered hill that dominates the Muxia landscape! Francoise and Danielle are two French women who are driving back to France along the Spanish coast and camping along the way. They were extremely pleasant, very kind faces (I automatically trust people with very kind faces), and we talked on the top of the hill for a good hour.
For Danielle, time and life were the same thing, or bound to each other. Time existed to mark the progression of life; if there were no life, there would be no time. I asked if she thought time would exist if the planet were devoid of life and nothing changed, and she said no. There must be change in order for time to exist. She further described time as a number of helices – cycles with direction – like many “escargot” making patterns on the dirt. When asked how she measured time, she laughed at pointed to her sunspots. As she aged, she got more sunspots – that is the passage of time. She said that she first became aware of the passage of time when she was eighteen or so, taking a philosophy course in her last year of high school. Before that, she had always lived in the present, and after that had started thinking about time. When thinking about her life, she divided it into several twenty-year cycles. From 0-20 she was a child and student; from 20-40 she was working; and she was currently towards the end of the third cycle. She looked forward to the fourth! “What will it be like?” she wondered. I asked if time occasionally went faster or slower, and she answered “No no no no no.” As she got older, she lived more and more in the present, and time never seemed to go quickly for her. This was effortless; she wasn’t doing it consciously. I asked if she did meditation, and she said that she did occasionally in a yoga class, but that that was artificial. It is impossible to be wholly aware of the present if you are sitting in a room with good posture; when she was really in the moment was at times like this, sitting on top of the hill, watching the sun on the ocean and talking.
For Francoise, time was “the hours, the days . . .” She said that she also divided her life into different chunks, but they had more to do with where she was living than a set period of time. She had lived in Brittany as a child – one tome – then had studied there – second tome – then had moved to Paris – third tome – then had moved to the center of France – fourth tome. She said that she became aware of the passage of time when she started working; furthermore, since she started working, time started going faster and faster. I asked if she remembered planning a lot for the future, or fantasizing about it, as a child and as an adult, and she said that she had often fantasized but not planned. She liked to think about what would happen, but didn’t consider any of her plans solid. Francoise did not think that time was inextricably linked to life or nature – it is something that exists regardless. I can’t remember if she said that it existed since the beginning of the universe or always.
I also met a young Hungarian couple. The man works as an interpreter, so his English was excellent, and he found my project fascinating. He asked me a lot of questions about the questions I asked other people – so, of course, I started “interviewing” him as an answer. He said that time was a way of marking the passage of life, both human and non-human. It is divided into arbitrary artificial units like hours and seconds because humans thousands of years ago thought to do so. That’s all I got from him, because the sunset turned pretty and he went to sit with his girlfriend. I was sitting behind them, and I took a Hallmark-romantic picture of their silhouettes against the sun (“CREEP,” you might think – but they were genuinely pleased when I showed it to them, and I am going to e-mail it to them), of which I am immensely proud.
All in all, a heartwarming evening-turned-night. And I really want to visit Francoise and Danielle in the middle of France!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A happy birthday (Muxia, Spain)
I am a changed woman! A few days ago I was 21 and young, ignorant of the cruel ways of the world, flitting about like a carefree butterfly – but as of July 28 I am 22, and you may address me as Wise Grown-Up Irene (like “Queen Irene” sans royal blood) (you can call me Queen Irene, too), because I am wise and grown-up. Not so wise that I’ve stopped binging on chocolate, though. I just had most of a 150-gram bar and I’m hoping that my stomach won’t notice until after I go for a walk, lest I explode before getting a chance to appreciate the Costa de Muerte. And not so grown-up that I will start calling myself a “woman” instead of a “girl” – I’m still wondering when that will happen. (The first sentence of this paragraph doesn’t count.)
The past few days have been lovely. Asmus and I spent many an hour exploring Cambados and the area immediately surrounding it, developing our nose tans (why don’t faces burn evenly?) and making Temporary Friends. Asmus mentioned that “the people really are very sweet,” and we were lucky to run into more people who, in addition to their very sweet natures, had a bit of time on their hands. On Monday afternoon, as we were setting off to explore Cambados, an exercise outfit-clad man almost bumped into us on the sidewalk and said, “Excuse me!” I took the opportunity to say “Wait, wait -- excuse me” back as he was passing by, and asked him how to reach the ruins of the Church of Santa Marinha. He thought for a moment, then said, “No, you won’t start with that. Come with me. I’ll show you something.”
He led us a few blocks to a nearby pazo, a mansion for the nobility of days past (and rich people of days present), said to the woman at the desk, “I’m just going to show them around quickly!” and to us, “I know her – she’ll let us in,” and gave us a tour of the grounds. He explained that the horreas, the stone grain storage units found in the yard of almost every rural house, were anti-rodent by construction and a show of wealth; that the grape vines were grew horizontal to the ground because it kept them well aired in this humid climate; how the wine was made; how the garden was watered; and more! It was his favorite pazo – very nice, very nice. He then led us a few blocks farther to the church, which is now mostly walls and ceiling arches, as it was ransacked for valuables and stones (a century ago? two? Wise Grown-Up Irene is still not Historian Irene) after a government declaration that expropriated a lot of church land and property. Our tour guide never told us his name, but it was probably something ending in “the Generous.” Jorge the Generous. Something like that.
The next day we took a bus to O Grove, a much larger city to the south of Cambados, and walked around the island of La Toja and through brambly forest paths to the Mirador de Siradella. We got a bit lost towards the top of the mountain, and ended up losing a battle against these awful prickly plants that seem to follow me everywhere (Asmus had shorts on, but he didn’t complain, so I, in long pants, was forced to become the designated whiner – I am really good at it!!). We did make it to the top of the mountain, though, and feasted our eyes on the surrounding landscape (very nice, very nice) before starting to head down the road. Enter next round of very sweet people! Having had a successful semi-hitchhiking experience in Santiago, Asmus and I decided to try and hitchhike for real back to the city. I held my thumb up at the first car that passed, and a man with a little boy in the backseat stopped! The little boy was suspicious of us (rightly so, I thought – we were hitchhikers), but his father was not, and he dropped us off close to the bus station. How kind!
That evening, Asmus invited me to the Restaurante Martinez (minimum 4-star rating for its name), and we had a delicious birthday dinner. We ate pimientos de padron, roasted peppers that are exciting to eat because occasionally you get a really spicy one (I did!!), raxo con patatas, and a type of fish called rodaballo. I also had an obligatory sip of albarinho wine from Asmus’s cup – but my taste buds still aren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate any kind of fermented beverage. The fancy night out was the perfect ending to my day of instant wisdom and grown-up-hood, and we went to bed stuffed in the best possible way and exhausted.
So far I’ve only written about what Asmus and I did together, but I also spent two early mornings and part of an afternoon at the docks alone, and I was happy to see more women than I had seen at any of the other docks! On Monday afternoon, after watching the mollusk auction and speaking for a long time with Carmen, who purifies and sells clams and mussels, I went to another building where I saw two women working on darning nets. They noticed that I was interested in what they were doing, waved me in, and then explained to me that they had been in the net business since they were children, like their mother before them. The nine-year-old daughter of one of the women was also in the room, already learning how to make nets! I was so excited about the idea that the women of the family had been doing the same thing for generations that they pulled out a number of frames full of old black-and-white photographs of the docks at Cambados! They pointed at the pictures and said, “That’s our mother at our age. That’s our mother when she was a girl. Did you see the woman darning nets just outside this building? This little girl is her. She’s 67 now. This is our father. This is my father-in-law, bringing a boat in from the countryside, where it was constructed. Look how the fish are kept in the boat – they didn’t have those boxes back then. This is me when I was little.” It was wonderful! When I left, they gave me a little booklet on Cambados fishing history and a net needle “to show my parents.”
I also saw women on boats in fisherman suits the next day after the morning fish auction – an absolute first for me. They were working on the mussel-boats, and I approached one to say, “Wow! Women on boats!” (In more words.) She explained that it wasn’t uncommon here for women to work with their husbands at the bateas if it was the sole source of income. Most fishermen, she said, offered their labor at other people’s bateas to make extra money, but were first and foremost fishermen. When families owned bateas and did nothing else, everyone helped out.
Yesterday, Wednesday, Asmus and I left Cambados in the morning and spent a few hours in Villagarcia and Carril (which my tour book does not deem worthy of even a single descriptive sentence, but both of which I liked a lot) before hopping on a train to Santiago, where we had plans to spend the night at Marcos’s house so that Asmus could leave Spain early this morning. We had also made plans to meet up with Sylvia, Juan and their daughter Giulia, my friends from La Corunha, whom I was so happy to see! We sat at a café together and then walked around in Santiago’s infamous fine drizzle – Sylvia and Juan practiced their English on Asmus, and Asmus worked more on his Spanish comprehension skills, which have progressed considerably since last week. I’ll see the family again in a few weeks, when I pass through La Corunha again, and we’ll probably go to the Playa de las Catedrales, the thought of which makes me bouncy. After dropping Sylvia, Juan and Giulia off at the train station, Asmus and I went back to Marcos’s house, where we met a cycling pal of his and ate. Friends!
Now I am in Muxia, but I will only spend one night here. The first thing I did when I arrived was go to the docks to ask when the fish auction would be – and there is none! The lonja is closed, and there are few boats in the harbor. The man I asked told me that all of the fishermen were going to other ports to sell their fish, and suggested that I move on to Camarinhas, which I will do tomorrow. But I’ve been on so many buses the past few days, and have unpacked and packed so many times, that I am looking forward to a quiet evening by the sea (after a walk to use some of the chocolate energy). I’ll find an internet café to post this . . . hike up a big hill . . . watch the sun set . . . and conk out.
The past few days have been lovely. Asmus and I spent many an hour exploring Cambados and the area immediately surrounding it, developing our nose tans (why don’t faces burn evenly?) and making Temporary Friends. Asmus mentioned that “the people really are very sweet,” and we were lucky to run into more people who, in addition to their very sweet natures, had a bit of time on their hands. On Monday afternoon, as we were setting off to explore Cambados, an exercise outfit-clad man almost bumped into us on the sidewalk and said, “Excuse me!” I took the opportunity to say “Wait, wait -- excuse me” back as he was passing by, and asked him how to reach the ruins of the Church of Santa Marinha. He thought for a moment, then said, “No, you won’t start with that. Come with me. I’ll show you something.”
He led us a few blocks to a nearby pazo, a mansion for the nobility of days past (and rich people of days present), said to the woman at the desk, “I’m just going to show them around quickly!” and to us, “I know her – she’ll let us in,” and gave us a tour of the grounds. He explained that the horreas, the stone grain storage units found in the yard of almost every rural house, were anti-rodent by construction and a show of wealth; that the grape vines were grew horizontal to the ground because it kept them well aired in this humid climate; how the wine was made; how the garden was watered; and more! It was his favorite pazo – very nice, very nice. He then led us a few blocks farther to the church, which is now mostly walls and ceiling arches, as it was ransacked for valuables and stones (a century ago? two? Wise Grown-Up Irene is still not Historian Irene) after a government declaration that expropriated a lot of church land and property. Our tour guide never told us his name, but it was probably something ending in “the Generous.” Jorge the Generous. Something like that.
The next day we took a bus to O Grove, a much larger city to the south of Cambados, and walked around the island of La Toja and through brambly forest paths to the Mirador de Siradella. We got a bit lost towards the top of the mountain, and ended up losing a battle against these awful prickly plants that seem to follow me everywhere (Asmus had shorts on, but he didn’t complain, so I, in long pants, was forced to become the designated whiner – I am really good at it!!). We did make it to the top of the mountain, though, and feasted our eyes on the surrounding landscape (very nice, very nice) before starting to head down the road. Enter next round of very sweet people! Having had a successful semi-hitchhiking experience in Santiago, Asmus and I decided to try and hitchhike for real back to the city. I held my thumb up at the first car that passed, and a man with a little boy in the backseat stopped! The little boy was suspicious of us (rightly so, I thought – we were hitchhikers), but his father was not, and he dropped us off close to the bus station. How kind!
That evening, Asmus invited me to the Restaurante Martinez (minimum 4-star rating for its name), and we had a delicious birthday dinner. We ate pimientos de padron, roasted peppers that are exciting to eat because occasionally you get a really spicy one (I did!!), raxo con patatas, and a type of fish called rodaballo. I also had an obligatory sip of albarinho wine from Asmus’s cup – but my taste buds still aren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate any kind of fermented beverage. The fancy night out was the perfect ending to my day of instant wisdom and grown-up-hood, and we went to bed stuffed in the best possible way and exhausted.
So far I’ve only written about what Asmus and I did together, but I also spent two early mornings and part of an afternoon at the docks alone, and I was happy to see more women than I had seen at any of the other docks! On Monday afternoon, after watching the mollusk auction and speaking for a long time with Carmen, who purifies and sells clams and mussels, I went to another building where I saw two women working on darning nets. They noticed that I was interested in what they were doing, waved me in, and then explained to me that they had been in the net business since they were children, like their mother before them. The nine-year-old daughter of one of the women was also in the room, already learning how to make nets! I was so excited about the idea that the women of the family had been doing the same thing for generations that they pulled out a number of frames full of old black-and-white photographs of the docks at Cambados! They pointed at the pictures and said, “That’s our mother at our age. That’s our mother when she was a girl. Did you see the woman darning nets just outside this building? This little girl is her. She’s 67 now. This is our father. This is my father-in-law, bringing a boat in from the countryside, where it was constructed. Look how the fish are kept in the boat – they didn’t have those boxes back then. This is me when I was little.” It was wonderful! When I left, they gave me a little booklet on Cambados fishing history and a net needle “to show my parents.”
I also saw women on boats in fisherman suits the next day after the morning fish auction – an absolute first for me. They were working on the mussel-boats, and I approached one to say, “Wow! Women on boats!” (In more words.) She explained that it wasn’t uncommon here for women to work with their husbands at the bateas if it was the sole source of income. Most fishermen, she said, offered their labor at other people’s bateas to make extra money, but were first and foremost fishermen. When families owned bateas and did nothing else, everyone helped out.
Yesterday, Wednesday, Asmus and I left Cambados in the morning and spent a few hours in Villagarcia and Carril (which my tour book does not deem worthy of even a single descriptive sentence, but both of which I liked a lot) before hopping on a train to Santiago, where we had plans to spend the night at Marcos’s house so that Asmus could leave Spain early this morning. We had also made plans to meet up with Sylvia, Juan and their daughter Giulia, my friends from La Corunha, whom I was so happy to see! We sat at a café together and then walked around in Santiago’s infamous fine drizzle – Sylvia and Juan practiced their English on Asmus, and Asmus worked more on his Spanish comprehension skills, which have progressed considerably since last week. I’ll see the family again in a few weeks, when I pass through La Corunha again, and we’ll probably go to the Playa de las Catedrales, the thought of which makes me bouncy. After dropping Sylvia, Juan and Giulia off at the train station, Asmus and I went back to Marcos’s house, where we met a cycling pal of his and ate. Friends!
Now I am in Muxia, but I will only spend one night here. The first thing I did when I arrived was go to the docks to ask when the fish auction would be – and there is none! The lonja is closed, and there are few boats in the harbor. The man I asked told me that all of the fishermen were going to other ports to sell their fish, and suggested that I move on to Camarinhas, which I will do tomorrow. But I’ve been on so many buses the past few days, and have unpacked and packed so many times, that I am looking forward to a quiet evening by the sea (after a walk to use some of the chocolate energy). I’ll find an internet café to post this . . . hike up a big hill . . . watch the sun set . . . and conk out.
Monday, July 27, 2009
An addendum (Santiago de Compostela, Spain – but really Cambados, Spain)
I didn’t want to steal Asmus’s blog thunder, so I’m adding something Santiago-related a few days after the fact. On Saturday, we went to the Museo o Pobo Galego, which had excellent exhibits on Galician fishing (yes!!), music, architecture, art, etc. One of the halls that we walked into had an introductory board that caught my eye; here it is translated from Gallego (be impressed!) (but not too impressed – written, Gallego and Spanish are very similar):
The practice of measuring time was imposed by the need to organize quotidian life. There exist two ways of understanding time: as something that repeats periodically or as something linear that does not repeat. Traditional societies conceive of time in its cyclical form, based on natural occurrences: every year there are the same seasons, the same solar movements, and the same agricultural cycle. In this cyclical conception of time, the unit of measure is the year. To organize the different temporal rhythms, one needs to put markers on time. These markers are the festivals.
There are religious festivals, defined by the liturgy of the Church, and secular festivals, which revolve around seasonal labors. There are also cyclical festivals that are celebrated in all parts of the same region, albeit with local particularities. Among them are fixed festivals (Nadal, Reis, San Xoan, Defuntos), which always fall on the same day, and variable festivals (Entroido, Semana Santa, Corpus), which depend on Easter, which is fixed according to the lunar year. Other types of festivals are the patron saint festivals, celebrated in honor of the titular saint of a parish, and romarias, which consist of a pilgrimage to a sanctuary.
The distribution of labors and festivals is not uniform. In the spring and summer the good climate and the longer days make them the seasons in which the most work is done, agricultural and maritime. For the same reasons, it is in the summer that most of the patron saint festivals and romarias are celebrated.
It’s my project! The exhibit went through the stages of life of 19th-century Galicians – birth, childhood, young adulthood, adulthood, wise old age, death – and duties and special events associated with each. But the reason I was so excited is that I have already participated in several of the summertime festivals (most notably, the Muros party-hardy with Pepita and Candida and the festival in Santiago de Compostela)! And they do make summer special – several people have said to me, “Oof! In the summertime there’s always a party somewhere! Summertime is party-time!” Maria of Muros, who is apparently responsibility-free until the school year starts, had adopted a totally nocturnal schedule, and slept all day long so that she could dance all night long. (Her mother, Mariloli, didn’t seem to understand this mode of existence, and always woke her up in the early afternoon to inform her that it was daytime – surely Maria appreciated the update.)
Something else exciting is brewing: housing possibilities in Mexico and Norway! In those two countries I’ll be staying in the same town/city all three months (Angangueo, Ocampo, Donato Guerra, or Tlalpujahua in Mexico and Tromso in Norway), and a few days ago I thought, “Irene! You should get on this housing business!” I wrote to the director of the WWF monarch program in Mexico (the only non-hotel e-mail address I could find) and posted a message on CouchSurfing – and already somebody has written back to tell me that his aunt used to work in Angangueo and “knows people there.” Yes! That is exactly what I want! People who know people somewhere! The Norway possibility was even more a matter of chance. On Saturday night, Asmus and I got together with Fabio (Brazilian), his friends Richard (NORWEGIAN!!) and Chris (German), and Chris’s friends Thomas (German) and Christanne (German), to watch a bagpipe band at the Praza da Quintana and have hot chocolate. (We know how to spend our Saturday nights.) Well, I gave it away with “NORWEGIAN!!” – I told Richard about my project and future stay in his country, and, after making a mysterious phone call at the café, he came up to me and said, “You might have a room in Tromso!” Providence is plopping should-be real estate agents all over the place. Obviously neither the room in Mexico nor the room in Norway is final yet, and I have to do a lot more research before showing up at the door with my bags (student housing in Tromso might be a better idea) – but it’s fun to start fantasizing.
Now I am in Cambados! Yesterday afternoon Asmus and I wandered along the coast and through vineyards and farm fields, and today I got up early to go to the docks. Since it’s Monday, there was little activity (early morning is when the nighttime boats come back with fish – but they don’t go out on Sundays), but I did meet Rosa, who works at the lonja, and Vieito, who was going out to gather clams. This afternoon, after exploring Cambados with Asmus, I’ll go back to the docks to watch the fish auction, which starts at 4:00, and make fisherman friends.
Official Cambados blog entry forthcoming.
The practice of measuring time was imposed by the need to organize quotidian life. There exist two ways of understanding time: as something that repeats periodically or as something linear that does not repeat. Traditional societies conceive of time in its cyclical form, based on natural occurrences: every year there are the same seasons, the same solar movements, and the same agricultural cycle. In this cyclical conception of time, the unit of measure is the year. To organize the different temporal rhythms, one needs to put markers on time. These markers are the festivals.
There are religious festivals, defined by the liturgy of the Church, and secular festivals, which revolve around seasonal labors. There are also cyclical festivals that are celebrated in all parts of the same region, albeit with local particularities. Among them are fixed festivals (Nadal, Reis, San Xoan, Defuntos), which always fall on the same day, and variable festivals (Entroido, Semana Santa, Corpus), which depend on Easter, which is fixed according to the lunar year. Other types of festivals are the patron saint festivals, celebrated in honor of the titular saint of a parish, and romarias, which consist of a pilgrimage to a sanctuary.
The distribution of labors and festivals is not uniform. In the spring and summer the good climate and the longer days make them the seasons in which the most work is done, agricultural and maritime. For the same reasons, it is in the summer that most of the patron saint festivals and romarias are celebrated.
It’s my project! The exhibit went through the stages of life of 19th-century Galicians – birth, childhood, young adulthood, adulthood, wise old age, death – and duties and special events associated with each. But the reason I was so excited is that I have already participated in several of the summertime festivals (most notably, the Muros party-hardy with Pepita and Candida and the festival in Santiago de Compostela)! And they do make summer special – several people have said to me, “Oof! In the summertime there’s always a party somewhere! Summertime is party-time!” Maria of Muros, who is apparently responsibility-free until the school year starts, had adopted a totally nocturnal schedule, and slept all day long so that she could dance all night long. (Her mother, Mariloli, didn’t seem to understand this mode of existence, and always woke her up in the early afternoon to inform her that it was daytime – surely Maria appreciated the update.)
Something else exciting is brewing: housing possibilities in Mexico and Norway! In those two countries I’ll be staying in the same town/city all three months (Angangueo, Ocampo, Donato Guerra, or Tlalpujahua in Mexico and Tromso in Norway), and a few days ago I thought, “Irene! You should get on this housing business!” I wrote to the director of the WWF monarch program in Mexico (the only non-hotel e-mail address I could find) and posted a message on CouchSurfing – and already somebody has written back to tell me that his aunt used to work in Angangueo and “knows people there.” Yes! That is exactly what I want! People who know people somewhere! The Norway possibility was even more a matter of chance. On Saturday night, Asmus and I got together with Fabio (Brazilian), his friends Richard (NORWEGIAN!!) and Chris (German), and Chris’s friends Thomas (German) and Christanne (German), to watch a bagpipe band at the Praza da Quintana and have hot chocolate. (We know how to spend our Saturday nights.) Well, I gave it away with “NORWEGIAN!!” – I told Richard about my project and future stay in his country, and, after making a mysterious phone call at the café, he came up to me and said, “You might have a room in Tromso!” Providence is plopping should-be real estate agents all over the place. Obviously neither the room in Mexico nor the room in Norway is final yet, and I have to do a lot more research before showing up at the door with my bags (student housing in Tromso might be a better idea) – but it’s fun to start fantasizing.
Now I am in Cambados! Yesterday afternoon Asmus and I wandered along the coast and through vineyards and farm fields, and today I got up early to go to the docks. Since it’s Monday, there was little activity (early morning is when the nighttime boats come back with fish – but they don’t go out on Sundays), but I did meet Rosa, who works at the lonja, and Vieito, who was going out to gather clams. This afternoon, after exploring Cambados with Asmus, I’ll go back to the docks to watch the fish auction, which starts at 4:00, and make fisherman friends.
Official Cambados blog entry forthcoming.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
A guest writer! (Santiago de Compostela, Spain)
This entry comes with the guarantee that it will be short! Why that is? Well, Irene decided to hire a ghostwriter! Okay, this is not quite true – actually I’m a friend of Irene from Germany, my name is Asmus, I am visiting her for a week and guess what? It is my honor to write today’s blog!! Wowowow, what a tough act to follow… So instead of trying to copy Irene’s entertaining and extensive style, which would lead to epic failure for me, I will try to give you an idea of my impression of Galicia during the last two days.
The people really are very sweet. Just to mention two occasions, we asked an elder man for directions and instead of explaining them he joined us for a couple of minutes during which we learned that his son is working as a heart surgeon in Munich and became a father recently. Later on the same day Irene and I were walking back to the city coming from a hike to the so-called stony mountain (named after ancient stone artwork which we unfortunately didn’t spot). Since we took the road walking back (hm, why did we do that?), it took quite a while. Reaching the suburbs of Santiago we asked a couple for the right way to go, and after we went on that very couple drove up with their car and asked us whether we want a ride. They practically drove us directly to our hostel then (which by the way is a very nice one!).
Guess I should also mention that we had the pleasure to see two very Galician events. Firstly, we were among the lucky crowd in front of the cathedral to witness the famous fireworks during the festival, around midnight on July 24th. Was it 5.000 or 10.000 people on that square? We couldn’t guess, but it was a tight pack of people for sure! And it was worth it, the fireworks turned out to be very beautifully combined with music and video-like projections to the cathedral’s front side – a very intense experience! The second occasion was today on the early afternoon when we “joined” a demonstration for Galicia’s independence, followed by a nice procession with flags, drums and bag pipes. In-de-pen-den-cia!!
Did I mention that I don’t speak any Spanish? Yes, you right, what am I doing here then? Well, I am lucky to have such a care-taking and fluent friend as Irene with me, so I am not completely lost. I really like it here, but I am also looking forward to the coast of the Rias Bajas where we will move to tomorrow!
The people really are very sweet. Just to mention two occasions, we asked an elder man for directions and instead of explaining them he joined us for a couple of minutes during which we learned that his son is working as a heart surgeon in Munich and became a father recently. Later on the same day Irene and I were walking back to the city coming from a hike to the so-called stony mountain (named after ancient stone artwork which we unfortunately didn’t spot). Since we took the road walking back (hm, why did we do that?), it took quite a while. Reaching the suburbs of Santiago we asked a couple for the right way to go, and after we went on that very couple drove up with their car and asked us whether we want a ride. They practically drove us directly to our hostel then (which by the way is a very nice one!).
Guess I should also mention that we had the pleasure to see two very Galician events. Firstly, we were among the lucky crowd in front of the cathedral to witness the famous fireworks during the festival, around midnight on July 24th. Was it 5.000 or 10.000 people on that square? We couldn’t guess, but it was a tight pack of people for sure! And it was worth it, the fireworks turned out to be very beautifully combined with music and video-like projections to the cathedral’s front side – a very intense experience! The second occasion was today on the early afternoon when we “joined” a demonstration for Galicia’s independence, followed by a nice procession with flags, drums and bag pipes. In-de-pen-den-cia!!
Did I mention that I don’t speak any Spanish? Yes, you right, what am I doing here then? Well, I am lucky to have such a care-taking and fluent friend as Irene with me, so I am not completely lost. I really like it here, but I am also looking forward to the coast of the Rias Bajas where we will move to tomorrow!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A few interesting conversations and a lot of rain (Santiago de Compostela, Spain)
I’ve been in Santiago since yesterday afternoon, and so has the rain! Usually I don’t mind getting a bit wet if it means exploring a new city, but the amount of water falling from the sky makes it necessary to put my rain hood up, which gives me about the same scope of vision as a horse with blinders – so I am sad to say that I have only seen about half of the old city, the glorious cathedral, an exhibit on photography of the easternmost parts of India, a Bach concert in a church, and a Cuban and Brazilian music and dance party in a tent in a park.
In list form, it looks like a lot of doing, but most of the past day and a half has really been taken up by conversing – with Fabio, with whom I stayed last night, and with Marcos, my host for tonight, and Shey, an American visitor who is also staying with Marcos and who just spent a month walking along the Camino de Santiago. Some of these conversations have been about time! And they have been very interesting! I also had a chance to interrogate Manel and Zoraya while we were hiking up Monte Pindo on Saturday, and I will (roughly and in a disorganized manner) summarize what they, Marcos, and Shey have told me:
Manel:
The first thing that he told me was that the future does not exist. What matters is the present moment, although the past is also important, because it gives the present form. I asked if the past existed still, as a reality, or if it existed in our memories, and he leaned towards the latter option, although he also mentioned that, with things like photographs and video cameras, we have evidence of the reality of the past. Continuing in this vein, he told me about his memories of childhood, when his grandparents told him stories of their own childhoods – this was how he knew about the past before photographs and video cameras. He said that there was a rich story-telling tradition in Galicia, and many myths and legends were told to the younger generations as a way of preserving the past and keeping it a part of the present. And the present is all that one can know; the future is unpredictable and uncontrollable (chaotic might be an appropriate term), a result of every present moment, but not “real” because “the future” doesn’t ever exist.
Zoraya:
Zoraya was very thoughtful and careful in her response, and distinguished between two kinds of time: “real” or “absolute” and “psychological”. The psychological perception of time, she said, was simply the sense that time can go faster or slower depending on the activity -- time flies when you’re having fun, right? And absolute time was measured entirely by cycles of varying scales. All things are part of small and large cycles, and repetition is the key to the universe. As an example, she mentioned the seasons, and said that she felt very much in tune with their passing. When she looked at a tree, she saw its buds, and its leaves, and then the leaves falling, and then the branches covered with water or ice, and then the whole show all over again. She also imagined other trees taking the place of her aging tree – multiple cycles of different scales (the yearly cycle of the individual tree and the cycle of the lives of all of the trees in the forest). I asked if there was a basic cycle, one against which all other cycles could be measured, or if the cycles were just relative to each other, and she said that, as far as she was concerned, we couldn’t really care about anything more than the galactic rotation as a cycle. Everything else is too big and doesn’t connect in a real way to the cycles that most define our activities.
Marcos:
Marcos also immediately resorted to cycles to explain his perception of time, and particularly the seasons. He said that he could never live anywhere without seasons, because he needs them to know how to feel throughout the year – he described, in beautiful poetic language, the opening of buds on trees in the springtime, the rain in the winter, and how these affect his mood and relation to the outside. He also said that culture and customs, like food, are dictated by these cycles. He had the idea several years ago to photograph, over the course of the year, the vendors at Santiago’s open-air market; he only did it for a week (and hopes to start it up again), but explained that, over that week, he felt connected to the cycles of the market (or more aware of them during the year). He knew when mushrooms would appear, and chestnuts, and he felt that he could see the cycle of life in the aging faces of the women selling them. He also mentioned natural cycles in relation to religious festivities – for instance, and one that I myself experienced, the sardine’s role in the Noche de San Juan. It’s an inextricable part of the celebration, which takes place at a time when the sardine has the perfect (for the taste buds) amount of fat in its body. No coincidence! Marcos found it very difficult to use words to describe time (one of my mean questions is: “How would you describe time, using words, to somebody who didn’t know what it is?”), and said that he felt it much better than he thought about it.
Shey:
Shey told me that time was a river, and with elaborate detail explained what each physical aspect of the river corresponds to. The river of time has many passengers, each of whom travels at his or her own velocity, and each of whom is subject to its currents and turns. She said that, when one is in the river, its motion is impossible to perceive – one could only do that by removing oneself from the river and looking at it “from above”. However, one has a certain agency in that one can predict or avoid certain consequences. She described large events in history as boulders; one can look at boulders that lie ahead and, based on past experience, maneuver around them differently. This is an interesting mix of inevitability (the boulder is THERE) and free will (you can still choose to move around it). Also, history is created by the river of time in that every ripple can affect the water far away. If there is a rapid, the course of the water changes – repercussions are long-term and whole-river. The control aspect of her description also went even further, because she said that she had purposely chosen a difficult-looking river for her life (so there are multiple rivers of time?). She picked the one that looked like it had the most rapids, and, as a result, feels older than her thirty years, because she has already had to navigate (metaphorically) so much all of the time.
Shey also spoke to me about the psychological effects of participating in different activities over given periods of time. She is very active, and said that when she did a lot of things in a row, she was surprised that any time had gone by at all – she loses sense of time when she is always on the move. Seemingly contradictorily, though, she was always surprised to discover that she’d managed to do so much in so little time (i.e. it felt like it should have taken a lot of time). Shey also told me that, without motion or some sort of event, there is no proof of time. If you are looking at a box, and nothing happens inside the box (absolutely nothing – no molecules collide, no neutrinos travel through), you can’t prove that time is passing or exists. Time depends on change, on motion, so it is inextricably linked to space, where events can physically take place. A more human example she gave was that of solitary confinement: people who have been in solitary confinement for long periods of time, in windowless rooms where nothing happens, forget how long certain activities take. When they return to society, they don’t remember the pace of things – how long is a meal? How long is a waking day? Without events by which to set their time scale, they lose the sense of time that the rest of the people outside maintain.
I also have a notebook in which I ask people to draw time (“How would you describe time, using pictures, to somebody who didn’t know what it is?”), and, interestingly, every picture has been different so far! Granted, there are very few pictures (I have drawn more than everybody else combined), but I’m excited by how differently people visualize time and what aspects of it they find most important to communicate (aging, a person’s agency, time’s essence, etc.).
I’m reading a book on the biological structures of memory – and this is related to time, too! But I don’t know enough yet to report. My favorite thought for now is that I can make my synapses fire by thinking about my synapses firing. I’m doing it right now!
In list form, it looks like a lot of doing, but most of the past day and a half has really been taken up by conversing – with Fabio, with whom I stayed last night, and with Marcos, my host for tonight, and Shey, an American visitor who is also staying with Marcos and who just spent a month walking along the Camino de Santiago. Some of these conversations have been about time! And they have been very interesting! I also had a chance to interrogate Manel and Zoraya while we were hiking up Monte Pindo on Saturday, and I will (roughly and in a disorganized manner) summarize what they, Marcos, and Shey have told me:
Manel:
The first thing that he told me was that the future does not exist. What matters is the present moment, although the past is also important, because it gives the present form. I asked if the past existed still, as a reality, or if it existed in our memories, and he leaned towards the latter option, although he also mentioned that, with things like photographs and video cameras, we have evidence of the reality of the past. Continuing in this vein, he told me about his memories of childhood, when his grandparents told him stories of their own childhoods – this was how he knew about the past before photographs and video cameras. He said that there was a rich story-telling tradition in Galicia, and many myths and legends were told to the younger generations as a way of preserving the past and keeping it a part of the present. And the present is all that one can know; the future is unpredictable and uncontrollable (chaotic might be an appropriate term), a result of every present moment, but not “real” because “the future” doesn’t ever exist.
Zoraya:
Zoraya was very thoughtful and careful in her response, and distinguished between two kinds of time: “real” or “absolute” and “psychological”. The psychological perception of time, she said, was simply the sense that time can go faster or slower depending on the activity -- time flies when you’re having fun, right? And absolute time was measured entirely by cycles of varying scales. All things are part of small and large cycles, and repetition is the key to the universe. As an example, she mentioned the seasons, and said that she felt very much in tune with their passing. When she looked at a tree, she saw its buds, and its leaves, and then the leaves falling, and then the branches covered with water or ice, and then the whole show all over again. She also imagined other trees taking the place of her aging tree – multiple cycles of different scales (the yearly cycle of the individual tree and the cycle of the lives of all of the trees in the forest). I asked if there was a basic cycle, one against which all other cycles could be measured, or if the cycles were just relative to each other, and she said that, as far as she was concerned, we couldn’t really care about anything more than the galactic rotation as a cycle. Everything else is too big and doesn’t connect in a real way to the cycles that most define our activities.
Marcos:
Marcos also immediately resorted to cycles to explain his perception of time, and particularly the seasons. He said that he could never live anywhere without seasons, because he needs them to know how to feel throughout the year – he described, in beautiful poetic language, the opening of buds on trees in the springtime, the rain in the winter, and how these affect his mood and relation to the outside. He also said that culture and customs, like food, are dictated by these cycles. He had the idea several years ago to photograph, over the course of the year, the vendors at Santiago’s open-air market; he only did it for a week (and hopes to start it up again), but explained that, over that week, he felt connected to the cycles of the market (or more aware of them during the year). He knew when mushrooms would appear, and chestnuts, and he felt that he could see the cycle of life in the aging faces of the women selling them. He also mentioned natural cycles in relation to religious festivities – for instance, and one that I myself experienced, the sardine’s role in the Noche de San Juan. It’s an inextricable part of the celebration, which takes place at a time when the sardine has the perfect (for the taste buds) amount of fat in its body. No coincidence! Marcos found it very difficult to use words to describe time (one of my mean questions is: “How would you describe time, using words, to somebody who didn’t know what it is?”), and said that he felt it much better than he thought about it.
Shey:
Shey told me that time was a river, and with elaborate detail explained what each physical aspect of the river corresponds to. The river of time has many passengers, each of whom travels at his or her own velocity, and each of whom is subject to its currents and turns. She said that, when one is in the river, its motion is impossible to perceive – one could only do that by removing oneself from the river and looking at it “from above”. However, one has a certain agency in that one can predict or avoid certain consequences. She described large events in history as boulders; one can look at boulders that lie ahead and, based on past experience, maneuver around them differently. This is an interesting mix of inevitability (the boulder is THERE) and free will (you can still choose to move around it). Also, history is created by the river of time in that every ripple can affect the water far away. If there is a rapid, the course of the water changes – repercussions are long-term and whole-river. The control aspect of her description also went even further, because she said that she had purposely chosen a difficult-looking river for her life (so there are multiple rivers of time?). She picked the one that looked like it had the most rapids, and, as a result, feels older than her thirty years, because she has already had to navigate (metaphorically) so much all of the time.
Shey also spoke to me about the psychological effects of participating in different activities over given periods of time. She is very active, and said that when she did a lot of things in a row, she was surprised that any time had gone by at all – she loses sense of time when she is always on the move. Seemingly contradictorily, though, she was always surprised to discover that she’d managed to do so much in so little time (i.e. it felt like it should have taken a lot of time). Shey also told me that, without motion or some sort of event, there is no proof of time. If you are looking at a box, and nothing happens inside the box (absolutely nothing – no molecules collide, no neutrinos travel through), you can’t prove that time is passing or exists. Time depends on change, on motion, so it is inextricably linked to space, where events can physically take place. A more human example she gave was that of solitary confinement: people who have been in solitary confinement for long periods of time, in windowless rooms where nothing happens, forget how long certain activities take. When they return to society, they don’t remember the pace of things – how long is a meal? How long is a waking day? Without events by which to set their time scale, they lose the sense of time that the rest of the people outside maintain.
I also have a notebook in which I ask people to draw time (“How would you describe time, using pictures, to somebody who didn’t know what it is?”), and, interestingly, every picture has been different so far! Granted, there are very few pictures (I have drawn more than everybody else combined), but I’m excited by how differently people visualize time and what aspects of it they find most important to communicate (aging, a person’s agency, time’s essence, etc.).
I’m reading a book on the biological structures of memory – and this is related to time, too! But I don’t know enough yet to report. My favorite thought for now is that I can make my synapses fire by thinking about my synapses firing. I’m doing it right now!
Monday, July 20, 2009
A difficulty (Ezaro, Spain)
This entry is not events-related, but rather something that has been on my mind. I wrote about it in an e-mail to a friend, and, since it’s something that I’m learning, I figured I’d share it in my blog, too. I had been worried before leaving on this trip that I would turn “sad” during this year – that traveling alone, and always meeting new people and saying goodbye immediately, would have some adverse effect on my emotional state. Now that seems silly; those are precisely the things that are giving me pleasure and allowing me to learn so much.
But in Muros I was sad for a different reason, the one that I should have foreseen from the outset. For the first few days of my stay there I felt vaguely disapproved of by the old people I spent so much time with – I seemed to lack some of the things that impressed them, like flawless social grace and talkativeness, which it seems every Spanish woman is raised to possess. I realized, though, during my time with the kind and caring sisters Candida and Pepita, that the uneasiness went both ways. They had had very little education, and had hardly traveled outside of Galicia, and they weren’t rich – as they showed me their houses, I realized that they were self-conscious. They were worried that I would judge them – and I had thought that they were judging me!
There’s a sense of superiority attached to education, and to something like the Watson (both of which also imply money). It’s impossible to tell somebody who didn’t finish high school that I’ve graduated from college without the fact just sitting there, being intimidating. And that I’m traveling for a year – what?! Unimaginable. That’s what’s making me sad: That, by having had what I’ve had, I can make other people feel intimidated, self-conscious, or somehow inadequate. That’s the last thing I want! I FEEL humble – I know that Candida and Pepita can teach me a lot about many things, I love and respect them and their lives, and my behavior reflects those feelings – but it’s hard to communicate that humility when I also have to tell people what I’m doing. There is very little humble-sounding about a college degree and the opportunity to travel the world for a year. That’s what I’m currently struggling with: other people’s reception of me, and how I can make it as comfortable as possible. It is not simple! Feeling humble doesn’t cut it, and neither does feeling sad about it.
But in Muros I was sad for a different reason, the one that I should have foreseen from the outset. For the first few days of my stay there I felt vaguely disapproved of by the old people I spent so much time with – I seemed to lack some of the things that impressed them, like flawless social grace and talkativeness, which it seems every Spanish woman is raised to possess. I realized, though, during my time with the kind and caring sisters Candida and Pepita, that the uneasiness went both ways. They had had very little education, and had hardly traveled outside of Galicia, and they weren’t rich – as they showed me their houses, I realized that they were self-conscious. They were worried that I would judge them – and I had thought that they were judging me!
There’s a sense of superiority attached to education, and to something like the Watson (both of which also imply money). It’s impossible to tell somebody who didn’t finish high school that I’ve graduated from college without the fact just sitting there, being intimidating. And that I’m traveling for a year – what?! Unimaginable. That’s what’s making me sad: That, by having had what I’ve had, I can make other people feel intimidated, self-conscious, or somehow inadequate. That’s the last thing I want! I FEEL humble – I know that Candida and Pepita can teach me a lot about many things, I love and respect them and their lives, and my behavior reflects those feelings – but it’s hard to communicate that humility when I also have to tell people what I’m doing. There is very little humble-sounding about a college degree and the opportunity to travel the world for a year. That’s what I’m currently struggling with: other people’s reception of me, and how I can make it as comfortable as possible. It is not simple! Feeling humble doesn’t cut it, and neither does feeling sad about it.
A steep ascent and a waterfall (Ezaro and O Pindo, Spain)
(I wrote this yesterday, but have internet today! Tomorrow morning I leave for Santiago.)
I did not end up going to the countryside! Instead I took a bus away from Santiago, towards Cee and Finisterre, and got off at a tiny town called Ezaro, which looked interesting because it is at the mouth of a river. It is also right next to the Monte Pindo, which Sylvia, my friend from La Corunha, had recommended that I hike – I thought, “Excellent! I will experience tiny-town life and also get to go up!” I love going up.
My first walk through town revealed that there is exactly one fishing boat in the port, but many wooden rowboats in the river water just next to the bridge. The rowboats were drifting happily on their lines in the water; the fishing boat bobbed in the waves at the port, probably feeling both superior and lonely. The point is, though, that there were no people in the boats; I have to wait until Monday morning to see the solitary fishing boat in action. The nearby town of O Pindo has a larger port (four fishing boats!), and I will go there in the early afternoon, when the catch comes in.
On my second walk through town I more fully appreciated the landscape – enormous boulder-covered hills loom over the houses, and on Saturday, when I arrived, they were covered with fog, so that the peaks drifted in and out of vision. Nine-year-old Irene would have thought, “Oh boy! There’s probably a hidden entrance to another world in some boulder on one of those fog-covered hills! There’s probably a witch!!” But, tragically, I’ve lost my capacity to imagine (and temporarily believe in) the supernatural when I am in mysterious and old places. So I just thought, “Oh boy! I can’t wait to walk around!”
Ezaro also has artificial large-scale beauty! The river Xallas has been dammed for over a century, and there is an electrical plant up the river a ways, next to huge rocks that used to be covered by a waterfall and are now covered by a trickle. (I have this problem of finding things that I know to be environmentally destructive or exploitative of people somewhere down the line beautiful. Dams are an example – I really think that they are neat to look at! Technologically impressive, and generally aesthetically pleasing, if only for their scale. But this dam took away one of very few waterfalls in Europe that emptied into the sea, and has also been responsible for wreaking havoc on fish populations; last year many died when too much water was released at once. The docks are another example: I love seeing fish coming in, the auction, the boats, and in Vigo I was fascinated by the huge rocks, stacks of aluminum ingots, rows of cars, containers, giant cranes, cargo ships – but I know about overfishing, and mining destruction, and pollution, and that people somewhere down the line are being worked too hard and paid too little. How to reconcile awe and fascination with knowledge of exploitation?) I went into a small museum about energy that the company has set up, and a man there took a liking to me and showed me the actual machine room, which also contained many machines from the past century! Very cool.
I was told that the waterfall would be “opened” at 11:00 that night, so I went back at night and sat with dozens of other people on the wooden benches next to it. While we were waiting, I met Anselmo and Angel, who were visiting from Asturias. They were very friendly, and told me about Spanish history, their work (they train primary school teachers), Spanish food, good Spanish science magazines (excellent!), etc. We watched the waterfall when it opened up – beautiful! loud and misty! I love waterfalls! – and afterwards had drinks at a bar in town. Friends!
On Sunday morning I walked to O Pindo, the town across the bridge, to start my hike up to the top of Monte Pindo (A Moa) from the church courtyard. The first forty-five minutes were toughies – a very narrow, steep path with tricky footing, and the fog made everything just a bit depressing. But then I ran into a family that was farther along the path, and another hiker with two dogs ran into us, and we spent the rest of the day together! Manel (I’m not misspelling it – it’s “Manuel” without the “u”) had explored these mountains thoroughly, and carried not only a fancy contour map but also a bar of chocolate, so we knew we could trust him to be our leader, and mother Pilar, daughter Zoraya and father ____ were full of energy and cheer. We spent a total of six hours climbing up and stumbling down, and it was one of the most wonderful hikes of my life. The fog cleared up as we neared the top of the mountain, and there were rounded boulders everywhere, and little creeks, and green grass, and everywhere we looked we could see distant coast and more green hills covered with windmills (I find these beautiful, too! but I feel better about finding them beautiful). The only misfortune was that one of my flip flops – the most faithful shoes I have ever had, explorers-with on many wild adventures – broke on the way down. I tied it onto my foot with a hair binder, but it was too loose by the time we got to asphalt, so I put socks on and (STUPIDLY) tried to go shoeless on the asphalt. Now the bottoms of my feet are burned (ouch) (really no joke). But I’d do it again! It was a glorious day. When we got into town, we had drinks at a beachfront bar and then stripped to our underwear and bras and swam! Cold, cold water! Yeeeeaaaah!!! I will sleep well tonight.
I did not end up going to the countryside! Instead I took a bus away from Santiago, towards Cee and Finisterre, and got off at a tiny town called Ezaro, which looked interesting because it is at the mouth of a river. It is also right next to the Monte Pindo, which Sylvia, my friend from La Corunha, had recommended that I hike – I thought, “Excellent! I will experience tiny-town life and also get to go up!” I love going up.
My first walk through town revealed that there is exactly one fishing boat in the port, but many wooden rowboats in the river water just next to the bridge. The rowboats were drifting happily on their lines in the water; the fishing boat bobbed in the waves at the port, probably feeling both superior and lonely. The point is, though, that there were no people in the boats; I have to wait until Monday morning to see the solitary fishing boat in action. The nearby town of O Pindo has a larger port (four fishing boats!), and I will go there in the early afternoon, when the catch comes in.
On my second walk through town I more fully appreciated the landscape – enormous boulder-covered hills loom over the houses, and on Saturday, when I arrived, they were covered with fog, so that the peaks drifted in and out of vision. Nine-year-old Irene would have thought, “Oh boy! There’s probably a hidden entrance to another world in some boulder on one of those fog-covered hills! There’s probably a witch!!” But, tragically, I’ve lost my capacity to imagine (and temporarily believe in) the supernatural when I am in mysterious and old places. So I just thought, “Oh boy! I can’t wait to walk around!”
Ezaro also has artificial large-scale beauty! The river Xallas has been dammed for over a century, and there is an electrical plant up the river a ways, next to huge rocks that used to be covered by a waterfall and are now covered by a trickle. (I have this problem of finding things that I know to be environmentally destructive or exploitative of people somewhere down the line beautiful. Dams are an example – I really think that they are neat to look at! Technologically impressive, and generally aesthetically pleasing, if only for their scale. But this dam took away one of very few waterfalls in Europe that emptied into the sea, and has also been responsible for wreaking havoc on fish populations; last year many died when too much water was released at once. The docks are another example: I love seeing fish coming in, the auction, the boats, and in Vigo I was fascinated by the huge rocks, stacks of aluminum ingots, rows of cars, containers, giant cranes, cargo ships – but I know about overfishing, and mining destruction, and pollution, and that people somewhere down the line are being worked too hard and paid too little. How to reconcile awe and fascination with knowledge of exploitation?) I went into a small museum about energy that the company has set up, and a man there took a liking to me and showed me the actual machine room, which also contained many machines from the past century! Very cool.
I was told that the waterfall would be “opened” at 11:00 that night, so I went back at night and sat with dozens of other people on the wooden benches next to it. While we were waiting, I met Anselmo and Angel, who were visiting from Asturias. They were very friendly, and told me about Spanish history, their work (they train primary school teachers), Spanish food, good Spanish science magazines (excellent!), etc. We watched the waterfall when it opened up – beautiful! loud and misty! I love waterfalls! – and afterwards had drinks at a bar in town. Friends!
On Sunday morning I walked to O Pindo, the town across the bridge, to start my hike up to the top of Monte Pindo (A Moa) from the church courtyard. The first forty-five minutes were toughies – a very narrow, steep path with tricky footing, and the fog made everything just a bit depressing. But then I ran into a family that was farther along the path, and another hiker with two dogs ran into us, and we spent the rest of the day together! Manel (I’m not misspelling it – it’s “Manuel” without the “u”) had explored these mountains thoroughly, and carried not only a fancy contour map but also a bar of chocolate, so we knew we could trust him to be our leader, and mother Pilar, daughter Zoraya and father ____ were full of energy and cheer. We spent a total of six hours climbing up and stumbling down, and it was one of the most wonderful hikes of my life. The fog cleared up as we neared the top of the mountain, and there were rounded boulders everywhere, and little creeks, and green grass, and everywhere we looked we could see distant coast and more green hills covered with windmills (I find these beautiful, too! but I feel better about finding them beautiful). The only misfortune was that one of my flip flops – the most faithful shoes I have ever had, explorers-with on many wild adventures – broke on the way down. I tied it onto my foot with a hair binder, but it was too loose by the time we got to asphalt, so I put socks on and (STUPIDLY) tried to go shoeless on the asphalt. Now the bottoms of my feet are burned (ouch) (really no joke). But I’d do it again! It was a glorious day. When we got into town, we had drinks at a beachfront bar and then stripped to our underwear and bras and swam! Cold, cold water! Yeeeeaaaah!!! I will sleep well tonight.
Friday, July 17, 2009
A party-hardy and many adoptive grandparents (Muros, Spain)
Since Wednesday the entire town has been celebrating the festival for the Virgen del Carmen, who watches over fishermen. There are four nights of music and dance in the main square – I have attended two so far – and numerous religious activities, like noon masses and the procession of the Virgen from the main church to the docks, where she is carried aboard a boat and taken out for a spin, and then on to a smaller chapel. There the townspeople sing a hymn, solemnly, and then very unsolemnly rush to the Virgen’s stand to take one of the white carnations or gerberas that adorn her feet and, having been blessed by her, provide good fortune or something else immensely desirable. I am no good in crowds, so I went “whoop” and tried to walk the other way, but I got a flower anyway! Candida, one of the seventy-something-year-old women who make up my social circle here in Muros, handed me one as I was going down the stairs into the street.
She and her sister, Pepita, and their friend, Loli, adopted me at the party on Wednesday night when Susa (the next door neighbor who forced clothes pegs upon me and with whom I’ve had several coffees now) introduced me as a solo traveler, all alone and needing attention and instruction in dance. The sisters are intimidating – after two nights of dancing, Candida has yet to smile at me (I still categorize facial expressions into smiles, which are good, and non-smiles, which elicit concern on my part; I should know better after a month in Galicia), and they dance like it’s their God-given duty – but very kind. One of them was always holding my hand or petting my arm and singing into my ear, and we danced for hours. Well, they danced for hours. I can only claim to have danced for the last half hour or so, because when I started out I just stepped on their feet, kneed them (they are much shorter than I am), and apologized constantly. I could see Segundo, Susa’s husband, laughing at me, but by the end of the night he said, “Irene – there’s hope for you yet.” Flatterer. My body has no intuition – I am doomed to stumble until I figure out a pattern, and it’s hard to figure out a pattern in Candida and Pepita’s tight and unrelenting embraces. I can say now, though, that I won’t step on your feet dancing a cumbia, paso doble, waltz, a dance called “el polvorete” (sexual innuendos! I was totally oblivious to the meaning of the song until somebody acted it on stage), merengue, salsa, or tango. Last night I hardly danced at all, preferring instead to watch the show – the bands are impressive. There are two of them on separate stages, and they take turns entertaining throughout the night. Lots of flashy lights, costume changes, props, and audience participation. One singer, seeing that I was trying to take a picture of him, even serenaded me for a little bit; the picture turned out well.
Yesterday I ate lunch (which was so big that it ended up being dinner, too) with Mariloli, her husband Juan, and their daughter Maria. At Mariloli’s insistence, I had two servings of what I thought was the main course but was actually the first of several, so that by the time I left the house I had had generous portions of ensaladilla (cold egg salad with seafood and vegetables) and bread, lamb (mmph), potatoes, flan, brazo de gitano (a bread dessert eaten during the holidays), and orujo tostado (very strong alcohol – whoo! Maria said, “Now you’ll have no trouble taking a nap”). They are very hospitable, and Juan has seen the whole world by ship! He was a merchant in his younger years, and now shudders when anybody suggests that he travel somewhere.
I have discovered that I require a certain degree of anonymity to feel comfortable in a place – no possibility of that in Muros. Not only do Susa and Segundo know my exact schedule, since they call out to me every time I enter or leave the apartment, but Maria (the daughter of Mariloli, who is renting me the apartment), told me at lunch, “Oh, did you know that I went to school with Felipe’s daughter?” I thought, “Who is Felipe? Do I know his daughter? Why are you telling me this?” Two seconds of high-speed processing in my brain led to the realization that Felipe was the man who had taken me out to see his bateas; he had told his daughter about me, and his daughter had told Maria, who told me -- I had no idea that there was any connection between Maria and Felipe. I wonder how many people know exactly where I’ve been and what I’ve done every day. Small towns give rise to naturally occurring and freakishly intense Neighborhood Watch programs. I’m sure that if I bought condoms at the grocery store, one of my adoptive grandparents would be lecturing me within the hour.
-- Very funny: As I was typing, Mariloli came into the apartment and said, “Come have a drink with us.” Not a question. The life of the retiree is jam-packed with social engagements! I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle it. –
Tomorrow I leave Muros, but I still don’t know exactly where I’m going. I may just ride the bus towards Santiago until I see a town that looks interesting and hop off. I am intrigued by the countryside. Exciting!
She and her sister, Pepita, and their friend, Loli, adopted me at the party on Wednesday night when Susa (the next door neighbor who forced clothes pegs upon me and with whom I’ve had several coffees now) introduced me as a solo traveler, all alone and needing attention and instruction in dance. The sisters are intimidating – after two nights of dancing, Candida has yet to smile at me (I still categorize facial expressions into smiles, which are good, and non-smiles, which elicit concern on my part; I should know better after a month in Galicia), and they dance like it’s their God-given duty – but very kind. One of them was always holding my hand or petting my arm and singing into my ear, and we danced for hours. Well, they danced for hours. I can only claim to have danced for the last half hour or so, because when I started out I just stepped on their feet, kneed them (they are much shorter than I am), and apologized constantly. I could see Segundo, Susa’s husband, laughing at me, but by the end of the night he said, “Irene – there’s hope for you yet.” Flatterer. My body has no intuition – I am doomed to stumble until I figure out a pattern, and it’s hard to figure out a pattern in Candida and Pepita’s tight and unrelenting embraces. I can say now, though, that I won’t step on your feet dancing a cumbia, paso doble, waltz, a dance called “el polvorete” (sexual innuendos! I was totally oblivious to the meaning of the song until somebody acted it on stage), merengue, salsa, or tango. Last night I hardly danced at all, preferring instead to watch the show – the bands are impressive. There are two of them on separate stages, and they take turns entertaining throughout the night. Lots of flashy lights, costume changes, props, and audience participation. One singer, seeing that I was trying to take a picture of him, even serenaded me for a little bit; the picture turned out well.
Yesterday I ate lunch (which was so big that it ended up being dinner, too) with Mariloli, her husband Juan, and their daughter Maria. At Mariloli’s insistence, I had two servings of what I thought was the main course but was actually the first of several, so that by the time I left the house I had had generous portions of ensaladilla (cold egg salad with seafood and vegetables) and bread, lamb (mmph), potatoes, flan, brazo de gitano (a bread dessert eaten during the holidays), and orujo tostado (very strong alcohol – whoo! Maria said, “Now you’ll have no trouble taking a nap”). They are very hospitable, and Juan has seen the whole world by ship! He was a merchant in his younger years, and now shudders when anybody suggests that he travel somewhere.
I have discovered that I require a certain degree of anonymity to feel comfortable in a place – no possibility of that in Muros. Not only do Susa and Segundo know my exact schedule, since they call out to me every time I enter or leave the apartment, but Maria (the daughter of Mariloli, who is renting me the apartment), told me at lunch, “Oh, did you know that I went to school with Felipe’s daughter?” I thought, “Who is Felipe? Do I know his daughter? Why are you telling me this?” Two seconds of high-speed processing in my brain led to the realization that Felipe was the man who had taken me out to see his bateas; he had told his daughter about me, and his daughter had told Maria, who told me -- I had no idea that there was any connection between Maria and Felipe. I wonder how many people know exactly where I’ve been and what I’ve done every day. Small towns give rise to naturally occurring and freakishly intense Neighborhood Watch programs. I’m sure that if I bought condoms at the grocery store, one of my adoptive grandparents would be lecturing me within the hour.
-- Very funny: As I was typing, Mariloli came into the apartment and said, “Come have a drink with us.” Not a question. The life of the retiree is jam-packed with social engagements! I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle it. –
Tomorrow I leave Muros, but I still don’t know exactly where I’m going. I may just ride the bus towards Santiago until I see a town that looks interesting and hop off. I am intrigued by the countryside. Exciting!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
A month already (Muros, Spain)
I have spent a month in Spain already! So much has happened that it feels like several years have passed, and at the same time I’m sad that only eleven twelfths of the Watson pie are left -- it is a very tasty pie.
I am writing in Muros, a town of about 10,000 in the southernmost region of the Costa de Muerte (or perhaps south of the Costa de Muerte? I’m not sure where the death begins). When I left Vigo I was hoping for a change in scenery, and Muros has not disappointed – the coast feels longer, since the town is not deep in a ria, and the cloud-topped hills are covered with dark pine trees and gray boulders. The town also feels much smaller than anywhere I’ve been; everyone knows each other, greets each other on the street, and is on the street in the first place – people spend a lot of time outside despite occasional and unpredictable rainshowers.
It is thanks to people knowing each other that I find myself writing this on a sofa in my very own apartment right in front of the port (really!) instead of in a hostel room six kilometers out of town. When I realized my mistake in making a reservation at a place so far from where I wanted to be, and also realized that every hostel in town costs more than my strict budget allows for, I asked the bus driver for suggestions. He took me to a bar and told me to ask the woman who owned it for a room – other drivers sometimes spent the night there – but the bar was closed. I went to the store next door, where two kind women insisted that I leave my bags and explore town while I waited for the bar to open, and when I came back, I spoke with the bar owner. No room! Alas. I went next door again to retrieve my bags, and asked the women there if they might know somebody who could offer me a room (or sofa or floor) for a few nights. They thought for a few moments and then said, “Mariloli!” (Auspicious name.) One of them walked with me to a barbershop, where I met Mariloli, who said that I could spend a few nights at the apartment that she usually rents, since the next renters don’t arrive until August. Luxury! I don’t expect to have this much room to myself again for the next 15 or so years, and it’s a minute’s walk to the port.
Now every time I pass the bar, the owner and I enthusiastically greet each other through the window, and Mariloli has invited me to eat with her family tomorrow, Thursday, which is the celebration for the Virgen del Carmen (three days of festivities start tonight – I think that it will be difficult to sleep). I’ve also met the next door neighbor, Susa, who saw through the second-story window that I had tended my clothing on the kitchen chairs and forcefully offered to give me clothes pegs (“Oh no, don’t worry, it’s fine like this.” “NONSENSE. Look, I have a whole bucket-full; I’ll lend you some.” “Please don’t trouble yourself – my clothes are almost dry already.” “I’M COMING OVER.”). When I went to her house to return the clothes pegs, she and her husband pulled out a chair for me and gave me coffee – like Mariloli, the bar owner, the women in the store, and everyone else I’ve met, they made me swear (stopped just short of telling me to sign my name in blood) that I will not hesitate to come to them if I need anything.
I have been equally fortunate at the port! That evening, I met Manolo the net-mender, who was working on the long nets for drag fishing (trolling? I’ll look it up) (I looked it up! TRAWLING). He explained how other nets worked (minhos and betas, which hang in the water from buoys and differ in the number of layers that they have) and introduced me to several other net-menders. Yesterday I spent most of the day at or near the port. I first met Felipe, who owns 14 bateas (rafts where mussels are raised) and was overseeing his three workers on one of the many ships with a large crane in the middle of it (to lift up the ropes full of mussels). I asked him if I could go out with them someday, expecting him either to say no or “come back tomorrow,” but instead of either of these he said, “We’ll go right now!” I was shocked, and felt terrible getting in the way of work, but he assured me that it didn’t matter if the boat was in motion or not – Francisco, Carlos and Nando, the three men on the boat, were just fixing the ropes to put more seed mussels on them. The water has had toxins in it for over two months and they haven’t been able to sell any mussels; all the work that they are doing now is maintenance. They took me to three different bateas so that I could see baby, teenaged, and eating-aged mussels – we clambered along the large wooden beams (they more gracefully than I) and pulled up some ropes (for the last group, the mature mussels, Felipe used the crane – one rope full of mature mussels weighs 300 kilos!).
Back at the port, I talked with Manolo again, who told me that most of the drag-fishing (TRAWLING) boats were docking in other ports, since the fish was in other areas. Most boats (80% of them) are fishing octopus now, which I confirmed later in the afternoon at the fish auction, where there were crates and crates of dead or dying octopi (I think that I had nightmares because of this) (I empathize strongly with octopi).
Before the fish auction, though, I was told to go to the beach, and soon! before the tide came back in, to see the marisqueras, women who rake or shovel the sand for clams. I put on my wet-shoes and squished through seaweed and liquid sand to the area where they were working – many dozens of them, and even more waist-deep or more in the water (but I didn’t follow them there). They are allowed to gather clams at this beach from July until September, and then they move on to another beach; this rotation allows the clam populations to replenish themselves. I asked how they knew when to come out -- i.e. when the tide was at its lowest – and they said, “Oh, we have calendars. The calendars tell us the time, and we watch the clock.” Yesterday the low tide was not very low at all, because the moon is not full or new, but they go every day to gather what they can. The fish auction was at 5:30, and I was proud to know what most of the fish were called before being told the names (learning!). I think that I’ll go again today – I have yet to talk to a fisherman of fish (or even of octopus).
This morning I walked to the nearby town of Louro, where I climbed up Monte Louro to look at the coast to the north and the open ocean. I worry that my legs will go on strike one of these days – but so far they are tolerating my abuses admirably.
I am writing in Muros, a town of about 10,000 in the southernmost region of the Costa de Muerte (or perhaps south of the Costa de Muerte? I’m not sure where the death begins). When I left Vigo I was hoping for a change in scenery, and Muros has not disappointed – the coast feels longer, since the town is not deep in a ria, and the cloud-topped hills are covered with dark pine trees and gray boulders. The town also feels much smaller than anywhere I’ve been; everyone knows each other, greets each other on the street, and is on the street in the first place – people spend a lot of time outside despite occasional and unpredictable rainshowers.
It is thanks to people knowing each other that I find myself writing this on a sofa in my very own apartment right in front of the port (really!) instead of in a hostel room six kilometers out of town. When I realized my mistake in making a reservation at a place so far from where I wanted to be, and also realized that every hostel in town costs more than my strict budget allows for, I asked the bus driver for suggestions. He took me to a bar and told me to ask the woman who owned it for a room – other drivers sometimes spent the night there – but the bar was closed. I went to the store next door, where two kind women insisted that I leave my bags and explore town while I waited for the bar to open, and when I came back, I spoke with the bar owner. No room! Alas. I went next door again to retrieve my bags, and asked the women there if they might know somebody who could offer me a room (or sofa or floor) for a few nights. They thought for a few moments and then said, “Mariloli!” (Auspicious name.) One of them walked with me to a barbershop, where I met Mariloli, who said that I could spend a few nights at the apartment that she usually rents, since the next renters don’t arrive until August. Luxury! I don’t expect to have this much room to myself again for the next 15 or so years, and it’s a minute’s walk to the port.
Now every time I pass the bar, the owner and I enthusiastically greet each other through the window, and Mariloli has invited me to eat with her family tomorrow, Thursday, which is the celebration for the Virgen del Carmen (three days of festivities start tonight – I think that it will be difficult to sleep). I’ve also met the next door neighbor, Susa, who saw through the second-story window that I had tended my clothing on the kitchen chairs and forcefully offered to give me clothes pegs (“Oh no, don’t worry, it’s fine like this.” “NONSENSE. Look, I have a whole bucket-full; I’ll lend you some.” “Please don’t trouble yourself – my clothes are almost dry already.” “I’M COMING OVER.”). When I went to her house to return the clothes pegs, she and her husband pulled out a chair for me and gave me coffee – like Mariloli, the bar owner, the women in the store, and everyone else I’ve met, they made me swear (stopped just short of telling me to sign my name in blood) that I will not hesitate to come to them if I need anything.
I have been equally fortunate at the port! That evening, I met Manolo the net-mender, who was working on the long nets for drag fishing (trolling? I’ll look it up) (I looked it up! TRAWLING). He explained how other nets worked (minhos and betas, which hang in the water from buoys and differ in the number of layers that they have) and introduced me to several other net-menders. Yesterday I spent most of the day at or near the port. I first met Felipe, who owns 14 bateas (rafts where mussels are raised) and was overseeing his three workers on one of the many ships with a large crane in the middle of it (to lift up the ropes full of mussels). I asked him if I could go out with them someday, expecting him either to say no or “come back tomorrow,” but instead of either of these he said, “We’ll go right now!” I was shocked, and felt terrible getting in the way of work, but he assured me that it didn’t matter if the boat was in motion or not – Francisco, Carlos and Nando, the three men on the boat, were just fixing the ropes to put more seed mussels on them. The water has had toxins in it for over two months and they haven’t been able to sell any mussels; all the work that they are doing now is maintenance. They took me to three different bateas so that I could see baby, teenaged, and eating-aged mussels – we clambered along the large wooden beams (they more gracefully than I) and pulled up some ropes (for the last group, the mature mussels, Felipe used the crane – one rope full of mature mussels weighs 300 kilos!).
Back at the port, I talked with Manolo again, who told me that most of the drag-fishing (TRAWLING) boats were docking in other ports, since the fish was in other areas. Most boats (80% of them) are fishing octopus now, which I confirmed later in the afternoon at the fish auction, where there were crates and crates of dead or dying octopi (I think that I had nightmares because of this) (I empathize strongly with octopi).
Before the fish auction, though, I was told to go to the beach, and soon! before the tide came back in, to see the marisqueras, women who rake or shovel the sand for clams. I put on my wet-shoes and squished through seaweed and liquid sand to the area where they were working – many dozens of them, and even more waist-deep or more in the water (but I didn’t follow them there). They are allowed to gather clams at this beach from July until September, and then they move on to another beach; this rotation allows the clam populations to replenish themselves. I asked how they knew when to come out -- i.e. when the tide was at its lowest – and they said, “Oh, we have calendars. The calendars tell us the time, and we watch the clock.” Yesterday the low tide was not very low at all, because the moon is not full or new, but they go every day to gather what they can. The fish auction was at 5:30, and I was proud to know what most of the fish were called before being told the names (learning!). I think that I’ll go again today – I have yet to talk to a fisherman of fish (or even of octopus).
This morning I walked to the nearby town of Louro, where I climbed up Monte Louro to look at the coast to the north and the open ocean. I worry that my legs will go on strike one of these days – but so far they are tolerating my abuses admirably.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
A lot of sharks, a sail boat ride, and Eden (Vigo and the Islas Cies, Spain)
(I actually wrote this yesterday. Tonight is my last night in Vigo, and tomorrow I'll go to Muros!)
I am writing this in a tent! Since yesterday morning I’ve been on the larger of the two Islas Cies, a natural reserve with, according to a British journalist, the world’s most beautiful beach (I share this only because it’s what everyone – EVERYONE – tells me when I mention the Islas Cies; that British journalist has made many a Galician proud), and other Eden-like qualities. Unfortunately, the Islas Cies, and the world’s most beautiful beach, are crawling with tourists (Eden only had two), and my tent is surrounded by about fifty others, so I can only pretend that I am alone in an isolated forest when the flap is shut, and then it gets too hot. LIFE IS HARD. But it’s not, because I have been hiking along the forest paths in the early morning and evening, when they are deserted, and today I even quasi-meditated on a hill! I have found a hidden sea cave, been dive-bombed by seagulls who thought that I was too close to their offspring (flashback to my younger days, when I was traumatized by a five-minute clip of the movie “The Birds” – I’m still sure that these seagulls were going for the jugular) (and I have to admit that I did not react in a dignified manner at all: I ducked and ran, saying “Chill out! I’m not going to eat your babies! Leave me alone! Geez!” out loud), and watched the sun burn mist off the sea. I feel calmer than I have in weeks.
I have also finally caught up on sleep – my last few days in Vigo were hectic! Thursday especially. Let me tell you. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning (ungh) after a three-hour nap, and took a taxi to the lonja, which, like the lonja in La Corunha at 6:00 in the morning, was bustling. I first went to the smaller of the two buildings, the one for local catch, where fishermen along the dock were unloading dozens and dozens of sharks. Nothing else – just sharks. They were pulled up from the hold by their tails and flopped onto big carts, which were rolled into the building, leaving behind rivers of blood. I went inside and saw, alongside the sharks, swordfish and a few other biggies, including tuna (they are so pretty). The other half of the building was filled with more familiar fish – congrio, rape, lenguado – and it was already being sold. The bigger building, the Gran Lonja, was impressive in scale, but almost exactly the same as the La Corunha lonja in products (although octopus is in season now, and this was the first time I had seen it being sold) and proceedings (although screens on the walls posting rates at other international fish markets reminded me that this was world-scale commerce).
The few fishermen I managed to engage in conversation told me the same thing regarding their schedules: they leave at around the same time every day, but only come back after having made a sizeable catch. This means that they can be out for six hours or ten; it depends entirely on their luck (and skill). In the smaller ports, and even in La Corunha, the people with whom I spoke seemed readier to come back without a catch. If they returned late to the port, it was because of weather or problems with their equipment, not because they had been chasing an invisible school of fish. They shrugged off no-catch days -- “the fishing is bad now” – and hoped for more the next day. The important thing, they told me, was constancy, a dedication to routine. Interesting: Before coming I had thought that the larger ports would run like machines, that their connectedness to international commerce would force fishermen to live by clocks and rigid plans, while the smaller cities and villages would have more leeway in terms of schedule. I see now that I was right in assuming that there would be a difference in practice due to the difference in demand, but I was totally wrong in my conclusions! The fishermen in smaller villages can afford to have set routines precisely because they don’t feel the pressure that the fishermen in larger ports do; it’s the latter group whose schedule is most determined by the sea.
After taking a one-hour nap back at Zoulaikha and Juan’s apartment, I went back to the city center to see an exhibit called “Erase una vez . . . !la vida!”, where a preachy man told me all about the human body through earphones while I looked at plasticized corpses (preachy because he went on at length about the dangers of tobacco and not eating enough fruits and vegetables). Did you know that we exhale half of the water we drink? And that our all of our blood vessels, put end-to-end, could circle the Earth twice? I learned more than factoids, don’t worry, and I might start eating more fruits and vegetables (ha!).
I went to the San Gregorio docks at 4:30, where I met with Amable and several others who build and sail traditional Galician vessels! The others were named: Luisa, Sito, Suso, Javi, ____, and ____. They spent a good while preparing the square sail for our trip – they had to weave rope through holes at the bottom, attach a wooden beam to the top, adjust the angle of the main beam, roll up the sail because it was a windy day, etc. The “etc.” is maybe five more things that I have forgotten. Luisa explained that every single rope (and there are many) in the boat has a specific name, even the ties to hold up the rolls of the shortened sail. This vocabulary, this nautical language, is being lost, since nobody uses traditional sailboats anymore. BUT THEY SHOULD. It was a wild ride. When we got out to the Ria, we made for open sea, and the wind was strong! There were eight of us in the boat, and we were almost always all perched on one side of the boat, trying to keep it from filling with water on the other side. The waves soaked us in minutes, especially Luisa, who was lying down at the bow and stood up dripping. She combated hypothermia with the contents of a leather wine flask, which was passed around; the men talked about other people’s boats; there was laughter and contemplative silence (ooh, here is something pretty to think about in contemplative silence at sea: my friend Mary at the AIP in Germany thinks of humans, and anything else physical, as “ripples in matter” -- !!!). Four hours later, after having navigated through the bateas (rafts where clams are raised on big hanging ropes) and won a race back to the dock against a modern sailboat, we stepped on dry land. Terrible. I was ready to move in. I am so grateful to this group of total strangers who let me ride with them in the boat that they built. I raved about them to Monika, at whose apartment I stayed that night, and felt like a gas-guzzling cheater the next morning on the ferry to the Islas Cies. But now I’m here in Juan’s tent, relaxed and watching the sky darken, and – a vampire insect is trying to suck my blood aiiiie. Life is good.
After much hand-wringing (making decisions is not one of my strong suits), I’ve decided that my next stop will be Muros, which is farther north than I expected to go so soon. But time is flying (ha . . . ha). I’m meeting my German friend Asmus in Santiago on the 23rd, and after the big festival on the 25th, we’ll go to the city of Villagarcia, two rias up from Vigo. I figure that I can finish up my time in the Rias Bajas then and move on to the Costa de Muerte – Muros is my middle-point between the two.
I am writing this in a tent! Since yesterday morning I’ve been on the larger of the two Islas Cies, a natural reserve with, according to a British journalist, the world’s most beautiful beach (I share this only because it’s what everyone – EVERYONE – tells me when I mention the Islas Cies; that British journalist has made many a Galician proud), and other Eden-like qualities. Unfortunately, the Islas Cies, and the world’s most beautiful beach, are crawling with tourists (Eden only had two), and my tent is surrounded by about fifty others, so I can only pretend that I am alone in an isolated forest when the flap is shut, and then it gets too hot. LIFE IS HARD. But it’s not, because I have been hiking along the forest paths in the early morning and evening, when they are deserted, and today I even quasi-meditated on a hill! I have found a hidden sea cave, been dive-bombed by seagulls who thought that I was too close to their offspring (flashback to my younger days, when I was traumatized by a five-minute clip of the movie “The Birds” – I’m still sure that these seagulls were going for the jugular) (and I have to admit that I did not react in a dignified manner at all: I ducked and ran, saying “Chill out! I’m not going to eat your babies! Leave me alone! Geez!” out loud), and watched the sun burn mist off the sea. I feel calmer than I have in weeks.
I have also finally caught up on sleep – my last few days in Vigo were hectic! Thursday especially. Let me tell you. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning (ungh) after a three-hour nap, and took a taxi to the lonja, which, like the lonja in La Corunha at 6:00 in the morning, was bustling. I first went to the smaller of the two buildings, the one for local catch, where fishermen along the dock were unloading dozens and dozens of sharks. Nothing else – just sharks. They were pulled up from the hold by their tails and flopped onto big carts, which were rolled into the building, leaving behind rivers of blood. I went inside and saw, alongside the sharks, swordfish and a few other biggies, including tuna (they are so pretty). The other half of the building was filled with more familiar fish – congrio, rape, lenguado – and it was already being sold. The bigger building, the Gran Lonja, was impressive in scale, but almost exactly the same as the La Corunha lonja in products (although octopus is in season now, and this was the first time I had seen it being sold) and proceedings (although screens on the walls posting rates at other international fish markets reminded me that this was world-scale commerce).
The few fishermen I managed to engage in conversation told me the same thing regarding their schedules: they leave at around the same time every day, but only come back after having made a sizeable catch. This means that they can be out for six hours or ten; it depends entirely on their luck (and skill). In the smaller ports, and even in La Corunha, the people with whom I spoke seemed readier to come back without a catch. If they returned late to the port, it was because of weather or problems with their equipment, not because they had been chasing an invisible school of fish. They shrugged off no-catch days -- “the fishing is bad now” – and hoped for more the next day. The important thing, they told me, was constancy, a dedication to routine. Interesting: Before coming I had thought that the larger ports would run like machines, that their connectedness to international commerce would force fishermen to live by clocks and rigid plans, while the smaller cities and villages would have more leeway in terms of schedule. I see now that I was right in assuming that there would be a difference in practice due to the difference in demand, but I was totally wrong in my conclusions! The fishermen in smaller villages can afford to have set routines precisely because they don’t feel the pressure that the fishermen in larger ports do; it’s the latter group whose schedule is most determined by the sea.
After taking a one-hour nap back at Zoulaikha and Juan’s apartment, I went back to the city center to see an exhibit called “Erase una vez . . . !la vida!”, where a preachy man told me all about the human body through earphones while I looked at plasticized corpses (preachy because he went on at length about the dangers of tobacco and not eating enough fruits and vegetables). Did you know that we exhale half of the water we drink? And that our all of our blood vessels, put end-to-end, could circle the Earth twice? I learned more than factoids, don’t worry, and I might start eating more fruits and vegetables (ha!).
I went to the San Gregorio docks at 4:30, where I met with Amable and several others who build and sail traditional Galician vessels! The others were named: Luisa, Sito, Suso, Javi, ____, and ____. They spent a good while preparing the square sail for our trip – they had to weave rope through holes at the bottom, attach a wooden beam to the top, adjust the angle of the main beam, roll up the sail because it was a windy day, etc. The “etc.” is maybe five more things that I have forgotten. Luisa explained that every single rope (and there are many) in the boat has a specific name, even the ties to hold up the rolls of the shortened sail. This vocabulary, this nautical language, is being lost, since nobody uses traditional sailboats anymore. BUT THEY SHOULD. It was a wild ride. When we got out to the Ria, we made for open sea, and the wind was strong! There were eight of us in the boat, and we were almost always all perched on one side of the boat, trying to keep it from filling with water on the other side. The waves soaked us in minutes, especially Luisa, who was lying down at the bow and stood up dripping. She combated hypothermia with the contents of a leather wine flask, which was passed around; the men talked about other people’s boats; there was laughter and contemplative silence (ooh, here is something pretty to think about in contemplative silence at sea: my friend Mary at the AIP in Germany thinks of humans, and anything else physical, as “ripples in matter” -- !!!). Four hours later, after having navigated through the bateas (rafts where clams are raised on big hanging ropes) and won a race back to the dock against a modern sailboat, we stepped on dry land. Terrible. I was ready to move in. I am so grateful to this group of total strangers who let me ride with them in the boat that they built. I raved about them to Monika, at whose apartment I stayed that night, and felt like a gas-guzzling cheater the next morning on the ferry to the Islas Cies. But now I’m here in Juan’s tent, relaxed and watching the sky darken, and – a vampire insect is trying to suck my blood aiiiie. Life is good.
After much hand-wringing (making decisions is not one of my strong suits), I’ve decided that my next stop will be Muros, which is farther north than I expected to go so soon. But time is flying (ha . . . ha). I’m meeting my German friend Asmus in Santiago on the 23rd, and after the big festival on the 25th, we’ll go to the city of Villagarcia, two rias up from Vigo. I figure that I can finish up my time in the Rias Bajas then and move on to the Costa de Muerte – Muros is my middle-point between the two.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A busy few days (Vigo, Spain)
Oh, mensch! I have been a busy woman this week! On Monday afternoon I did end up meeting with Francisco (who has been promoted from “brother of a friend of a friend” to “friend” – shooting up the ranks!), and he gave me the royal tour of the Vigo port. He works in the Port Authority, so he didn’t just know the names of things, but also numbers that were attached to them (e.g. “All of the cars on this dock are made by the Citroen factory here in Vigo, which produced 250,000 cars in 2008, 80% of which were shipped through here.”). Ouch, that parenthetical note makes the tour sound mind-numbingly boring, but no! It was fascinating! The port (the largest in Galicia and eighth or ninth largest in Spain) has so much flowing through it every single day. We saw:
- refrigerated buildings that hold fruit, like big grapes from Chile, on its way into the country
- giant cubes of rock waiting to be exported (pink and gray Galician granite) and imported (greenish-black, dark pink, and deep gray rocks from places like Finland, India, or Brazil)
- large hills of Galician salt, which is used to make a supersaturated saline solution that is taken aboard the large tuna fishing vessels to preserve the tuna in the holds after it is caught
- wind turbine parts (Galicia produces the most wind energy of all of the Spanish Autonomous Communities)
- dry cement reservoirs and trucks being loaded with the powder
- aluminum ingots (lots of, and very shiny)
- various kinds of wood
- and one dock full of containers (5000 of them, Francisco told me).
At the fishing docks we saw boats of all sizes, including tuna ships, which are grand, beautiful, high-tech things. There are several lonjas in the Vigo ports. The most impressive of them is the Gran Lonja, where fish from all over the world are sold. The auction takes place in the wee hours of the morning (I was told to arrive at 4:00 if I want to see the ships unloading and the fish being labeled – oh absolutely sure! I want to see everything) and fills a room . . . I don’t even know how big it is. It’s enormous. Probably the size of a small country. There are separate lonjas for mollusks and non-fish catch, and there’s another lonja for the local fish.
We passed ships that had been impounded for drug trafficking, and ships that were being repaired, and ships that were being built, and ships that were being painted . . . And while we were looking at the ships, an interesting bit of physics came up! Since the salinity and temperature of water affects its density (saltier and colder = denser) and therefore the buoyancy it can provide, ships will sit lower or higher in the water in different regions of the world. There is something called a Plimson (sp?) disk which is painted onto the side of a ship (we saw these on the grand, beautiful, high-tech tuna ships) so that the people know how much they can load onto it. It looks like a circle with two horizontal lines, the top one labeled “E” for equatorial and the bottom one labeled “R” for something else, but we couldn’t figure out what. If a ship is traveling to a region with denser water from a region with less dense water, it can be loaded up more that it would normally be allowed to, because once it gets to the new region, it will sit higher up. The same things (salinity, temperature) affect the magnitudes of tides! Wooooowoow!
The port as I am seeing it is not the port as it was two years ago. The international economic crisis has caused port activity to decrease by 44%, and the city’s metalworkers have been striking for several months now, which is taking its toll on shipbuilding companies (they are losing current jobs and future business). But I still think a whole lot is going on, and I find myself wanting to understand it all! Ports are complicated creatures.
On Tuesday I had an excellent experience with the Spanish medical system (I’m not sick; wanted to know if I should worry about my moles because I’d much rather die by asteroid or alien invasion than of undiagnosed skin cancer). Zoulaikha, my immensely kind CouchSurfing host (also promoted to “friend”), took me to the medical office in the morning, where we went up to the receptionist. I told him that I was an American tourist, and that I had international health insurance; he scowled at me and my international health insurance cards and told me that I wasn’t covered by the Spanish national plan (which is free for everyone! but slow-moving for non-urgent conditions). I must have looked devastated when he told me how much an appointment would cost, because he softened up a bit. “Okay, I’ll tell you what,” he said. “You know a man named Juan Toro Fernandez?” I said no, and then realized that it wasn’t a question (he probably thought, “IDIOT.”). “He’s your brother. When you come here for your appointment, tell the doctor that you forgot your ID and just present this receipt.” The receipt said, “Irene Toro Fernandez”, and I had an appointment at 1:00. Playing the system! At 1:00 I went back, waited just a few minutes before my turn came up, met with the smiling doctors in a private room (“I’m sorry, but I forgot my ID.” They probably thought, “IDIOT.”), and left comforted and educated. My moles and I are on speaking terms again.
In the evening I met with Tonio, the friendly man from the park, at the San Gregorio docks, and he badgered his friend Amable (who is, indeed, amable) into taking us out on his sailboat, even though one of the sails was broken and he had to use the motor the entire time. Uncomfortable -- Amable clearly didn’t want to go out, and Tonio clearly never takes no for an answer, and my presence added pressure to the situation (my presence caused the situation!). But: the ride was lovely, and Amable invited me to go for a real sail with him and a group of people who build and ride traditional Galician vessels on Thursday. Then – THEN – Tonio took me on what I thought would be a short tour of the neighborhood where he grew up. We walked to the beach at Bouzas, where we greeted his wife and children and he introduced me to the in-laws and anyone else who happened to be around as “la chiquita,” then we went along a path around the Bouzas dock, then to an art exhibit at a social club, then to watch the city’s rowing team practice, then to his church (he named all of the saints for me and told me about the processions during which they are carried down certain paths, sometimes through water), then all around his neighborhood, to his childhood home (where his sister now lives; she graciously accepted our unexpected visit), to the apartment where I’m staying, up the stairs, into the living room, where Zoulaikha and her flatmate Juan were sitting – I thought, “Hmm.” He had been talking non-stop the entire time (= four hours) – this was great, because I learned a lot about life in Vigo now and several decades ago – but I realized that he didn’t know how to stop. No pause button. Juan patiently listened to him for half an hour, and then Zoulaikha and I said, “Well, time to get empanadillas!” We parted ways with Tonio the Talker when we went downstairs. If I had recorded and transcribed Tonio’s hours-long monologue, I could publish the definitive history of the neighborhood of Bouzas in Vigo!
And then it was today! I spent the morning wandering the docks (I have snuck in several times now, and successfully communicated with a Portuguese fisherman in Spanortuguese), read in a park, and then met Francisco again. My official port authorization has failed to materialize (bureaucracy! it hates me), but it doesn’t matter – I’m going to the fish auction tomorrow at 4:30 in the morning, and if they kick me out, I’ll have seen at least a few minutes of it. Francisco took me on another wonderful excursion, this time to La Guia, a mountain/big hill (the distinction is unclear to me) topped with a small church, and then to the Monte Alba, where I wished I could fly. We listened to excellent music.
This is what I have eaten the past three days: chicken empanadillas, bacalao empanadillas, shrimp empanadillas, shellfish empanadillas, chocolate, bread, creamy cheese. Multivitamin, iron supplement. More chocolate. My tastebuds are in heaven. And I’m so glad that I have a stomach of steel. And friends! Zoulaikha, Juan and Francisco are on my List of Cherished People – I will miss them when I leave Vigo.
- refrigerated buildings that hold fruit, like big grapes from Chile, on its way into the country
- giant cubes of rock waiting to be exported (pink and gray Galician granite) and imported (greenish-black, dark pink, and deep gray rocks from places like Finland, India, or Brazil)
- large hills of Galician salt, which is used to make a supersaturated saline solution that is taken aboard the large tuna fishing vessels to preserve the tuna in the holds after it is caught
- wind turbine parts (Galicia produces the most wind energy of all of the Spanish Autonomous Communities)
- dry cement reservoirs and trucks being loaded with the powder
- aluminum ingots (lots of, and very shiny)
- various kinds of wood
- and one dock full of containers (5000 of them, Francisco told me).
At the fishing docks we saw boats of all sizes, including tuna ships, which are grand, beautiful, high-tech things. There are several lonjas in the Vigo ports. The most impressive of them is the Gran Lonja, where fish from all over the world are sold. The auction takes place in the wee hours of the morning (I was told to arrive at 4:00 if I want to see the ships unloading and the fish being labeled – oh absolutely sure! I want to see everything) and fills a room . . . I don’t even know how big it is. It’s enormous. Probably the size of a small country. There are separate lonjas for mollusks and non-fish catch, and there’s another lonja for the local fish.
We passed ships that had been impounded for drug trafficking, and ships that were being repaired, and ships that were being built, and ships that were being painted . . . And while we were looking at the ships, an interesting bit of physics came up! Since the salinity and temperature of water affects its density (saltier and colder = denser) and therefore the buoyancy it can provide, ships will sit lower or higher in the water in different regions of the world. There is something called a Plimson (sp?) disk which is painted onto the side of a ship (we saw these on the grand, beautiful, high-tech tuna ships) so that the people know how much they can load onto it. It looks like a circle with two horizontal lines, the top one labeled “E” for equatorial and the bottom one labeled “R” for something else, but we couldn’t figure out what. If a ship is traveling to a region with denser water from a region with less dense water, it can be loaded up more that it would normally be allowed to, because once it gets to the new region, it will sit higher up. The same things (salinity, temperature) affect the magnitudes of tides! Wooooowoow!
The port as I am seeing it is not the port as it was two years ago. The international economic crisis has caused port activity to decrease by 44%, and the city’s metalworkers have been striking for several months now, which is taking its toll on shipbuilding companies (they are losing current jobs and future business). But I still think a whole lot is going on, and I find myself wanting to understand it all! Ports are complicated creatures.
On Tuesday I had an excellent experience with the Spanish medical system (I’m not sick; wanted to know if I should worry about my moles because I’d much rather die by asteroid or alien invasion than of undiagnosed skin cancer). Zoulaikha, my immensely kind CouchSurfing host (also promoted to “friend”), took me to the medical office in the morning, where we went up to the receptionist. I told him that I was an American tourist, and that I had international health insurance; he scowled at me and my international health insurance cards and told me that I wasn’t covered by the Spanish national plan (which is free for everyone! but slow-moving for non-urgent conditions). I must have looked devastated when he told me how much an appointment would cost, because he softened up a bit. “Okay, I’ll tell you what,” he said. “You know a man named Juan Toro Fernandez?” I said no, and then realized that it wasn’t a question (he probably thought, “IDIOT.”). “He’s your brother. When you come here for your appointment, tell the doctor that you forgot your ID and just present this receipt.” The receipt said, “Irene Toro Fernandez”, and I had an appointment at 1:00. Playing the system! At 1:00 I went back, waited just a few minutes before my turn came up, met with the smiling doctors in a private room (“I’m sorry, but I forgot my ID.” They probably thought, “IDIOT.”), and left comforted and educated. My moles and I are on speaking terms again.
In the evening I met with Tonio, the friendly man from the park, at the San Gregorio docks, and he badgered his friend Amable (who is, indeed, amable) into taking us out on his sailboat, even though one of the sails was broken and he had to use the motor the entire time. Uncomfortable -- Amable clearly didn’t want to go out, and Tonio clearly never takes no for an answer, and my presence added pressure to the situation (my presence caused the situation!). But: the ride was lovely, and Amable invited me to go for a real sail with him and a group of people who build and ride traditional Galician vessels on Thursday. Then – THEN – Tonio took me on what I thought would be a short tour of the neighborhood where he grew up. We walked to the beach at Bouzas, where we greeted his wife and children and he introduced me to the in-laws and anyone else who happened to be around as “la chiquita,” then we went along a path around the Bouzas dock, then to an art exhibit at a social club, then to watch the city’s rowing team practice, then to his church (he named all of the saints for me and told me about the processions during which they are carried down certain paths, sometimes through water), then all around his neighborhood, to his childhood home (where his sister now lives; she graciously accepted our unexpected visit), to the apartment where I’m staying, up the stairs, into the living room, where Zoulaikha and her flatmate Juan were sitting – I thought, “Hmm.” He had been talking non-stop the entire time (= four hours) – this was great, because I learned a lot about life in Vigo now and several decades ago – but I realized that he didn’t know how to stop. No pause button. Juan patiently listened to him for half an hour, and then Zoulaikha and I said, “Well, time to get empanadillas!” We parted ways with Tonio the Talker when we went downstairs. If I had recorded and transcribed Tonio’s hours-long monologue, I could publish the definitive history of the neighborhood of Bouzas in Vigo!
And then it was today! I spent the morning wandering the docks (I have snuck in several times now, and successfully communicated with a Portuguese fisherman in Spanortuguese), read in a park, and then met Francisco again. My official port authorization has failed to materialize (bureaucracy! it hates me), but it doesn’t matter – I’m going to the fish auction tomorrow at 4:30 in the morning, and if they kick me out, I’ll have seen at least a few minutes of it. Francisco took me on another wonderful excursion, this time to La Guia, a mountain/big hill (the distinction is unclear to me) topped with a small church, and then to the Monte Alba, where I wished I could fly. We listened to excellent music.
This is what I have eaten the past three days: chicken empanadillas, bacalao empanadillas, shrimp empanadillas, shellfish empanadillas, chocolate, bread, creamy cheese. Multivitamin, iron supplement. More chocolate. My tastebuds are in heaven. And I’m so glad that I have a stomach of steel. And friends! Zoulaikha, Juan and Francisco are on my List of Cherished People – I will miss them when I leave Vigo.
Monday, July 6, 2009
A lucky streak (Vigo, Spain)
This will be a one-paragraph update! This weekend I walked hours on end, to the distant parts of Vigo and back along along rivers and parks, and visited two museums, the MARCO (Museo de Arte Contemporanea) and Verbum, the House of Words, which underwhelmed me (I spent two whole hours there, though, trying to suck everything I could from my 3-Euro entry price). At the MARCO there were two main exhibits, both excellent. The first floor was filled with concrete breakwaters, and everything was left as it was when the workers had finished, so I walked on crinkly plastic tarp, around ladders and rolls of tape and wooden crates, past scratched walls. I liked it. The second floor was a collection of work from various artists, all about culture, identity, nationality, those kinds of words. My favorite exhibit was a documentary video by a Polish artist, who put in the same room a group of elderly Catholic women, a group of young Neonazis, a group of young Jewish people, and a group of young liberal political activists, and told them to express themselves with the materials at hand. They used large pieces of paper, paint, tape, fire, everything they could to display their own opinions and react to those of others (they could change the others´ artwork). I was sitting on the edge of my seat the entire time; very tense. Over the course of four meetings, the groups yelled at each other, covered their ears, walked out, barged in, and very creatively and symbolically manipulated what others had done to ´win´ the opinion expression game.
Okay, two paragraphs, but this one will just be to say that I´m having the best luck with people, again. Yesterday I sat in a park with all of my bags, waiting to move to my next CouchSurfer´s apartment, and a man and his wife started talking to me (now I don´t even have to initiate conversations!)(well, I guess when I look 100% like a tourist I don´t). After I explained what I was doing, the man said, ´But I suppose that you don´t actually want to go to sea?´ I said, ´What? Of course I do!´ He has a good friend with a big sailboat, and he invited me to go sailing with him around the ria and to nearby islands. !!! I´m meeting with them on the docks tomorrow. (They also told me that if I couldn´t find anywhere else to stay, I should call them, and ditto if I needed anything, anything at all.) And this afternoon I am meeting with Francisco, the brother of a friend of a friend, who works in the Port Authority and is working on getting me permission to be on the docks this week! Amazing! The CouchSurfers I have stayed with are very generous and friendly, and every time I ride a bus an old woman chats me up. I like this place.
Tomorrow the docks! Maybe even this afternoon!
Okay, two paragraphs, but this one will just be to say that I´m having the best luck with people, again. Yesterday I sat in a park with all of my bags, waiting to move to my next CouchSurfer´s apartment, and a man and his wife started talking to me (now I don´t even have to initiate conversations!)(well, I guess when I look 100% like a tourist I don´t). After I explained what I was doing, the man said, ´But I suppose that you don´t actually want to go to sea?´ I said, ´What? Of course I do!´ He has a good friend with a big sailboat, and he invited me to go sailing with him around the ria and to nearby islands. !!! I´m meeting with them on the docks tomorrow. (They also told me that if I couldn´t find anywhere else to stay, I should call them, and ditto if I needed anything, anything at all.) And this afternoon I am meeting with Francisco, the brother of a friend of a friend, who works in the Port Authority and is working on getting me permission to be on the docks this week! Amazing! The CouchSurfers I have stayed with are very generous and friendly, and every time I ride a bus an old woman chats me up. I like this place.
Tomorrow the docks! Maybe even this afternoon!
Friday, July 3, 2009
A feast and a new city (Baiona and Vigo, Spain)
Yesterday I went to the docks earlier than usual, because I had a goal that would be difficult to achieve: I wanted to ask Juan Jose if he would take me on his boat the next morning (at 5:00 am!). I felt uncomfortable, because I knew that it was a huge favor to ask and also because, I noticed immediately, I´d have an audience of about seven old men (the retired fishermen come to the docks to help the fishermen who are still working -- a lovely community) whose eyebrows would surely shoot up -- I am, to them, such a GIRL. Lifting heavy things might damage me, as might strong waves or the sight of dying fish. But really: I´d probably be a nuisance at the very least, another responsibility, and a danger at the worst if I got in the way of something. After hanging out for a while and chatting with another Juan Jose (all three men cleaning the hooks were Juan Jose; Juan Jose #1 goes by Galo, Juan Jose #2 goes by Ge-ge, and I never caught Juan Jose #3´s nickname), I finally asked Galo if I could go fishing with him. No! he said. It is against the law and he would be fined: he can´t even take his son with him. Alas! But the explanation made me feel better. I wonder how to get around this in the future . . .
However, Ge-ge (pronounced ´Heh-heh´) told me that he and a friend were going to go collect clams later, and did I want to come? Of course!! His friend ended up staying behind for a doctor´s appointment, but Ge-ge and I got into a little rowboat and he expertly steered us to another dock, were we tied up the boat and got off. We went around looking for clusters of clams on the underwater metal and wood, and, when we found them, he used a special metal-pronged rake with an attached basket to pry off the clusters and catch them as they drifted down. We filled the bottom of the rowboat with clams (a lot of clams!) and then went back out to the water, where we separated and cleaned them and tossed the small (lucky) ones back into the water. Messy work -- my arms and legs were covered in mud and bits of algae by the time we finished. And I kept getting distracted by other animals! Each clam shell was like a little coral reef! I picked off marine worms, sea urchins, star fish, shrimp, fish eggs (complete with little fishy eyes), something that looked like a tiny transparent centipede, sea flowers, oysters . . . Amazing. Ge-ge told me about his life as a fisherman on a tuna boat -- they would be at sea for four months, back home for two, then back to sea for four, etc. He had just come back from his last trip two weeks ago. It seems that most fishermen have done this kind of fishing for a while, at least; it is grueling work (sunup to sundown), but they can retire at 55. Also, Ge-ge told me that the sea was like a hook, and he was caught. I´m sure that the retired fishermen who come to the docks every day would say the same. When we went back to the other dock, the other two Juan Joses were waiting, and we split the clams among us. ´Take these back to your hostel-keepers and tell them to teach you how to cook them!´ Ge-ge told me. So I did!
Pura, Jorge and their daughter ______ (I think that, at first meetings, people should introduce themselves at least ten times over the course of the conversation) were in the kitchen when I got back, and I showed them my catch -- they were very impressed. I felt like such a successful hunter-gatherer. Pura of the Big Heart said that of course she´d show me how to prepare them, and she invited me to eat a late lunch with them and their other daughter, ______ (again!). We steamed the clams with seawater, took them out of their shells, and put them in a sauce made of onions, peppers, and white wine. My big grocery bag full of clams was reduced to a little plate (but a tasty little plate). And then I had lunch with the whole family! They are so wonderful! Both daughters are in their thirties and talk a lot, as does their mother; their father doesn´t talk a lot, but when he does, he talks VERY LOUDLY, and they made fun of him for that. There was a lot of laughter at the table, and a lot of good food (Pura had made meat and potatoes and rice, and we had ice cream cake for dessert -- this was all decadent to me, since I´ve been eating mostly bread and creamy cheese). They told me that now I ´knew´ them -- that I could feel at home whenever I was back.
The rest of the afternoon I spent walking to and along Playa America, which is very long and shiny. The sand is like glitter. I also passed the Rio Mino estuary, which was full of cranes and ducks and little fishies and reeking mud which had been baking in the sun and boats stuck in the reeking mud.
This morning I left Baiona -- the whole family came to say goodbye, and told me to send them a postcard when I got back to the U.S. (I warned them that it would be a while). Pura was like a mother: ´Do you want food for the trip? Let me walk you to the bus station! Are you sure you´re not forgetting anything? Be safe! Write so that we know you made it back home!´ How kind. When I got to Vigo I trekked all the way from the bus stop to the train station (I would whine but I won´t), hoping to leave my bag there for the afternoon so that I could explore -- but they don´t allow that anymore. So now I am going to explore rolling my backpack behind me! I´ll have the strongest arms in the world tomorrow.
However, Ge-ge (pronounced ´Heh-heh´) told me that he and a friend were going to go collect clams later, and did I want to come? Of course!! His friend ended up staying behind for a doctor´s appointment, but Ge-ge and I got into a little rowboat and he expertly steered us to another dock, were we tied up the boat and got off. We went around looking for clusters of clams on the underwater metal and wood, and, when we found them, he used a special metal-pronged rake with an attached basket to pry off the clusters and catch them as they drifted down. We filled the bottom of the rowboat with clams (a lot of clams!) and then went back out to the water, where we separated and cleaned them and tossed the small (lucky) ones back into the water. Messy work -- my arms and legs were covered in mud and bits of algae by the time we finished. And I kept getting distracted by other animals! Each clam shell was like a little coral reef! I picked off marine worms, sea urchins, star fish, shrimp, fish eggs (complete with little fishy eyes), something that looked like a tiny transparent centipede, sea flowers, oysters . . . Amazing. Ge-ge told me about his life as a fisherman on a tuna boat -- they would be at sea for four months, back home for two, then back to sea for four, etc. He had just come back from his last trip two weeks ago. It seems that most fishermen have done this kind of fishing for a while, at least; it is grueling work (sunup to sundown), but they can retire at 55. Also, Ge-ge told me that the sea was like a hook, and he was caught. I´m sure that the retired fishermen who come to the docks every day would say the same. When we went back to the other dock, the other two Juan Joses were waiting, and we split the clams among us. ´Take these back to your hostel-keepers and tell them to teach you how to cook them!´ Ge-ge told me. So I did!
Pura, Jorge and their daughter ______ (I think that, at first meetings, people should introduce themselves at least ten times over the course of the conversation) were in the kitchen when I got back, and I showed them my catch -- they were very impressed. I felt like such a successful hunter-gatherer. Pura of the Big Heart said that of course she´d show me how to prepare them, and she invited me to eat a late lunch with them and their other daughter, ______ (again!). We steamed the clams with seawater, took them out of their shells, and put them in a sauce made of onions, peppers, and white wine. My big grocery bag full of clams was reduced to a little plate (but a tasty little plate). And then I had lunch with the whole family! They are so wonderful! Both daughters are in their thirties and talk a lot, as does their mother; their father doesn´t talk a lot, but when he does, he talks VERY LOUDLY, and they made fun of him for that. There was a lot of laughter at the table, and a lot of good food (Pura had made meat and potatoes and rice, and we had ice cream cake for dessert -- this was all decadent to me, since I´ve been eating mostly bread and creamy cheese). They told me that now I ´knew´ them -- that I could feel at home whenever I was back.
The rest of the afternoon I spent walking to and along Playa America, which is very long and shiny. The sand is like glitter. I also passed the Rio Mino estuary, which was full of cranes and ducks and little fishies and reeking mud which had been baking in the sun and boats stuck in the reeking mud.
This morning I left Baiona -- the whole family came to say goodbye, and told me to send them a postcard when I got back to the U.S. (I warned them that it would be a while). Pura was like a mother: ´Do you want food for the trip? Let me walk you to the bus station! Are you sure you´re not forgetting anything? Be safe! Write so that we know you made it back home!´ How kind. When I got to Vigo I trekked all the way from the bus stop to the train station (I would whine but I won´t), hoping to leave my bag there for the afternoon so that I could explore -- but they don´t allow that anymore. So now I am going to explore rolling my backpack behind me! I´ll have the strongest arms in the world tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
A boat ride! (Baiona, Spain)
Yesterday I met the kindest, most generous person in the history of kind and generous people (this seems to be happening to me every two or three days -- in addition to learning gallons and buckets about fishing, I´m renewing my faith in my species). After talking a bit with a more-reticent-than-the-day-before Juan Jose, I wandered to another boat, where one man gave monosyllabic replies to my questions (they may have been grunts). Shucks. A bad luck day. But no! False! It was a great luck day! Roberto, who was standing next to the grunter, noticed my difficulty and started talking to me while he sorted nets -- octopus season starts on Monday and most net fishermen are putting away their nets and preparing the octopus cages. Roberto told me all sorts of things: how climate changes were affecting fishing (e.g. the winds are blowing from the south instead of the north, as they should, so nutrients from northern waters aren´t reaching the southern oceans and fishing is bad), how marine life can tell you when a storm is coming (octopi sit atop the cages instead of going inside them and cover themselves with rocks, dolphins leap a lot when the wind blows from the north, moon fish come to the surface), when certain fish were more valuable and why (faneca, e.g., tastes better in January and winter months, because they are carrying their eggs), what kinds of fishing I´d find where and places I should not miss, and when. ´Todo tiene su epoca,´ he said -- everything has its season.
Then! Then he took me on his boat! He had said, ´Oh, but you must go on a boat at some point!´ and I must have salivated or something, wagged my tail, because a few minutes later, after letting me help him clean out his boat (we carried sodden ropes and buoys and crates and rocks up to his storage room in the second story of the lonja), he said, ´Hop on.´ Aaaagagshaklfjadsf. We rode around for an hour, and he let me steer, and told me about navigating in the golden olden days (by land shapes -- ´Aah, yes, when that mountain has this profile and that other hill looks like that, I am here!´) and navigating now (´What does my GPS tell me?´). He told me where there were rocks and what was hidden by the tide. We went close to the rafts where clams -- clams? oysters? -- are raised and watched men shoveling them into boxes. This was a calm day, he reminded me over and over again when I lost my balance or got sprayed by a wave. It was wonderful! I am infinitely grateful to Roberto for that boat ride!
Today I tried hanging around the docks again, but there´s so little action! Most boats are being repaired in preparation for octopus season, and even the old men who lean against the railing and stare out at sea were absent. I wanted to ask Juan Jose if I could go out with him one morning or afternoon, but he was nowhere to be found. Alas! I´ll go back in a few hours for the fish auction, but there will be few people at that.
I have places to stay for my first four days in Vigo (thanks, CouchSurfing! more kind strangers!), and I plan to go camping in the Islas Cies not this weekend, but the weekend after that. I hope that they don´t require me to have a tent. I like to sleep under the stars -- and I don´t have a tent. We´ll see.
I´m reading a book about oceanography. Very interesting!
And I´m out of time!
Then! Then he took me on his boat! He had said, ´Oh, but you must go on a boat at some point!´ and I must have salivated or something, wagged my tail, because a few minutes later, after letting me help him clean out his boat (we carried sodden ropes and buoys and crates and rocks up to his storage room in the second story of the lonja), he said, ´Hop on.´ Aaaagagshaklfjadsf. We rode around for an hour, and he let me steer, and told me about navigating in the golden olden days (by land shapes -- ´Aah, yes, when that mountain has this profile and that other hill looks like that, I am here!´) and navigating now (´What does my GPS tell me?´). He told me where there were rocks and what was hidden by the tide. We went close to the rafts where clams -- clams? oysters? -- are raised and watched men shoveling them into boxes. This was a calm day, he reminded me over and over again when I lost my balance or got sprayed by a wave. It was wonderful! I am infinitely grateful to Roberto for that boat ride!
Today I tried hanging around the docks again, but there´s so little action! Most boats are being repaired in preparation for octopus season, and even the old men who lean against the railing and stare out at sea were absent. I wanted to ask Juan Jose if I could go out with him one morning or afternoon, but he was nowhere to be found. Alas! I´ll go back in a few hours for the fish auction, but there will be few people at that.
I have places to stay for my first four days in Vigo (thanks, CouchSurfing! more kind strangers!), and I plan to go camping in the Islas Cies not this weekend, but the weekend after that. I hope that they don´t require me to have a tent. I like to sleep under the stars -- and I don´t have a tent. We´ll see.
I´m reading a book about oceanography. Very interesting!
And I´m out of time!
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