Well shucks. EXPLETIVES. It's Thursday night and I'm not on a ship. The Pina Ladre never came into port tonight -- its equipment broke and it stayed at sea. That should teach me to use the word "psyched"! Juuust kidding (really) -- it should teach me that the sea is fickle and the life of the fisherman unpredictable. I asked three other ship owners if I could go to sea on their ships, but they said, reasonably and not unkindly, "Not without a permit you don't!" And the people I had met yesterday night and early this morning were so nice to me. Francisco and others were the ones who pointed out the other ship owners and said, "What's another rejection? See that man? He owns that ship. He's a good guy. Go ask him."
I have a Plan B (suggested by Francisco): Tomorrow I will take a bus to a nearby fish farm owned by Pescanova and learn about pisciculture! The last time I tried visiting a fish farm, in Camarinhas, I was kicked out (they told me to go get a permit in a town about an hour away) -- perhaps they are less paranoid here. And in the evening I am going on a date with myself to the movies to watch a Swedish thriller. I might even invite myself to an overpriced bag of popcorn to hide behind when I get scared. Maybe my hands will accidentally touch when I'm reaching in the bag -- how cute.
Now I will try to sleep (my body is thinking, "What?"). I'll try to dream about being at sea!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Aaaaaaaghdf;lahdf;lkyjfasdf!!! (Viveiro, Spain)
I'm writing this a little past noon -- in ten hours I will be at sea on a boat, embarking on a twenty-something hour fishing excursion! Whoa! Aaah! Thrilling! adflajdpfoiuare;lkjfasdf. This post will probably be short and possibly incoherent, since I went to sleep just a few hours ago (my first post-college all-nighter!) and, according to my Master Plan, am not even supposed to be awake right now. In a perfect world, a world in which Master Plans are followed, I would stay up all night again tonight to be able to witness every activity aboard the ship; in order to do that, I need to be well-rested. Alas! Imperfect world! We'll see how long I last on the boat. Maybe I have vast reserves of adrenaline, like Alaska with its oil, and I can tap them unsustainably.
The past two days have been eventful, as you may have gathered by now. Well, no -- the past two nights have been eventful. I arrived to Viveiro on Tuesday evening (already a change in my itinerary! I could find exactly zero cheap pensions in Carinho), and that night, after exploring the old town, happened across preparations for a concert in the main plaza. Wonderful! I sat in the same spot for four hours, watching people pass me by before the music started, and then watching people dance and nod their heads after the music started, and felt pretty lucky to be alive and human. The music was great (pronounced "ga-rate!", with exclamation point) -- a fusion of folk (bagpipe and fiddle), jazz (saxophone and drums), and Caribbean rhythms, so people weren't sure whether to sway or shake their hips or folk dance. I tapped my foot and patted my knees with my hands -- classic solution to the which-dance? problem.
The next day, despite my steely determination to sleep in, I woke up early and walked to the port, which is enormous and technically in Celeiro, the next (tiny) town over -- a forty-minute walk from my pension, which is, as I'm learning many cheap pensions are, far away from the Places I Want to Be. It's called Pension Martinez, though, so, like the Restaurante Martinez, has an automatic 4-star rating. There was little happening at the docks -- not a single fisherman! -- so I wandered around Celeiro for a while, enchanted by the narrow streets and grape vines growing over tool shed roofs and countless (actually probably countable, because it is a tiny town) abandoned and decrepit buildings that looked older than most of the abandoned and decrepit buildings I'd seen so far. The towns, Viveiro and Celeiro, and the region itself, feel different from everywhere else I've been in Galicia, but, aside from the obvious differences in location, landscape, and history, I couldn't tell you how. I love the intangible qualities that make each place unique, that make the Galician coast seem to span several countries that just happen to share a language and culture. (That may not have made sense, but smile and nod for now. Remember: I am running on little more than the chocolate I had for breakfast.)
I had been told to go back to the docks at around eight, when the trawling boats that go out daily come into port and their fish is auctioned, so that is what I did! In fact, the boats arrived closer to nine, by which time I had accumulated enough boldness to walk up to the owner of two ships and say, "Hello! Excuse me!" And that was all I said, because he immediately responded, "Let me guess: You want to see the inside of the ship." Mind-reader! I said, "Yes!!!" and he called the nearest ship's captain over. Francisco, the captain, gave me a world-class tour of the ship -- a big ship (perhaps 25 meters long?) -- and explained how the nets worked (the boats go out in pairs and string a gigantic net between them), showed me where the fish were cleaned and stored, briefly led me through the loud engine room, and then took me to the bridge (I think that this is what it's called -- the window-walled room with the steering joysticks and so much more), where he described in detail the computer technology that makes navigating these days so much easier than a few years ago. "But this is a poorly equipped vessel!" he said. "See that ship over there? It's brand-new, just five years old, and has state-of-the-art technology. I know the owner. Want me to introduce you to him?" Mind-reader! I said, "Yes!!!"
Jose, the owner of this larger (over thirty meters long and eight wide) and noticeably higher-tech ship, told me to wait for a while -- the fish had to be unloaded before we could board without getting in the way. Then -- THEN -- we went aboard, and I had the longest and most intense question-and-answer session of my life (and I was the questioner!). Jose is intimidatingly intense, but I held up my own against his piercing continuous eye contact and pretty soon he started giving me more than simple explanations about the functioning of the ship and the lives of the people aboard it. The technology is impressive indeed! My goodness gracious me! At any given moment, he can see: the exact shape of the ocean floor, the weather and wind forecasts, currents, any objects around him (if they are ships, he knows which ship it is, in which direction it's headed and how fast), shoals of different kinds of fish, the positioning of the net and how much fish has been caught in it already, the period of the waves, the meaning of life -- you name it. Just about the only thing that the technology can't do is tell you exactly where to find fish; for that, he told me, you need a "sense of smell" (which he apparently has). He explained that they fished in a certain zone in the summer and another in winter, both near the place where the ocean floor drops off into the deep, and, at the end of the long conversation, when I finally managed to tell him what my project was about (he's a talker), immediately exhibited prodigious knowledge about every natural cycle that could affect fishing.
Some of the information was not new -- migrations, spawning -- but some things I had never heard before! For instance: the power of the moon. Until now, I have always linked the moon to the tides, and hadn't heard a thing about how it affects fishing far from the coast. Jose assured me that it does, and most dramatically. When the moon is full, certain kinds of fish rise to the surface, thinking it is day (or at least sensing that it is light), and others sink farther into the depths, taking advantage of the greater visibility to feed in more richer zones. Other species behave differently when the moon is waxing than when it is waning, although I didn't understand why this was (what factors other than amount of light?). Well, those two sentences surely don't do justice to the moon's role in fishing (which is more obvious on the coast, where the magnitude of the tides changes over the course of the lunar cycle and also over the course of the year -- when the Earth is closer to the Sun, the tides are greater), but I was thrilled that these were connections that the captain of a state-of-the-art ship had made. Jose also told me that many fish populations follow a four- or five-year cycle -- after one good fishing year, there are usually three or four bad fishing years before the next abundance -- but he couldn't explain why. His closing remark on natural cycles was: "Even with all of this technology, we're still subject to the exact same things that our forefathers two hundred years ago were subject to" -- those things being the patterns and whims of nature.
I had one last question for Jose, and asked it in characteristic awkward form: "Jose -- I have a question to ask -- butpleasedon'tfeelobligatedtosayyes -- it'sreallyokayifyousayno -- okayhere'sthequestion: do you think that I could go out with you on the boat tomorrow night?" He didn't say, "Yes!!!" but he did say, "Yes," stressing that there was going to be bad weather (I promised that I don't get seasick -- I am pretty sure that this is true) and I wouldn't see the boat or ten-man crew working at its prime. No worries! I get to see them working! Sub-prime or not, it's so exciting! The boat leaves at around 10:00 pm each night and comes in the following evening -- probably 8:00ish on Friday, Jose told me. Almost a full day in the open sea! I almost skipped away.
I wanted to see the large boats come in at around 2:00 am, so I decided to walk back to Viveiro to watch another open-air concert in the main plaza (there are concerts every night for two weeks). This time it was rock -- a group called Burning, which has been around for decades -- and I sat, as I had the night before, alone in a crowd of couples and families. Sob. But: miracle! The empathetic capabilities of children! Out of the blue, an adorable little boy came and sat next to me on my step. I said, "Hi!" and he said, "Hi! What's your name?" His sister joined us soon afterward, and I spent the next hour or so getting to know Jorge and Marta, who are six and eight, respectively, dancing with them, and waging sunflower seed war against them. They are from Madrid. Jorge's best friend's name is Victor. Marta's best friend's name is Celia. Jorge thought the music was too loud. Marta plays the flute and thinks English is hard. She asked me what my mother's name was. Instant intimacy. They were the most delightful children I have ever met. They were like miniature versions of adults (except for the sunflower seed wars), complete with typical Spanish hand gestures combined with the appropriate meaningful eyebrow movements, and I couldn't stop laughing. Once again, and in the same place, I felt pretty lucky to be alive and human. I met their parents, also extraordinarily open and friendly people, who told me that they couldn't get their children to shut up or stop engaging strangers in conversations (this with big smiles on their faces), and -- ugh. The world is full of such good people! I hope that Jorge and Marta have beautiful lives.
When the concert was over, I walked back to the docks (the walk was scarier each time I made it, because the street was darker and more deserted), and spent the next four and a half hours in a zombie-like daze, watching boats that had been out at sea for two weeks unload their cargo and occasionally talking to a worker or to the director of the lonja, who was bent on making me feel as comfortable as possible. It was interesting to see the boats unload, and less interesting to watch the 5:00 am auction, which was exactly like every other auction I've seen (if at a larger lonja than most, and spread out in four separate halls). The main reason I stayed at the lonja all night was so that I would be able to sleep today and stay up again tonight. FAILED PLAN. Perhaps I'll manage to conk out this afternoon after posting this.
Or maybe I am just too psyched (I haven't used that word in so long! it is a great word!) about the upcoming boat trip. I hope that watching the fish die isn't too traumatic an experience. That's something I've been meaning to write about: desensitization to fish death. But it will have to be another day. My "probably short" post has turned into a chapter, and I doubt anyone has been able to read this far. What's an appropriately nautical way to end this post? Thar she blows! Land ho! Yaaaargh! Thus shall I speak tonight.
The past two days have been eventful, as you may have gathered by now. Well, no -- the past two nights have been eventful. I arrived to Viveiro on Tuesday evening (already a change in my itinerary! I could find exactly zero cheap pensions in Carinho), and that night, after exploring the old town, happened across preparations for a concert in the main plaza. Wonderful! I sat in the same spot for four hours, watching people pass me by before the music started, and then watching people dance and nod their heads after the music started, and felt pretty lucky to be alive and human. The music was great (pronounced "ga-rate!", with exclamation point) -- a fusion of folk (bagpipe and fiddle), jazz (saxophone and drums), and Caribbean rhythms, so people weren't sure whether to sway or shake their hips or folk dance. I tapped my foot and patted my knees with my hands -- classic solution to the which-dance? problem.
The next day, despite my steely determination to sleep in, I woke up early and walked to the port, which is enormous and technically in Celeiro, the next (tiny) town over -- a forty-minute walk from my pension, which is, as I'm learning many cheap pensions are, far away from the Places I Want to Be. It's called Pension Martinez, though, so, like the Restaurante Martinez, has an automatic 4-star rating. There was little happening at the docks -- not a single fisherman! -- so I wandered around Celeiro for a while, enchanted by the narrow streets and grape vines growing over tool shed roofs and countless (actually probably countable, because it is a tiny town) abandoned and decrepit buildings that looked older than most of the abandoned and decrepit buildings I'd seen so far. The towns, Viveiro and Celeiro, and the region itself, feel different from everywhere else I've been in Galicia, but, aside from the obvious differences in location, landscape, and history, I couldn't tell you how. I love the intangible qualities that make each place unique, that make the Galician coast seem to span several countries that just happen to share a language and culture. (That may not have made sense, but smile and nod for now. Remember: I am running on little more than the chocolate I had for breakfast.)
I had been told to go back to the docks at around eight, when the trawling boats that go out daily come into port and their fish is auctioned, so that is what I did! In fact, the boats arrived closer to nine, by which time I had accumulated enough boldness to walk up to the owner of two ships and say, "Hello! Excuse me!" And that was all I said, because he immediately responded, "Let me guess: You want to see the inside of the ship." Mind-reader! I said, "Yes!!!" and he called the nearest ship's captain over. Francisco, the captain, gave me a world-class tour of the ship -- a big ship (perhaps 25 meters long?) -- and explained how the nets worked (the boats go out in pairs and string a gigantic net between them), showed me where the fish were cleaned and stored, briefly led me through the loud engine room, and then took me to the bridge (I think that this is what it's called -- the window-walled room with the steering joysticks and so much more), where he described in detail the computer technology that makes navigating these days so much easier than a few years ago. "But this is a poorly equipped vessel!" he said. "See that ship over there? It's brand-new, just five years old, and has state-of-the-art technology. I know the owner. Want me to introduce you to him?" Mind-reader! I said, "Yes!!!"
Jose, the owner of this larger (over thirty meters long and eight wide) and noticeably higher-tech ship, told me to wait for a while -- the fish had to be unloaded before we could board without getting in the way. Then -- THEN -- we went aboard, and I had the longest and most intense question-and-answer session of my life (and I was the questioner!). Jose is intimidatingly intense, but I held up my own against his piercing continuous eye contact and pretty soon he started giving me more than simple explanations about the functioning of the ship and the lives of the people aboard it. The technology is impressive indeed! My goodness gracious me! At any given moment, he can see: the exact shape of the ocean floor, the weather and wind forecasts, currents, any objects around him (if they are ships, he knows which ship it is, in which direction it's headed and how fast), shoals of different kinds of fish, the positioning of the net and how much fish has been caught in it already, the period of the waves, the meaning of life -- you name it. Just about the only thing that the technology can't do is tell you exactly where to find fish; for that, he told me, you need a "sense of smell" (which he apparently has). He explained that they fished in a certain zone in the summer and another in winter, both near the place where the ocean floor drops off into the deep, and, at the end of the long conversation, when I finally managed to tell him what my project was about (he's a talker), immediately exhibited prodigious knowledge about every natural cycle that could affect fishing.
Some of the information was not new -- migrations, spawning -- but some things I had never heard before! For instance: the power of the moon. Until now, I have always linked the moon to the tides, and hadn't heard a thing about how it affects fishing far from the coast. Jose assured me that it does, and most dramatically. When the moon is full, certain kinds of fish rise to the surface, thinking it is day (or at least sensing that it is light), and others sink farther into the depths, taking advantage of the greater visibility to feed in more richer zones. Other species behave differently when the moon is waxing than when it is waning, although I didn't understand why this was (what factors other than amount of light?). Well, those two sentences surely don't do justice to the moon's role in fishing (which is more obvious on the coast, where the magnitude of the tides changes over the course of the lunar cycle and also over the course of the year -- when the Earth is closer to the Sun, the tides are greater), but I was thrilled that these were connections that the captain of a state-of-the-art ship had made. Jose also told me that many fish populations follow a four- or five-year cycle -- after one good fishing year, there are usually three or four bad fishing years before the next abundance -- but he couldn't explain why. His closing remark on natural cycles was: "Even with all of this technology, we're still subject to the exact same things that our forefathers two hundred years ago were subject to" -- those things being the patterns and whims of nature.
I had one last question for Jose, and asked it in characteristic awkward form: "Jose -- I have a question to ask -- butpleasedon'tfeelobligatedtosayyes -- it'sreallyokayifyousayno -- okayhere'sthequestion: do you think that I could go out with you on the boat tomorrow night?" He didn't say, "Yes!!!" but he did say, "Yes," stressing that there was going to be bad weather (I promised that I don't get seasick -- I am pretty sure that this is true) and I wouldn't see the boat or ten-man crew working at its prime. No worries! I get to see them working! Sub-prime or not, it's so exciting! The boat leaves at around 10:00 pm each night and comes in the following evening -- probably 8:00ish on Friday, Jose told me. Almost a full day in the open sea! I almost skipped away.
I wanted to see the large boats come in at around 2:00 am, so I decided to walk back to Viveiro to watch another open-air concert in the main plaza (there are concerts every night for two weeks). This time it was rock -- a group called Burning, which has been around for decades -- and I sat, as I had the night before, alone in a crowd of couples and families. Sob. But: miracle! The empathetic capabilities of children! Out of the blue, an adorable little boy came and sat next to me on my step. I said, "Hi!" and he said, "Hi! What's your name?" His sister joined us soon afterward, and I spent the next hour or so getting to know Jorge and Marta, who are six and eight, respectively, dancing with them, and waging sunflower seed war against them. They are from Madrid. Jorge's best friend's name is Victor. Marta's best friend's name is Celia. Jorge thought the music was too loud. Marta plays the flute and thinks English is hard. She asked me what my mother's name was. Instant intimacy. They were the most delightful children I have ever met. They were like miniature versions of adults (except for the sunflower seed wars), complete with typical Spanish hand gestures combined with the appropriate meaningful eyebrow movements, and I couldn't stop laughing. Once again, and in the same place, I felt pretty lucky to be alive and human. I met their parents, also extraordinarily open and friendly people, who told me that they couldn't get their children to shut up or stop engaging strangers in conversations (this with big smiles on their faces), and -- ugh. The world is full of such good people! I hope that Jorge and Marta have beautiful lives.
When the concert was over, I walked back to the docks (the walk was scarier each time I made it, because the street was darker and more deserted), and spent the next four and a half hours in a zombie-like daze, watching boats that had been out at sea for two weeks unload their cargo and occasionally talking to a worker or to the director of the lonja, who was bent on making me feel as comfortable as possible. It was interesting to see the boats unload, and less interesting to watch the 5:00 am auction, which was exactly like every other auction I've seen (if at a larger lonja than most, and spread out in four separate halls). The main reason I stayed at the lonja all night was so that I would be able to sleep today and stay up again tonight. FAILED PLAN. Perhaps I'll manage to conk out this afternoon after posting this.
Or maybe I am just too psyched (I haven't used that word in so long! it is a great word!) about the upcoming boat trip. I hope that watching the fish die isn't too traumatic an experience. That's something I've been meaning to write about: desensitization to fish death. But it will have to be another day. My "probably short" post has turned into a chapter, and I doubt anyone has been able to read this far. What's an appropriately nautical way to end this post? Thar she blows! Land ho! Yaaaargh! Thus shall I speak tonight.
Monday, August 10, 2009
A reunion with (month-and-a-half-)old friends (La Corunha, Spain)
I'm so glad that I planned to stop by La Corunha for a few days on my way east along the north-facing coast of Galicia, Asturias, and Cantabria! I'm staying with Simon, who was my one-man welcoming party when I first arrived to Galicia and with whom I spent that lovely afternoon on the coast (ancient stone dwellings, ancient burial site, long sand dune, and friends: Almudena, Sylvia, Juan, and little Giulia) long ago, when seagull cries were still novel and exhilarating. Now when I hear seagull cries I expect to see a box of dead fish nearby (association), but Simon remains extremely welcoming and kind. He, Almudena and I went walking yesterday night and had a light and very Spanish dinner at a restaurant in the older part of town, after which we came back to the apartment and, by turns, admired and chased their cute chubby rabbit, who is named either Cocky or Cookie. I hope it's Cocky.
I have seen other friends, too! I spent all of this afternoon with Guillermo, Mirela, and their children Nicolas and Nicole, at their home, where we had a very Spanish lunch (featuring olives, pimientos de padron, ham, chicken, bread, ice cream!). Guillermo is the fisherman without whose guidance I would have been totally lost at the docks; Mirela is his wife, without whose help at the early-morning fish auction I would surely have managed to get impaled by a fish hook -- an undignified death. I caught them in the middle of a move; last week they left their apartment to live in the upper floors of a storage unit at the docks, the first floor of which is Guillermo's workshop, where he was making octopus cages today. They are setting everything up themselves -- sinks, tables, shelves, kitchen -- and, during breaks, providing so much attention to their black cocker spaniel that he must be the happiest canine in the world. I like to judge families by the friendliness of their pets, and both Cocky/Cookie and little Hyperactivity Embodied (he has a much nobler name, but I've forgotten it) are excellent representatives for their respective households.
Guillermo and Oscar, the man who drove me from the lonja to their place, told me that fishing has gotten considerably worse in the past ten years. Oscar said that, five years ago, he used to catch five kilos of a certain type of fish; now he catches two kilos on a good day, and good days are few and far between. There are no fish! The type of fishing that he does, minhos, which are long rectangular nets hung vertically in the water so that fish get caught in them, has a theoretical (and legal) maximum length of net per boat. However, Oscar, and every other fisherman who has to support himself and a family, has been increasing the length of net that he puts out every year, only to catch the same amount of fish or less. Oscar attributed this diminishing catch to climate changes and, more importantly, overfishing, about which something should have been done years ago. Now, both he and Guillermo said, the only thing to be done is to wait for the sea to set its own limit; when there are no more fish to catch, the fishermen will have to stop fishing. A lose-lose situation, downward spiral, no good no good.
I haven't yet written about the rest of my stay in Malpica, which was mostly uneventful (in the most neutral sense of the word) but spattered with interesting characters, to whom I'll briefly introduce you! I spent a lot of time at the docks, mostly attending the fish and percebe auctions; at the latter I met Dona (imagine the "n" with a tilde over it) Carmen, an elderly woman who sold her two sons' percebes, and three strapping young lads, Richard, Yarmin, and Ivan, with whom she tried to set me up. Dona Carmen was initially cold towards me -- no smiles, little eye contact -- but I decided later that this was probably due to a hearing impairment; when I spoke very loudly directly into her ear, she responded immediately and with a lot of hand-patting.
Even speaking very loudly directly into her ear might not have been enough to achieve total comprehension, though, because our conversations tended towards the incoherent. For example, I might ask, "Oh, so, you have a son who lives in La Corunha! Do you get to see him a lot?" and she might respond, "I have two sons. One of them is single -- but he's good-looking. And it's not just because I'm his mother! He's a handsome chap. The other one is married, and his wife's name is Maria. But my eldest is single." Being single seemed to be a problem, because when I told her that I was single and traveling alone, she immediately recommended that I find a boyfriend. Later, when I introduced myself to Richard, Yarmin, and Ivan to ask them about their work as percebeiros, she came up to us, patted my hands, and told me, "There, see, now you've met some nice boys." The nice boys took it well. They are a few years older than I am, and have been gathering percebes as a full-time job for several years. Knowing the people who had collected the percebes made watching the auction a much tenser experience. Every time a buyer passed by one of their boxes without displaying the least bit of interest, I booed at them inside my head, which didn't help at all but made the whole affair seem a lot more like a basketball game than a transaction of goods. I was also reminded of the hardships of sea-bound livelihoods -- Richard's father had died eight months ago doing exactly what Richard does almost every day: gathering percebes.
And another anectode: Another afternoon at the docks, I met a man named Paco, who, with minimal prompting, volunteered his life story. He had been, he said, the best percebeiro in Malpica in his day -- I could ask any older person in town! -- and had fulfilled his duty as a parent by providing each of his six children with a place to live. Two of his children still lived at home, but hadn't spoken to him for three years, because he had fallen in love again four years after his wife's death. His children disapproved of the relationship because it had blossomed too soon after their mother passed away, and also because they found the age difference between their father and his new companion appalling: they are 80 and 64, respectively. (I find it so funny that this is an appalling age difference!)
But he was very much in love, and had even proposed to his "amiga" that they move in together to spend the rest of their years building a new life. She also had children, but one of her daughters had turned out "bad." I thought, "Drugs, prison . . . lesbian?!" Yes! Lesbian! Ten points for me! She was, in his words, "lisbana -- I don't know the word -- but, you know, she got together with another woman." I almost laughed out loud, because I immediately thought of a Capitol Steps sketch I heard months ago in which "Sarah Palin" lauded Dick Cheney's foreign relations experience because his daughter is Lebanese. How exciting that Paco's amiga's daughter was Lebanese, too! We talked a bit about parental love, and how it was sometimes difficult to accept that children hadn't turned out quite as expected; at some point, Paco said, "Well, everybody's different." With this he won my heart (he was halfway there already with the late romance). Also, much to my joy, he told me that the Lebanese daughter and her partner had adopted a little girl who was the apple of her grandmother's eye (and Paco's, too, I could tell). Even though the mother and Paco had trouble with the idea that the daughter's romantic partner was a woman, the family was whole. I hope that Paco's children start talking to him again, so that his family becomes whole, too.
Oof! All of these people living their lives! It makes me want to meet everyone in the world.
In other news: I think that I know where I am going to live in Mexico! More information forthcoming.
I have seen other friends, too! I spent all of this afternoon with Guillermo, Mirela, and their children Nicolas and Nicole, at their home, where we had a very Spanish lunch (featuring olives, pimientos de padron, ham, chicken, bread, ice cream!). Guillermo is the fisherman without whose guidance I would have been totally lost at the docks; Mirela is his wife, without whose help at the early-morning fish auction I would surely have managed to get impaled by a fish hook -- an undignified death. I caught them in the middle of a move; last week they left their apartment to live in the upper floors of a storage unit at the docks, the first floor of which is Guillermo's workshop, where he was making octopus cages today. They are setting everything up themselves -- sinks, tables, shelves, kitchen -- and, during breaks, providing so much attention to their black cocker spaniel that he must be the happiest canine in the world. I like to judge families by the friendliness of their pets, and both Cocky/Cookie and little Hyperactivity Embodied (he has a much nobler name, but I've forgotten it) are excellent representatives for their respective households.
Guillermo and Oscar, the man who drove me from the lonja to their place, told me that fishing has gotten considerably worse in the past ten years. Oscar said that, five years ago, he used to catch five kilos of a certain type of fish; now he catches two kilos on a good day, and good days are few and far between. There are no fish! The type of fishing that he does, minhos, which are long rectangular nets hung vertically in the water so that fish get caught in them, has a theoretical (and legal) maximum length of net per boat. However, Oscar, and every other fisherman who has to support himself and a family, has been increasing the length of net that he puts out every year, only to catch the same amount of fish or less. Oscar attributed this diminishing catch to climate changes and, more importantly, overfishing, about which something should have been done years ago. Now, both he and Guillermo said, the only thing to be done is to wait for the sea to set its own limit; when there are no more fish to catch, the fishermen will have to stop fishing. A lose-lose situation, downward spiral, no good no good.
I haven't yet written about the rest of my stay in Malpica, which was mostly uneventful (in the most neutral sense of the word) but spattered with interesting characters, to whom I'll briefly introduce you! I spent a lot of time at the docks, mostly attending the fish and percebe auctions; at the latter I met Dona (imagine the "n" with a tilde over it) Carmen, an elderly woman who sold her two sons' percebes, and three strapping young lads, Richard, Yarmin, and Ivan, with whom she tried to set me up. Dona Carmen was initially cold towards me -- no smiles, little eye contact -- but I decided later that this was probably due to a hearing impairment; when I spoke very loudly directly into her ear, she responded immediately and with a lot of hand-patting.
Even speaking very loudly directly into her ear might not have been enough to achieve total comprehension, though, because our conversations tended towards the incoherent. For example, I might ask, "Oh, so, you have a son who lives in La Corunha! Do you get to see him a lot?" and she might respond, "I have two sons. One of them is single -- but he's good-looking. And it's not just because I'm his mother! He's a handsome chap. The other one is married, and his wife's name is Maria. But my eldest is single." Being single seemed to be a problem, because when I told her that I was single and traveling alone, she immediately recommended that I find a boyfriend. Later, when I introduced myself to Richard, Yarmin, and Ivan to ask them about their work as percebeiros, she came up to us, patted my hands, and told me, "There, see, now you've met some nice boys." The nice boys took it well. They are a few years older than I am, and have been gathering percebes as a full-time job for several years. Knowing the people who had collected the percebes made watching the auction a much tenser experience. Every time a buyer passed by one of their boxes without displaying the least bit of interest, I booed at them inside my head, which didn't help at all but made the whole affair seem a lot more like a basketball game than a transaction of goods. I was also reminded of the hardships of sea-bound livelihoods -- Richard's father had died eight months ago doing exactly what Richard does almost every day: gathering percebes.
And another anectode: Another afternoon at the docks, I met a man named Paco, who, with minimal prompting, volunteered his life story. He had been, he said, the best percebeiro in Malpica in his day -- I could ask any older person in town! -- and had fulfilled his duty as a parent by providing each of his six children with a place to live. Two of his children still lived at home, but hadn't spoken to him for three years, because he had fallen in love again four years after his wife's death. His children disapproved of the relationship because it had blossomed too soon after their mother passed away, and also because they found the age difference between their father and his new companion appalling: they are 80 and 64, respectively. (I find it so funny that this is an appalling age difference!)
But he was very much in love, and had even proposed to his "amiga" that they move in together to spend the rest of their years building a new life. She also had children, but one of her daughters had turned out "bad." I thought, "Drugs, prison . . . lesbian?!" Yes! Lesbian! Ten points for me! She was, in his words, "lisbana -- I don't know the word -- but, you know, she got together with another woman." I almost laughed out loud, because I immediately thought of a Capitol Steps sketch I heard months ago in which "Sarah Palin" lauded Dick Cheney's foreign relations experience because his daughter is Lebanese. How exciting that Paco's amiga's daughter was Lebanese, too! We talked a bit about parental love, and how it was sometimes difficult to accept that children hadn't turned out quite as expected; at some point, Paco said, "Well, everybody's different." With this he won my heart (he was halfway there already with the late romance). Also, much to my joy, he told me that the Lebanese daughter and her partner had adopted a little girl who was the apple of her grandmother's eye (and Paco's, too, I could tell). Even though the mother and Paco had trouble with the idea that the daughter's romantic partner was a woman, the family was whole. I hope that Paco's children start talking to him again, so that his family becomes whole, too.
Oof! All of these people living their lives! It makes me want to meet everyone in the world.
In other news: I think that I know where I am going to live in Mexico! More information forthcoming.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
A difficult profession (Malpica, Spain)
(Once again, I wrote this last night but am posting it this morning. Soon I will go meet with Elisa and Gloria!)
Percebeiros have it rough! The barnacles they scrape from coastal rocks grow precisely where it is most difficult and dangerous to reach them -- where white-capped waves break even at low tide. At the trickiest spots or on especially windy days, the percebeiros tie ropes around their middles, which they then attach to higher ground or a strong and trusted friend; between waves, they rush down to scrape as many percebes (goose barnacles -- the Spanish term is about fifty-nine times more appealing) off the rocks as they can before the next wave hits, by which time they have (hopefully) rushed back up. In calmer areas, they still have to avoid big waves by occasionally running up to higher ground, but the rope is unnecessary. It is heart-thumping work! I got a thrill from just watching the big waves crash and break apart on the rocks from a good ten meters up the hill; the wet-suited percebeiros were getting drenched.
The work environment is one thing, but percebeiros also have fascinating work schedules! Like most Europeans, they work ten and a half months out of the year, but a mix of natural and human laws makes their work weeks vary in length from one to five days. Percebeiros can only go out at low tide, which occurs about an hour later each day (today it was at around 11:00, and tomorrow it will be at around 12:00) -- the natural law, gravity -- but they are also only allowed to gather percebes between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm -- the human law. On days that low tide occurs later than 5:00 pm, there's no work and no money. (The five-day maximum work week is also human-imposed -- weekends!)
On a shorter timescale, the rhythm of percebe-gathering varies according to the weather. Diego, a young percebeiro I met (and interrogated) at the lonja this afternoon, told me that, in good weather, there is a pattern to the waves: three or four big waves in a row are followed by a calm during which one can go down and scrape the percebes. In bad weather, there are more waves, but it's the days with neither good nor bad weather that are the most dangerous; it's easy for a percebeiro to get overly confident and be hit by a sneak-attack wave. I have been told that, every year, somebody dies gathering percebes. Diego said that the last percebe-related death in this area happened seven years ago.
Percebeiros are not all men, nor are they all young! In fact, most of the people selling percebes at the lonja yesterday evening (and this evening, though I didn't stay for the auction) were women, and several were well into their sixties. The women always work on shore, though, while the men sometimes go in boats to the nearby Islas Sisargas, and the older people work in the least dangerous places (and collect the least valuable percebes, which are still in demand and expensive!). Also, though it is not done here, percebes can be gathered underwater by divers -- these are of lower quality, because they haven't been exposed to the sun. The best percebes are, of course, the ones that are hardest to get -- crashing waves! aiiie!
And now for something percebe-unrelated: I spent a good deal of the afternoon talking with Elisa and Gloria, two net-menders who talked over each other to give me more information than I could process about the history of Malpica and other nearby ports; the effects on fishing of Spain's joining the European Union; their work on the nets; the repercussions of the Prestige oil spill; their opinions on schools being taught in Gallego instead of Spanish (they are anti); places I cannot miss in Asturias and Cantabria (I foresee more feverish poring over my guide book and maps); und so weiter. They also told me that, since the winds are going to start blowing from the north tomorrow, it's unlikely that the night ships will pull into the Malpica port in the next few days; rather, they'll take shelter in La Corunha. (This means that I can sleep later!) And Elisa offered to lend me a book on Malpica's history and a CD of new and old photos of the city -- I'm meeting them again tomorrow morning. (Not that much later, though.) Wonderful people!
Percebeiros have it rough! The barnacles they scrape from coastal rocks grow precisely where it is most difficult and dangerous to reach them -- where white-capped waves break even at low tide. At the trickiest spots or on especially windy days, the percebeiros tie ropes around their middles, which they then attach to higher ground or a strong and trusted friend; between waves, they rush down to scrape as many percebes (goose barnacles -- the Spanish term is about fifty-nine times more appealing) off the rocks as they can before the next wave hits, by which time they have (hopefully) rushed back up. In calmer areas, they still have to avoid big waves by occasionally running up to higher ground, but the rope is unnecessary. It is heart-thumping work! I got a thrill from just watching the big waves crash and break apart on the rocks from a good ten meters up the hill; the wet-suited percebeiros were getting drenched.
The work environment is one thing, but percebeiros also have fascinating work schedules! Like most Europeans, they work ten and a half months out of the year, but a mix of natural and human laws makes their work weeks vary in length from one to five days. Percebeiros can only go out at low tide, which occurs about an hour later each day (today it was at around 11:00, and tomorrow it will be at around 12:00) -- the natural law, gravity -- but they are also only allowed to gather percebes between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm -- the human law. On days that low tide occurs later than 5:00 pm, there's no work and no money. (The five-day maximum work week is also human-imposed -- weekends!)
On a shorter timescale, the rhythm of percebe-gathering varies according to the weather. Diego, a young percebeiro I met (and interrogated) at the lonja this afternoon, told me that, in good weather, there is a pattern to the waves: three or four big waves in a row are followed by a calm during which one can go down and scrape the percebes. In bad weather, there are more waves, but it's the days with neither good nor bad weather that are the most dangerous; it's easy for a percebeiro to get overly confident and be hit by a sneak-attack wave. I have been told that, every year, somebody dies gathering percebes. Diego said that the last percebe-related death in this area happened seven years ago.
Percebeiros are not all men, nor are they all young! In fact, most of the people selling percebes at the lonja yesterday evening (and this evening, though I didn't stay for the auction) were women, and several were well into their sixties. The women always work on shore, though, while the men sometimes go in boats to the nearby Islas Sisargas, and the older people work in the least dangerous places (and collect the least valuable percebes, which are still in demand and expensive!). Also, though it is not done here, percebes can be gathered underwater by divers -- these are of lower quality, because they haven't been exposed to the sun. The best percebes are, of course, the ones that are hardest to get -- crashing waves! aiiie!
And now for something percebe-unrelated: I spent a good deal of the afternoon talking with Elisa and Gloria, two net-menders who talked over each other to give me more information than I could process about the history of Malpica and other nearby ports; the effects on fishing of Spain's joining the European Union; their work on the nets; the repercussions of the Prestige oil spill; their opinions on schools being taught in Gallego instead of Spanish (they are anti); places I cannot miss in Asturias and Cantabria (I foresee more feverish poring over my guide book and maps); und so weiter. They also told me that, since the winds are going to start blowing from the north tomorrow, it's unlikely that the night ships will pull into the Malpica port in the next few days; rather, they'll take shelter in La Corunha. (This means that I can sleep later!) And Elisa offered to lend me a book on Malpica's history and a CD of new and old photos of the city -- I'm meeting them again tomorrow morning. (Not that much later, though.) Wonderful people!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
A new favorite town (Malpica, Spain)
(I wrote this last night but have internet this morning. I was just at the docks -- the night boats didn't come in! They went to La Corunha instead. Now I will go look for percebeiros along the coast!)
Oh woe! Morpheus has forsaken me! The past few nights have been somewhat sleepless (or somewhat semi-sleepless, which is even more frustrating -- lying in bed in the wee hours and drifting into and out of conscious thought processes, most of which culminate in: "Irene! You need to go to sleep!"), and tonight the wakefulness continues. Agony! I must suffer more than anyone I know. (I just finished reading "Middlemarch" -- I'm channeling Rosamond.) But don't worry -- I've decided to fight back by staying fully conscious and writing in my blog! I know. It is a pretty great idea.
I'm incredibly happy to be where I am right now! During most of this trip, my "favorite town so far" has always been the one I find myself in, for obvious reasons (I'm closest to my most recent good-hearted acquaintances). However, my stay in Camarinhas wasn't as pleasant as I had hoped it would be. I can think of several reasons for this:
1) The port was devoid of relaxed old men standing around holding fishing poles and shouting things at each other. In fact, the port was mostly "empty" when I tried to hang around and make friends. I put the word "empty" in quotation marks because there were people -- secretaries and port authority officers behind desks in the buildings, and, at the auction in the late morning, a small group of women and men who were selling their clams -- but very few of them seemed interested in answering any of my questions. Since the fishing takes place mostly at night, I only first met fishermen on Monday evening, and even then it was just one crew (an extremely friendly crew, though!). (Side note: My theory about the lack of old fisherman community is that, since the port is fairly new, and sardine fishing fairly boat-contained, retired fishermen don't have docks to go "back" to, nor are their services sought out by working fishermen.)
As I had already planned to leave on Tuesday morning (and I was a little bit desperate to), I ended up feeling that my visit to Camarinhas was largely unproductive. Positive Irene would say, "No! You did get a sense of the place! You thought a lot!" But Irene Who Worries About Squandering this Opportunity, who can talk at least six times louder inside my head (she has learned to project), would lock Positive Irene in a closet.
2) I felt a lot like a tourist after having spent the first two days hiking along the coast and walking through town wearing my conspicuous adventure backpack, Fabio, and I think that people already saw me as one of the many landscape-admiring passers-through by the time I started loitering (first at the docks, then in other social spots).
3) One homophobic remark, directed at a man whose long hair was gathered into a pony tail. It wasn't particularly hateful (as far as such things go), but it was completely unnecessary (as all such things are), and it ruined for me what would have otherwise been a nice meeting with a nice group of nice old men -- it turned into a disappointing meeting with a suspect group of prejudiced old men.
During the weekend I had noticed this (adjective-free) group of men sitting on some benches under the ceiling of an unfinished building along the main street, and had decided to sit on one of the benches early on Monday afternoon to chat up the first ones to arrive. My plan worked! Francisco was the first to show up, and he sat next to me and told me about his life in Camarinhas -- he had been a farmer, and now that he was retired and had little else to do, he spent every afternoon sitting on these benches with a group of men he'd known since childhood. They'd been at these benches for three years; for thirteen years before that, they met at a road crossing near a soccer field a ways up the hill. He had five children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, to which Manuel, the next man to arrive, said, "Now you can die happy!" Manuel had been a fishermen and a farmer, and had spent some years working in construction in Switzerland -- he occasionally rubbed my head like it was a dog, and he told me what kind of man I wanted for a husband (thank you, Manuel). He was also the man who made the homophobic remark; and shortly after he made it, I said, "Well I'm going to go take a nap!" and left.
I think that I reacted strongly (in my head) because I have been feeling the pressure of heteronormativity since arriving to Galicia. Especially in the small towns that I've been visiting, there are no signs of queerness anywhere, and I've been hit on by many men under the age of forty and given love advice by many men and women over the age of forty -- all of whom assume that I am interested in men! (I'm not!) I know that this is Most of the World, and that I'd have this shock going from my Pomona bubble to just about anywhere else -- but I'm having it here.
4) PMS. Really. Starting to cry a few seconds after turning on the news should have tipped me off. This, combined with NO CHOCOLATE FOR TWO DAYS (a lot of Nutella, but that doesn't count), probably threw all of the chemicals in my body out of whack and may also be responsible for my entire "mood" regarding Camarinhas -- maybe I was just seeing things through PMS-tinted glasses!
5) Anxiety regarding my living situation in Mexico. Where will I live? How much will it cost? Shouldn't I know this by now?! (This last question is the killer.)
Goodness! So far this entire entry has been a complaint! You'll be relieved to discover that I'm in an infinitely better mood tonight (even though I know that I'll be groggy tomorrow morning), and that I would only use positive adjectives to describe my first impression of Malpica and my experience here so far. The town is beautiful -- worn down but colorful, with some houses built on the edges of cliffs -- and, by far, the most vertical one I've been in so far. There are narrow alleys everywhere, most steeply inclined, and long flights of stairs serve as shortcuts in some places instead. The port is full of boats and, more importantly, people! At the fish auction today, where I saw several species I'd never seen before, many of these people smiled at me, and some even talked with me! When the fish auction was over, I sat through the entire goose barnacle auction (highest price 74 Euros/kilo, lowest 14.25/kilo), and a woman who was chewing on them raw noticed me looking at her and gave me one to try! The point of all of these exclamation points is: human contact! The point is not: raw goose barnacle. That may well be my only sample of goose barnacles, cooked or uncooked, since they are prohibitively expensive both ways, and I'd be fine without seconds. I do hope, however, to see people collecting them along the coast. Low tide is at 11:00 tomorrow morning, and I was told that if I start walking west at 9:30 am, I am bound to come across some percebeiros. That is my morning plan!
My living situation is also ideal. I'm staying in a comfortable room above a restaurant in Seaia, which was probably once its own town but is now an extension of Malpica. It takes me about twenty minutes to walk to the port (downhill) and thirty minutes to walk back (uphill!), which is great! A disincentive to take an afternoon nap! And a reason to spend many an uninterrupted hour at the docks.
Now I just have to fall asleep. Morpheus!
Oh woe! Morpheus has forsaken me! The past few nights have been somewhat sleepless (or somewhat semi-sleepless, which is even more frustrating -- lying in bed in the wee hours and drifting into and out of conscious thought processes, most of which culminate in: "Irene! You need to go to sleep!"), and tonight the wakefulness continues. Agony! I must suffer more than anyone I know. (I just finished reading "Middlemarch" -- I'm channeling Rosamond.) But don't worry -- I've decided to fight back by staying fully conscious and writing in my blog! I know. It is a pretty great idea.
I'm incredibly happy to be where I am right now! During most of this trip, my "favorite town so far" has always been the one I find myself in, for obvious reasons (I'm closest to my most recent good-hearted acquaintances). However, my stay in Camarinhas wasn't as pleasant as I had hoped it would be. I can think of several reasons for this:
1) The port was devoid of relaxed old men standing around holding fishing poles and shouting things at each other. In fact, the port was mostly "empty" when I tried to hang around and make friends. I put the word "empty" in quotation marks because there were people -- secretaries and port authority officers behind desks in the buildings, and, at the auction in the late morning, a small group of women and men who were selling their clams -- but very few of them seemed interested in answering any of my questions. Since the fishing takes place mostly at night, I only first met fishermen on Monday evening, and even then it was just one crew (an extremely friendly crew, though!). (Side note: My theory about the lack of old fisherman community is that, since the port is fairly new, and sardine fishing fairly boat-contained, retired fishermen don't have docks to go "back" to, nor are their services sought out by working fishermen.)
As I had already planned to leave on Tuesday morning (and I was a little bit desperate to), I ended up feeling that my visit to Camarinhas was largely unproductive. Positive Irene would say, "No! You did get a sense of the place! You thought a lot!" But Irene Who Worries About Squandering this Opportunity, who can talk at least six times louder inside my head (she has learned to project), would lock Positive Irene in a closet.
2) I felt a lot like a tourist after having spent the first two days hiking along the coast and walking through town wearing my conspicuous adventure backpack, Fabio, and I think that people already saw me as one of the many landscape-admiring passers-through by the time I started loitering (first at the docks, then in other social spots).
3) One homophobic remark, directed at a man whose long hair was gathered into a pony tail. It wasn't particularly hateful (as far as such things go), but it was completely unnecessary (as all such things are), and it ruined for me what would have otherwise been a nice meeting with a nice group of nice old men -- it turned into a disappointing meeting with a suspect group of prejudiced old men.
During the weekend I had noticed this (adjective-free) group of men sitting on some benches under the ceiling of an unfinished building along the main street, and had decided to sit on one of the benches early on Monday afternoon to chat up the first ones to arrive. My plan worked! Francisco was the first to show up, and he sat next to me and told me about his life in Camarinhas -- he had been a farmer, and now that he was retired and had little else to do, he spent every afternoon sitting on these benches with a group of men he'd known since childhood. They'd been at these benches for three years; for thirteen years before that, they met at a road crossing near a soccer field a ways up the hill. He had five children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, to which Manuel, the next man to arrive, said, "Now you can die happy!" Manuel had been a fishermen and a farmer, and had spent some years working in construction in Switzerland -- he occasionally rubbed my head like it was a dog, and he told me what kind of man I wanted for a husband (thank you, Manuel). He was also the man who made the homophobic remark; and shortly after he made it, I said, "Well I'm going to go take a nap!" and left.
I think that I reacted strongly (in my head) because I have been feeling the pressure of heteronormativity since arriving to Galicia. Especially in the small towns that I've been visiting, there are no signs of queerness anywhere, and I've been hit on by many men under the age of forty and given love advice by many men and women over the age of forty -- all of whom assume that I am interested in men! (I'm not!) I know that this is Most of the World, and that I'd have this shock going from my Pomona bubble to just about anywhere else -- but I'm having it here.
4) PMS. Really. Starting to cry a few seconds after turning on the news should have tipped me off. This, combined with NO CHOCOLATE FOR TWO DAYS (a lot of Nutella, but that doesn't count), probably threw all of the chemicals in my body out of whack and may also be responsible for my entire "mood" regarding Camarinhas -- maybe I was just seeing things through PMS-tinted glasses!
5) Anxiety regarding my living situation in Mexico. Where will I live? How much will it cost? Shouldn't I know this by now?! (This last question is the killer.)
Goodness! So far this entire entry has been a complaint! You'll be relieved to discover that I'm in an infinitely better mood tonight (even though I know that I'll be groggy tomorrow morning), and that I would only use positive adjectives to describe my first impression of Malpica and my experience here so far. The town is beautiful -- worn down but colorful, with some houses built on the edges of cliffs -- and, by far, the most vertical one I've been in so far. There are narrow alleys everywhere, most steeply inclined, and long flights of stairs serve as shortcuts in some places instead. The port is full of boats and, more importantly, people! At the fish auction today, where I saw several species I'd never seen before, many of these people smiled at me, and some even talked with me! When the fish auction was over, I sat through the entire goose barnacle auction (highest price 74 Euros/kilo, lowest 14.25/kilo), and a woman who was chewing on them raw noticed me looking at her and gave me one to try! The point of all of these exclamation points is: human contact! The point is not: raw goose barnacle. That may well be my only sample of goose barnacles, cooked or uncooked, since they are prohibitively expensive both ways, and I'd be fine without seconds. I do hope, however, to see people collecting them along the coast. Low tide is at 11:00 tomorrow morning, and I was told that if I start walking west at 9:30 am, I am bound to come across some percebeiros. That is my morning plan!
My living situation is also ideal. I'm staying in a comfortable room above a restaurant in Seaia, which was probably once its own town but is now an extension of Malpica. It takes me about twenty minutes to walk to the port (downhill) and thirty minutes to walk back (uphill!), which is great! A disincentive to take an afternoon nap! And a reason to spend many an uninterrupted hour at the docks.
Now I just have to fall asleep. Morpheus!
An itinerary (Malpica, Spain)
On the evening before one of my somewhat semi-sleepless nights, I feverishly pored over my guide book and map to create the following itinerary, which I hope duly impresses you ("duly" being an amount proportionate to the fireworks of brain energy that went into it):
* Malpica, Galicia -- 8/5 - 8/9
* La Corunha, Galicia -- 8/9 - 8/11
* Carinho, Galicia -- 8/11 - 8/15
* Burela, Galicia -- 8/15 - 8/20
* Foz, Galicia -- 8/20 - 8/25
* Gijon, Asturias -- 8/25 - 8/28
* Oviedo, Asturias -- 8/28 - 8/30
* Llanes, Asturias -- 8/30 - 9/2
* Santander, Cantabria -- 9/2 - 9/7
(Note: From Santander I will also be visiting Anselmo and Angel, the two men I met at the waterfall in Ezaro, in their town, which is called Soria.)
* Madrid -- 9/7 - 9/11
* Toledo -- 9/11 - 9/13
* La Corunha -- 9/13 - 9/15 -- and then I fly to Morelia, Mexico via Barcelona, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Mexico City, because my carbon footprint isn't big enough already.
!!! We'll see how much this plan changes. But I like it for now!
* Malpica, Galicia -- 8/5 - 8/9
* La Corunha, Galicia -- 8/9 - 8/11
* Carinho, Galicia -- 8/11 - 8/15
* Burela, Galicia -- 8/15 - 8/20
* Foz, Galicia -- 8/20 - 8/25
* Gijon, Asturias -- 8/25 - 8/28
* Oviedo, Asturias -- 8/28 - 8/30
* Llanes, Asturias -- 8/30 - 9/2
* Santander, Cantabria -- 9/2 - 9/7
(Note: From Santander I will also be visiting Anselmo and Angel, the two men I met at the waterfall in Ezaro, in their town, which is called Soria.)
* Madrid -- 9/7 - 9/11
* Toledo -- 9/11 - 9/13
* La Corunha -- 9/13 - 9/15 -- and then I fly to Morelia, Mexico via Barcelona, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Mexico City, because my carbon footprint isn't big enough already.
!!! We'll see how much this plan changes. But I like it for now!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
A long walk with two Germans (Camarinhas, Spain)
I am writing on a bed in a hotel room – oh no! My strategy of inquiring about available rooms in bars failed here in Camarinhas (it was bound to sometime, I guess). The upshot is that there is a giant column about two meters to my left, right in the middle of the room, and I feel a little bit like I’m in Greece.
Camarinhas is larger than Muxia, and there are more boats in its port! However, since it’s a weekend, there’s almost no activity until Monday, and even then it will be slow compared to Tuesday (the night fishermen will go out for the first time on Monday evening). The main type of fishing here is sardine fishing, and, as I understand it, boats sell the fish directly to buyers, who load their trucks at ungodly hours of the morning (even more ungodly than 5:00 am, when some of the big fish auctions have taken place). My plan is the following: On Monday morning I will hang out at the docks and chat up whoever is looking particularly eager to talk, and by Monday evening I’ll know if I’m feeling masochistic enough to wake up and watch the sardine boats arrive in the wee hours. A two-step plan – doable. I’m excited to see a port in action again, and to smell like dead fish.
The past two days I’ve been extremely fortunate in finding non-fisherman subjects (victims) to interrogate! In Muxia I expected to watch the sunset alone, thinking about, you know, the meaning of life, but instead I ended up talking with two French women for about an hour! We met when I asked one of them if it was possible to see Camarinhas on the other side of the ria, and, after the obligatory small talk (“Where are you from? How long are you here for? What have you done?”), I ended up telling them about my project. They seemed interested, so I asked if I could “interview” them (I also put quotation marks around that word when I’m talking), and they said oui! I wrote about our conversation when I went back to my room that night, and have retro-posted the entry, so it appears as though I posted it on July 30th when really I’m posting it along with this one. Manipulation of facts! But I’m confessing so that I don’t feel too dishonest.
Yesterday, Friday, I took a bus from Muxia to Camarinhas, and, after hostel bargain-hunting for Too Long (and with the end result that there is a column in the middle of my room), ran into a German woman and girl I had noticed on the bus in the tourist office. They were having serious communication problems with the young men behind the counter and were about to resort to interpretive dance when I offered to translate (too bad!). We had the cliché tourist conversation (they are from Muenchen and Spreewald, here in Spain for a few weeks, and had just finished the Camino de Santiago), then decided to go on a hike together to a lighthouse called Faro Vilan, about eight kilometers away. Gaby, the woman, was very religious (Christian, Protestant), and asked me about my faith even before I asked her about hers as part of my project! She, Linda (the 15-year-old daughter of a friend of hers, whom she had taken on vacation, and who is Catholic), and I ended up talking about theology and spirituality for most of the five hours that we were walking together. I learned so much! And I was impressed by Gaby’s willingness to share personal thoughts that she had obviously been developing over the course of her life. Linda, too, was candid, and told us about both what she’d been taught in her religion classes (e.g. that the meaning of life was to find one’s soulmate-of-the-opposite-sex-and-gender – not the kind of meaning of life I would want to reach watching the sunset!) and what she found questionable (the same).
That night, Gaby, Linda and I agreed to meet and go together to the Fiesta de la Juventud at a nearby beach, which Juan, a worker at the port, had told me about. We ate grilled chorizo, ribs, and pimientos de padron (no spicy ones), and I taught Linda what little I knew about dancing! She had obviously been repressing the dancer within for some time, because she kept dancing alone even when I occasionally got distracted watching other people and stopped. When we walked back to town, Gaby gave me two German poems as a parting gift – what a super gift! I am inspired to start giving poems that I like to people along my travels! Just have to find a printer (or let loose my inner scribe).
This morning was rainy and gray, and I walked around in my rain coat with the hood up, seeing only what was directly in front of me. But I heard an interesting sound! Camarinhas is known for its lace, and I happen to be here during its first annual lace contest! It is an impossibly complicated-looking process – a bunch of pins stuck into a pillow with many dozens of wooden bobs hanging from them by strings, and the women toss the wooden bobs back and forth from hand to hand faster than the eye can follow. It looks totally random, but somehow little lace flowers and arcs emerge from the madness (like monkeys at typewriters producing Shakespeare, but consistently and with good spelling). And when the little wooden bobs bump against each other, they make a soft little “click-click-click” sound, which I heard every now and then from the open window of a house as I wandered through town. Super! Now it is sunny, and I will wander again without my raincoat and with a much wider field of view.
Camarinhas is larger than Muxia, and there are more boats in its port! However, since it’s a weekend, there’s almost no activity until Monday, and even then it will be slow compared to Tuesday (the night fishermen will go out for the first time on Monday evening). The main type of fishing here is sardine fishing, and, as I understand it, boats sell the fish directly to buyers, who load their trucks at ungodly hours of the morning (even more ungodly than 5:00 am, when some of the big fish auctions have taken place). My plan is the following: On Monday morning I will hang out at the docks and chat up whoever is looking particularly eager to talk, and by Monday evening I’ll know if I’m feeling masochistic enough to wake up and watch the sardine boats arrive in the wee hours. A two-step plan – doable. I’m excited to see a port in action again, and to smell like dead fish.
The past two days I’ve been extremely fortunate in finding non-fisherman subjects (victims) to interrogate! In Muxia I expected to watch the sunset alone, thinking about, you know, the meaning of life, but instead I ended up talking with two French women for about an hour! We met when I asked one of them if it was possible to see Camarinhas on the other side of the ria, and, after the obligatory small talk (“Where are you from? How long are you here for? What have you done?”), I ended up telling them about my project. They seemed interested, so I asked if I could “interview” them (I also put quotation marks around that word when I’m talking), and they said oui! I wrote about our conversation when I went back to my room that night, and have retro-posted the entry, so it appears as though I posted it on July 30th when really I’m posting it along with this one. Manipulation of facts! But I’m confessing so that I don’t feel too dishonest.
Yesterday, Friday, I took a bus from Muxia to Camarinhas, and, after hostel bargain-hunting for Too Long (and with the end result that there is a column in the middle of my room), ran into a German woman and girl I had noticed on the bus in the tourist office. They were having serious communication problems with the young men behind the counter and were about to resort to interpretive dance when I offered to translate (too bad!). We had the cliché tourist conversation (they are from Muenchen and Spreewald, here in Spain for a few weeks, and had just finished the Camino de Santiago), then decided to go on a hike together to a lighthouse called Faro Vilan, about eight kilometers away. Gaby, the woman, was very religious (Christian, Protestant), and asked me about my faith even before I asked her about hers as part of my project! She, Linda (the 15-year-old daughter of a friend of hers, whom she had taken on vacation, and who is Catholic), and I ended up talking about theology and spirituality for most of the five hours that we were walking together. I learned so much! And I was impressed by Gaby’s willingness to share personal thoughts that she had obviously been developing over the course of her life. Linda, too, was candid, and told us about both what she’d been taught in her religion classes (e.g. that the meaning of life was to find one’s soulmate-of-the-opposite-sex-and-gender – not the kind of meaning of life I would want to reach watching the sunset!) and what she found questionable (the same).
That night, Gaby, Linda and I agreed to meet and go together to the Fiesta de la Juventud at a nearby beach, which Juan, a worker at the port, had told me about. We ate grilled chorizo, ribs, and pimientos de padron (no spicy ones), and I taught Linda what little I knew about dancing! She had obviously been repressing the dancer within for some time, because she kept dancing alone even when I occasionally got distracted watching other people and stopped. When we walked back to town, Gaby gave me two German poems as a parting gift – what a super gift! I am inspired to start giving poems that I like to people along my travels! Just have to find a printer (or let loose my inner scribe).
This morning was rainy and gray, and I walked around in my rain coat with the hood up, seeing only what was directly in front of me. But I heard an interesting sound! Camarinhas is known for its lace, and I happen to be here during its first annual lace contest! It is an impossibly complicated-looking process – a bunch of pins stuck into a pillow with many dozens of wooden bobs hanging from them by strings, and the women toss the wooden bobs back and forth from hand to hand faster than the eye can follow. It looks totally random, but somehow little lace flowers and arcs emerge from the madness (like monkeys at typewriters producing Shakespeare, but consistently and with good spelling). And when the little wooden bobs bump against each other, they make a soft little “click-click-click” sound, which I heard every now and then from the open window of a house as I wandered through town. Super! Now it is sunny, and I will wander again without my raincoat and with a much wider field of view.
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