Spanish original
“Let's go to El Joyo!” the children would say, whenever there was nothing else to do. And it became a race against the clock to see who would get there first. “El Joyo de la Fábrica” was a big hole in the ground situated on La Playa, next to the electricity works, where the park is today. It consisted of an enormous pit, twenty or thirty metres deep. I believe that when the modernisation of the electricity works took place, the earth needed for the foundations supporting the new machinery was supplied from this crevice, which had been formed by rocks and branches dragged down by the rains from higher ground.
According to the wonderful article by Gabriel Almagro on the Eléctrica Nuestra Señora de los Santos, “In the 1930s the electricity works were converted into a central generator fed by a belt-driven motor, which drove a dynamo, which was connected to a primitive central control panel and distributed electricity throughout the whole town of Alcalá. Very soon, the capacity of the generator was no longer sufficient and in 1932 a second motor was added, which came into use in 1934. With the fuel crisis caused by the Civil War in 1936, the services of the central generator were reduced to a minimum.”
The children believed that the pit had been made by one of the bombs dropped on Alcalá in the Civil War, but this was a childish fantasy. The war had been over for a year and there was still a tendency to regard it as the cause of anything out of the ordinary. It was much more likely to have been an opening caused by a stream breaking its banks and erosion by rocks and branches brought down by the rains from the heights of the Lario.
It was a wonderful space that could be adapted to many purposes; you could comfortably fit a football pitch into it. And in fact the bottom of the pit had been flattened out to make a football pitch. There the Alcalá team played against other teams from the area. On match days the whole town would come down to the Playa to watch the game. In those days my brother Cristóbal played left back and did a great job, being left-footed. The young girls occupied the upper part of the pit and the paths that led down to the pitch. In those days they were more constrained by modesty and I suppose it was the only freedom they would allow themselves. Right from the start, football had a special attraction for young people and children.
Some people say that football came into Spain from Gibraltar, since it was the English who created the sport, and La Balona (from La Linea) was one of the first teams in Andalucia. But the first team was actually Deportivo de Huelva, which was founded by the English working the Rio Tinto mines. The first recorded team in our province was Cádiz FC, dating from 1908. Xerez FC also came into being around that time. In the Campo de Gibraltar, Algeciras CF was founded in 1912. La Balona was officially founded in 1921, but they were already playing regularly against the Gibraltarians by then.
The first football team in Alcalá was called “El Regina” and must have been in existence straight after the War, although there is no reliable evidence to confirm this. But I say this because my brother Cristóbal was in the War and when he came home he played defence for El Regina. There were competitions amongst the towns of the district, and the “local Derby” was always the meeting with Medina. This generated a lot of heat, and the town became inflamed with passion when we lost. It nearly always ended badly. But we also played against Paterna, Vejer and other neighbouring towns. The goalkeeper of El Regina was Manuel Mateo Benítez. The other players were Andrés Camacho Jiménez, Francisco García Gallego, José Gómez León, Luis Fernández Gallego, Juan Parrita, Juan Ramos, Manuel de la Cruz Lamela “el Mela”, Cristóbal Leiva, Salvador Aído Meléndez, Francisco Aído Meléndez, Gaspar Ramírez Román, Juan Llaves, Juan Almagro Pizarro, Francisco Pozanco Álvarez and Alonso Ramos. I might have missed one, but somebody will remember.
In those days football was almost the only sport that could be played in Alcalá. And that was thanks to “El Joyo”. The schools at that time did not have sports grounds. Usually the kids used El Joyo for their encounters, or the Cerro de Ortega, where there was an area of level ground as a result of a sandpit. Football was also played in El Prado, and the whole town used to go down there to watch.
The children of Alcalá didn't need sport for exercise, because they were continually climbing up and down hills, going out into the countryside setting snares, racing each other up to the Plaza Alta, going to the rubbish-tip down the hill of La Salá, the Molino de Romero and El Prado … Keeping on the move was a necessity for the children and they organised their own competitions in Santo Domingo, in la Plazuela and above all in El Joyo. They had races, high-jump, long-jump, throwing stones with a sling to see whose could go the furthest, sliding on boards down the streets on rainy days, bathing in the river … The girls, too, organised their games on the Alameda, jumping over skipping-ropes, playing hopscotch and tag …
There was no organised sport other than football, because there was a shortage of everything: balls, boots, equipment, pitches, organisers … There was no shortage, however, of children with the initiative to stretch their muscles. They were no less fortunate than children today, because they had fewer needs, fewer demands and greater freedom. In a word, a life more simple, less complicated and more natural. “Healthy minds in healthy bodies.”
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta niños. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta niños. Mostrar todas las entradas
martes, 26 de enero de 2010
viernes, 18 de diciembre de 2009
Memories of Alcalá 21: Christmas in Alcalá
Spanish original
In the old days, Christmas in Alcalá was different. In the middle of December, without saying anything, all the families began their preparations for Christmas. Those who were able to had slaughtered a pig, so there was no shortage of chorizo, black pudding, crackling, chitterlings and salami during the festive period. The smell of Alcalá's traditional pork products impregnated every corner of the town. The splendid sausages were put by in the store-rooms and lofts of the houses to be cured, ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
They also made cakes and pastries: pestiños, doughnuts, aniseed cakes, oven-baked cakes, little fried pastries, pine-nut cakes, angel hair cakes. We didn't need to buy cakes, because they were made at home and given as presents. The nuns of St Clare made little marzipan figures, Cádiz bread, shortbread … Sometimes when people went to Cádiz, on the way back when the COMES bus stopped at Medina they would buy little boxes of macaroons, sweet biscuits, almond cakes and other specialities of “Las Trejas” in the Town Hall square.
In the Beatario and other infant schools of the town, the walls would be adorned with symbols of the nativity. The nuns rehearsed villancicos [folk carols] with the little children and the students. Many men went out into the fields to gather hawthorn, lentisco, rosemary, palm leaves and other greenery to build a nativity scene. For the children this was a major event. It was set up in a corner of the house: the secret entrance, rivers, paths, models of carbon-sellers, washerwomen in the river, shepherds with their sheep and goats, cowmen, wells … They were vignettes taken from real life. The town itself was like a beautiful picture of a nativity scene.
Don Arsenio and Señor Cobos rehearsed with a choir of young girls the Christmas Eve mass and the carols for the ceremony of kissing the feet of the infant Jesus. The mass was celebrated at San Jorge and the whole town attended. The singers occupied the choir stalls, but many young men sat close by to watch the girls singing. The children were enthusiastic about the song solos, because there were a couple of girls who impressed the congregation with their voices.
The mass was said at that time by Father Mainé, parish priest of San Jorge, who preached very well. The deacon was Father Lara, parish coadjutor and chaplain to the nuns of St Clare, and the sub-deacon was Father Manuel, coadjutor and chaplain of la Victoria. The celebration was one of the biggest of the year and the church was packed solid; men and women, adolescents and children, nobody was missing.
At the end of the mass, the young people took out bottles of anis and brandy. They went through the streets singing villancicos accompanied by the drumming of spoons on the bottles and the sound of the little bells that were kept at home for the goats. They asked for donations or sweets. We children copied them and did the same thing, but without drinking alcohol, and we went to bed earlier. When we went to bed, the others carried on singing villancicos. And in that delicious half-asleep state, we could still hear those melodies:
Pero mira cómo beben los peces en el río …
La Virgén está lavando y tendiendo en el romero, los pajarillos cantando y el romero floreciendo ...
[But see how they drink, the fishes in the river …
The Virgin is washing clothes and hanging them out on the rosemary, the little birds are singing and the rosemary is blooming …]
And I remember them full of nostalgia and melancholy. I don't know if it was because of the war, but they were sad sounds, that made you cry.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
In the old days, Christmas in Alcalá was different. In the middle of December, without saying anything, all the families began their preparations for Christmas. Those who were able to had slaughtered a pig, so there was no shortage of chorizo, black pudding, crackling, chitterlings and salami during the festive period. The smell of Alcalá's traditional pork products impregnated every corner of the town. The splendid sausages were put by in the store-rooms and lofts of the houses to be cured, ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
They also made cakes and pastries: pestiños, doughnuts, aniseed cakes, oven-baked cakes, little fried pastries, pine-nut cakes, angel hair cakes. We didn't need to buy cakes, because they were made at home and given as presents. The nuns of St Clare made little marzipan figures, Cádiz bread, shortbread … Sometimes when people went to Cádiz, on the way back when the COMES bus stopped at Medina they would buy little boxes of macaroons, sweet biscuits, almond cakes and other specialities of “Las Trejas” in the Town Hall square.
In the Beatario and other infant schools of the town, the walls would be adorned with symbols of the nativity. The nuns rehearsed villancicos [folk carols] with the little children and the students. Many men went out into the fields to gather hawthorn, lentisco, rosemary, palm leaves and other greenery to build a nativity scene. For the children this was a major event. It was set up in a corner of the house: the secret entrance, rivers, paths, models of carbon-sellers, washerwomen in the river, shepherds with their sheep and goats, cowmen, wells … They were vignettes taken from real life. The town itself was like a beautiful picture of a nativity scene.
Don Arsenio and Señor Cobos rehearsed with a choir of young girls the Christmas Eve mass and the carols for the ceremony of kissing the feet of the infant Jesus. The mass was celebrated at San Jorge and the whole town attended. The singers occupied the choir stalls, but many young men sat close by to watch the girls singing. The children were enthusiastic about the song solos, because there were a couple of girls who impressed the congregation with their voices.
The mass was said at that time by Father Mainé, parish priest of San Jorge, who preached very well. The deacon was Father Lara, parish coadjutor and chaplain to the nuns of St Clare, and the sub-deacon was Father Manuel, coadjutor and chaplain of la Victoria. The celebration was one of the biggest of the year and the church was packed solid; men and women, adolescents and children, nobody was missing.
At the end of the mass, the young people took out bottles of anis and brandy. They went through the streets singing villancicos accompanied by the drumming of spoons on the bottles and the sound of the little bells that were kept at home for the goats. They asked for donations or sweets. We children copied them and did the same thing, but without drinking alcohol, and we went to bed earlier. When we went to bed, the others carried on singing villancicos. And in that delicious half-asleep state, we could still hear those melodies:
Pero mira cómo beben los peces en el río …
La Virgén está lavando y tendiendo en el romero, los pajarillos cantando y el romero floreciendo ...
[But see how they drink, the fishes in the river …
The Virgin is washing clothes and hanging them out on the rosemary, the little birds are singing and the rosemary is blooming …]
And I remember them full of nostalgia and melancholy. I don't know if it was because of the war, but they were sad sounds, that made you cry.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
miércoles, 18 de noviembre de 2009
Memories of Alcalá 18: The Levante
Spanish original
Every year without fail the Levante would make an appearance. It came out of nowhere, with no warning, but people said it wouldn't stop until after a certain number of days – always an odd number, one, three, five … I didn't know of anything to support this theory, but it never failed. It was one of those things the older people said.
The Levante is the wind which blows from the East, from the Mediterranean, from where the sun rises each morning. It would come tearing through the ravines and river valleys until it crashed into the mountains with their high peaks. From there it reached at full blast the bastions of Alcalá and Medina. For the older people it was a nuisance, disorientating, a real pain. For the children it was a party, liberating, a game with the forces of nature.
At school, when we heard the roaring of the air in the windows, we knew the Levante had arrived. After school we went up through the steep winding streets to play in the archway on the Plaza Alta. We dumped our satchels, unbuttoned our school overalls and opened our arms in the form of a cross. The wind raged round the entrance to the old Town Hall and we made bets as to how long we could stand there without moving, challenging the Levante. The Levante always won in the end, dragging us over to the wall opposite.
Another game was to play football against the Levante. We kicked the ball with as much force as we could, but the Levante always returned it with still greater force. Each time the Levante got the ball into the doorway, it was a goal. Sometimes the ball took off at top speed down the street until it almost reached the Alameda.
Since then I have only once seen a force more powerful than the Levante; that of the sea at the Atunara de La Linea. The waves reached seven or eight metres high and dragged the fishing boats from their moorings. Big ships were wrecked beyond repair.
Another game was to shout and shout until we couldn't hear the roar of the wind. It was impossible, and though we yelled ourselves hoarse we couldn't get on the same sonic wavelength. We went home exhausted and weak, with no voice left, and starving hungry. Our parents knew what we had been up to and said nothing, as if remembering the happier days of their own childhood. When the Levante lasted more than three days, people despaired because it would drive them crazy. But there was always some child playing ball in the street.
They say the Levante originates from a depression over the Mediterranean. Then, a mass of warm, moist air swirls up from the sea and produces black clouds, which end up depositing heavy rainfall when they hit the mountains. The environment which this creates is not good either for mankind or for the crops, because it encourages pests in the countryside, like the aphids which eat the leaves and tender parts of the plants.
One night, the Levante became even fiercer than usual. It started off as a high-pitched wail and ended up a menacing roar. The windows could barely withstand the battering and the windowpanes shook. We children hid under the blankets to escape the roaring of the wind, and managed to get to sleep. But the grown-ups got up to fasten the doors and the shutters because they were so worried by the strength of the wind. The next morning, it was said that the Levante had blown down trees and destroyed the crops, and the weather-vane on La Victoria had been shattered. On the third day, it stopped. What a force!
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
Every year without fail the Levante would make an appearance. It came out of nowhere, with no warning, but people said it wouldn't stop until after a certain number of days – always an odd number, one, three, five … I didn't know of anything to support this theory, but it never failed. It was one of those things the older people said.
The Levante is the wind which blows from the East, from the Mediterranean, from where the sun rises each morning. It would come tearing through the ravines and river valleys until it crashed into the mountains with their high peaks. From there it reached at full blast the bastions of Alcalá and Medina. For the older people it was a nuisance, disorientating, a real pain. For the children it was a party, liberating, a game with the forces of nature.
At school, when we heard the roaring of the air in the windows, we knew the Levante had arrived. After school we went up through the steep winding streets to play in the archway on the Plaza Alta. We dumped our satchels, unbuttoned our school overalls and opened our arms in the form of a cross. The wind raged round the entrance to the old Town Hall and we made bets as to how long we could stand there without moving, challenging the Levante. The Levante always won in the end, dragging us over to the wall opposite.
Another game was to play football against the Levante. We kicked the ball with as much force as we could, but the Levante always returned it with still greater force. Each time the Levante got the ball into the doorway, it was a goal. Sometimes the ball took off at top speed down the street until it almost reached the Alameda.
Since then I have only once seen a force more powerful than the Levante; that of the sea at the Atunara de La Linea. The waves reached seven or eight metres high and dragged the fishing boats from their moorings. Big ships were wrecked beyond repair.
Another game was to shout and shout until we couldn't hear the roar of the wind. It was impossible, and though we yelled ourselves hoarse we couldn't get on the same sonic wavelength. We went home exhausted and weak, with no voice left, and starving hungry. Our parents knew what we had been up to and said nothing, as if remembering the happier days of their own childhood. When the Levante lasted more than three days, people despaired because it would drive them crazy. But there was always some child playing ball in the street.
They say the Levante originates from a depression over the Mediterranean. Then, a mass of warm, moist air swirls up from the sea and produces black clouds, which end up depositing heavy rainfall when they hit the mountains. The environment which this creates is not good either for mankind or for the crops, because it encourages pests in the countryside, like the aphids which eat the leaves and tender parts of the plants.
One night, the Levante became even fiercer than usual. It started off as a high-pitched wail and ended up a menacing roar. The windows could barely withstand the battering and the windowpanes shook. We children hid under the blankets to escape the roaring of the wind, and managed to get to sleep. But the grown-ups got up to fasten the doors and the shutters because they were so worried by the strength of the wind. The next morning, it was said that the Levante had blown down trees and destroyed the crops, and the weather-vane on La Victoria had been shattered. On the third day, it stopped. What a force!
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
miércoles, 11 de noviembre de 2009
Memories of Alcalá 16: Stallions in San Antonio
Spanish original
In San Antonio, one of the old roads leading into Alcalá, there was a big courtyard and a stable. Once a year, stud-horses were brought from the Cartuja de Jerez to cover the mares of the town. This event had two announcements: one official, for the breeders who had stables and wanted to get pure-bred foals; the other clandestine, for the children, communicated via their friends, to go and watch the spectacle of the covering of the mares.
Four soldiers from the cavalry breeding stables brought them from Jerez in a lorry the day before, and put them in the stable to rest and get a good feed. It was a mystery how the kids found out about the arrival of the stallions, but however it happened the word soon got round, and the next day after school a little group of us went through the Plazuela and down the hill to San Antonio without telling anyone where we were going.
As if up to no good, we silently approached the half-open gate to the yard where the stud-horses were. In the middle of the yard were two formidable equine examples; alert, well-endowed, skittish, ready to accomplish the mission that had been entrusted to them. The owners of the mares waited in the entrance. The mares were cleaned, bare-backed, and held only by the bridle. The stallions appeared to be conscious of what they had to do, but the mares were distracted, haughty, looking out of the corner of their eye as if suspicious of the encounter.
A soldier ordered the men to bring in the mares. They told us children we could not come in but they left the door ajar so as not to deprive us of the spectacle. The mares were led to one corner to await their turn. We did not miss a single detail. They brought out a sorrel, the colour of cinnamon, well-groomed, handsome and raring to go, as if it were his wedding night. They gave the signal for a mare to be brought over. The soldier started to tease the stallion's organ to bring it to a state of readiness. The stallion gave a snort and started to tremble.
When he saw the mare, his erection grew enormous, he raised his front legs violently and placed himself on top of her. After a few seconds, he suddenly thrust his penis into the mare's vulva and flooded it with semen, doing honour to his name [stallion in Spanish is semental]. You could have heard a pin drop; it was like a sacred ritual. The spectacle lasted several minutes. The horse withdrew, satisfied, and we children watched every move. The soldiers closed the gate and off we went, going over the details of everything we had seen. It was a masterly lesson, honest and educational, which we would never forget.
We went back through the Calle Centeno, the Callejón del Gato and the Calle las Brozas to the Calle Real. We were pleased with ourselves, we had learned a good lesson, much better than those conversations we'd had so many times and which never left you any the wiser. From then on, we would feel ourselves one grade up from our companions who hadn't been there.
And now, when we see fine horses going through the streets of Alcalá or on the Romeria to Los Santos, we say to each other: “That's the son of a stud-horse”. In those days there were indeed some fine equine specimens in Alcalá, and good riders. I recall that during the 1940s in Alcalá there were only three or four cars, a couple of lorries, and the buses that passed through on the way to Cádiz and Algeciras. Horses, carriages and carts were the norm.
Every morning the men rode off on a horse, a mule or a donkey and came back at dusk. The animals were left tied to rings at the entrances to the bars while the men drank a few glasses of wine. Some, having drunk more than they could pay for, would appeal to friendship and exchange their packets of tobacco, their flint lighters or even their donkeys. But that night, the children dreamed of the wonders of nature and the stallions.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
In San Antonio, one of the old roads leading into Alcalá, there was a big courtyard and a stable. Once a year, stud-horses were brought from the Cartuja de Jerez to cover the mares of the town. This event had two announcements: one official, for the breeders who had stables and wanted to get pure-bred foals; the other clandestine, for the children, communicated via their friends, to go and watch the spectacle of the covering of the mares.
Four soldiers from the cavalry breeding stables brought them from Jerez in a lorry the day before, and put them in the stable to rest and get a good feed. It was a mystery how the kids found out about the arrival of the stallions, but however it happened the word soon got round, and the next day after school a little group of us went through the Plazuela and down the hill to San Antonio without telling anyone where we were going.
As if up to no good, we silently approached the half-open gate to the yard where the stud-horses were. In the middle of the yard were two formidable equine examples; alert, well-endowed, skittish, ready to accomplish the mission that had been entrusted to them. The owners of the mares waited in the entrance. The mares were cleaned, bare-backed, and held only by the bridle. The stallions appeared to be conscious of what they had to do, but the mares were distracted, haughty, looking out of the corner of their eye as if suspicious of the encounter.
A soldier ordered the men to bring in the mares. They told us children we could not come in but they left the door ajar so as not to deprive us of the spectacle. The mares were led to one corner to await their turn. We did not miss a single detail. They brought out a sorrel, the colour of cinnamon, well-groomed, handsome and raring to go, as if it were his wedding night. They gave the signal for a mare to be brought over. The soldier started to tease the stallion's organ to bring it to a state of readiness. The stallion gave a snort and started to tremble.
When he saw the mare, his erection grew enormous, he raised his front legs violently and placed himself on top of her. After a few seconds, he suddenly thrust his penis into the mare's vulva and flooded it with semen, doing honour to his name [stallion in Spanish is semental]. You could have heard a pin drop; it was like a sacred ritual. The spectacle lasted several minutes. The horse withdrew, satisfied, and we children watched every move. The soldiers closed the gate and off we went, going over the details of everything we had seen. It was a masterly lesson, honest and educational, which we would never forget.
We went back through the Calle Centeno, the Callejón del Gato and the Calle las Brozas to the Calle Real. We were pleased with ourselves, we had learned a good lesson, much better than those conversations we'd had so many times and which never left you any the wiser. From then on, we would feel ourselves one grade up from our companions who hadn't been there.
And now, when we see fine horses going through the streets of Alcalá or on the Romeria to Los Santos, we say to each other: “That's the son of a stud-horse”. In those days there were indeed some fine equine specimens in Alcalá, and good riders. I recall that during the 1940s in Alcalá there were only three or four cars, a couple of lorries, and the buses that passed through on the way to Cádiz and Algeciras. Horses, carriages and carts were the norm.
Every morning the men rode off on a horse, a mule or a donkey and came back at dusk. The animals were left tied to rings at the entrances to the bars while the men drank a few glasses of wine. Some, having drunk more than they could pay for, would appeal to friendship and exchange their packets of tobacco, their flint lighters or even their donkeys. But that night, the children dreamed of the wonders of nature and the stallions.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
lunes, 26 de octubre de 2009
Memories of Alcalá 7: Liría at dawn
Spanish original
One of the first pastimes the children of Alcalá learned was the hunting of small birds. At dawn, songbirds swarmed over the riverbank and the animal pens of La Coracha. On La Coracha many people raised a couple of pigs for slaughter and had a hen-house for domestic consumption. The birds came to get their first feed of the day, and created a great commotion. At daybreak they could satisfy their needs, because the fields provided plenty of seeds of all types. The flocks rose in a perfectly ordered group to fall upon the grasses and eat their fill. This took place very early, at the hour when the nuns of the Order of St Clare were getting up for Mass.
It was difficult to get up at that hour without waking the family. Francisco Almagro had two brothers, Juan and Pepe; his friend Gaspar had five brothers and five sisters. On Sundays they went to help the nuns with Mass and afterwards went down to El “Prao” to trap songbirds. They devised a rudimentary home-made alarm system. Francisco lived on the corner of Callejón Osorio and had an alarm clock. Gaspar had no alarm clock and lived on the other corner of the Calle la Amiga, right opposite Francisco. Gaspar tied one end of a cord round his ankle. The other end Francisco had in his bed. At exactly half past five, Francisco pulled the string and Gaspar jumped out of bed. They both went off together to help with Mass at the convent of the nuns of St Clare, which was at six in the morning.
The sun had not yet reached the Lario by the time they were putting out the liría at El “Prao”. They kept it in a tin; a natural glue, made of a sticky white substance and tree resin. Any bird which set foot on it could not get away and flapped its wings desperately trying to free itself. They also used various sorts of traps, but they preferred the liría. The traps broke the birds' legs or necks, whereas with the liría they could catch the birds without harming them and put them in cages. There, alongside another singing bird, the canaries, goldfinches, greenfinches and other songbirds would very quickly learn to sing. All the houses had songbirds in cages.
The early hours of the morning were the best for hunting. Vast flocks of small birds invaded the banks of the Barbate and the other rivers. The birds ate, drank and carried off seeds to their nests. All this coming and going took place before the heat of day impregnated the shady corners. They did a fair bit of damage in the sown fields. Insecticides, herbicides and fungicides had not yet made their merciless appearance. At the break of day, the birds had already begun their morning chorus.
The children knew inside out the flying species which crossed the skies of Alcalá. There were those of certain proportions, like partridges, geese, ducks, common pigeons and wood-pigeons, thrushes, turtle doves, starlings. And then there were the smaller ones, like siskins, greenfinches, goldfinches, crested larks, whitethroats, linnets, hummingbirds1, skylarks, nightingales, lapwings, cuckoos … Round about noon, when the heat was threatening, the trapped birds were collected and tied into a bundle. Then the boys would take a last look round at the liria traps and put the live birds into a cage.
They would return home very pleased with themselves. Their mothers would pluck the birds and daub them with aromatic herbs. The smell went right up the Callejón Osorio and the Calle la Amiga. From the kitchens of the bars, Dominguitos and Los Panaderos, came indescribable smells that the old folks could not resist. That flavour has remained forever in my childhood memories. Sometimes I return to Alcalá with the hope of finding it again. And on occasions it might waft from some house – I can smell it, remember it, crave it, but I cannot taste it.
Fortunately the little birds are coming back again to the Alcalá countryside, but not in the great flocks of the old days. And, equally fortunately, they are not slaughtered as they were then, because it is banned, although they are still under threat from herbicides. Modern hunting legislation has succeeded in eradicating it almost completely. These days children don't co-exist with the birds and animals of the countryside. Ordinary people can't go hunting any more because it is a hobby for the wealthy. Even the deer, wild boar and rabbits have to abide by the law in the Alcornocales.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
Note
1. Hummingbirds are not found in Spain, but there is a large moth, the mariposa esfinge colibri, that looks like a hummingbird and behaves in a very similar manner.
One of the first pastimes the children of Alcalá learned was the hunting of small birds. At dawn, songbirds swarmed over the riverbank and the animal pens of La Coracha. On La Coracha many people raised a couple of pigs for slaughter and had a hen-house for domestic consumption. The birds came to get their first feed of the day, and created a great commotion. At daybreak they could satisfy their needs, because the fields provided plenty of seeds of all types. The flocks rose in a perfectly ordered group to fall upon the grasses and eat their fill. This took place very early, at the hour when the nuns of the Order of St Clare were getting up for Mass.
It was difficult to get up at that hour without waking the family. Francisco Almagro had two brothers, Juan and Pepe; his friend Gaspar had five brothers and five sisters. On Sundays they went to help the nuns with Mass and afterwards went down to El “Prao” to trap songbirds. They devised a rudimentary home-made alarm system. Francisco lived on the corner of Callejón Osorio and had an alarm clock. Gaspar had no alarm clock and lived on the other corner of the Calle la Amiga, right opposite Francisco. Gaspar tied one end of a cord round his ankle. The other end Francisco had in his bed. At exactly half past five, Francisco pulled the string and Gaspar jumped out of bed. They both went off together to help with Mass at the convent of the nuns of St Clare, which was at six in the morning.
The sun had not yet reached the Lario by the time they were putting out the liría at El “Prao”. They kept it in a tin; a natural glue, made of a sticky white substance and tree resin. Any bird which set foot on it could not get away and flapped its wings desperately trying to free itself. They also used various sorts of traps, but they preferred the liría. The traps broke the birds' legs or necks, whereas with the liría they could catch the birds without harming them and put them in cages. There, alongside another singing bird, the canaries, goldfinches, greenfinches and other songbirds would very quickly learn to sing. All the houses had songbirds in cages.
The early hours of the morning were the best for hunting. Vast flocks of small birds invaded the banks of the Barbate and the other rivers. The birds ate, drank and carried off seeds to their nests. All this coming and going took place before the heat of day impregnated the shady corners. They did a fair bit of damage in the sown fields. Insecticides, herbicides and fungicides had not yet made their merciless appearance. At the break of day, the birds had already begun their morning chorus.
The children knew inside out the flying species which crossed the skies of Alcalá. There were those of certain proportions, like partridges, geese, ducks, common pigeons and wood-pigeons, thrushes, turtle doves, starlings. And then there were the smaller ones, like siskins, greenfinches, goldfinches, crested larks, whitethroats, linnets, hummingbirds1, skylarks, nightingales, lapwings, cuckoos … Round about noon, when the heat was threatening, the trapped birds were collected and tied into a bundle. Then the boys would take a last look round at the liria traps and put the live birds into a cage.
They would return home very pleased with themselves. Their mothers would pluck the birds and daub them with aromatic herbs. The smell went right up the Callejón Osorio and the Calle la Amiga. From the kitchens of the bars, Dominguitos and Los Panaderos, came indescribable smells that the old folks could not resist. That flavour has remained forever in my childhood memories. Sometimes I return to Alcalá with the hope of finding it again. And on occasions it might waft from some house – I can smell it, remember it, crave it, but I cannot taste it.
Fortunately the little birds are coming back again to the Alcalá countryside, but not in the great flocks of the old days. And, equally fortunately, they are not slaughtered as they were then, because it is banned, although they are still under threat from herbicides. Modern hunting legislation has succeeded in eradicating it almost completely. These days children don't co-exist with the birds and animals of the countryside. Ordinary people can't go hunting any more because it is a hobby for the wealthy. Even the deer, wild boar and rabbits have to abide by the law in the Alcornocales.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
Note
1. Hummingbirds are not found in Spain, but there is a large moth, the mariposa esfinge colibri, that looks like a hummingbird and behaves in a very similar manner.
viernes, 23 de octubre de 2009
Memories of Alcalá 6: Death in White Boxes
Spanish original
I was about eight years old. It was the postwar era, those years of famine, the 1940s. Alcalá at that time had around 12,000 inhabitants. But many people died, especially children, and many young men never came back from the war. The ravages of hunger showed no mercy to the weak. The basic foodstuffs were in short supply. People made a fortune from contraband and the black market. Earnings from wild asparagus, tagarninas [edible thistles] and poached game were the salvation of many families. Others were forced to emigrate.
One day my father said to me: “ Father Manuel has asked me if you would like to be an altar-boy at La Victoria, with Manolo Mancilla”. “Of course!” I answered. “I would go anywhere with Manolo, and I'd like to be an altar-boy too.” Father Manuel knew what he was proposing. We would have to present ourselves, therefore, at the Victoria that afternoon at the Rosary Hour. La Victoria was just a stone's throw from the Calle la Amiga, where I lived, and from the Calle Real, where Manolo lived.
The priest was a good man and young, although he was overweight which made him look older. He managed the Church of La Victoria, the old monastery of the Padres Minimos, founded by San Francisco de Paula, a 15th-century Italian hermit. Father Manuel was very shy and people said that he wouldn't preach because he was afraid of getting it wrong. Once he was obliged to preach to the Brotherhood of the Nazarenes and the good priest, before getting up into the pulpit, trembled and perspired like a condemned man.
His name was Manuel Cid Benitez and he lived in the rooms of the 'upper cloister' of La Victoria, with his brother Pepe Cid and his sister-in-law. I think he was a native of Alcalá, because people had great trust in him. The rooms of the 'lower cloister' were used for meetings of Acción Católica. The arches of the cloister were covered in honeysuckle and creepers. In almost all towns in Andalucia there was a monastery of victorian monks. Tit was said that in the 19th century, the monastery of La Victoria in Alcalá had nearly thirty monks. The fame of their founding saint had spread throughout Italy, France and Spain and many young men had followed him. But the Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal1 closed all monasteries with less than eleven monks.
At the Rosary Hour we were there waiting. Father Manuel gave us a little book so we could learn the responses of the mass in Latin. Introibo ad alterem Dei / Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam. It was difficult for us, but we kept asking Father Manuel about the pronunciation, and after a week we almost knew it. A few days later, he told us that at 6 o'clock that afternoon there would be a funeral. It was a big event for us. We put on our red cassocks, white surplices and coloured capes, and Father Manuel wore a black cassock, white surplice, stole and black cape. Manolo carried the sprinkler and a bowl of holy water, and I the incense burner and boat. We waited in the doorway of La Victoria.
Soon we saw a procession coming down Calle Los Pozos. A man was carrying in his arms a white coffin, no more than a metre long, accompanied by a group of neighbours. He was weeping and sorrowfully calling out the child's name. The crowd accompanied him in complete silence. Women did not attend funerals, they stayed at home accompanied by female neighbours and prayed. It was a paradoxical image to see a man of the land, strong and tough, crying like a child, with a white coffin in his arms.
From that day on I noticed that children's funerals were very common. Just the opposite to what happens today. Some children died at birth; others of hunger; the rest from tuberculosis. Treatment with penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1929, had not yet reached Spain. The children's funerals surprised me, because I couldn't work out how a child could die of hunger or TB or how a man could cry.
Father Manuel gave a blessing and led the procession with the cross and the altar-boys. From time to time I sang in my poor Latin, while we climbed up to the Church of San Jorge. In the Plaza Alta the clergy and the mourners departed. They took the path that led to the cemetery. It was a dirt track indicated by two rows of mulberry trees. The relatives attended the burial and the deceased was placed in a niche or in the ground, according to the means of the family. It was said that the coffin remained there but that the soul of the child went off to glory.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
1. A set of decrees in the 1830s that resulted in the expropriation of monasteries in Spain, promulgated by Prime Minister Juan Alvarez Mendizábal, in an attempt to redistribute under-used monastic lands to enterprising land-owners.
I was about eight years old. It was the postwar era, those years of famine, the 1940s. Alcalá at that time had around 12,000 inhabitants. But many people died, especially children, and many young men never came back from the war. The ravages of hunger showed no mercy to the weak. The basic foodstuffs were in short supply. People made a fortune from contraband and the black market. Earnings from wild asparagus, tagarninas [edible thistles] and poached game were the salvation of many families. Others were forced to emigrate.
One day my father said to me: “ Father Manuel has asked me if you would like to be an altar-boy at La Victoria, with Manolo Mancilla”. “Of course!” I answered. “I would go anywhere with Manolo, and I'd like to be an altar-boy too.” Father Manuel knew what he was proposing. We would have to present ourselves, therefore, at the Victoria that afternoon at the Rosary Hour. La Victoria was just a stone's throw from the Calle la Amiga, where I lived, and from the Calle Real, where Manolo lived.
The priest was a good man and young, although he was overweight which made him look older. He managed the Church of La Victoria, the old monastery of the Padres Minimos, founded by San Francisco de Paula, a 15th-century Italian hermit. Father Manuel was very shy and people said that he wouldn't preach because he was afraid of getting it wrong. Once he was obliged to preach to the Brotherhood of the Nazarenes and the good priest, before getting up into the pulpit, trembled and perspired like a condemned man.
At the Rosary Hour we were there waiting. Father Manuel gave us a little book so we could learn the responses of the mass in Latin. Introibo ad alterem Dei / Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam. It was difficult for us, but we kept asking Father Manuel about the pronunciation, and after a week we almost knew it. A few days later, he told us that at 6 o'clock that afternoon there would be a funeral. It was a big event for us. We put on our red cassocks, white surplices and coloured capes, and Father Manuel wore a black cassock, white surplice, stole and black cape. Manolo carried the sprinkler and a bowl of holy water, and I the incense burner and boat. We waited in the doorway of La Victoria.
Soon we saw a procession coming down Calle Los Pozos. A man was carrying in his arms a white coffin, no more than a metre long, accompanied by a group of neighbours. He was weeping and sorrowfully calling out the child's name. The crowd accompanied him in complete silence. Women did not attend funerals, they stayed at home accompanied by female neighbours and prayed. It was a paradoxical image to see a man of the land, strong and tough, crying like a child, with a white coffin in his arms.
From that day on I noticed that children's funerals were very common. Just the opposite to what happens today. Some children died at birth; others of hunger; the rest from tuberculosis. Treatment with penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1929, had not yet reached Spain. The children's funerals surprised me, because I couldn't work out how a child could die of hunger or TB or how a man could cry.
Father Manuel gave a blessing and led the procession with the cross and the altar-boys. From time to time I sang in my poor Latin, while we climbed up to the Church of San Jorge. In the Plaza Alta the clergy and the mourners departed. They took the path that led to the cemetery. It was a dirt track indicated by two rows of mulberry trees. The relatives attended the burial and the deceased was placed in a niche or in the ground, according to the means of the family. It was said that the coffin remained there but that the soul of the child went off to glory.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
1. A set of decrees in the 1830s that resulted in the expropriation of monasteries in Spain, promulgated by Prime Minister Juan Alvarez Mendizábal, in an attempt to redistribute under-used monastic lands to enterprising land-owners.
jueves, 22 de octubre de 2009
Memories of Alcalá 5: The Rivers and the Bathing
Spanish original
Alcalá could have been called “the Mesopotamia of Cádiz”. In the same way as in Iraq the term Mesopotamia, or “land between rivers” is used to define the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Alcalá could be designated “town or hill between rivers” because it is surrounded by five rivers and a rich network of springs, streams, sources and waterfalls. Its moist earth sustains an impressive range of vegetation. Federico Garcia Lorca fell in love with Alcalá and cited it as an Andalucian town par excellence. When in The House of Bernarda Alba he said that towns with no river or sea were cursed, he recalled Alcalá as a town that was blessed.
Alcalá has no sea, but it is surrounded by five rivers: therefore it doesn't meet Lorca's qualification for being cursed. The most important is the Barbate, which maintains its waters the whole year round and is the only one which runs into the sea, over on the coast at the town of the same name. The other four are the Fraja and the Alamo which join it on the right, on the way to Benalup, and the Rocinejo and Alberite which do so on the left, on the way to Algeciras. Thus, Alcalá has no coastline but it has abundant rivers.
In the decade of the 1940s, the Barbate maintained its waters even in the driest years. It went through the "Prao" [el Prado] and in summer left big ponds and pools of crystalline water. It was the only place where the youngsters could go and bathe. There were no swimming pools or beaches, even though the Paseo was called “La Playa” [the beach]. It seems to have been called that because on rainy days the water streamed down from the top square converting the streets into rivers and the Paseo into a beach. However this didn't last long, because the water found its way down the hills of “La Salá” [now C/ Nuestra Señora de los Santos] and San Antonio, and the streams of the Ortega hill, ending up in the rivers.
In summer the pools of the Barbate presented no danger, but the hollows created whirlpools and the smallest children didn't have the strength to escape them, and had to be helped. Our parents didn't want us to go down to the "Prao" to bathe. They shouted warnings that the river had swallowed up too many children, but we were not convinced because never in those years was there a serious accident. They said that some child was always drowned in the Barbate in summer. They were exaggerating and we did not believe them.
The banks of the river were a garden clothed in oleanders, reeds, rushes, small palms and lentiscos … We left our clothes piled in a heap and swam completely naked; a swimming costume was a luxury item in those days. We jumped into the water from some round rocks, which the river itself had shaped in its passing, and then we stretched out to dry ourselves on those wonderful platforms. We filled ourselves with the pure joys of Nature. We went home newly restored, our legs whitened by the limestone dragged along by the water, and in fear of our parents' reprimands. It left scratches on our legs, and if we had been swimming we were left with tell-tale marks.
One day my father found out that we had been bathing in the river. Immediately he sent a policeman to the "Prao" to take away our clothes without us noticing. He took the clothes and waited by the chapel of the Virgin of the Saints, halfway up the hill on the Calle La Salá. The policeman did the job as my father had asked him to. When we children noticed that our clothes had gone, we were full of fear and shame. We waited until dusk to go back up, running like criminals. At the chapel the policeman was waiting for us and gave us back our clothes.
We were able to enter the town with our shameful bits covered, but with our tails between our legs. In our respective houses they were waiting for us with the strap ready. We stayed away from the river for several days, but once we had got over the fright, we got back into our old habits. The Rio Barbate in the "Prao" was the place where we could be free and let off steam. The older lads had already started smoking, because it was the first act of manhood. They found it difficult to go up and down the hill of La Salá, but the younger ones went down flying and came up running.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
Alcalá could have been called “the Mesopotamia of Cádiz”. In the same way as in Iraq the term Mesopotamia, or “land between rivers” is used to define the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Alcalá could be designated “town or hill between rivers” because it is surrounded by five rivers and a rich network of springs, streams, sources and waterfalls. Its moist earth sustains an impressive range of vegetation. Federico Garcia Lorca fell in love with Alcalá and cited it as an Andalucian town par excellence. When in The House of Bernarda Alba he said that towns with no river or sea were cursed, he recalled Alcalá as a town that was blessed.
Alcalá has no sea, but it is surrounded by five rivers: therefore it doesn't meet Lorca's qualification for being cursed. The most important is the Barbate, which maintains its waters the whole year round and is the only one which runs into the sea, over on the coast at the town of the same name. The other four are the Fraja and the Alamo which join it on the right, on the way to Benalup, and the Rocinejo and Alberite which do so on the left, on the way to Algeciras. Thus, Alcalá has no coastline but it has abundant rivers.
In the decade of the 1940s, the Barbate maintained its waters even in the driest years. It went through the "Prao" [el Prado] and in summer left big ponds and pools of crystalline water. It was the only place where the youngsters could go and bathe. There were no swimming pools or beaches, even though the Paseo was called “La Playa” [the beach]. It seems to have been called that because on rainy days the water streamed down from the top square converting the streets into rivers and the Paseo into a beach. However this didn't last long, because the water found its way down the hills of “La Salá” [now C/ Nuestra Señora de los Santos] and San Antonio, and the streams of the Ortega hill, ending up in the rivers.
In summer the pools of the Barbate presented no danger, but the hollows created whirlpools and the smallest children didn't have the strength to escape them, and had to be helped. Our parents didn't want us to go down to the "Prao" to bathe. They shouted warnings that the river had swallowed up too many children, but we were not convinced because never in those years was there a serious accident. They said that some child was always drowned in the Barbate in summer. They were exaggerating and we did not believe them.
The banks of the river were a garden clothed in oleanders, reeds, rushes, small palms and lentiscos … We left our clothes piled in a heap and swam completely naked; a swimming costume was a luxury item in those days. We jumped into the water from some round rocks, which the river itself had shaped in its passing, and then we stretched out to dry ourselves on those wonderful platforms. We filled ourselves with the pure joys of Nature. We went home newly restored, our legs whitened by the limestone dragged along by the water, and in fear of our parents' reprimands. It left scratches on our legs, and if we had been swimming we were left with tell-tale marks.
One day my father found out that we had been bathing in the river. Immediately he sent a policeman to the "Prao" to take away our clothes without us noticing. He took the clothes and waited by the chapel of the Virgin of the Saints, halfway up the hill on the Calle La Salá. The policeman did the job as my father had asked him to. When we children noticed that our clothes had gone, we were full of fear and shame. We waited until dusk to go back up, running like criminals. At the chapel the policeman was waiting for us and gave us back our clothes.
We were able to enter the town with our shameful bits covered, but with our tails between our legs. In our respective houses they were waiting for us with the strap ready. We stayed away from the river for several days, but once we had got over the fright, we got back into our old habits. The Rio Barbate in the "Prao" was the place where we could be free and let off steam. The older lads had already started smoking, because it was the first act of manhood. They found it difficult to go up and down the hill of La Salá, but the younger ones went down flying and came up running.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
martes, 20 de octubre de 2009
Memories of Alcalá 4: The Griffon Vulture of El Lario
Spanish original
From my house in the Calle la Amiga I heard shouts coming from the Calle Real. As a seven-year-old I could not resist going to find out what event had given rise to such an uproarious hullabaloo. I shot off like an arrow without a second thought, and went to the corner of Calle Real and Rio Verde, where Manolo's father Antonio Mancilla had his tannery. I was sure that Manolo would be waiting for me there. We were the same age and knew each other inside out.
It was a grey autumn afternoon, raining slightly. The year was 1939, when the Civil War was about to end and the postwar era was starting. Two young men had found an injured griffon vulture in El Lario. They were carrying it along in such a way that the poor creature could hardly touch the ground with its claws. There was blood on one of its wings, as if it had been shot with a rifle. The wings must have measured nearly three metres from tip to tip, reaching from one pavement to the other and blocking the whole of the Calle Real.
A group of children came up behind the creature, wanting to get a closer look. But the young men wouldn't let them, for fear that it would try and defend itself. One of them carried a stick. Whenever the vulture made an attempt to flee, he gave it a warning prod and the poor animal looked from one side to the other, as if realising the hopelessness of getting away. On one of these occasions I was able to see its head and its neck, featherless, with the ruff further down forming the plumage that gives it the name leonado. Its expressionless eyes gave out a profound sadness.
Griffon vultures [buitres leonados] were frequently seen in the sky over Alcalá. When they smelled carrion, they would come from the mountain peaks and circle round and round at a great height, as if working out a strategy for falling on a dead mule on the Coracha, a sick cow in the Prado or a wounded deer in the Alcornocales. Later, the band of vultures would remain motionless high in the sky above Alcalá. In the crags of the Alcornocales there were many birds of prey, hunters with robust beaks, strong claws and large wing spans. The Park is one of the biggest in Andalucia and maintains perfect ecosystems for all species; a real treasure of Nature.
People said that they were birds of bad omen, but nobody knew why. The only reason would have been that, when they appeared, they indicated the presence of dead animals and came down to feed on the carrion. For vultures and other carrion-eaters there was no shortage of food in the countryside around Alcalá. As well as carrion, they fed on lizards, snakes, rabbits and any animal left behind by huntsmen. They combed the hills for caza mayor [lit. “big game” e.g.deer, wild boar] and would always find some dead beast left in the undergrowth. Or else they would find animals caught in poachers' traps and never collected.
Luis Berenguer (El Ferrol 1923-Cadiz 1979) was a military sailor, poet and novelist. Attracted by the life of an Alcalá poacher, he wrote in 1966 El Mundo de Juan Lobón, a novel which won the Critics' Prize in 1967. Later he wrote another novel, Marea Escorada, but just as his life as an author was promising to become more fruitful, he died suddenly. Nevertheless El Mundo de Juan Lobón has remained noteworthy as his great literary work.
The retinue followed after the vulture, shouting. They went down the Calle Real from the Plazuela to the Alameda. I don't know how many times they went up and down. Some men who saw them said it was a griffon vulture and that they came from Grazalema. Others said it was a golden eagle. But the young men were certain that the strong, curved beak and the claws were those of a vulture. The poor creature moved its head in sorrow, as if awaiting its sentence. The discussion ended and they dragged the vulture along, forcing it with the stick.
Halfway down the Calle Real, near the house where Dr Antonio Armenta lived, the animal refused to get up again. The young man thrashed it until he could do so no longer. Finally, the creature hung its head and died. Don Antonio stood in his doorway, making a gesture of disapproval at such a death. Later, with his authority as Doctor, he ordered it to be carried to the common land by the Playa, where we played football, and buried. That night, the vulture's sorrowful eyes would not let us sleep.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
From my house in the Calle la Amiga I heard shouts coming from the Calle Real. As a seven-year-old I could not resist going to find out what event had given rise to such an uproarious hullabaloo. I shot off like an arrow without a second thought, and went to the corner of Calle Real and Rio Verde, where Manolo's father Antonio Mancilla had his tannery. I was sure that Manolo would be waiting for me there. We were the same age and knew each other inside out.
It was a grey autumn afternoon, raining slightly. The year was 1939, when the Civil War was about to end and the postwar era was starting. Two young men had found an injured griffon vulture in El Lario. They were carrying it along in such a way that the poor creature could hardly touch the ground with its claws. There was blood on one of its wings, as if it had been shot with a rifle. The wings must have measured nearly three metres from tip to tip, reaching from one pavement to the other and blocking the whole of the Calle Real.
A group of children came up behind the creature, wanting to get a closer look. But the young men wouldn't let them, for fear that it would try and defend itself. One of them carried a stick. Whenever the vulture made an attempt to flee, he gave it a warning prod and the poor animal looked from one side to the other, as if realising the hopelessness of getting away. On one of these occasions I was able to see its head and its neck, featherless, with the ruff further down forming the plumage that gives it the name leonado. Its expressionless eyes gave out a profound sadness.
Griffon vultures [buitres leonados] were frequently seen in the sky over Alcalá. When they smelled carrion, they would come from the mountain peaks and circle round and round at a great height, as if working out a strategy for falling on a dead mule on the Coracha, a sick cow in the Prado or a wounded deer in the Alcornocales. Later, the band of vultures would remain motionless high in the sky above Alcalá. In the crags of the Alcornocales there were many birds of prey, hunters with robust beaks, strong claws and large wing spans. The Park is one of the biggest in Andalucia and maintains perfect ecosystems for all species; a real treasure of Nature.
People said that they were birds of bad omen, but nobody knew why. The only reason would have been that, when they appeared, they indicated the presence of dead animals and came down to feed on the carrion. For vultures and other carrion-eaters there was no shortage of food in the countryside around Alcalá. As well as carrion, they fed on lizards, snakes, rabbits and any animal left behind by huntsmen. They combed the hills for caza mayor [lit. “big game” e.g.deer, wild boar] and would always find some dead beast left in the undergrowth. Or else they would find animals caught in poachers' traps and never collected.
Luis Berenguer (El Ferrol 1923-Cadiz 1979) was a military sailor, poet and novelist. Attracted by the life of an Alcalá poacher, he wrote in 1966 El Mundo de Juan Lobón, a novel which won the Critics' Prize in 1967. Later he wrote another novel, Marea Escorada, but just as his life as an author was promising to become more fruitful, he died suddenly. Nevertheless El Mundo de Juan Lobón has remained noteworthy as his great literary work.
The retinue followed after the vulture, shouting. They went down the Calle Real from the Plazuela to the Alameda. I don't know how many times they went up and down. Some men who saw them said it was a griffon vulture and that they came from Grazalema. Others said it was a golden eagle. But the young men were certain that the strong, curved beak and the claws were those of a vulture. The poor creature moved its head in sorrow, as if awaiting its sentence. The discussion ended and they dragged the vulture along, forcing it with the stick.
Halfway down the Calle Real, near the house where Dr Antonio Armenta lived, the animal refused to get up again. The young man thrashed it until he could do so no longer. Finally, the creature hung its head and died. Don Antonio stood in his doorway, making a gesture of disapproval at such a death. Later, with his authority as Doctor, he ordered it to be carried to the common land by the Playa, where we played football, and buried. That night, the vulture's sorrowful eyes would not let us sleep.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
Memories of Alcalá 3: Juan Ramos's cakes
Spanish original
"Juan, go and get the cakes from Juan Ramos's", my father would say to me while he was drinking his camomile tea. My father was a man with a delicate stomach, which meant that he had to watch what he ate, almost everything made him feel ill. Perhaps that was why he got in a bad mood sometimes.
But my mother understood this well and took good care of him. Every morning before breakfast, she brought him a cup of strained camomile and some of Juan Ramos's cakes. Father tipped the camomile tea into a bowl to cool it down, and drank it in small sips. I sat at his side to watch him drink the infusion and await the order.
The camomile of Alcalá was famous. It was a wild plant which a man brought in a sack from the Sierra del Aljibe, over by the peaks of the “Pilita de la Reina”. Many excellent aromatic plants for making infusions grew up there; thyme, rosemary, camomile, lime flower, lavender … But the camomile was the best in the world. The people of Alcalá appreciated it greatly and were addicted to it.
When my father gave the order I jumped up, grabbed the money, went through the gate and ran like the wind up the Calle la Amiga. I passed by the barracks of the Guardia Civil, where in summer there was always a guard in the entrance, sweating, with his jacket undone and a jug of water on the floor, typing away. I took the “Carril Alto” and went down the street drawn by the smell of hot bread, buns and cakes. That street now seems to be called “Fernando Casas” and opens up into the Plazuela. On that corner where the Carril joins the Calle Real, Juan Ramos's little shop used to be.
Juan Ramos was an easy-going chap, a shopkeeper by vocation, who knew all his customers so well that as soon as someone came in he knew what they wanted. For me he would wrap up half a dozen round, soft, warm, sweet-smelling tarts … They looked like the famous macaroons from Utrera, but they were even better. Their smell and their flavour have remained forever in between my salivary glands and my childhood memories.
I went back the same way, running, because my father was very impatient and had to be at the Town Hall by half past eight. I would watch closely as he dunked the cakes in the cup to moisten them with the coffee. Sometimes there wasn't time for them to get from cup to mouth, and they would fall on the table. Then he would say “This one is for my Juan”. My mother would bring me coffee with milk and some toasted bread with oil and sugar, but by then the cake would already have disappeared.
Alcalá's home-baked sweets and pastries were excellent; cakes made with olive oil, almond cakes, tortas de chicharrones1, cakes with raisins, “angel hair” cakes, meringues, marzipan ... the latter was also one of Juan Ramos's specialities. He made elaborate little marzipan figurines and sold them to the kids in the streets, to the delight of the little girls and boys. They were playful figures of animals and real-life characters from Alcalá.
The fried sweets were equally exquisite; doughnuts, honeyed fritters, fried bread or picatostes, leche frita2, fried pastry rings, tejeringos3 made by a gipsy who had a stall on the Alalameda … And the sweets made at Christmas and Easter: rice with milk; pumpkin in honey, the honey of the Alcornocales; stuffed cheese with honey; quince in syrup …
They say that we were taught how to make many of these sweets by the Moors. And in truth, when I've been over to Morocco I have seen them in refreshment stalls on the city streets, at fiestas, in the soukhs and in the markets. But the buns of Juan Ramos I have never come across since. Sometimes, when I pass through Alcalá, I go to the Horno de Luna in the Callejón de Bernadino and buy bread, soft rolls, tortas de pellizco4, and other whims to stir up my childhood memories. But those cakes and those marzipan figures have disappeared forever along with Juan Ramos.
Notes
1. A savoury-sweet cake made with sugar, lard and crumbled pork scratchings.
2. Dessert made of milk thickened with flour, coated with egg and fried.
3. Local name for churros, thick batter squirted through a syringe and deep-fried.
4. Sweet buns leavened with yeast and sprinkled with cinnamon.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
"Juan, go and get the cakes from Juan Ramos's", my father would say to me while he was drinking his camomile tea. My father was a man with a delicate stomach, which meant that he had to watch what he ate, almost everything made him feel ill. Perhaps that was why he got in a bad mood sometimes.
But my mother understood this well and took good care of him. Every morning before breakfast, she brought him a cup of strained camomile and some of Juan Ramos's cakes. Father tipped the camomile tea into a bowl to cool it down, and drank it in small sips. I sat at his side to watch him drink the infusion and await the order.
The camomile of Alcalá was famous. It was a wild plant which a man brought in a sack from the Sierra del Aljibe, over by the peaks of the “Pilita de la Reina”. Many excellent aromatic plants for making infusions grew up there; thyme, rosemary, camomile, lime flower, lavender … But the camomile was the best in the world. The people of Alcalá appreciated it greatly and were addicted to it.
When my father gave the order I jumped up, grabbed the money, went through the gate and ran like the wind up the Calle la Amiga. I passed by the barracks of the Guardia Civil, where in summer there was always a guard in the entrance, sweating, with his jacket undone and a jug of water on the floor, typing away. I took the “Carril Alto” and went down the street drawn by the smell of hot bread, buns and cakes. That street now seems to be called “Fernando Casas” and opens up into the Plazuela. On that corner where the Carril joins the Calle Real, Juan Ramos's little shop used to be.
Juan Ramos was an easy-going chap, a shopkeeper by vocation, who knew all his customers so well that as soon as someone came in he knew what they wanted. For me he would wrap up half a dozen round, soft, warm, sweet-smelling tarts … They looked like the famous macaroons from Utrera, but they were even better. Their smell and their flavour have remained forever in between my salivary glands and my childhood memories.
I went back the same way, running, because my father was very impatient and had to be at the Town Hall by half past eight. I would watch closely as he dunked the cakes in the cup to moisten them with the coffee. Sometimes there wasn't time for them to get from cup to mouth, and they would fall on the table. Then he would say “This one is for my Juan”. My mother would bring me coffee with milk and some toasted bread with oil and sugar, but by then the cake would already have disappeared.
Alcalá's home-baked sweets and pastries were excellent; cakes made with olive oil, almond cakes, tortas de chicharrones1, cakes with raisins, “angel hair” cakes, meringues, marzipan ... the latter was also one of Juan Ramos's specialities. He made elaborate little marzipan figurines and sold them to the kids in the streets, to the delight of the little girls and boys. They were playful figures of animals and real-life characters from Alcalá.
The fried sweets were equally exquisite; doughnuts, honeyed fritters, fried bread or picatostes, leche frita2, fried pastry rings, tejeringos3 made by a gipsy who had a stall on the Alalameda … And the sweets made at Christmas and Easter: rice with milk; pumpkin in honey, the honey of the Alcornocales; stuffed cheese with honey; quince in syrup …
They say that we were taught how to make many of these sweets by the Moors. And in truth, when I've been over to Morocco I have seen them in refreshment stalls on the city streets, at fiestas, in the soukhs and in the markets. But the buns of Juan Ramos I have never come across since. Sometimes, when I pass through Alcalá, I go to the Horno de Luna in the Callejón de Bernadino and buy bread, soft rolls, tortas de pellizco4, and other whims to stir up my childhood memories. But those cakes and those marzipan figures have disappeared forever along with Juan Ramos.
Notes
1. A savoury-sweet cake made with sugar, lard and crumbled pork scratchings.
2. Dessert made of milk thickened with flour, coated with egg and fried.
3. Local name for churros, thick batter squirted through a syringe and deep-fried.
4. Sweet buns leavened with yeast and sprinkled with cinnamon.
JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd
viernes, 16 de octubre de 2009
Opening Speech of the 2009 Feria by Bibiana Aído
Translation of the Opening Speech of the Alcalá de los Gazules Feria1, 28 August 2009, by Bibiana Aído, Minister of Equality
Spanish original
Dear Mayor, Consejero, President of the Deputation, Senior Romera2, Honorary Romeras, Authorities and Friends,
I could have begun tonight by acknowledging how honoured I am to have been invited to give this opening address; I could have begun by dedicating eulogies to our town, or talking about the history of our feria over more than century and a half; I could have begun with the famous phrase of Lorca's3, or with some borrowed verse. But of all the possibilities that occurred to me, I want to begin tonight by giving thanks to those of you who are listening to me, the people of Alcalá.
Thank you for being noble, genuine, straightforward, tenacious people … good people. Thank you for always having been so. Because although I have never left Alcalá, I have daily proof that Alcalá has never left me either. I notice it every day, whether I am close by or far away, for wherever my steps lead me in life, I run into my fellow countrymen and women.
I always have someone from Alcalá nearby. And when life brings me pain or melancholy, my memory always returns here, to Alcalá, to unite me with the memory of my own people.
To unite me with the memory of my people, that history which stretches from the Laja de los Hierros, with its prehistoric rock carvings from the era of the Turdetanos, or the first Roman inscription in Spain, which was found on the Mesa del Esparragal and which today is conserved in the Louvre museum. In the jigsaw puzzle of my memories, they are pieced together with the long-disappeared Visigoth churches, or the two sentinels which stand watch over our town; the castle and the Parroquia3.
To open any festival or a fair is a great responsibility; you are made welcome and invited to enjoy a few days of greetings and shared embraces, but this is more than that, it is about opening the feria which formed part of your childhood longings and concerns; you are obliged to carry out an exercise of confronting your memories and returning to the past; you are obliged to sit down and contemplate part of your own life, and also to acknowledge the selective gaps in your memory.
With this backward look, the first feelings of nostalgia start to flower, distant voices make themselves present, places you no longer visit start to become familiar again.
I was back once more in the courtyard of the Beaterio4 during the break, and found myself once again trying to avoid the attentive eyes of the Sisters and teachers in order to to go off and play. I was back on a Saturday afternoon in this park, which once again had walls, and we ran round and hid from Angelito when he turned off the lights and it was time for the curfew. I was back eating bread from the Puerto la Pará, and once again I rode on horseback in Las Porquerizas, I spent a rainy afternoon drinking stewed coffee in the Venta de Patriste, and I was back doing sums again, and I didn't have enough fingers to count the loved ones I still have in my town.
I was able, as well, to wander through past ferias which filled me with excitement every September like the sun setting on a summer which refuses to end. And I saw myself in my new costume, in the house of my grandmother Pepa, who gave me 20 duros to buy odds and ends; I saw myself waiting in line to buy candyfloss, while thinking that there had to be something magic about that pink cloud which you could eat; I saw myself frightened to death on the ghost-train, and I saw myself holding my parents' hands to go up on that big wheel which appeared to me so enormous and majestic.
I was very small, and I remember that I wanted to grow up so I could go up in those swinging cradles on my own, to fly up high, to go round and round without stopping, to discover what it felt like to be alone so high up, and to stay in that same place for ever.
To come home, year after year, to meet up with people who are pleased to see us and whom we are pleased to see, to go back to our beginnings, to know that we are not alone; that is what the feria still means to me and to the majority of those who had to go away in search of a better future.
There were many such people, and there continue to be too many. People from Alcalá have gone away to all parts of the world. We are everywhere. But in each man or woman from Alcalá who goes away, we have an ambassador for our town, extending our geographical limits, our living space; because nobody can take away our love for our roots, for our people, and we extend these sentiments to many other people who are also starting to feel like part of our community.
And Alcalá goes on welcoming its newly-adopted children, like Matthew Coman, member of one of the best musical groups in the UK and one of the founders of the International Music Festival 'Al-Kalat', today consolidated as once of the Province's unmissable cultural dates in the summer. Or, in the past, like Maria Francisca Ulloa la Partera, the midwife who came from Utrera to help give birth to three generations of Alcalainos, and after whom one of our streets is named.
I have been able also to return to my adolescence, when a yellow card on the bumper cars was a treasure which gave us enormous but short-lived power. I revisited the Alambique, the Luca, the Paco Nono disco, the municipal marquee, the bullfighting club, and that of the Friends of the Camino, when those exciting September days arrived. I went back to my first auction to be allocated a room at [the Sanctuary of] Los Santos, which we called the “wardrobe” because of its diminutive size, and another one some years later, in which we managed to get the “dining room”, the biggest and most desirable room of all. I went back to dancing sevillanas and taking part in the procession, partly on the cart, partly on horseback and partly walking, and getting some soup at the stopping-point on the way to build up the strength to reach Los Santos.
To reach Los Santos, and to see it - because as the words of that popular sevillana go, “We are all happy under your cloak”. And that's the great thing about it, that everybody loves it. As I once heard from our world-famous Alejandro Sanz5, there may be atheists in Alcalá, but they can't touch the Virgin of the Saints. There may be people who don't believe in gods or in religions, but who still believe in the Virgin of the Saints, in that old lady who is waiting in a corner for anyone who leaves her an offering, a prayer or a complicit wink.
I remember how proud I felt when, as the provincial delegate for Culture, I was able to contribute to the restoration of the paintings in the dome of the Sanctuary. Deep down, here amongst us, I felt as happy as if I was contributing to the restoration of the house of an old friend.
How many people have you seen born! How much talent under these skies! I could speak of philosophers like Antonio Millán Puelles or Fernando Casas; of writers like Juan Leiva, who from Jerez continues to ecupulavoke memories of Manuel Marchante´s old school and his escapades on the Alcalá hilltops.
I could speak of flamenco artists like Joaquin Herrera, and recallthat even El Camarón had flamenco roots in Alcalá according to a native of these parts, or Juan Romero, who is married to the poet Lola Peche from Algeciras, who has given us one of the most beautiful descriptions of our town:
Alcalá de los Gazules … the unordered white cluster of your houses, hanging amongst the gay greenery, blown by the wind like a victory flag, bordered with evergreen laurels. Give me a welcome, under your resounding blue sky, that I will remember you by with joy, forever, forever ...”
I could speak of politicians too, many of them but one amongst all others: Alfonso Perales6, whose name I still can't conjugate in the past tense.
I could speak of Sainz de Andino, who founded the Madrid Stock Exchange but whose liberal ideas led him into exile in France on two occasions. He opposed the return of the absolutism of Fernando VII, like many of us who continue to oppose absolutism of any kind, above all that of people who believe they are always in the right.
I could speak of Juan Lobón and his world 7, which is a world of adventure, of the emotion of the woods, that forest of cork-oaks which surrounds us and reminds us that the human being is not the king of creation but a just a fragile part of it, and full of questions about this marvellous spectacle we call nature.
I could speak of other legendary characters of ours, like Batata or Potoco. I could speak of the cork-gatherers, the farmers, and in general, the efforts of workers to bring forward our land.
But above all, tonight I would like to bring to mind and express my recognition and gratitude to all the women of Alcalá. To those remembered and those anonymous, to those of yesterday and those of today. To those who carried out their household tasks day after day. To the young women who struggled, studied and worked to have a better future. To the grandmothers, to all those women who gave up their leisure time to dedicate themselves once more to caring for children, this time their grandchildren. To them, because they are supporting us in these years of change between the reality we have now and that which we aspire to construct.
To their daughters, mothers in their turn, who don't want to give up their dreams, their professional careers, their own lives. Women who have to balance their time, coping with being away from the home, doing two or even three jobs each day … And to all the others, those who have gone away, those who have returned, those who have come here for the first time. Those who crave knowledge and who go to the Adult Learning Centre to study what they couldn't before. Those who make ends meet, those who can't make it to the end of the month, the widows, those who live alone, those who don't get discouraged, those who help others, those who suffer in silence, those who decide to speak out, those who resist, those who dream … To those many women that make this town, each day, a better place to live in.
One of the best places to live in, to share. A place of “sailors of the land”, of mermaids stranded on the banks of La Janda, and perhaps that is why, maybe because we pine for the cool air of the seaports, we have so many marine names8 in our midst, which go on causing confusion to some of our visitors.
And it's true that names don't matter much here, as we well know from the Calle Real, which has had so many other names but which goes on proudly calling itself Calle Real. Like the Plaza de la Cruz, which is known as the Alameda.
A capricious construction of playing-cards, fragile and whiter-than-white, on a hill which rises up from the emerald green of the countryside. This is how Alcalá is described by Manuel Peréz Regordán from Arcos de la Frontera.
For me, that deck of cards takes shape as if forming part of the story of Alice in Wonderland. And in any case it is a hand full of hearts, including gazpacho, la Coracha, el Picacho, and the fervour for our patron lady.
But above all, it is somewhere we can take real pride in feeling ourselves brothers and sisters of this landscape, witnesses to the centuries, accomplices of the Gazuls, that keeps us trying to prevent our town getting gored by life's horns. According to our contrary names, Alcalá has a beach, it has a port and it has salt mines. But above all, it has a supportive and charitable heart which beats more strongly than ever when the feria arrives.
A few years ago, I had the honour of giving the opening address at the celebrations of St George and I asked our patron saint to convert himself into a messenger of peace. I requested that friendship and conviviality should be the queens of the Fiesta, with tolerance and respect as our dancing partners. I implored him to slay the dragon of ignorance, evil and injustice, and to go on fighting every day for a future full of hope and love.
Today I address our patroness, our Virgin of the Saints, patroness both of those who believe and those who don't. And I ask her to banish evil and meanness. That she should not forget us in the business of living our lives, nor in the worthy business of working each day with energy and confidence in a better tomorrow. To liberate us from attacks of fanaticism, and also from resentment, tension and confrontation: “That which unites us is always greater than that which separates us”. Let us build a culture of peace, where there is no room for contempt toward the dignity of others. Let prosperity and well-being reign in our town.
And let time stand still during these days of Feria, let the hours not pass. Let us all be together and let nobody be left out.
They say that the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Today I went back to seeing things the way I did when I was a little girl, how I longed to be able go up alone in the big wheel to see what it felt like, and I can assure you all, that nothing would have given me more pleasure, then, than to see myself standing here right now, shouting out:
LONG LIVE THE FERIA!
LONG LIVE ALCALÁ!
Translated by Claire Lloyd
Footnotes
1. A Spanish “feria” is a cross between a fair and a festival, lasting for several days and involving music, dancing, fairground rides, eating, drinking and dressing up in traditional flamenco costume.
2. A participant in a religious procession, in this case the “Romeria” from Alcalá to the Sanctuario de los Santos which takes place early in September.
3. The Parroquia de San Jorge, or Church of St George, at the top of the town.
4. Colegio Beaterio Jesus María y José – a Catholic infant school in Alcalá.
5. A famous pop singer whose family comes from Alcalá.
6. A leading socialist politician and former government minister who died in 2006.
7. A fictitious local poacher in a novel by Luis Berenguer, El Mundo de Juan Lobón.
8. For example the oddly-named Paseo de la Playa.
Spanish original
Dear Mayor, Consejero, President of the Deputation, Senior Romera2, Honorary Romeras, Authorities and Friends,
I could have begun tonight by acknowledging how honoured I am to have been invited to give this opening address; I could have begun by dedicating eulogies to our town, or talking about the history of our feria over more than century and a half; I could have begun with the famous phrase of Lorca's3, or with some borrowed verse. But of all the possibilities that occurred to me, I want to begin tonight by giving thanks to those of you who are listening to me, the people of Alcalá.
Thank you for being noble, genuine, straightforward, tenacious people … good people. Thank you for always having been so. Because although I have never left Alcalá, I have daily proof that Alcalá has never left me either. I notice it every day, whether I am close by or far away, for wherever my steps lead me in life, I run into my fellow countrymen and women.
I always have someone from Alcalá nearby. And when life brings me pain or melancholy, my memory always returns here, to Alcalá, to unite me with the memory of my own people.
To unite me with the memory of my people, that history which stretches from the Laja de los Hierros, with its prehistoric rock carvings from the era of the Turdetanos, or the first Roman inscription in Spain, which was found on the Mesa del Esparragal and which today is conserved in the Louvre museum. In the jigsaw puzzle of my memories, they are pieced together with the long-disappeared Visigoth churches, or the two sentinels which stand watch over our town; the castle and the Parroquia3.
To open any festival or a fair is a great responsibility; you are made welcome and invited to enjoy a few days of greetings and shared embraces, but this is more than that, it is about opening the feria which formed part of your childhood longings and concerns; you are obliged to carry out an exercise of confronting your memories and returning to the past; you are obliged to sit down and contemplate part of your own life, and also to acknowledge the selective gaps in your memory.
With this backward look, the first feelings of nostalgia start to flower, distant voices make themselves present, places you no longer visit start to become familiar again.
I was back once more in the courtyard of the Beaterio4 during the break, and found myself once again trying to avoid the attentive eyes of the Sisters and teachers in order to to go off and play. I was back on a Saturday afternoon in this park, which once again had walls, and we ran round and hid from Angelito when he turned off the lights and it was time for the curfew. I was back eating bread from the Puerto la Pará, and once again I rode on horseback in Las Porquerizas, I spent a rainy afternoon drinking stewed coffee in the Venta de Patriste, and I was back doing sums again, and I didn't have enough fingers to count the loved ones I still have in my town.
I was able, as well, to wander through past ferias which filled me with excitement every September like the sun setting on a summer which refuses to end. And I saw myself in my new costume, in the house of my grandmother Pepa, who gave me 20 duros to buy odds and ends; I saw myself waiting in line to buy candyfloss, while thinking that there had to be something magic about that pink cloud which you could eat; I saw myself frightened to death on the ghost-train, and I saw myself holding my parents' hands to go up on that big wheel which appeared to me so enormous and majestic.
I was very small, and I remember that I wanted to grow up so I could go up in those swinging cradles on my own, to fly up high, to go round and round without stopping, to discover what it felt like to be alone so high up, and to stay in that same place for ever.
To come home, year after year, to meet up with people who are pleased to see us and whom we are pleased to see, to go back to our beginnings, to know that we are not alone; that is what the feria still means to me and to the majority of those who had to go away in search of a better future.
There were many such people, and there continue to be too many. People from Alcalá have gone away to all parts of the world. We are everywhere. But in each man or woman from Alcalá who goes away, we have an ambassador for our town, extending our geographical limits, our living space; because nobody can take away our love for our roots, for our people, and we extend these sentiments to many other people who are also starting to feel like part of our community.
And Alcalá goes on welcoming its newly-adopted children, like Matthew Coman, member of one of the best musical groups in the UK and one of the founders of the International Music Festival 'Al-Kalat', today consolidated as once of the Province's unmissable cultural dates in the summer. Or, in the past, like Maria Francisca Ulloa la Partera, the midwife who came from Utrera to help give birth to three generations of Alcalainos, and after whom one of our streets is named.
I have been able also to return to my adolescence, when a yellow card on the bumper cars was a treasure which gave us enormous but short-lived power. I revisited the Alambique, the Luca, the Paco Nono disco, the municipal marquee, the bullfighting club, and that of the Friends of the Camino, when those exciting September days arrived. I went back to my first auction to be allocated a room at [the Sanctuary of] Los Santos, which we called the “wardrobe” because of its diminutive size, and another one some years later, in which we managed to get the “dining room”, the biggest and most desirable room of all. I went back to dancing sevillanas and taking part in the procession, partly on the cart, partly on horseback and partly walking, and getting some soup at the stopping-point on the way to build up the strength to reach Los Santos.
To reach Los Santos, and to see it - because as the words of that popular sevillana go, “We are all happy under your cloak”. And that's the great thing about it, that everybody loves it. As I once heard from our world-famous Alejandro Sanz5, there may be atheists in Alcalá, but they can't touch the Virgin of the Saints. There may be people who don't believe in gods or in religions, but who still believe in the Virgin of the Saints, in that old lady who is waiting in a corner for anyone who leaves her an offering, a prayer or a complicit wink.
I remember how proud I felt when, as the provincial delegate for Culture, I was able to contribute to the restoration of the paintings in the dome of the Sanctuary. Deep down, here amongst us, I felt as happy as if I was contributing to the restoration of the house of an old friend.
How many people have you seen born! How much talent under these skies! I could speak of philosophers like Antonio Millán Puelles or Fernando Casas; of writers like Juan Leiva, who from Jerez continues to ecupulavoke memories of Manuel Marchante´s old school and his escapades on the Alcalá hilltops.
I could speak of flamenco artists like Joaquin Herrera, and recallthat even El Camarón had flamenco roots in Alcalá according to a native of these parts, or Juan Romero, who is married to the poet Lola Peche from Algeciras, who has given us one of the most beautiful descriptions of our town:
Alcalá de los Gazules … the unordered white cluster of your houses, hanging amongst the gay greenery, blown by the wind like a victory flag, bordered with evergreen laurels. Give me a welcome, under your resounding blue sky, that I will remember you by with joy, forever, forever ...”
I could speak of politicians too, many of them but one amongst all others: Alfonso Perales6, whose name I still can't conjugate in the past tense.
I could speak of Sainz de Andino, who founded the Madrid Stock Exchange but whose liberal ideas led him into exile in France on two occasions. He opposed the return of the absolutism of Fernando VII, like many of us who continue to oppose absolutism of any kind, above all that of people who believe they are always in the right.
I could speak of Juan Lobón and his world 7, which is a world of adventure, of the emotion of the woods, that forest of cork-oaks which surrounds us and reminds us that the human being is not the king of creation but a just a fragile part of it, and full of questions about this marvellous spectacle we call nature.
I could speak of other legendary characters of ours, like Batata or Potoco. I could speak of the cork-gatherers, the farmers, and in general, the efforts of workers to bring forward our land.
But above all, tonight I would like to bring to mind and express my recognition and gratitude to all the women of Alcalá. To those remembered and those anonymous, to those of yesterday and those of today. To those who carried out their household tasks day after day. To the young women who struggled, studied and worked to have a better future. To the grandmothers, to all those women who gave up their leisure time to dedicate themselves once more to caring for children, this time their grandchildren. To them, because they are supporting us in these years of change between the reality we have now and that which we aspire to construct.
To their daughters, mothers in their turn, who don't want to give up their dreams, their professional careers, their own lives. Women who have to balance their time, coping with being away from the home, doing two or even three jobs each day … And to all the others, those who have gone away, those who have returned, those who have come here for the first time. Those who crave knowledge and who go to the Adult Learning Centre to study what they couldn't before. Those who make ends meet, those who can't make it to the end of the month, the widows, those who live alone, those who don't get discouraged, those who help others, those who suffer in silence, those who decide to speak out, those who resist, those who dream … To those many women that make this town, each day, a better place to live in.
One of the best places to live in, to share. A place of “sailors of the land”, of mermaids stranded on the banks of La Janda, and perhaps that is why, maybe because we pine for the cool air of the seaports, we have so many marine names8 in our midst, which go on causing confusion to some of our visitors.
And it's true that names don't matter much here, as we well know from the Calle Real, which has had so many other names but which goes on proudly calling itself Calle Real. Like the Plaza de la Cruz, which is known as the Alameda.
A capricious construction of playing-cards, fragile and whiter-than-white, on a hill which rises up from the emerald green of the countryside. This is how Alcalá is described by Manuel Peréz Regordán from Arcos de la Frontera.
For me, that deck of cards takes shape as if forming part of the story of Alice in Wonderland. And in any case it is a hand full of hearts, including gazpacho, la Coracha, el Picacho, and the fervour for our patron lady.
But above all, it is somewhere we can take real pride in feeling ourselves brothers and sisters of this landscape, witnesses to the centuries, accomplices of the Gazuls, that keeps us trying to prevent our town getting gored by life's horns. According to our contrary names, Alcalá has a beach, it has a port and it has salt mines. But above all, it has a supportive and charitable heart which beats more strongly than ever when the feria arrives.
A few years ago, I had the honour of giving the opening address at the celebrations of St George and I asked our patron saint to convert himself into a messenger of peace. I requested that friendship and conviviality should be the queens of the Fiesta, with tolerance and respect as our dancing partners. I implored him to slay the dragon of ignorance, evil and injustice, and to go on fighting every day for a future full of hope and love.
Today I address our patroness, our Virgin of the Saints, patroness both of those who believe and those who don't. And I ask her to banish evil and meanness. That she should not forget us in the business of living our lives, nor in the worthy business of working each day with energy and confidence in a better tomorrow. To liberate us from attacks of fanaticism, and also from resentment, tension and confrontation: “That which unites us is always greater than that which separates us”. Let us build a culture of peace, where there is no room for contempt toward the dignity of others. Let prosperity and well-being reign in our town.
And let time stand still during these days of Feria, let the hours not pass. Let us all be together and let nobody be left out.
They say that the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Today I went back to seeing things the way I did when I was a little girl, how I longed to be able go up alone in the big wheel to see what it felt like, and I can assure you all, that nothing would have given me more pleasure, then, than to see myself standing here right now, shouting out:
LONG LIVE THE FERIA!
LONG LIVE ALCALÁ!
Translated by Claire Lloyd
Footnotes
1. A Spanish “feria” is a cross between a fair and a festival, lasting for several days and involving music, dancing, fairground rides, eating, drinking and dressing up in traditional flamenco costume.
2. A participant in a religious procession, in this case the “Romeria” from Alcalá to the Sanctuario de los Santos which takes place early in September.
3. The Parroquia de San Jorge, or Church of St George, at the top of the town.
4. Colegio Beaterio Jesus María y José – a Catholic infant school in Alcalá.
5. A famous pop singer whose family comes from Alcalá.
6. A leading socialist politician and former government minister who died in 2006.
7. A fictitious local poacher in a novel by Luis Berenguer, El Mundo de Juan Lobón.
8. For example the oddly-named Paseo de la Playa.
jueves, 22 de marzo de 2007
martes, 13 de marzo de 2007
Niños de los cincuenta
Tras los ventanales veía la lluvia caer. El infinito era todo gris y triste. Los cristales se llenaban de vaho y todo parecía triste y melancólico..., como si el tiempo se hubiese detenido. Cuando llovía, lo hacía de verdad. Los pájaros se guarecían bajo el alero de los tejados o entre alguna que otra teja rota.
Sólo se veía por la calle alguna que otra reata de burros acompañada de su amo, envuelto en unos capotes de plástico infinitos y pesados.
Esperábamos, tras nuestra melancolía, que la lluvia escampase para poder hacernos, de nuevo, dueños de la calle. En ella no teníamos competencia alguna. Hoy día, las calles son de los vehículos motorizados; entonces, no.
Mientras aguardaba que la lluvia nos dejara sitio en la calle, nuestro sitio, pensaba en los hombres “sacamantecas”... Nunca lo entendí. ¿Es posible que haya seres humanos que se dediquen a sacar sangre a los niños para luego venderla? No, no me cabía en la cabeza. ¿Estos hombres no tienen hijos? ¿No les da nada matar a una criaturita que nunca ha hecho daño a nadie?
Por lo visto, esos seres temerosos estaban más allá del “Compás” o por detrás del “Lario”. Aquellos eran lugares donde un niño de nuestra edad no podía ir solo. ¡Qué miedo! Nos aterrorizaban con aquellas historias. Al igual que nos decían que por algunas casas del “Lario” había fantasmas. Llevaban sábanas blancas y se movían sin pies, como volando por el aire..., y brujas...
Eran nuestros fantasmas, nuestros miedos; era una forma de delimitar nuestros vuelos y cortar nuestras alas. Porque la calle era nuestra total.
Más de uno y más de dos, casi todos, íbamos con dignidad, con nuestra ropita zurcida y requetezurcida, con remiendos y parches... pero con dignidad. No llevábamos ni marcas ni lujos, sino una posguerra con dignidad.
Y así, íbamos a nuestras calles, que nos parecían muy amplias y sobre ella improvisábamos un campo de fútbol. Nuestros balones, nada de cuero ni de badana, simplemente papeles o trapos liados con cuerdas. Sí, echábamos la tarde. Alguna que otra vez alguien llevaba una pelota de goma y era todo un lujo. El problema de nuestros campos futboleros eran las cuestas. Si alguna de esas pelotas de goma rodaba..., había que ir tras ellas como alma que lleva el diablo. Teníamos que darnos mucha prisa, ya que más de una vez se nos adelantaba un “municipal” y desaparecía...
Otras veces, tanto las pelotas de verdad como las hechas con sucedáneos, se embarcaban en los tejados. Había que ingeniárselas para recuperar tan preciado tesoro: con palos de escoba o con cañas de coger chumbos o unos subidos sobre otros, de mil formas, antes que la pelota quedase en el tejado; esto suponía ir al paro, se acabó el fútbol por el día.
Pero éramos muy felices.
Íbamos tras un aro de metal, muchos de ellos sacados de cubos, y con una “guía”, confeccionada con alambres; con él recorríamos calles tras calles. Había que ser muy diestros para que no se te cayera. Después de mucho aprendizaje, lo conseguíamos... Teníamos hasta feria con cacharritos.
El presupuesto era raquítico, no como ahora, y teníamos que ahorrar y economizar para poder subirte en un u otro, comprar esta o aquella chuchería, o bien, contemplar cómo aquellas escopetas de plomillo o de munición de corcha fallaban. ¿Porqué fallaban tanto si aquellos adultos que disparaban estaban acostumbrados a hacerlo en el campo a conejos, perdices y demás? Luego supe que todas estaban trucadas.
En la feria también se vendían camarones y cangrejos. ¡Cómo aguantaban de un día para otro! Y eso que no había neveras ni frigoríficos. Lo que hacía el “ácido úrico”..., eso es lo que comentaban algunas personas... (¿)
No me acuerdo bien si era en alguna feria o con motivo de alguna fiesta, al oír las campanas de San Jorge abandonábamos toda actividad física y nos dirigíamos a la iglesia a celebrar el mes de María, el mes de las flores. Era una bonita costumbre que nos rompía nuestra rutina y nos sumergía en un mundo ideal, bucólico, angelical. Siempre había flores, muchas flores; de las de verdad, de las que huelen.
También recuerdo los olores de Semana Santa. Olor a cera, a incienso y, sobre todo, a romero. La Parroquia se alfombraba con ramas de romero y dejaba un olor característico que perfumaba todo el templo y te hacía pensar más en el misterio que se celebraba. Y lo que más me llamaba la atención era el silencio. Esos días de Semana Santa se hablaba poco en general, tanto en las calles como en casa; pero donde había silencio sepulcral era en el templo y en la procesión del “silencio”. ¡Qué respeto, qué devoción, cuánto misterio encerraba aquella mudez y aquella admiración y veneración por lo sagrado! El silencio de entonces y la ausencia de ruidos estridentes, nos adentraban más en nuestro interior y nos hacían niños reflexivos, sensibles, con otra conciencia. El ruido de hoy nos aturde, nos atonta y nos hace huir del silencio y de nosotros mismos; como si endureciera la piel de nuestra alma.
Niños felices, con todas las carencias imaginables; pero ricos en imaginación, en ilusiones, en amistades, en recuerdos, en sacrificios. No teníamos casi nada, pero de ahí hemos llegado a tener mucho, por dentro y por fuera. Los niños de hoy viven presos de sus cosas, de sus cacharros, de sus juguetes electrónicos, y no son libres, no son tan alegres ni tan imaginativos, ni tan sacrificados, ni con esa voluntad de hierro con la que nos forjaron...: no saben que hacer y se aburren.
No éramos perfectos, pues también teníamos nuestras cosillas y nuestras travesuras. Alguna que otra bombilla pública caía de alguna pedrada o de una perdigonada, más de uno pudiente se podía tomar el lujo de comprar de vez en cuando un “bisonte” o un “celta”, los demás se “colocaban” fumando hojas de higuera o papel de estraza; papel utilísimo para casi todo: servía para el retrete, para envolverlo todo y hasta para fabricar las pelotas de trapo y de papel.
Niños, al fin y al cabo; pero niños muy felices, sanos, obedientes, respetuosos, educados... Limpios..., hasta que nos duraba el “lavaíllo” que nos dábamos por partes; a plazos, diría yo.
En fin, eran otros tiempos, otros modos, otra “industrialización”, otra educación, otra política... Aquello era otra cosa, y pudimos con todos los obstáculos que nos encontrábamos en el camino. Eran los años cincuenta.
Manuel Jiménez Vargas-Machuca
17 de julio de 2004
Sólo se veía por la calle alguna que otra reata de burros acompañada de su amo, envuelto en unos capotes de plástico infinitos y pesados.
Esperábamos, tras nuestra melancolía, que la lluvia escampase para poder hacernos, de nuevo, dueños de la calle. En ella no teníamos competencia alguna. Hoy día, las calles son de los vehículos motorizados; entonces, no.
Mientras aguardaba que la lluvia nos dejara sitio en la calle, nuestro sitio, pensaba en los hombres “sacamantecas”... Nunca lo entendí. ¿Es posible que haya seres humanos que se dediquen a sacar sangre a los niños para luego venderla? No, no me cabía en la cabeza. ¿Estos hombres no tienen hijos? ¿No les da nada matar a una criaturita que nunca ha hecho daño a nadie?
Por lo visto, esos seres temerosos estaban más allá del “Compás” o por detrás del “Lario”. Aquellos eran lugares donde un niño de nuestra edad no podía ir solo. ¡Qué miedo! Nos aterrorizaban con aquellas historias. Al igual que nos decían que por algunas casas del “Lario” había fantasmas. Llevaban sábanas blancas y se movían sin pies, como volando por el aire..., y brujas...
Eran nuestros fantasmas, nuestros miedos; era una forma de delimitar nuestros vuelos y cortar nuestras alas. Porque la calle era nuestra total.
Más de uno y más de dos, casi todos, íbamos con dignidad, con nuestra ropita zurcida y requetezurcida, con remiendos y parches... pero con dignidad. No llevábamos ni marcas ni lujos, sino una posguerra con dignidad.
Y así, íbamos a nuestras calles, que nos parecían muy amplias y sobre ella improvisábamos un campo de fútbol. Nuestros balones, nada de cuero ni de badana, simplemente papeles o trapos liados con cuerdas. Sí, echábamos la tarde. Alguna que otra vez alguien llevaba una pelota de goma y era todo un lujo. El problema de nuestros campos futboleros eran las cuestas. Si alguna de esas pelotas de goma rodaba..., había que ir tras ellas como alma que lleva el diablo. Teníamos que darnos mucha prisa, ya que más de una vez se nos adelantaba un “municipal” y desaparecía...
Otras veces, tanto las pelotas de verdad como las hechas con sucedáneos, se embarcaban en los tejados. Había que ingeniárselas para recuperar tan preciado tesoro: con palos de escoba o con cañas de coger chumbos o unos subidos sobre otros, de mil formas, antes que la pelota quedase en el tejado; esto suponía ir al paro, se acabó el fútbol por el día.
Pero éramos muy felices.
Íbamos tras un aro de metal, muchos de ellos sacados de cubos, y con una “guía”, confeccionada con alambres; con él recorríamos calles tras calles. Había que ser muy diestros para que no se te cayera. Después de mucho aprendizaje, lo conseguíamos... Teníamos hasta feria con cacharritos.
El presupuesto era raquítico, no como ahora, y teníamos que ahorrar y economizar para poder subirte en un u otro, comprar esta o aquella chuchería, o bien, contemplar cómo aquellas escopetas de plomillo o de munición de corcha fallaban. ¿Porqué fallaban tanto si aquellos adultos que disparaban estaban acostumbrados a hacerlo en el campo a conejos, perdices y demás? Luego supe que todas estaban trucadas.
En la feria también se vendían camarones y cangrejos. ¡Cómo aguantaban de un día para otro! Y eso que no había neveras ni frigoríficos. Lo que hacía el “ácido úrico”..., eso es lo que comentaban algunas personas... (¿)
No me acuerdo bien si era en alguna feria o con motivo de alguna fiesta, al oír las campanas de San Jorge abandonábamos toda actividad física y nos dirigíamos a la iglesia a celebrar el mes de María, el mes de las flores. Era una bonita costumbre que nos rompía nuestra rutina y nos sumergía en un mundo ideal, bucólico, angelical. Siempre había flores, muchas flores; de las de verdad, de las que huelen.
También recuerdo los olores de Semana Santa. Olor a cera, a incienso y, sobre todo, a romero. La Parroquia se alfombraba con ramas de romero y dejaba un olor característico que perfumaba todo el templo y te hacía pensar más en el misterio que se celebraba. Y lo que más me llamaba la atención era el silencio. Esos días de Semana Santa se hablaba poco en general, tanto en las calles como en casa; pero donde había silencio sepulcral era en el templo y en la procesión del “silencio”. ¡Qué respeto, qué devoción, cuánto misterio encerraba aquella mudez y aquella admiración y veneración por lo sagrado! El silencio de entonces y la ausencia de ruidos estridentes, nos adentraban más en nuestro interior y nos hacían niños reflexivos, sensibles, con otra conciencia. El ruido de hoy nos aturde, nos atonta y nos hace huir del silencio y de nosotros mismos; como si endureciera la piel de nuestra alma.
Niños felices, con todas las carencias imaginables; pero ricos en imaginación, en ilusiones, en amistades, en recuerdos, en sacrificios. No teníamos casi nada, pero de ahí hemos llegado a tener mucho, por dentro y por fuera. Los niños de hoy viven presos de sus cosas, de sus cacharros, de sus juguetes electrónicos, y no son libres, no son tan alegres ni tan imaginativos, ni tan sacrificados, ni con esa voluntad de hierro con la que nos forjaron...: no saben que hacer y se aburren.
No éramos perfectos, pues también teníamos nuestras cosillas y nuestras travesuras. Alguna que otra bombilla pública caía de alguna pedrada o de una perdigonada, más de uno pudiente se podía tomar el lujo de comprar de vez en cuando un “bisonte” o un “celta”, los demás se “colocaban” fumando hojas de higuera o papel de estraza; papel utilísimo para casi todo: servía para el retrete, para envolverlo todo y hasta para fabricar las pelotas de trapo y de papel.
Niños, al fin y al cabo; pero niños muy felices, sanos, obedientes, respetuosos, educados... Limpios..., hasta que nos duraba el “lavaíllo” que nos dábamos por partes; a plazos, diría yo.
En fin, eran otros tiempos, otros modos, otra “industrialización”, otra educación, otra política... Aquello era otra cosa, y pudimos con todos los obstáculos que nos encontrábamos en el camino. Eran los años cincuenta.
Manuel Jiménez Vargas-Machuca
17 de julio de 2004
Mi infancia son recuerdos y anécdotas
Da comienzo mi etapa escolar con unos 4 o 5 años en la Escuela de D. Antonio Fernández, que estaba situada en un salón grande de una segunda planta un poco mas arriba de la Plazuela, como era pequeño iba acompañado de Domingo Ruiz Torres, ya que vivíamos los dos muy cerca, en la calle de los Pozos y él era un par de años mayor que yo. En aquellos años se comenzó la construcción de la primera Escuela Estatal conocida por el Parque, que aglutinó a todos los niños que estaban en pequeñas Escuelas, ésta se denominó “Juan Armario” por ser el nombre del Alcalde de aquellas fechas.
Un año después paso a una Escuela en la calle de los Pozos, que abre D. Bartolomé Fernández Gallego, allí estoy otro año, a Miguel Pastor le recuerdo también su paso por allí. A estos profesores que tenían sus Escuelas particulares, nuestros padres tenían que pagarles la correspondiente mensualidad, que sería pequeña, no la recuerdo, pero más precaria era la economía familiar de la época, por tal motivo, cuando se abre la SA.FA. una avalancha de unos 160 niños aproximadamente, nos damos cita en aquella andadura, ya nuestros padres no tienen que pagar nada.
Primero subía desde la calle de los Pozos y después desde las Peñas, dos veces al día, mañana y tarde, menos 15 días de Junio y otros 15 de Septiembre si mal no recuerdo, que solo había clases por la mañana.
Mi etapa Escolar en el Convento fue desde los 8 a los 16 años, o sea, desde la apertura en el Curso 54-55 hasta el 62-63 que pasamos a empezar la Oficialía en Andujar.
Es durante esos primeros años de mi niñez cuando se inicia el nacimiento y la niñez de la SA.FA. en Alcalá de los Gazules, una puesta en marcha lenta pero con firmeza, con precariedades pero con mucho corazón, de aquellos primeros hombres y mujeres que afrontaron la tarea, cuyas pautas y directrices ya estaban marcadas a semejanza de las otras Escuelas que ya se habían abiertos en otros puntos de Andalucía.
Eran muchas las ilusiones e inquietudes que tenían aquellos primeros Profesores, los cuales al mismo tiempo nos la iban inculcando a nosotros que tuvimos la suerte de iniciar aquella andadura, desarrollar e inculcar en nosotros los valores humanos que toda persona debe poseer para luego afrontar los avatares que luego en la vida se les van a ir presentando.
Don Manuel Velasco Vega (q.e.p.d.) fue uno de los profesores que marcó huella en mi infancia, por su esfuerzo, dedicación y cariño y con una dedicación exclusiva hacia nosotros.
Formó un pequeño coro del cual Manolo Rosado y yo éramos solistas, cantábamos en la Parroquia en la Fiestas Litúrgicas más señaladas, acompañados por Don Manuel Mansillas (q.e.p.d.), con el órgano pequeño y otras veces por Don Arsenio (q.e.p.d.) padre de Jaime Cordero.
Hoy a los cincuenta años de aquellas fechas, aquel niño os recuerda hoy, ante los alumnos actuales del Centro con mucho cariño, a los dos Manueles: Velasco y Mansilla y os da las gracias por todo lo positivo que sembrasteis en él, como profesores suyo y desde esta misma Escuela, quiero mandaros hoy un fuerte abrazo para cada uno de vosotros, allá donde estéis.
Cuánto nos reíamos en clase de Geografía cuando alguno teníamos que pronunciar el río Bramaputra, jugando al salto de la mula en el patio pequeño y al fútbol en el grande que al principio lo que había era escombros de las zonas derruidas y el abandono de años.
Cómo escribíamos con aquellas plumillas metálicas que si se te caían de punta o le apretaras demasiado las tenías que tirar, teníamos la tinta por litro, pues había un botellón de litro, se rellenaba de agua del grifo, se le echaba una o dos pastillas de colorante, se agitaba y a rellenar los tinteros que cada uno teníamos delante de nuestro pupitre, había manchas por todas partes, en los pupitres, en las manos, en la ropa, etc.
Recuerdo que se hacían obras de teatro para fin de Curso y se hacía la entrega de premios y Diplomas. Una de las obras fue “El Piyayo” interpretada, entre otros, por Jacinto Pérez García, hoy Profesor de Magisterio, residente en Cataluña. El profesor Don José Arjona y don Ernesto, con su bandurria y su guitarra, respectivamente, llegaron a formar también una pequeña rondalla.
La Primera Comunión nos la dio el Padre Lara y después de la Comunión, al Colegio a desayunar el chocolate con el bollito de la época, seguidamente a Casa de Ricardo, que vivía un poco más abajo de la Puerta del Sol, para hacernos la foto para el recuerdo y seguidamente nos llevaban a visitar a la familia y amistades a los cuales les íbamos dando la estampita recordatoria de aquel día tan señalado y ellos nos daban muchos besos y algunas monedas.
También os diré que después de salir del Colegio por las tardes, me dijo un día mi padre que me fuese a la tienda de Pepe Domínguez y que no me quería verme en las calles “matando gatos”. Éste hombre tenia dos tiendas, una de tejido, que daba a la calle Real y otra de Ultramarinos que daba a la calle de atrás y se comunicaban por la misma casa. Allí estaría un par de años o tres, después como lo que me gustaba era la mecánica me fui a la Tienda-Taller que tiene Juan Valadés en Las Peñas, entre tanto, mi padre me llevaba al campo todas las vacaciones de Navidad, Semana Santa y verano a colaborar con él en todas las tareas del campo, el huerto, la leña, hacer el pan, las matanzas del cerdo etc., etc. pués era un hombre muy activo, tan activo que de noche me enseño a liarle los cigarrillos de picadura para que al día siguiente no parase ni a liarlos.
En el Curso 63-64 ingresamos en el Internado de Andújar 5 o 6 compañeros, pues ya estaban allí, del curso anterior, Manuel Pérez Moreno y Juan Barrios Puerta (q.e.p.d.), cuñado de Jaime Guerra. Aquel mismo año, llega con nosotros, el que iba a ser Director del Colegio durante los cinco años que estuvimos allí, el Jesuita Miguel Ángel Ibáñez Narváez.
El Padre Ibáñez dejó en mi y seguro que en el 99% de los alumnos que allí habíamos, una huella muy positiva para nosotros, tanto por su conducta férrea hacia nosotros, como por su carácter y formación liberal, con la que nos fue moldeando durante aquellos cinco años que estuvimos allí con él, pues en aquellas fechas ya nos dejó formar en el Colegio, un conjunto músico-vocal formado por los alumnos del Colegio y dábamos bailes en el Salón de Actos del Colegio en fechas señaladas adonde acudían las chicas de la Ciudad, pues muchas de ellas deseaban más que nosotros el comienzo del Curso, algunas de ellas llegaron a casarse con alumnos del Colegio, caso por ejemplo de Miguel Álvarez Gómez, de aquí de Alcalá de los Gazules, que se caso con una chica de Andújar y hoy día tienen dos hijos, todos viven en Martos y trabaja en la fabrica de VALEO de origen francés.
Una vez finalizado en Andújar los estudios de Maestría y habiendo trabajado durante los anteriores veranos en las corchas desde los 17 años, para ayudar a la economía familiar. A partir del verano del 68 comienzo a trabajar en las distintas contratas de los Astilleros de Cádiz, Matagorda y San Carlos, San Fernando, todo esto para poder seguir estudiando Náutica en Cádiz, ya que con lo que nos daban de Beca solo había para la mitad del Curso. Comienzo ha hacer las prácticas de Náutica, como Alumno de Máquinas, el 3 de Marzo del 72 y las termino el 31 de Julio del 73. Como Diego Álvarez, que también hizo Náutica al mismo tiempo, pero terminó antes las practicas me dejó los apuntes del Curso de Oficial y durante mis prácticas estuve estudiando también a bordo, porque me jugaba o seis meses o quince meses de mili de aprobar o no. Así que a punto de agotar las prorrogas por estudios con casi 27 años termine las prácticas en Julio y en Septiembre pasamos por la Vicaría del Santuario de Nuestra Señora de los Santos, mi esposa y yo, después de cinco años de novios y de mutuo acuerdo y sin presiones de ningún tipo. Sigo estudiando y apruebo el Curso de 2ª Oficial en Octubre, por lo tanto ya solo tenía que hacer 6 meses de mili, hasta que llega Enero. Para ir a la mili trabajo en Astilleros y cuando llegamos en Enero al Cuartel de Instrucción de San Fernando parece ser que sobran reclutas y de buenas a primera nos dejan fuera del servicio a mas de 50, unos por gordo, otros por la talla, otros por la vista, etc., etc. Algunos lloraban por que querían hacer la mili, yo daba saltos de alegría, pues de seis meses que iba a estar, lo que estuve allí fueron ocho días.
El 4 de Febrero de 1974 embarco como Oficial de Maquinas en el B/T “Campoalegre” de la Flota de C A M P S A donde navego durante 30 años, hasta final de 2002 que me jubilo con algo mas de 55 años, por los diez años de reducción que se nos otorga por Ley a los Marinos Mercantes.
Ahora quisiera preguntaros: ¿he tenido Suerte ó Buena Suerte en la vida?
Porque hay bastante diferencia. ¡eh!.
Juan Galván Lobato
Escuelas SA.FA.
Alcalá de los Gazules, 24 de febrero de 2005
Un año después paso a una Escuela en la calle de los Pozos, que abre D. Bartolomé Fernández Gallego, allí estoy otro año, a Miguel Pastor le recuerdo también su paso por allí. A estos profesores que tenían sus Escuelas particulares, nuestros padres tenían que pagarles la correspondiente mensualidad, que sería pequeña, no la recuerdo, pero más precaria era la economía familiar de la época, por tal motivo, cuando se abre la SA.FA. una avalancha de unos 160 niños aproximadamente, nos damos cita en aquella andadura, ya nuestros padres no tienen que pagar nada.
Primero subía desde la calle de los Pozos y después desde las Peñas, dos veces al día, mañana y tarde, menos 15 días de Junio y otros 15 de Septiembre si mal no recuerdo, que solo había clases por la mañana.
Mi etapa Escolar en el Convento fue desde los 8 a los 16 años, o sea, desde la apertura en el Curso 54-55 hasta el 62-63 que pasamos a empezar la Oficialía en Andujar.
Es durante esos primeros años de mi niñez cuando se inicia el nacimiento y la niñez de la SA.FA. en Alcalá de los Gazules, una puesta en marcha lenta pero con firmeza, con precariedades pero con mucho corazón, de aquellos primeros hombres y mujeres que afrontaron la tarea, cuyas pautas y directrices ya estaban marcadas a semejanza de las otras Escuelas que ya se habían abiertos en otros puntos de Andalucía.
Eran muchas las ilusiones e inquietudes que tenían aquellos primeros Profesores, los cuales al mismo tiempo nos la iban inculcando a nosotros que tuvimos la suerte de iniciar aquella andadura, desarrollar e inculcar en nosotros los valores humanos que toda persona debe poseer para luego afrontar los avatares que luego en la vida se les van a ir presentando.
Don Manuel Velasco Vega (q.e.p.d.) fue uno de los profesores que marcó huella en mi infancia, por su esfuerzo, dedicación y cariño y con una dedicación exclusiva hacia nosotros.
Formó un pequeño coro del cual Manolo Rosado y yo éramos solistas, cantábamos en la Parroquia en la Fiestas Litúrgicas más señaladas, acompañados por Don Manuel Mansillas (q.e.p.d.), con el órgano pequeño y otras veces por Don Arsenio (q.e.p.d.) padre de Jaime Cordero.
Hoy a los cincuenta años de aquellas fechas, aquel niño os recuerda hoy, ante los alumnos actuales del Centro con mucho cariño, a los dos Manueles: Velasco y Mansilla y os da las gracias por todo lo positivo que sembrasteis en él, como profesores suyo y desde esta misma Escuela, quiero mandaros hoy un fuerte abrazo para cada uno de vosotros, allá donde estéis.
Cuánto nos reíamos en clase de Geografía cuando alguno teníamos que pronunciar el río Bramaputra, jugando al salto de la mula en el patio pequeño y al fútbol en el grande que al principio lo que había era escombros de las zonas derruidas y el abandono de años.
Cómo escribíamos con aquellas plumillas metálicas que si se te caían de punta o le apretaras demasiado las tenías que tirar, teníamos la tinta por litro, pues había un botellón de litro, se rellenaba de agua del grifo, se le echaba una o dos pastillas de colorante, se agitaba y a rellenar los tinteros que cada uno teníamos delante de nuestro pupitre, había manchas por todas partes, en los pupitres, en las manos, en la ropa, etc.
Recuerdo que se hacían obras de teatro para fin de Curso y se hacía la entrega de premios y Diplomas. Una de las obras fue “El Piyayo” interpretada, entre otros, por Jacinto Pérez García, hoy Profesor de Magisterio, residente en Cataluña. El profesor Don José Arjona y don Ernesto, con su bandurria y su guitarra, respectivamente, llegaron a formar también una pequeña rondalla.
La Primera Comunión nos la dio el Padre Lara y después de la Comunión, al Colegio a desayunar el chocolate con el bollito de la época, seguidamente a Casa de Ricardo, que vivía un poco más abajo de la Puerta del Sol, para hacernos la foto para el recuerdo y seguidamente nos llevaban a visitar a la familia y amistades a los cuales les íbamos dando la estampita recordatoria de aquel día tan señalado y ellos nos daban muchos besos y algunas monedas.
También os diré que después de salir del Colegio por las tardes, me dijo un día mi padre que me fuese a la tienda de Pepe Domínguez y que no me quería verme en las calles “matando gatos”. Éste hombre tenia dos tiendas, una de tejido, que daba a la calle Real y otra de Ultramarinos que daba a la calle de atrás y se comunicaban por la misma casa. Allí estaría un par de años o tres, después como lo que me gustaba era la mecánica me fui a la Tienda-Taller que tiene Juan Valadés en Las Peñas, entre tanto, mi padre me llevaba al campo todas las vacaciones de Navidad, Semana Santa y verano a colaborar con él en todas las tareas del campo, el huerto, la leña, hacer el pan, las matanzas del cerdo etc., etc. pués era un hombre muy activo, tan activo que de noche me enseño a liarle los cigarrillos de picadura para que al día siguiente no parase ni a liarlos.
En el Curso 63-64 ingresamos en el Internado de Andújar 5 o 6 compañeros, pues ya estaban allí, del curso anterior, Manuel Pérez Moreno y Juan Barrios Puerta (q.e.p.d.), cuñado de Jaime Guerra. Aquel mismo año, llega con nosotros, el que iba a ser Director del Colegio durante los cinco años que estuvimos allí, el Jesuita Miguel Ángel Ibáñez Narváez.
El Padre Ibáñez dejó en mi y seguro que en el 99% de los alumnos que allí habíamos, una huella muy positiva para nosotros, tanto por su conducta férrea hacia nosotros, como por su carácter y formación liberal, con la que nos fue moldeando durante aquellos cinco años que estuvimos allí con él, pues en aquellas fechas ya nos dejó formar en el Colegio, un conjunto músico-vocal formado por los alumnos del Colegio y dábamos bailes en el Salón de Actos del Colegio en fechas señaladas adonde acudían las chicas de la Ciudad, pues muchas de ellas deseaban más que nosotros el comienzo del Curso, algunas de ellas llegaron a casarse con alumnos del Colegio, caso por ejemplo de Miguel Álvarez Gómez, de aquí de Alcalá de los Gazules, que se caso con una chica de Andújar y hoy día tienen dos hijos, todos viven en Martos y trabaja en la fabrica de VALEO de origen francés.
Una vez finalizado en Andújar los estudios de Maestría y habiendo trabajado durante los anteriores veranos en las corchas desde los 17 años, para ayudar a la economía familiar. A partir del verano del 68 comienzo a trabajar en las distintas contratas de los Astilleros de Cádiz, Matagorda y San Carlos, San Fernando, todo esto para poder seguir estudiando Náutica en Cádiz, ya que con lo que nos daban de Beca solo había para la mitad del Curso. Comienzo ha hacer las prácticas de Náutica, como Alumno de Máquinas, el 3 de Marzo del 72 y las termino el 31 de Julio del 73. Como Diego Álvarez, que también hizo Náutica al mismo tiempo, pero terminó antes las practicas me dejó los apuntes del Curso de Oficial y durante mis prácticas estuve estudiando también a bordo, porque me jugaba o seis meses o quince meses de mili de aprobar o no. Así que a punto de agotar las prorrogas por estudios con casi 27 años termine las prácticas en Julio y en Septiembre pasamos por la Vicaría del Santuario de Nuestra Señora de los Santos, mi esposa y yo, después de cinco años de novios y de mutuo acuerdo y sin presiones de ningún tipo. Sigo estudiando y apruebo el Curso de 2ª Oficial en Octubre, por lo tanto ya solo tenía que hacer 6 meses de mili, hasta que llega Enero. Para ir a la mili trabajo en Astilleros y cuando llegamos en Enero al Cuartel de Instrucción de San Fernando parece ser que sobran reclutas y de buenas a primera nos dejan fuera del servicio a mas de 50, unos por gordo, otros por la talla, otros por la vista, etc., etc. Algunos lloraban por que querían hacer la mili, yo daba saltos de alegría, pues de seis meses que iba a estar, lo que estuve allí fueron ocho días.
El 4 de Febrero de 1974 embarco como Oficial de Maquinas en el B/T “Campoalegre” de la Flota de C A M P S A donde navego durante 30 años, hasta final de 2002 que me jubilo con algo mas de 55 años, por los diez años de reducción que se nos otorga por Ley a los Marinos Mercantes.
Ahora quisiera preguntaros: ¿he tenido Suerte ó Buena Suerte en la vida?
Porque hay bastante diferencia. ¡eh!.
Juan Galván Lobato
Escuelas SA.FA.
Alcalá de los Gazules, 24 de febrero de 2005
domingo, 4 de marzo de 2007
De 1ª comunión en 1958
Sin tantas historias como hoy y hemos sobrevivido. Fíjate en el gesto de Don Ernesto observando a la elemento que se ha infiltrado por la banda derecha (¡Mi prima era un elemento de cuidado!)
sábado, 3 de marzo de 2007
¿Te reconoces en ella?
Yo estoy en ella. Junto a Roberto, el hijo de nuestra Maestra doña María Luisa Abón y de don Ruperto García, Veterinario de Alcalá en aquellos días ¿Te acuerdas?
Yo tengo localizados a varios (José Manuel, Antonio, Paco, José Antonio, Tomás...) pero Andrés Moreno Camacho me ha mandado esta lista. Localízate en ella (de izquierda a derecha):
Primera fila
• José Ortega Coronil, Nicolás Vázquez Salas, Francisco Rodríguez Nieto, Francisco Aido Arroyo, María Luisa Abón, José Antonio Gómez Periñán, Tuerto, Juan, Juaniqui y Tomás Acedo Alberto.
Segunda fila
• José Manuel Vázquez Pérez, Rafael Lobato Luna, Crisanto Calero Ruiz, Jorge Moreno, Mauro, Antonio Fernández González “Juscas”, Antonio “El Cubata”, Antonio Casado Puerto, Roberto García Abón, Jesús Cuesta Arana, Tenorio.
Tercera fila
• Juan Pacheco Atienza, Blanco, Sánchez Acedo, Manuel Oliva Romero, José Llaves Villanueva, Manuel Romero “El Pichi”, César García Abón, Manuel Gómez “Piojito”, José Ramírez Lozano.
Cuarta fila – Sentados
• Alfonso Lobato Luna, Ramito, Roberto Bellido, Gabriel Camacho Candón, Guillermo Pérez García, Jorge Rengel Tirado.
Como verás algunos nombres están incompletos. Ponte en contacto con alguno nosotros y danos los datos que falten.
