Spanish views from a small town

This morning, as I was perusing Facebook, I discovered a nugget of history hithereto unknown to me. Much as Catalunya declared independence in 1934, unhappy that the government in Madrid was becoming too conservative, (It only lasted a few hours and ended with the detention and imprisonment of Lluis Companys, regional president, who later fled to France and was eventually handed to Franco by the collaborators. He was then shot.) Galicia also declared independence in 1931. Our problem was the railroad to Zamora, work on which had just been cancelled, and around twelve thousand men sentenced to unemployment.  The Second Republic had recently been proclaimed in April, 1931, with parliamentary elections to follow at the end of June. The new Republic, trying to make do with little money, decided that finishing the railroad line from Zamora to A Coruña was too expensive due to the geography of the area. It cancelled the funding, which it then dedicated to the port of Bilbao, considered...

Reading history is humbling. You realize you're not that special. You also realize just about everyone went through the same things you have. And sometimes you also learn that things which seemed solid knowledge are really based on quicksand. For many years I have heard that Galicia is a Celtic nation, along with Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany in France. But that's not quite true. The idea of a Celtic nation is also under debate.  The idea of a Celtic nation is something relatively recent. Arqueologists will confirm that there was no such thing as a Celt. There were similarities in communities stretching from central Europe to the Atlantic shores from about 2000 B.C.E. until the ascension of the Romans, but from that to an ethnically homogeneous community is a jump taken by the Romantics in the nineteenth century with no real basis in fact.  Nineteenth century nationalisms have their roots in the rising of European states in medieval times. The fact is th...

From The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes: 'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight, But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light; Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, Then look for me by moonlight, Watch for me by moonlight, I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.' That ballad is a romantic conception of a highwayman, a bandolero . Though, by the time it was published in 1906, highwaymen had disappeared from Scottish and English roads. But not from the Spanish roads. One of the last bandoleros was from Galicia, Mamed Casanova, better known as Toribio, from a small parish in the township of Mañon. In 1900 he and his friends assaulted the parish priest's house and one of the group shot the housekeeper when she recognized them. After two years on the run, Toribio was tricked into accepting a dinner invitation and caught. At first he was condemned to death, but the king l...

It is a regional habit here to be humble.  Generally, that can be ascribed to the fact that in other areas of Spain, Gali cians ar e considered uneducat ed country bumpkins. We are seen as unfathoma ble, uneducat ed, and willing to work for pennies. And that, as a region, Galicia takes more than it ever contri butes to the rest of Spain . Other regions, such as Catalu nya have protested, for example, against investing in high-sp eed rail to Gali cia, saying that money is money lost. We let the central government respond by delaying its completion. In truth, we do no t do much to protect our interests. We had two independent banks found ed in Galic ia that were bou ght by a Venezuelan bank and a nother based in Madrid . The savings banks and co-ops we had were fi rst fused into one bank, then sold off to the same Venezuelan bank and ma de into a regular bank. We had a fiber optic company that was sold to an English firm. We had an e nergy company that was bought by a Ca t...

We have a rule in our house. Though we are not able to get away for extended vacations (last year's trip to France was an exception), at least during Holy Week or the week of the Guadelupe festival in Rianxo, my husband and I go for a day-long ride through some area of Galicia. Over the years we've visited almost every point of its geography, from the Roman camp of Bande in Ourense, mostly buried under a reservoir except in years of little rain, to the English Cemetery on the Costa da Morte in A Coruña, where the crew of The Serpent was buried after the ship broke apart on the ship-hungry rocks nearby over a hundred years ago. Thankfully, the clouds gave a respite yesterday and we went up to Ortigueira and the coast along to Viveiro, one of the few places we haven't been yet.  Ortigueira is a tranquil little town on the northern coast in the province of A Coruña with around six thousand souls living there year-round. Ortigueira is also famous for its folk festival in the ...

My grandmother had two children. By two different fathers. Whom she never married. Automatically, I know what most will think. The same as most will think of a woman these days who passes through the same circumstances. But my aunt was born in 1918 and my father in 1931, and at that time, though not quite kosher, it was considered absolutely normal. The close your eyes, turn off the lights mentality toward sex really came into being when Franco came into power. At least in Galicia. Franco was a misogynist who imposed his and the Church's viewpoint that sex is only to be used within the marriage for procreation. That became the imposed viewpoint of the then emerging middle class, which is why for many years it's been considered a shame if a young woman gets pregnant out of wedlock, and why when that happens, she always has to marry the father to erase any dishonor, even if the couple are teenagers. Now things are changing, and though you're still considered loose if you sle...

I'm guilty. I have done something that perpetuates a crime. At the same time I have helped some people that were going through a bad time. I have bought illegal shellfish. I knew at the time that it was illegal. However, I could trust it because at that time the red tide was not affecting the beaches and shellfish was begin dug up and sold legally from the same beaches. Also, shellfish from the beaches around us do not need to go to a purification plant because the water is deemed clean enough for immediate consumption of the shellfish growing in it. But the people who sold it to me had no license to dig it up and sell it. They were furtivos . A furtivo is a permanent fixture of the beaches in Galicia. You will find them mostly at night, darting on a beach, digging at low tide for clams and cockles while keeping a lookout for any guard who will send them running for the woods, hiding their merchandise to come back for it later. Because to dig for clams, cockles, and razor clams,...