If you drew a line between Granada and
Almeria in southeastern Spain, you would find the tiny medieval village
of Picena almost directly between the two, in the Alpujarras mountains,
part of the Sierra Nevadas. From our house you could see snow on the
mountains behind us, or , below, the Mediterranean glinting in sunlight,
occasionally even a large ship. It was the closest to paradise that I
ever lived.
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Typical Picena street |
Traditionally the local
campesinos lived in fortress-like villages where it was safe and
children could enter any house, be spanked or given candy by any adult.
Each morning early the men went out, singing to their mules, to plough
their terrenos, the small terraces of cultivated land built and
irrigated by the Moors before the discovery of America. The Moors
converted a desert into the fruit basket of Europe. Throughout the year
you could tell the seasons - oranges and lemons was Christmas, figs came
in the autumn, almond trees and fields thick with poppies bloomed in the
spring, and cherries heralded the beginning of summer.
Most significant were the olives. The whole family
participated in the harvest, climbing the trees and hitting the
branches, catching the olives in large "skirts," taking the crop to
market to trade for a year's supply of the oil and a little cash. A good
farmer could tell the tree's output to the quart.
Art and I bought a three-story narrow rock and
plaster house in Picena in 1987. It cost about $1,500 and was at the
bottom of the village - not a choice location. We fell in well with the
locals, despite Art being at least a foot taller than all the men and me
being shy in a culture where garrulous women are the norm. We ate free
tapas in the bar and looked for a terreno to buy, to
practice self-sufficiency. We were pronounced to be muy buena gente
- very good people, a singular honor for the town's only foreigners.
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The view from Picena's walls |
Then came the hippies, most of them Germans, young
people with high ideals, or older beautiful people feeling from places
like Ibiza and Malaga when the tourist incursion became overwhelming.
With an unemployment check from Germany, you could live like a
cacique (a rich landowner) in Spain. The young folks, without the
scars of war in their memories, wanted to live on the land, bask in its
natural beauty, and, it must be said, smoke cheap hashish readily
available from Morocco.
The German hippies lacked what I, who had worked
as a volunteer in Africa and Latin America, called "cultural
sensitivity." They adored plant life and appreciated the bounty of foods
to be had for the plucking, but they disdained the town system. They
didn't want to live like peasants - they wanted to live like the
rare birds they were. Peasants stayed in town for security and used the
fields for the purpose they believed God intended: to plant and harvest,
to procure food and a little money. The sight pf people constructing
fake chalets on the narrow terraces, bathing in full sight of the eyes
of the world, and defecating in the grass, was a source of bemusement
and not a little hostility.
Only one man stood above the fray. Bill, a
Venezuelan-American who had lived many years in the Balearics, was the
first foreigner to explore the poor side of the Alpujarras. He was there
when we got there, and welcomed us.
Bill had the advantage of excellent Spanish. He
was quickly "adopted" by a local family who sold him several fertile
terraces. The little cottage he built blended well in the surroundings,
like a shepherd's hut. He built a bathroom using a simple dug latrine,
and it mostly worked. He used no drugs and was a modest quiet man,
vegetarian and follower of Yogananda. He had few books and no need of
study. His way with plants was magic. Flowers trailed over his porch and
his vegetables spread across the ground in abundance. He tried local
crops with local advice. Some days he ate only almonds or potatoes. His
needs were simple. He had no pension or unemployment compensation. He
was one man, alone in his Walden on a mountainside in paradise.
The changes came little by little. You could count
it in years - the year of the Germans, the year of the televisions, the
year of the tractor, the year of the Argentineans - but it seemed faster
and more immediate when you lived there.
Suddenly there was television, the world outside
pouring into the living rooms of the campesinos as never before.
In the dark years of Franco all useful news had been suppressed. Now
people saw jogging suits and flavored yogurt. They demanded more goods
at the tiny local shops. To get the goods required the courageous spirit
of the taxistas, men who negotiated the twisted mountain roads to
make buying trips to Granada and Almeria. They came back with what one
taxista characterized as cosas tontas para la casa -
stupid stuff for the home.
