Documentary Heritage

Minutes of the
Laracha Town Council
meeting held on
January 5, 1932

In Galicia, where people are so attached to the land, inheritance is important. By inheritance, however, we can refer literally to what property our ancestors have handed down to our family through generations, but also to a historical, cultural and artistic heritage and even to a documentary heritage.
I think this is how I should refer to all those family documents and mementos that have been handed down to me, such as land deeds, letters, photographs and, curiously enough, the minutes of a council meeting in A Laracha signed on January 5, 1932 by, among others, my maternal and paternal grandfathers, both town council members during the Second Spanish Republic. This document is part of the treasure of information on our family tree.
It's such hard work organizing and preserving all these documents, that sometimes it seems it would provide at least a part-time job for a professional archivist; in fact it's sometimes tougher than looking after the land property.

Women's Literacy Project

Another of Tashi Chering's projects now is a literacy program for the women of Gulabgarh of which I'm also a sponsor:

"On 29th of November 2010 a school was founded to eradicate illiteracy among the women of Gulabgarh Padder through the Women’s Literacy Programme (W.L.P), established and organized by Mr. Tashi Chering of Kabban Padder (Chairman) and sponsored by Madam Mari of Spain.

A teacher, Smt. Pama Lamo, has been hired to assist in this initiative. Moreover, a committee of 9 prominent community members has been established to assure the smooth functioning of the school."

Thanks to the generous contribution of a teacher at the School of Languages of Santiago de Compostela (EOI de Santiago) together with my concerned family and friends, Tashi was able to rent a room, hire a teacher and buy the school supplies needed to begin work on the project. Classes began with 25 women—now there are 30 and the number will hopefully increase.

A month ago, again thanks to the staff at the EOI de Santiago and others, I was able to send another contribution so that this initiative can continue for a few more months. I'm extremely excited about this project, but that's nothing compared to how happy and grateful the women of Gulabgarh are. Now the important thing is to keep this project going.

For more information, you can contact me through the form on this blog or Mr. Tashi Chering, through his website  lonpoadventures.com.

My summers away from Caión

In an earlier post I mentioned that I was also cooperating in other volunteer projects, which keep me so busy during the summer that I don't have much time to enjoy the fabulous warm, sunny weather in Caión. In my next posts, I'd like to tell you a bit about those projects and about my experience.

Last summer I worked as a volunteer English teacher at a school in a village called Gulabgarh, in the district of Kishtwar, state of J&K, India: The school was established and is funded by the Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association.

I am not a member of this or any other NGO and I am not Buddhist. The reason why I ended up in Gulabgarh is that a friend of mine called Tashi Chering, a mountaineer and guide who is from this village, asked me if I would be willing to help the children of Gulabgarh and nearby hamlets, by working there as a volunteer English teacher. So, it was thanks to his personal initiative that I finally volunteered. You can read more about this soon on Tashi Chering's website Lonpoadventures.

What about you? Are you ready to volunteer as an English teacher in the Himalayan Cultural School, Gulabgarh?

Becoming a volunteer teacher of English in Gulabgarh can be one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences of anyone's life. Would you like to live and teach in an incredibly different place among such a hospitable and grateful people even if it is for only a short time? You would be contributing to these children’s education while learning all about their amazing culture, language and customs, as you share their everyday experiences.

You don't need to join an NGO. All you need is a desire to help others, to help further the education of the children of Gulabgarh and nearby villages. You would be doing so much for the people of Gulabgarh. The school staff, the students, their families would all make you feel welcome and they will be there for whatever you may need. Why wait? Get involved today!

If you'd like to volunteer or cooperate in some other way, you can contact me or Mr. Tashi Chering through his website Lonpoadventures.

Time for a newsfast

According to the latest news, property sellers and buyers alike have no other choice but to wait patiently for a recovery of the economic scenario. Since I know that you can only win with this investment, I'm waiting for a creative, enthusiastic buyer with a talent for risk taking to come along— and I'm sure that he or she will. Instead of a financial or real estate expert, the buyer of this property might simply be a person captivated by the beauty and peaceful lifestyle of our coastline. Whatever the buyer's profile, it's first come, first serve! The person willing to purchase this lot will be the one to enjoy its singular beauty, which in this case is no cliché! You won't find a better spot for a newsfast, something I think we would all benefit from now.

Galicia. Unlike any other place in Spain

It's true: No matter what people say, the southern coast of Spain is still one of the hottest spots in Europe, but there's another beautiful, not so hot (literally speaking) spot for you to explore. If you're searching for a unique, great place to live and invest in a coastline property, you'll love Galicia--and of course Caión. As it says in IdealSpain.com:

"Galicia is now an increasingly popular destination for those Spaniards who don’t want the heat of the Andalucian, Murcian or Valencian summer but do want the scenic beauty and culinary delights. Along the coast, Galicia has a flourishing economy which now includes its own brand of tourism. The coastline is popular with all manner of outdoor activities that cannot be found along any other coast. It is still a place in which you can enjoy Spain at its simplest and its best."

Harvesting seaweed: an eco-friendly fertilizer

Women working in the fields (Caión)

It's not common practice today, but in a not-so-long-ago past, my family, like other inhabitants of Caión still used this marine resource to fertilize their farmland. My dad would go into the water and haul the seaweed towards the beach, while his sisters gathered it into piles on the sand. They always said that this organic fertilizer was what made the potatoes and famous sweet onions of Caión so tasty! Now this tradition is being studied as a natural alternative to other types of fertilizer (news article in Spanish).

Fisherman and daughter gathering seaweed

When the seaweed—called golfe in Caión and other parts of the Death Coast—appeared on the seashore, each person would haul it inland and set it into piles on a part of Salseiras beach called "auga redondo" (round water) or the "ribeira", near the port. The piles of golfe were marked to make sure other late-comers would not take them; then the "owners" of the piles would stuff the seaweed into a square piece of hand-made sack-cloth and carry it on their backs to the farmland, where they would spread the seaweed on the soil. There was no machinery to help with this tough job that both men and women of the village had been doing from time immemorial.

From the property for sale there are wonderful views of "auga redondo" where seaweed still gathers. The villagers used to walk on these mounds of seaweed because they believed it was very healthy and good for their bones. I've done it myself. The smell is bad but not unbearable, so if it's really as good for you as they say it is, then it's worth putting up with! Today some people harvest seaweed from Caión for use as fertilizer, while others gather and sell it to pharmaceutical companies, who value it for its medicinal properties. Follow this link to see a short 3 minute video about seaweed gathering and uses on the Galician coast (in Spanish & Galician).

Pirates just aren't what they used to be!

In an earlier post I talked about the good and bad changes that this village had undergone throughout the years. One of the good changes is that pirates are long gone... at least the old-fashioned kind. Yes, pirates did visit our coast in the past. I wonder where they came from?

Things got so complicated that the Augustine monks who had settled in Caión in the 16th c. decided they could no longer fight against the invaders. They were tired of struggling and recovering from the pirates' destruction of the crops they had so carefully planted and lovingly cared for, so they finally moved to the nearby city of A Coruña.

Now that there are no more pirates to destroy our crops and our houses, it's no longer a risk to live so close to the sea, as close to it as the monks did!

I should say that this is the story that my great-grandparents used to tell my dad and his sisters, because I've read a pretty different story (in Spanish).