Spain Chronicles 1999 – May 13 – May 22

Written by Marianna Mejia

Church in the campo

Luis and Rubina in a caseta at the Feria de Jerez

Roberta, Charlie and Freddie at the Feria de Jerez

Leslie (Irish dancer from music camp in California) at the Feria de Jerez

Freddie cutting the Jamon Serrano he won at the Feria of Jerez at Luis’ House

Freddie cutting the Jamon Serrano at Luis’ House

May 13, 1999

This week we have been running around looking for a harp for Freddie to play this Friday in a concert in the town of Rota with Luis, Rubina (who will dance), and Carlos. The show will take place at the Viejo Agujeta Pena, a Flamenco club named in honor of Luis late father, a very well respected Flamenco cantaor (singer). Last Saturday we drove to Luis’ home in the campo (country) which is near Chipiona and near Rota, close to the sea. We drove the two hours down with Jose Luis, a Flamenco aficionado, and Paco, and Julien, a handsome, dark haired, twenty five year old singer of Bulgarian gypsy music who is a friend of Pacos. He and a French classical guitar player, Francois, have been staying here at the Carboneria on some of the single beds and sleeping pads on Pacos floor (below us). Julien will leave on Friday for Switzerland and then go to France for six months. We arrived, after getting a little lost and having to call Luis with our movil (cell) phone, at Luis’ ranch from which we can see the ocean in the distance. Luis father, El Viejo Agujeta, had bought the land long ago. Luis house is on a small parcel next to other parcels where his brothers also have houses. Luis took us all out to lunch at a little funky cafe a stones throw away and we ate venao (deer) which was delicious. Then Jose Luis took Paco and Julien back to Sevilla and Freddie and I stayed in the campo.

Luis has built this very rural house by hand and it is still under construction and is very basic. The entry has two huge old green wooden doors which lead to a wide rectangular room where Rubina has hung a line to dry clothes. Swallows fly through the crack in the top of the door and have built a nest inside this room. The mother circles around to distract us from her babies. The room feels like it is outside and is light and airy and not air tight. The next door leads inside the house to the living room. Its main furnishing is a large table which was a desk that Luis and Rubina found recently in the trash! People throw out really good stuff here. To the left, as you enter, is a room with a single bed and a concrete floor and a broken mirror. To the right is Luis bedroom. It has a nice double bed which Luis and Rubina kindly let us stay in. Rubina had washed the sheets by hand so we would have a nice, clean place to sleep. This room also has a dresser and another single bed on which Rubina keeps her large, open suitcase. (She is returning to Santa Cruz, California, where she lives, in June). Beyond the living room is a small kitchen with cold running water. To the right is the bathroom. Its tub is concrete with one Spanish tile giving a hint of what it might be in the future. It has a hand held shower and has both hot and cold running water heated by a propane flash heater. The floor too is concrete and unfinished. The toilet has a seat because of Rubinas insistence, but it still has to be flushed with a bucket. Next to the toilet is a chair which holds toilet paper, towels, and other things I cant remember. The light is turned on and off by connecting and disconnecting some wires that only Luis can do.

May 14, 1999

Back to the harp chase. Luis had located a harp for us in Rota but it turned out to be in bad shape and not fixable. Since then we have spent almost all our time searching for a harp for Freddie to play in the concert tonight. We ended up staying in the campo that first time for more days than we planned, which only briefly interrupted our constant search. After many music stores and meetings with people we have nothing. A woman wanted to rent us a harp for $400 (her lowest price!) but we did not think it was worth it to spend that kind of money for Freddie to play in the show. Of course he is disappointed. One music store located harps in Madrid but the two harps offered to us for sale were $4 – 5,000 which is way more than they cost in the States so we said no. Paco offered to pay for half! He is such a nice man. But we didnt think it was worth it. I thought, since Spain is fairly close to Ireland, that harps would be more available. I sure was wrong!

May 21, 1999

Its hard to find time to write. The days pass and we are getting so relaxed that it is hard to get things done. We still get up at eleven or twelve and take our coffee at Alta Mira with Paco, but now we keep yogurt in the refrigerator on Pacos level, which is by the bathroom and the beginning of our stairs. We drink our green powder with the liquid vitamins we brought from home and eat a banana, if we still have them, with our yogurt. We are also still eating the Jamon (ham) Serrano that Freddie won at the Feria de Jerez. We have borrowed Luis wooden contraption designed specifically for cutting these hams that hang from the ceiling in so many of the little bars here. Our ham sits on the shaky square wooden table we procured from downstairs. Right now our table is filled with things that have no other place: a jar of olives, a plastic bottle of water, a notebook and pen, maps of Sevilla and Spain, and a nearly used up bottle of red wine that Rubina and Freddie went in on halves to serve our company here when Jose Luis and his girlfriend Nacha visited our cuarto for the first time. Freddie is not drinking alcohol but loves the cerveza (beer) sin (without alcohol). The table, in the center of our room, collects all our stuff: Freddies brush and pipe, video mini cassettes of his guitar lessons, a bottle of lighter fluid, the case to the movil (pronounced mowvee) phone, cigarettes (yes, Freddie has started smoking again, like almost all the adults in Spain), an ashtray, a knife, an empty small size old fashioned coke bottle, a bottle of our green nutritional powder, a roll of paper towels, and papers I had printed from the computer at home detailing Andalucian festivales and giving their months. The big brown wardrobe Paco let us bring up from below to use is on the far end of the room. Yesterday Paco had a grape tree in a large tin can brought up to our tiny balcony. Yesterday and today his workers installed a drip watering system with a timer to water the plants on the balcony and on the porch up here. I see that slowly Paco is transforming this place just as we like to do at home. Paco has said we can stay here our whole time, so today we bought a piece of foam to put over our two single mattresses which will be delivered tomorrow. We also bought a larger bottom sheet that should stay tucked. Paco said that we could use the phone line from his fax machine in his office to put an e-mail telephone outlet for us here in the room. The phone company has to be called to bring the line up to this room. It will be great to check our e-mail from home. Only, Paco hasnt asked the person to call yet and it could take weeks! Now I have to ask his son Sergio to take me to the office next door so I have a phone line to e-mail from. He unlocks the front door to the building, next the door to the actual office, and then the door to the room with the fax machine in it. Then he waits very impatiently while I get my e-mail. The few times I have had to go to the web to put up my web page his impatience at the long time spent has made me not want to ask him to help me again, but I have to check my mail. He doesnt do anything overtly, but I can feel it too well! And I hate using up his time. But soon, ojala, we will have a phone jack input in our room. We are listening to the Flamenco down below in the patio room right now as I write. The weather, after raining and turning cold unexpectedly for a few days, has warmed again and our windows are open to the night.

Lights at night at Feria de Jerez

Train station in Puerto de Santa Maria, Anzonini’s home town

Train station in Puerto de Santa Maria

Freddie and Luis inside the train station at Puerta de Santa Maria

Marianna at Luis’ house in the campo

May 22, 1999

We are listening to Flamenco from down below again, but this time it is from a CD. It is Saturday and there is a political meeting/luncheon down below. The Spanish Green party and the Spanish leftist party have merged, at least for this event and its particular cause, but I think they meant in general. My Spanish comprehension still has holes in it and I have to struggle to make sense of more complicated conversation. But Freddies and my comprehension has been improving and we help each other. It is hot again today, but the garden patio outside is shaded by Pacos many plants and the greenery brings shade and coolness. Upstairs we have the fan on and the windows covered with sheets to block the suns intensity. We foraged on the second floor today and have come up with a small desk for the computer and a lamp and a narrow wicker stand with four shelves. We have stacked vitamins, water, wine, paper towels and napkins, our one plate, two forks and several borrowed glasses. The rickety square table in the middle of our room has more space this way and appears less crowded. The video camera now stands on its tripod to the left of the desk, ready to be plugged easily into the computer. To its left is the former computer table, now holding the digital camera, the electric toothbrush, the jazz drive, the recharger for our movil phone, earphones and batteries, and the remote control to the video camera. A plastic trash bag hangs from one side. We have three tooled, scrolled straight leather backed chairs and four low wicker chairs to sit on. The large foam pad we ordered to cover our two single mattresses now won’t be delivered until Monday. We discovered last night that the reason Freddie has been so uncomfortable is because his beds mattress is really the box spring mattress that should be below a regular mattress! We cant wait for the foam pad that will make sleeping much more comfortable. Our large bottom sheet that stays tucked has now replaced the other sheet we had been using that never stayed on the bed because it was too small. Bit by bit we are creating our new environment.

Weve been to the campo again and to the Feria de Jerez. Here at the Carboneria we ran into a friend from music camp, Leslie, who does Irish dancing and loves rhythm. We hung out together and she went with us to Luis house and to the Feria. The Friday night before the Feria, Luis, Rubina, and Carlos Heredia did the show at Luis fathers Pena. That was the show where Freddie was supposed to play harp but we were never able to get the harp. We ended up videoing the show instead. Rubina danced well and the gypsies loved her and her Alegrias. Of course Carlos and Luis were a hit too. That Sunday we dropped Leslie, who was nearing the end of her trip, off at the train station in Puerta de Santa Maria, the pueblo (town) where Anzonini was from. It felt for us like a kind of pilgrimage to visit there, a silent honoring of that kind hearted gypsy singer and dance teacher whom Freddie and I both knew and loved so much. At the Feria we ran into Roberta and Charlie from Santa Cruz. They are living near Malaga in the country and plan to be in Spain for two years.

When we returned to the Carboneria Nacha, Jose Luis girlfriend, gave Rubina and me small gifts with a nice card. I received a Moroccan necklace and a nice hair clip and Rubina a beaded necklace with large orange/brown colored stones (amber?) and a hair decoration. The necklace matches Rubinas hair color and looks great on her. Nachas dark hair, often pulled back, frames her thin, correctly made up, pretty face. She usually wears nylons, closed shoes, and knee length straight skirts, often with a matching jacket. She is probably in her forties but heavy smoking makes everyone look older here. Jose Luis too is dark haired, but his huge belly contrasts greatly with Nachas overly slender figure. They speak no English so we have been pushed to communicate in Spanish!

Jose Luis, as I might have said, is a Flamenco aficionado and knows almost everyone, including Chris Carnes (a guitarist friend from the States who lived in Spain in the sixties and studied with Diego del Gastor in Moron), which means that Jose Luis has been around for a while. We went with them and Rubina and Luis to the beginning of Rocio. Freddie and I got up at seven AM to join Nacha, her sister Lola, and her friend Aurelia for the Mass in Plaza Salvador where the Virgin leaves the church and is carried to Rocio and then back. Freddie became uncomfortable with the religious aspects had to leave the church in the middle of the mass. I remained and videoed parts of the Misa Flamenca in the church. We have a CD at home of Misa Flamenca which is much better than what we heard in the church. But the experience was fun and the church filled with men and women in their Rocio trajes (costumes). I wore my purple and orange Rocio dress too, but with sandals because I still havent found the right Rocio boots. From the church the covered Rocio wagons pulled by horses and some by tractors leave in procession for the road to Rocio. People stop often and rest along the way, drinking, eating, dancing, playing music and singing. We drove to such a stop and joined them for a while. It was fun and dusty. We never got it together to drive with the Rociero procession the whole time and to camp along the way with them. One of the crossings is very sandy and you need a jeep, tractor, or horses in order to cross without getting stuck. We will take a bus to Rocio later in the week and join in the celebration there. We have been told there is too much traffic to drive there. Jose Luis will probably come with us. Rubina and Luis are in the campo again but plan to return today. Tomorrow, Sunday, they take the Ave (pronounced avay), the express train, to Madrid to sell the CDs and for Luis and Rubina to perform at a Pena there.

After Rocio we are thinking of going to the Feria of Granada where Viva is living. We have been here over three weeks and I wonder where all our time has gone. Freddie has been practicing a lot every day but I have a hard time finding time to practice my footwork on a good floor (not tile). I go over my Siguiriyas constantly in my head and in my sandals but not much in my dance shoes.

When Concha returns from Japan I will have to be more disciplined.

Spain Chronicles 1999

Spain Chronicles
Flamenco Romántico en España
Index