Floods, earthquake, and pestilence (economic situation)!

This post is an update about the earthquake in Lorca, the recent floods in Murcia and the economic situation in this part of Spain.
We recently went to Lorca to renew our car's MOT or I should say ITV the Spanish equivalent of checking a car for road worthiness. The nearest place this can be done is Lorca, a fifteen mile drive from here. It involves having a lot of paperwork, the usual emission checks etc and a scary check when our poor ageing Corsa is lifted up and shaken violently. Fortunately we passed.

 

We went into Lorca which is a beautiful town to see what improvements have happened since the earthquake in May 2011. (I have written about the earthquake in a previous post which can be found further down the page).  A lot of work seems to be going on and there has been some rebuilding, however as EVERY building in Lorca was affected sadly much remains to be done, as the following photos illustrate.

 

If you look carefully at the photo below you can see that a business is being conducted on the ground floor of a building which is totally derelict on the upper floors.

 

 

 

However in spite of the earthquake and the recent floods Lorca seems to have recovered some of its optimism. The shops were much busier than during our previous visit, the castle is open to visitors, and it remains a delightful place to spend time in with lovely squares and many restaurants where you can sit outside and watch the world go by.

The floods at the end of September affected many outlying areas. We recently went on a walk with an evolutionist walking group based in San Juan de Los Terreros. We started at Los Lobos a small village up in the mountains nearby. A rambla which is normally a completely dry river bed had flooded. This photo shows the remains of a bridge (which was over a hundred years old), which had been completely washed away.

 Further up the rambla a shepherds pens and out buildings had suffered a similar fate.

 

 

 

With the current economic situation no-one knows when or if the bridge will be repaired. Along with the bridge went a newly built cycle path that connected Villaricos with Los Lobos. This was built at a cost of thousands of pounds and has been completely washed away.

These things are fairly typical of this part of Spain's problems. Many expensive projects happened during the 'booming' construction years with no thought of maintenance etc. Housing developments are often sited in the supposedly dry river beds with disastrous consequences. An airport has been built in Murcia a few miles from a perfectly good one (San Javier). The new airport doesn't function due to a combination of lack of money and incompetence. Meantime Spain's unemployment rate is over twenty five percent which rises to forty percent in those under twenty five. There is real hardship here. Social security payments are very restricted and dependent on how long you've previously been in employment.There are daily reports on the news of evictions some of our friends are supporting children in their mid twenties and one friend knows personally two people who've hung themselves recently, and their daughter saw some-one throw themselves out of a high building.

 

Many public servants have not been paid for months. These include some police forces, cleaners and bin men etc. Many pharmacies have not had their drugs bills paid and are having to remortgage their homes to pay the bills which the government should be paying. People are said to be foraging in bins for food. So whilst things are bad in Britain they are undoubtedly worse here.

 

 

Having said all of the above this is still for us and many other ex-patriots a mini paradise. We can't believe it's almost December, the sun shines most days and it's round 18-20 degrees. Better still there are still no signs of the dreaded C word (Christmas) in the shops. My next post will be at the beginning of January so it leaves me just to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a healthy and successful New Year.  Many thanks for reading. Any comments are very welcome and can be left at ;

writerinaguilas@gmail.com

 

Best wishes from Cathy











October in Aguilas - Night walking and octopus.

Firstly my apologies this is a post about everyday life here instead of the environment, as I managed to wipe that entire blog from the site yesterday, and I'm still too annoyed to compose it again just yet!
Our neighbours from Lorca arrived on the seventh of October to tell us that they were undertaking a night time walk. These are not unusual here and make perfect sense as it's often still around thirty degrees in the day at the beginning of October.
We went  to the local beach at nine thirty p.m. to see what was happening it was twenty-two degrees, and the beach was crowded with excited people.

 



 

 

About a hundred tents had been pitched, and around two hundred people and about a dozen dogs wandered around. People were carrying rucksacks, wearing walking boots and had lights on bands around their heads or torches slung around their necks. They were all in teams, most of whom would have been totally composed of family members. Of our neighbours the women were 'The Beach Nomads' and the men 'The Limping Eagles'. Of course I may have missed something in the translation!

 

 

 

 

 

The women were going to walk five or six kilometres and the men twenty. This doesn't sound that much but there are few good footpaths here. They were given maps and co-ordinates and the longer route involved  fairly steep ascents through rough thorny scrub. It was well organised and teams were called out through a microphone by someone in the tent shown  above. They set off to applause, cheers and laughter. This particular event is organised every year by the 'council' and this was the first time it had started and finished at Calabardina.

We went home to bed and left them to it. The women arrived back at around one-thirty a.m. the men around four-thirty a.m., when they all had a fiesta. Of course in this part of Spain that's not particularly late. In the summer months especially July or August, (when many people are on holiday), people don't go to bed before five or six a.m.

The next morning at eleven -thirty there were prizes, sausage or pork 'baps', beer and several long and flowery speeches.

 

 

By three p.m. everything had been cleared away and tidied up and one would never have suspected that anything had happened there the night before.

Many people enjoy walking in this area but it makes us realise how lucky we are in Britain to have The Ramblers and many other organisations like them to organise walks, keep footpaths open and lobby governments. There are Spanish groups here who do  hikes in the mountains but there is no nationwide organisation, and no groups who do easy or moderate walks. In part this is because of our different history, and perhaps because everything here centres around the family, so if you want to walk you can organise it with your extended family. There are however several British groups who've set up in the Murcia area.

The following Friday seemed to illustrate to me what a place of contrasts this can be. In the morning I'd driven about twenty minutes away to a dance/exercise class (Zumba). Twenty five women, all English, exercising to Latin-American music exactly the same as the classes held in Britain.

When I returned hung on my neighbours washing line was lunch for four or five days time.

 



 

 

Her husband ((who's aged about seventy),had been in the sea catching octopus with a spear. She told me that these would be left to dry for four or five days, then she would cut them up into small pieces and grill them.



There are various ways to 'tenderise' octopus. Some swear by beating them, others by putting them in the freezer.They usually then cut up the long tendrils, fry them and serve them in an oil and vinegar sauce. They are delicious. So far I've bought them ready prepared from the local supermarket!

On this particular day it was thirty degrees in the shade. For lunch they were having 'Migas'. This is deep fried breadcrumbs with sausage. Our other neighbours describe it as 'comfort food' for the winter! I hope it's not too cold or too hot, or that you're not suffering from extremes of weather wherever you're reading this, and I also hope you can join me again in three weeks time, thanks for reading,

Cathy.

Espero que puedes encontrarme en tres semanas, gracias para leer,

Caty.

Contact me at www. writerinaguilas@gmail.com