El esparto - The grass

Welcome to this week's post. I thought I'd tell you about an ancient craft that's dying out in Murcia. We were intrigued to find several place-names here contain the word 'esparto.'

On looking this up in our much thumbed dictionary it only said, 'grass'. However we've learnt that el esparto, has a long and interesting history. The esparto is a sturdy grass that grows in the hills and all along the coast of Murcia. Along with fishing it was the chief source of income in this region up until the middle of the last century.

The esparto was cut down by hand and hauled by horse and cart to one of the local bays known as cocedores - cookers. In these bays small circular stone walls were built up in the water to form a zone where the people could work. The esparto was first immersed in the water to soften it, it was then raked and fanned out before being made into reels. It must have been hard back-breaking work getting it in and out of the cart and then lugging it into the water. Cold and tough on the hands in the winter and hot heavy work in the summer.

(Nowadays these areas, protected from the rest of the sea are perfect for children to play in, and being that little bit warmer are also good for ageing Brits to paddle in !)

The esparto was then taken by horse and cart to one of the twenty factories in the area to be made into rope.This in turn was used to make any number of things but in particular the rope soled sandals - alpargatas. (Some of us may remember them from the seventies, when I seem to recall them being called espadrilles).

An article in a local book  (Junto del mar, by Ramon Jimenez Madrid) details that this was also immensely hard and dangerous work. In the factories women sometimes had their hands or fingers crushed by heavy mallets. He also states that with the introduction of plastic and the demise of the industry many of these factories were deliberately set alight for the insurance money.
There still exist a small number of men working the esparto by hand. You can meet one or two of them and purchase articles at the Saturday market in Aguilas.  

I met this chap at a very English garden party in the mountains near Mazarron. He was plaiting the esparto in much the same way that we would plait hair. It would then be glued onto the soles of the sandals. He'd worked the esparto since he was a boy, and his father and grandfather before him. He had various objects on display: sandals, a wine/olive container, a massive basket to keep bread fresh, two large containers to transport goods on a donkey or mule and, (I did struggle to translate this) a container to put a ferret in, to attract rabbits when out hunting!

Incidentally the garden party was to raise money for a charity for cancer relief. We don't know many English people here, so it was a surreal experience to be in the middle of the mountains with about a hundred other Brits.

We had tea and cakes, a raffle, various traditional English fete type games and a rendition of songs from the musical Oliver! (As you can see from the photo this was about a month ago and the weather was more typical of English fete weather than Spanish weather - although it didn't rain.)

The couple who live here speak Spanish and are integrated into the Spanish community, but many Brits live in totally British enclaves.Some spend twenty or thirty years here without being able to speak a word of Spanish.They have British plumbers, electricians, solicitors, taxis, pubs and social clubs. And of course they can easily obtain fish and chips and a full English breakfast (not necessarily at the same time.) When we ask our Spanish friends how they feel about this they are always very polite but I suspects that they don't like it. I don't think we British would do either, but they tolerate it as they are naturally welcoming and having foreigners here is a major source of income, especially during the current crisis.

Next post - Old meets new in Calabardina, Murcia. Why has this extra-terrestrial saucer landed ?

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