Lekeitio

Yesterday I dropped the kids at school, scooted home for my Spanish lesson, went to physical therapy, spent a few hours in my office, picked up the kids, did homework, had dinner, and then caught a cab to the airport, where I met my collaborator, Sarah, to catch the last flight to Bilbao.  It was quite a day.  The flight was delayed (traffic over Pamplona), and by the time we got in and picked up our rental car it was heading toward midnight.  After making  a couple of wrong turns and driving 60 kilometers on a very windy road, we pulled in to our hotel parking lot after 1 am.  I was pooped. 

Getting off of the elevator, I found myself face to face with a lifesize mannequin in complete Basque country regalia.  A tad creepy for that time of night.  I opened the door to a very simple room, slightly worn around the edges.  But I quickly discovered that the windows open, and when I opened them I could see—and hear—the sea.  There is nothing like going to sleep listening to the sound of the sea.  And so I did, and I slept until 9:30 this morning.  Fortunately we had no early morning appointments.

Sarah and I have come to Lekeitio as the first stop on our Spanish Slow Cities research tour.  There are six slow cities in Spain and we intend to visit as many as we can before both of us head back home—Sarah to the UK and me to New York City. 

The Slow City movement was established in Italy in 1999 as a reaction to the perceived problems associated with an increasingly globalized economy fueled by growing levels of material consumption, and leading to unsustainable, placeless communities. The Slow City movement remains primarily a European phenomenon, though the number of Slow Cities has expanded over the past decade and now includes 135 small cities (Slow Cities must have fewer than 50,000 residents) in 22 countries. In the US, three communities in Northern California (Fairfax, Sebastopol, and Sonoma) have joined Slow City.

Cities that join Slow City must adopt the Slow City charter, which contains 54 policies, programs and technologies designed to promote local heritage, preserve the environment, and increase overall quality of life. Slow City shares the goals of the Slow Food movement from which it emerged: the right to (and value of) pleasure and conviviality, the importance of tradition, concern for preserving and celebrating local identity, and the need to maintain biodiversity, ecological integrity, and social equity. These goals are achieved through the adoption of wide ranging municipal policies, from measures to protect artisanal craft producers to programs to develop culinary knowledge among school children.

We spent our day today with Lekeitio’s mayor and the two-person economic development department.  Lekeitio’s economy is based on fishing and tourism and, although there appear to be no official statistics, it seems quite obvious that the balance has shifted from the former to the latter over the past few decades.  Home to only 7,000 inhabitants, Lekeitio is a very small town arranged mostly around a cove that harbors a small fleet of fishing boats and sailboats.  When I woke up this morning and raised the shades, locals were beginning to gather on the beach—a few young people, grandparents with their grandbabies.  A couple of people swam, although the air did not feel warm enough to entice me in.

We started our day of fieldwork over coffee with the economic development director, and another woman who works for the town and has lived in Lekeitio her whole life.  Apparently, this is quite common.  As the deputy ED staffer later told us, “People are born here, they live their lives here, and they die here.  We don’t have museums, and the cinema is only open on the weekend, but it’s the quality of life that keeps people here.”  Indeed, it seems as if there is only minimal outmigration of the young people.  By the time it was all over, we had walked the two historic centers—the neighborhood where fishermen originally lived and the neighborhood where artisans originally lived, had a long and filling lunch, and toured the new attraction that features the old lighthouse—complete with 4D theater simulating a boat in a storm.  All in Spanish.  Sarah is quite fluent, but 7 hours of Spanish thinking speaking, and taking notes taxes me.

As we wandered back, the plazas began to fill with children kicking soccer balls, parents chatting, older people taking it all in from the benches.  I retreated to the room for an hour to do some yoga, and then Sarah and I met for pintxos (Basque country tapas), local wine called txakoli.  It stayed light very late, and we just sat out on the harbor watching the day end as the lights went on in the homes around us.