On the Road with Manuel

I woke up on Tuesday (this is last week--I'm way behind) feeling angry about the selfishness of our robber.  Yes, Spain is in an economic crisis, and I am fortunate to have a good job and to not want for much.  I actually don’t mind the loss of “stuff” at all.  What rankles me is the fact that this thief put our lives in jeopardy.  I’d have much preferred that he simply held us up at the rest stop.  Manuel and I are okay only because we were lucky, and because Manuel handled the car so well.

Sometimes I think these kinds of experiences help you to get your perspective back.  The last email I read before I closed up my laptop and left on Tuesday morning was from our doctoral program.  He wrote to report that a woman who graduated with her PhD last May—a ceremony over which I presided—had dropped dead in her kitchen, 10 days after the birth of her baby.  So in the grand scheme of things, all is well.

Both of us were tired when we met at breakfast on Wednesday.  Our dinner had been late, our first interview was early, and for sure the stress of the robbery had settled in some.  I had slept well, but not enough.  We got in the car to head from Mora de Rubielos to Rubielos de Mora, about 7 km away.  Teruel, the region where these two villages are located, was populated by Moors at one time.  At that time, Mora de Rubielos was called, simply, Mora, and Rubielos de Mora was called just Rubielos.  But then a Moorish woman from Mora fell in love with a Christian man from Rubielos; it was forbidden love, and they had to flee in order to be together.  Legend has it that later, each village—having seen the error of its ways—added the other village’s name to its name.

Rubielos de Mora, the slow city, has a population of about 800; Mora is about twice as large.  Both are precious, beautiful medieval cities, although Mora feels a bit more “real” because of its larger size. 

We met the mayor of Rubielos in the ayuntamiento—city hall—an amazing 15^th century building with a courtyard that used to house the city’s market.  A waist high door on one wall had the word carcel (jail) carved into the stone above it.  A large window next to the door was covered in a heavy metal grate.  This is where the village’s bad guys were once held.  They had to stoop to get in through the door, and then were visible through the window for all of the other villagers to see—adding to their humiliation.

The mayor, who had just won the local election for another 4 year term, met us with an assistant and one of the council members.  We talked for over two hours about the town and its process of becoming a slow city.  Everyone we have talked with so far has told us that they applied to become a slow city because the philosophy of the movement reflected the town’s own values.  So far at least, they have not exploited “the snail” that is the movement’s symbol to attract tourists. 

After our interview, we walked through the town and interviewed a baker who uses traditional recipes and makes everything without preservatives.  She became incredibly passionate when we asked her about slow food and the cittaslow movement.  “But one thing,” she said, coming out from behind the counter.  She went over to the wall where a Cittaslow brochure was taped up, took it off and pointed to the word hombre in the following sentence.  She asked us to do what we could to get “man” changed to XXX.

We had a light lunch back at our hotel, Manuel took a short siesta, and we set off for our return trip to Barcelona.  Manuel insisted on stopping at the same rest stop where our tire had been tampered with to see if we could find the thief.  No luck.  Manuel dropped me back at home, safe and sound just after 8 pm—we pulled up at the same time Alec did with the kids, who were so happy to see me after only one day gone.  They were full of questions about my adventure, and were especially upset about the loss of the iPad.

I then did another quick turnaround, sleeping at home on Wednesday and leaving again on Thursday morning for my last fieldwork trip.  I met my collaborator Sarah at the National rental car agency on Muntaner, hopped into our Citroen C3 and set off up the coast this time to the Costa Brava.  We were looking at two slow cities—Pals and Begur—in two days.  Pals is another precious town with a beautiful plaza and pristine, centuries-old buildings.  Begur sits 300 meters above sea level on a piece of land that juts into the Mediterranean; it is flanked by some of the most beautiful beaches in Spain.  We had good interviews in both places.

Meanwhile, Alec had to staff the home front all week—attending the Kindergarten end of year party and Gingerbread Man play, going to C.C.’s insect show and, on top of it all, getting me a new phone, canceling my credit cards, changing the locks on our doors.

I was feeling celebratory by the time I got home on Friday evening.  I had finished my travels, and the kids had had their last day of school.  So what did we do?  We all went to see Kung Fu Panda 2, of course.  In 3D.