Meet The Family

Papa, Mama and I are now on 'The Other Planet', as I call mainland Spain, visiting papa's Andalusian Papa's (see  post The Other Planet). We have already met with Grandma Maria and Grandpa Eduardo, the rest of the Garrido family is still ahead of us.

Uncle Eduardo, Papa's brother, also comes to greet us with his wife, Josefina or Aunt Pepa as we call her. She has a warm smile and Mama and I like her right away. Eduardo is a small man with an infectious laugh and he soon introduces me to my two Andalusian cousins, Eduardo and Maria Dolores who are roughly my age. Eduardo is named after Papa's Papa and Maria Dolores after Papa's Mama, just like me and my little mind wonders to itself, ‘why are we all named after two people?' Later that evening Papa tells Mama that uncle Eduardo had to marry Aunt Pepa because she was in the family way and I do not understand what this means but I am happy that the family way is with our family because I like Aunt Pepa and I like my Andalusian cousins, Edu and Mari as everybody calls them. We are all named after our immediate relatives, but it’s only a formality. As soon as the ink has dried on the christening document, we all revert to pet names. Eduardo becomes Edu, Maria Dolores becomes Mari. Even Aunt Josefina does not stay Josefina for long, for everybody calles her Aunt Pepa. Papa is called José, but everyone calls him Pepe, and Mama is called Francisca, but nobody uses that name for she is known as Paca. 

My name is easy, I am christened Maria del Carmen and everybody calls me Mari Carmen. Except when I am very naughty, then Mama and Papa call me by my full name and I know that I will have something to answer for. But being called by my full name no longer fills me with trepidation, for I am a wise beyond my years and have already worked out that when a Mama or Papa smack you on the bottom for being naughty, you just theatrically yelp and cry as loud as possible after the first smack, that way they think you have learned your lesson with just one smack and stop at that. Mamas and Papas don't really want to smack you, but they must, and if one smack is enough to teach you a lesson then they are relieved. And so am I. You just have to be careful to time the first wail with the smack, for if you wail too early, then the Mamas and Papas realise that you are making it all up and then you will get an extra smack for wailing before the actual smack has been administered. Since a young and tender age I have been honing my acting skills to perfection, and I rarely get more than one smack, which is just as well as I try to be a good girl most of the time but don't always succeed. My little three year old mind tells me I need to share this gem of information with my Andalusian cousins, Mari and Edu.

One of the Andalusian Mamas comes by to meet Mama and I am offered a toffee whilst the adults talk. I greedily unwrap it and shove it into my little mouth to enjoy the delights of this treasure. Not so fast, says my benefactor, ‘Have you not forgotten to say something ‘she asks with a hint of irritation at my lack of manners. I too suddenly realise that I have forgotten something of importance and through a mouthful of teeth clamped shut with sticky toffee, I respond accordingly, stretching out my little chubby three-year-old hand and say a most important thing I had completely forgotten in the ecstasy of devouring my glorious toffee: ‘Can I have another one for my Mother?’ Both Mamas burst into fits of laughter and soon they have forgotten about my imprudence, but most important, I achieve my goal and am given my second toffee. Slowly I am beginning to like life here on this Other Planet; I have nice cousins to play with, we all speak the same language which I am now finally beginning to understand, and even the toffees seem to be distributed with boundless generosity. When your are just three-years-old, that's important.

We are now living on the Calle Ancha, Wide Street, and it is early morning and the street outside is strangely quite after the noisy bustle of the night before. I have already noticed that the people from this Other Planet are noisier than from my Island: as well as talking in strange tongues and eating unfamiliar food, they break into bouts of spontaneous singing and dancing, and I have no idea what sets them off. They call it Flamenco. Papa does it and I am transfixed listening to him singing this soulful, melancholic music with people around him clapping hands, dancing or playing the guitar. This is a flamboyant side to Papa that I have never seen back on our Island and I like it. I am already awake but Mama and Papa are still fast asleep and I am bursting for a wee-wee. I do not want wake them, so pull out the potty from under my bed and sit on it, on this new day of our stay on The Other Planet. 

Now the wee -wee is done, I decide to be a big girl and empty the potty all by myself so that Mama need not do that. I take the chair from the corner of the room and push it up against the window which has been open all night so that the stifling heat of the Andalusian nights somehow dissipates. And I climb up onto the chair with the potty in my hand, and throw the contents out into the street. I do not have time to climb down, before I hear the screams of a woman coming from the street directly outside the window. She is shouting in such a loud voice that Mama and Papa are now awake. ‘What’s’ going on?’  Papa drowsily asks, ‘what’s going on, is that your daughter has drenched me with the contents of her potty!’ and the voice from the other side of the window is now standing before me in our bedroom in the form of a very angry-looking lady. '

‘Carmen!’ Papa says, but Papa has no time to add anything else, for Carmen has already interrupted him, ‘How would you like it, to be walking past somebody's house minding your own business, only to be suddenly soaked with a potty full of urine! Just let me get my hands on her!’ she screams at the top of her voice and directs a chilling look at the three-year-old girl culprit in room; me. ‘Carmen, relax, it was just an accident, she is just a child, these things happen.’ Mama and Papa are now out of bed, trying to calm the irate lady, and I take advantage of this to run behind Papa and skilfully place him between myself and this angry person, peeking out every now then from behind the safety of his legs, not sure of what I have done to warrant such heated exchanges. 

These people from The Other Planet are indeed strange, I think to myself. I can see that Carmen whoever-she-is, is in no mood to be pacified and she storms out of the room and abruptly as she arrived, telling Mama and Papa that she will now have to go home and change her clothes, and all because of a three-year-old who has not been brought up with the most basic of manners. Once Carmen has left, Mama and Papa start to laugh the laughter at the absurdity of the situation. Papa tells Mama that Carmen is his cousin, and that she will calm down, but it will not be today. And as for me, Mama tells me to wake them the next time I want to empty the contents of my potty. One urine soaked cousin will suffice for this trip. And they both look at one another and smile.

It’s soon the end of our time on The Other Planet and Papa takes Mama and I to the Feria, the Fair. It’s a magical place with rides, light and toys that I have never seen before in my short life. It's a hot Andalusian night and the three of us walk there together. I hold Papa's hand and notice that he has half a finger missing and I ask what happened. Where is it? Gone, Papa says, a donkey bit it off when he was a young boy and he cannot now bear to see the animal, not even in a photo. The mystery of the missing half finger is however quckly forgotten, for I am soon assailed by an unquenchable thirst and ask Papa to, 'please buy me a Coca-Cola, my throat is parched'. He smiles at the eloquent request of this three-year-old before him, and the refreshment is duly purchased. Now we move onto the lottery stalls and I want more than anything to win a blonde doll that I have spotted. She has captivating hair the colour of gold, and nobody I know has hair like that. Even on this Other Planet, everybody has hair the colour of ebony just like me. 

Papa buys consecutive lottery tickets, one after the other in a vain attempt to win me my doll and countless tickets have now been purchased, but the doll still sits unattainably on the shelf. Finally, Papa asks the stall holder the price for purchasing the doll outright. He empties his pockets of all the money he has, hands it to the stall holder who in turn picks up the doll and then puts it into my ecstatic little arms. Papa tells Mama and I that all our money has now gone so we must go home and to bed. But I have my doll and happily walk back to our home clutching Emilia with her golden mane of hair, for this is what I have named my precious find. Emilia will follow me on all my life journeys, back to my Island and eventually one day onto England. But for now, she is the Andalusian doll that Papa sacrificed everything for so that I could have her. And I know that Papa did this because he loves me as much as I love Emilia. Sleep comes effortlessly once we are back home, and I clutch my treasured doll dreaming of the faraway places we will visit to together. But our first journey will back to my Island home.

To be continued...

Next post 2nd June : Columbus And The Missing Gravestone

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.

The Other Planet

We are slowly moving towards the end of the 1960s and in the USA Lyndon B. Johnson is 36th President of the United States of America. Richard Nixon's time in office is still to come and the Vietnam War which will mark a large part of both presidents’ legacy, is already making headlines in the World's press. On our Island, Mama, Papa and I are oblivious to all this; we have more important matters on our minds as we prepare for a visit to La Peninsula, mainland Spain. Papa is not from our Island, but from The Other Planet as I call this unknown territory, and Mama say that we will be going there to visit Papa's own Mama and Papa as well as other members of the Garrido family. Mama and I have never left our Island and this will be our first journey to a New World to meet people that are called family but that we have never known. We are just three; Mama, Papa and myself, for Sis has yet to be born.

To reach our destination we take a ferry boat from our Island home off the Western coast of Africa on a journey that will take days. We are poor so Papa buys the cheapest passages on the vessel and we sleep in the innards of the ship, spending a large part of the stormy journey holding our bellies and retching. When there is no storm we venture from our cabin to the restaurant, and once there Papa lifts me onto a table where I enthusiastically stamp my feet and clap my hands doing my very best to dance the Flamenco that Papa has taught me back on my Island. I am one of few children on this journey and the only one dancing on tables to a captivated audience of fellow passengers which includes many young Spanish soldiers returning home from military service in Spain's far-flung territories; the Canary Islands where we are from, as well as from the region of Spanish Sahara sandwiched between Morocco and Mauritania. All young men, they are brimming with joy at soon being reunited with their families on the Spanish mainland, and share their stories  with one other and with Mama and Papa as la muñeca, the doll, as I am known, gaily dances for them. Eventually we arrive at the port town of Cadiz by the Strait of Gibralter where just fourteen kilometres separate Europe from the vast continent of Africa. I have no recollection of how we travel onwards from Cadiz but we do, and eventually arrive at a place called Moron de la Frontera where Papa's Andalusian family keenly await our arrival.

Moron de la Frontera is a much larger town than anything I have ever seen on my Island and surrounded by olive groves as far as the eye can see. The first known mention of the city was made by the ancient Greek Geographer, Strabo, referring to it as Almourol. Later, with the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the Romans called the city Maurorum, which was a reference to the large population from North Africa. During the Moorish rule of the Iberian Peninsula the Latin term evolved into Mawror, and finally Moron. The phrase "de la Frontera" or "Of the Border" refers to the border with Granada, because it was a border town between Fernando III’s 1240 Christian conquest of Iberia until the fall of the kingdom of Granada in the late fifteenth century. The ruins of a large castle on the outskirts of the town, attest to this glorious past. The Moron del la Frontera that we arrive in also has an enormous NATO Military base within its confines and we pass some of the American military staff from this base as we arrive in the town. This strategically important military base, located at the Southern most tip of Spain and close to the nearby imposing African continent, provides Franco's Spain with much needed hard currency, American dollars.

The mainland Spain that we arrive in, is the same pious Catholic country that we have left behind on our Island home, and similarly ruled over by General Francisco Franco since the end of the Spanish Civil war soon thirty years ago. Yet, life here seems like on Another Planet and our Island lifestyle seems idyllic by comparison; we have the warm Atlantic waters on our doorstep, we speak the informal and more relaxed Spanish of South America, and most importantly, Mama and her family have not lived through the unspeakable hardships of the Civil War that decimates Spain between the years of 1936-1939. Unlike Papa, Mama has never known the hunger and deprivation of the post-war years, nor the darkness borne from this suffering, and it will be many years before we learn of this. For now, this painful past remains secreted within the Other Planet, and today is a day of rejoicing as Papa arrives in Moron del la Frontera to introduce his new Wife and Daughter from faraway lands to the Andalusian Garrido Alvarez family.

It’s hot and dusty here, there is not a beach nor sea breeze anywhere in sight and already I miss my Island home with its balmy sea breeze and the warm Atlantic waters on my doorstep. But I do not have long to contemplate my loss, for grown-ups that I have never met scoop me up in their arms, speaking a strange language that Mama tells me is Spanish but that I don’t really understand, and cover me with kisses. Once again I am officially la muñeca, the doll. I see that grown-ups here have the same mahogany-coloured eyes that Papa has, the same dark eyes that he shares with me, and I feel at once a sense of belonging. We meet Papa's Mama, Abuela or Grandma Maria, a tiny little hunched woman who still cooks with coal and dresses in black from head to toe. Grandma Maria is still in mourning for her own Mother, Remedios, who died many years ago when Papa was a young boy, yet she still feels the pain as if it were yesterday. 

She dries her wrinkled hands on her apron, envelopes me in her warm arms and amidst profuse sobs covers me with kisses. We have only just arrived, but she is grief-stricken that our stay is only temporary, and is already counting the days until we leave again back for our Island. But Grandma Maria soon dries her tears. She need to, because now she is examining Mama, her new daughter-in-law, from head to toe in detail and with tears in your eyes it’s a difficult thing to do. She takes one look at Mama’s short dress and tells Papa, 'How can you allow your wife to leave the house in such a short dress? It’s disgraceful'. Mama is wearing her best mini dress and I can tell that she is irritated by what Grandma Maria has said. Papa is very quiet and so should be when caught between the two most powerful women in his life; one his mother and the other his wife. Papa tells me that I am named after Grandma Maria and I can tell from the way he talks about her, that he loves his Mama very much.

Then we meet Papa's own Papa, Abuelo or Grandpa Eduardo. He is a small hunched man who reeks of alcohol and Papa tells Mama that his Papa likes the drink a bit too much. The Garrido family was once respected and affluent, but Grandpa drank away all his inheritance money and this is the reason they are in the situation they find themselves in today. Papa says this with no hint of bitterness, but I can sense that he does not love his Papa as I do mine, and I begin to understand why he wants to live on our Island and not on This Other Planet. After she has finished talking with Papa, Grandma Maria takes another long look at me, sofly utters the name Mercedes and gently weeps into her black apron, once more overcome with The Sorrow. I ask Papa who is this Mercedes that is making Grandma Maria so sad, and he falls unusually silent before answering me. Mercedes was his beloved sister who is no longer here. Why is she not here to meet us, I ask him. Because she went to a special place called Heaven when she was a little girl, Papa tells me. Can I go there to say ‘Hello’, I innocently ask. I am suddenly scooped up in an almost crushing embrace as Papa tells me firmly, ‘Never, I will protect you with all my heart and soul to make sure that nothing ever happens to you!' The name Mercedes is never again mentioned in my presence for the remainder of our visit, but I have understood that she is a special person for Papa, and that he loves her as much as he loves me and his own Mama. We have already made the long journey from our Island home to this strange new place,The Other Planet, so Heaven must indeed be a very far-away place if I cannot go there with Papa to meet Mercedes and say 'Hello'.

To be continued...

Next post 19th May: Meet The Family

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.