Dark Side Of The Moon

Zara is thrilled that her Aunt has wheels and we are off and away. I am finally the proud owner of my very first rental vehicle (see post Woman With Wheels) and it feels wonderfully liberating. Our days of waiting for the bus to arrive are officially over. The weather is searing and we are both clad in the standard Island clothing; micro-shorts. I have taken on Mama’s advice and am now wearing my mini shorts matching those of my niece thirty years younger, who has chosen to ignore the pleas of her Grandmother and is still wearing hers (see post Columbus And The Missing Gravestone and Gravestone Mystery Resolved).  Zara tells me that Nanny may be an expert fashionista when it comes to shorts and middle-aged women like myself, but that she still has a lot to learn about the younger generation; Only the other day, she was asked to be more careful when out walking and try to avoid this seemingly continuous stumbling and falling over; Nanny was getting fed up with having to wash jeans covered with rips just about everywhere. Zara does not have the heart to tell her that they are purchased with the rips strategically already in place. Nanny will never understand.

We drive past Playa San Juan, towards Playa Alcala, and then up the serpentine cliff roads to Los Gigantes with its massive cliff face dropping down to the Atlantic Ocean. Without realising, we have both relaxed and The Journey of Death has lost its grip on us and we are as carefree as the other drivers that we pass on our journey. Now we are like locals. At the Los Gigantes viewing-point we pull over, park the car and immortalize our new-found moment of freedom Thelma and Louise style with a photograph. Who are Thelma and Louise, Zara asks. I had momentarily forgotten that some thirty years separate us and tell her that it was the ultimate philosophical chick movie of the nineties about two thirty-something girlfriends who discover themselves on a long car journey across America with devastating consequences. And just like us, they capture the pivotal moments of their adventure in pictures. Go watch the movie I tell her, better still let's watch it together one evening. 

We return to our vehicle and continue with the drive downwards towards the base of the Los Gigantes cliffs, passing by countless ubiquitous curves, and  taking us along the coastline to the next village called Puerto Santiago. The drive is captivatingly beautiful, and I feel at once insignificant and yet at peace to be surrounded by such immense monuments to nature, for The Giants cliffs rising out from the deep blue sea deservingly merit their name. I tell Zara that we will now drive back to our village of San Juan, and on the return journey stop by the nearby village of Alcalá where both her Mother and I spent the first few years of our life before we moved to England. I also want to show her the houses where each of us were born. Once in the village, I park on the nearby street and we begin our walk down Memory Lane.


                                 

        

The first house that we arrive at is the older of the two, and a white-washed coloured. This was Grandma Filomena’s home and where on a late Autumn day in 1963, after a long day of work in the nearby tomato fields, Mama went into labour. Acting as midwife to her own twenty-year-old daughter, Grandma Filomena helped bring her fifth grandchild into the world at 2am on September 26th. To be precise, I was delivered in the room to the right of the front door where I am now standing with Zara and which also happened to be Grandma’s own bedroom. Back in the 1960's there was no drive to the maternity hospital as is done today. This hospital was located in the capital city of Santa Cruz and to get here would have entailed an arduous journey of many hours along windy mountain roads, by which time the baby would have been born. Generations of Sanz babies were delivered at home and brought into the world by women who had learned the art of midwifing from the generation that went before them. In these rural villages, doctors were as inaccessible as the maternity hospitals in which they worked, and an expectant mother could consider herself indeed fortunate to have one medical consultation before her birth. Mama did not fall into this category, for as she gave birth to me during the early hours on that late September day she did so with no medical intervention along any part of her journey to motherhood, and the firm conviction that everything would turn out well as it had done years earlier for her own Mother and her Grandmother before her.

From Grandma Filomena’s home, I lead Zara across over to other side of the road and point out the place where Grandma’s animal shed with chicken and goats was located. Nowadays the site has on it a pretty Canarian home. Back in the 1960’s it was a piece of the countryside and I would walk there in the mornings with Grandma Filomena, clutching my little basket ready to collect the precious treasure trove of freshly-laid eggs with their creamy, golden coloured yolks, still warm from their benefactor. This was also where I would witness baby goats coming into the world still immersed in a sticky bubble, and then watch with fascination as the Mama goat proceeded to slowly lick away every last morsel of the placenta as if it were some delicious meal. After the bubble had been consumed, the baby goat would try to stand up on its wobbly legs before inevitably falling down and seeking the comfort and proximity of the Mama goat, just as I would do some mornings with my own Mama as I climbed into bed besides her. The birth of baby goats heralded a time of great excitement for us children, as we knew that for a short but intense period following the birth of the kids, we would be rewarded with the most delicious thick and creamy goats milk which would be greedily consumed knowing full well that it would not last for long. 

These goats were our only source of milk, and as long as they continued to supply us with our needs, they were safe from the casserole pot. Once they had outlived this useful purpose their days were numbered. Every morning Grandma Filomena would sit on her worn stool, gather her skirts around her, and then proceed to milk the goats. I loved to watch her, and if she was in no hurry, I would be allowed another futile attempt at milking, which would result in frustration on my behalf and peals of laughter from Grandma Filomena. It must be hard for Zara to imagine all that I am describing, all that she sees in front of her is a pavement with neat rows of brightly-coloured Canarian houses tidily stacked next to one another. Back then it was a piece of the countryside and a place of utmost magic for an impressionable three-year-old.

Our journey continues, and we now follow the bend of the road. Left up to the hill and across to the other side of the road. Now we are standing in front of the house where Zara’s own Mama was born five years after my own arrival (see post Share The Moon) and formed the starting point of my memoirs saga. Nowadays it has been painted green and purple, but back in the late nineteen-sixties, it was clad in the customary white of the Canarian villages around us. It was in this house on the ground floor and the room to the right of the door, that Sis came into the world as I scoured the sky for storks. This was the house where the women gathered around the childbed in terror as the placenta would not stubbornly leave Mama's womb alongside the new-born baby that had just been expelled. Everyone in the room knew fully well, that if the placenta was not expelled soon and intact, Mama would die. But little did they know that there was a far worse scenario lurking invisibly in the background placing Mama in equal mortal danger. 

For now, blissful ignorance reigns around this child-bed as the placenta is finally expelled and the women in the room rejoice at the arrival of a second child for the apparently healthy and robust twenty-five-year-old mother, and yet another grandchild for the proud grandmother. It will take another thirty-nine-years and an exploratory ultrasound to reveal the true perils that each of Mama’s pregnancies and births placed her in, and a calamity so disturbing that its mere recollection years later still brings with it fresh waves of incandescent rage. Once again I comprehend that knowledge can bring with it terrible pain and decide that, for the moment, this revelation can wait (see post Watching The English Part III). For today, I still want Zara and her Aunt to be blissfully innocent Women with Wheels and together we walk back to the car and begin our drive back to the comfort and warmth of Mama's home in nearby San Juan. For the moment, I only wish to recall the happy moments within those two homes that witnessed the birth of the next generation of Sanz women. The time for examining the dark side of humanity will be on another day called Tomorrow. 

To be continued...

Next post 4th June : Autopista With Vista

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

Woman With Wheels

It took a while to get there, but eventually the lady behind the desk at the car rental office in San Juan, Tenerife and I come to an agreement and I am now the proud, albeit temporary owner of a newly-acquired vehicle. Manual. The fruitless on-line search for that elusive automatic transmission which never materialised is over (see post Automatic Transmission), and so is the story of my life which I shared with her as she tapped away on her computer (see post Cars With Memories). And what a story! Five decades of living impressively compacted into one short hour. I think she is secretly relieved to finally see the back of me. She only wants to rent cars, not to forcefully ingest an audio version of a client’s autobiography, even when it is as interesting as mine. I am now officially a Woman with Wheels.

I am no stranger to driving having survived countless demanding Finnish winters, but Tenerife’s meandering mountain roads present a completely different challenge and I am accordingly feeling rather wobbly. But there is a first time for everything, and today is the first time for this feat. Slowly, I pull out of San Juan and turn right onto the main road taking me to the nearby town of Adeje. There is no other choice, turning left and driving in the other direction towards Los Gigantes is even scarier, and I am gripped by terror as curves cascade down on me like relentless waves, one after another as the zig-zag road hugs the erratic coastline. My knees are trembling from the enormous ordeal and I am soaked with sweat. For the seasoned local driver, the curves I have just negotiated are a mere trifle. Not for me. As far as I am concerned, I am dicing with death as I inch along the most terrifying cliff-face with a sheer drop down to oblivion and death if I get just one tiny movement wrong. How do the locals do it? I think to myself. Look at them as they pass me from the other direction, they seem to not have a care in the world. Some are even smiling and laughing with their passengers! Impressive. How can they not be soaked with perspiration like me? If I had to negotiate these serpentine roads every day, I would need to take a spare set of underwear to change into, as the ones I left the house with would most certainly be drenched with sweat by the time I had reached my destination. 

All I think about is staying alive and I want to go straight back to the village and hand the car keys back to the woman behind the counter and ask for my money back. But in order to do that, I will have to drive back. On the other side of the winding road. With the same twisting curves that brought me this far. Why did she not warn me how dangerous it was? Perhaps, because I was too busy sharing my life story with her. These thoughts are soon cut short, because I now look in the mirror and see to my horror a long tail of vehicles stretching out behind me as far as the eye can see. It’s been all of fifteen minutes since I set out on this Journey of Death, but I sensibly decide that it’s already time for a break and accordingly pull over at a nearby bus stop to let the long line of impatient drivers pass by. And what a feast passes by my window. 

Now, this is not any old line of drivers that pass by me, it is a line of Spanish drivers. And every single person that drives by my vehicle takes a moment to slow down, wind down their window and share with me their valued opinion on my driving skills or lack thereof by hurling an insult, shaking their fist, or both. Never one to forget my manners, I politely smile at every comment which I receive, nodding my head in acknowledgement, accompanied by a smile, a wave or even a thumbs-up. Surely, they do not behave this way with poor helpless tourists, I think to myself. How distasteful. Then, the penny drops; the gravity of my infraction was made all the worse because I looked local. They thought I was one of them. I am impressed. If they indeed thought that I looked like one of them, then they expected me to drive like one of them. And gradually, it begins to dawn on me that I can probably do this.

After this long line passes and I am somehow recuperated, I venture out again on the road, just a bit farther and after another fifteen minutes I have my next stop in the next lay-by once again to let the long line of cars pass by. Only this time, the line is not so long and now only every other driver slows down to hurl an insult. I am doing well.  After a few more sessions on the road, my speed is becoming aligned with that of everyone else around me and I am getting the hang of negotiating even the most demanding of the hairpin bends. The waves of perspiration have receded and after a couple of hours, I have blended in with everyone driving around me. Now I not only look local, but I drive local. Comfort zone surpassed and mission accomplished. I even calculate that I can leave the house without spare underwear, for my waves of nervous perspiration have all but vanished. Driving back to the village and Mama’s apartment, I am exhilarated and ready to face whatever the ubiquitous winding roads on this island care to throw at me. But before I do that, I must break the fantastic news to Zara and Mama.

Zara is already at home, having just returned from her early morning shift at the undisputed King of the Island’s five-star hotels, the iconic Laguna Azul, or in English, The Blue Lagoon. Rooms start at a mere EUR 600 a night and my nineteen-year-old old English niece is working there as a receptionist and loving her job, her time on the Island with her Spanish grandma and the opportunity to learn Spanish. And at the Blue Lagoon, they all love her back. I walk into the apartment, straight into the living room and dangle a set of car keys deliciously in front of her. She understands what it means, shrieks with joy and we hug one another and jump up and down with happiness like adolescents. At least one of us can still lay claim to that title, and I inform my teenage niece that the local TITSA bus (it really is called that) is now history, for from this moment onwards we are officially Women with Wheels. ‘Have you told Nanny?’ Zara cautiously enquires after the first flush of excitement has receded. Absolutely not! I respond. She would be horrified with the whole idea, and even more terrified than me of the dangers involved. Had she had any inkling of my intentions, I would have probably been locked away in my bedroom all morning until this whole driving madness idea had passed.

Zara tells me that I am absolutely right not to have told Mama, or Nanny as she calls her, anything about the rental car plan and she elaborates on this; last month she went diving with some friends and a few days later proudly showed Nanny the underwater Facebook photographs. There she was, capture for eternity complete with wet suit, oxygen bottle and a myriad of turtles, fish and the rest of the what-have-you's that inhabit the watery world. Now, most Nannies would captivatingly look at the pictures, and qualify this enthusiasm with appropriately encouraging comments such as, ‘How exciting. Lovely dear. What an adventure! Be sure to tell your Mother when you next talk’. Not this Nanny. As she studied the photographs in closer detail she makes no attempt to conceal the look of horror on her face. Indeed, the piece of apple that Mama has just neatly sliced with a knife and is about to pop into her mouth suddenly drops from her hand and falls gently onto the floor, instantaneously consigned to oblivion in the turmoil of the moment.

She grabs Zara by both arms and proceeds to shake her vigorously as if to awaken her from the most harrowing of nightmares. ‘Have you gone out of your mind? Are you mad? Promise me you will never do such a dangerous thing again! Do you want to die? What will I then tell your Mother? Never, ever do this again!’ She passionately tells her granddaughter. Zara may as well as have told her Grandma that on her day off she had climbed the 3.7-kilometre peak of the nearby Teide volcano, that she had avoided falling over a precipice and to certain death by sheer inches, that a few companions were lost on the way down. But that she was lucky and made it back to work at the Blue Lagoon the following day with just one chipped nail. And that nobody noticed a thing until they read the obituary to the lost friends in the following day’s local newspaper. Yes, we both agree that it is better Mama does not know that I have rented a car until I am certain that I can drive it. She would only worry.  We will surprise her when she comes back from church with excellent driving skills, I wisely tell Zara. In the meantime, let’s go out and have a spin. And as we shut the door behind us, we take along only our bags and phones, for our mutual bus tickets have been relegated to the kitchen counter as superfluous. After all, we are now Women with Wheels.

 To be continued...

Next post 21st May : Dark Side of The Moon

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