Monalia's World

Marta’s boyfriend Karafa has recently moved here from Senegal. He is a multi-talented and charismatic character, not shy at all. For someone who has only lived in this country for few months now, he appears to be very well adjusted. He makes ornate African drums called Jembe, tall with wooden spikes holding the skins tightly to the wooden shell. These drums get an amazing range of tones from high timbale-like to huge sonorous deep tones. Karafa has already picked up 2 students he’s teaching to play. He also had 2 art openings this week.

We attended his Thursday night opening at the Barceloneta Civic Center along with Marta’s loyal group of friends. Karafa is a prolific and inspired painter; what he lacks in subtlety he makes up for in master strokes and bold content. Mark was so impressed with one of Karafa’s paintings that he bought it. The painting speaks to him of the dragon within. It is of a calm subdued human or man sitting on a bench with a huge red fire-breathing dragon emerging from the side of his body, it reminds Mark of himself. I agree, the colors will look good on the wall of our patio interior.

Saturday we were invited to Marta’s for a lunch and impromptu musical rehearsal. What we didn’t comprehend was that we were actually rehearsing for a short performance at Karafa’s art opening in nearby Llinares at 7:30 that evening. We had “paella Africano” prepared by Karafa and a mixed salad with fruits and nuts prepared by Nicole. Yum! It was Marta’s core group, including Ignacio, an Argentinian horse veterinarian who is also brilliant musician and songwriter, one of the best we’ve met since moving here. The four of us musicians (Karafa, Mark, Ignacio and I) worked up a few songs, including the tango I sing called “Caminitos” that almost every Spanish speaking person knows. This Carlos Gardel hit from the 1930’a appeals to all generations of Spanish speaking people.

When we actually performed our songs later at Karafa’s opening we played our 5 songs to 6 elderly ladies, all of them with canes or walkers. They were delighted.

PHOTO OF MARK AND IGNACIO JAMMING

Tomorrow we are off to Bordeaux on a road trip for a week, Mark, Nicole, Haka, Moki (Nicoe’s dog) and I are all renting a car. We are all nvited to go celebrate the 50th birthday of a friend. We will return to Barcelona on Bastille Day. (July 14)

MONUMENT ON PLAÇA DIAMANTE TODAY

I am speaking enough Catalan to get by and read it fluently. I like to watch the TV3 Càtalan channel and I also read the local news. I noticed an article about ” Refugi Antiaeri de la Plaça del Diamant en Gracia” (aerial bomb shelters of Plaça Diamant in Gracia) with some poorly lit photos, much like these:

The article provided a number to call to make an appointment for a tour. It took all my courage, but I was intrigued enough to dial and converse with a lady who only speaks Catalan but understands Castiliano. It went well. She gave us a booking time and date on Saturday morning in three weeks. She warned me that the tour would be in Catalan, but I assured here this was fine, that we lived nearby and were curious to see these underground shelters, which were constructed during the Guerra Civil (Civil War).

We met at the designated spot at Plaça Diamant, along with a handful of Catalans who were equally curious. I learned a lot, even though the tour was in Catalan. Barcelona was the first city systematically bombed in battles and the first major city to be bombed by air. During the Spanish civil war when Germany and Italy were funding the Spanish facista rebels Hitler decided to use Barcelona to practice and develop what later became known as the blitzkrieg.

Barcelona was also the first city to develop bomb shelters and sent engineers to London during World War II to help design and build their bomb shelter systems. There are 1300 shelters such as the ones we were walking through, but in Gracia alone there were over 90 shelters.

The smell and temperature as we descended the 12 meters of steps was indescribable, like stepping through an energy field into times past. I tuned out our guide as the aroma and sensation of warm dampness, ancient bricks, vague quasi-memories triggered by following tactile sensations deeper, down another maze of steps, through another connecting tunnel. I could imagine having to hide there
as bombs blasted above, the ground quaking, people screaming, women and kids first …

The humidity and temperature of the shelters under Plaça Diamant makes it one of the best preserved. At the peak of the Guerra Civil about 200 people could descend the 12 meters to safety, however I was told many refused to used the shelters. “Life will never stop in this city, ” was their slogan. (“La vida no se paró nunca en esta ciudad”). One thing you can say of all Spaniards; they are passionate in their convictions.

I caught up with the group again at an intertwining corridor intersection which enabled me to follow the tour for a bit, imagining scenarios as the sound of our soft spoken Càtalan tour guide explained – this cave for girls, that cave for boys, this cave for fuel … and how ingenious they were in illuminating the passageways and getting water down to those hiding below. She pointed out some rust colored relics that we would have otherwise passed without noticing – gauze clothing, journals, cans. cooking utensils, miscellaneous objects of survival from time past.

What’s curious to me is how life goes on above on the Plaça, kids running around, old people sitting on benches, an outdoor cafe, no indication whatsoever of the caves directly below.

PEACEFUL ACOUSTIC GUITAR STRUM

Dr. Marta is one of my favorite Catalan girlfriends. She is also a horse surgeon and apparently a very good one as she is constantly traveling to different countries to perform surgeries and/or give lectures about operating on horses.

HORSE WHINNY

She often zips off to perform a horse surgery when she’s on call, but this does not stop her from going out and partying with her friends. If she gets an emergency call she’ll have to drop what she’s doing to go perform the operation, but she’ll return to the fun afterwards if it is still going on. Although Marta is a horse surgeon by profession, she is also the producer and organizer of a popular annual film festival called ‘Festival de Cortos’. Cortos is Spanish for short films. The films in Marta’s Corto festival have a limit of 1 minute. With film it is sometimes much harder to express what you have to say in one minute than in one hour. Keeping to that one minute parameter is very difficult, resulting in some clever and unusual results.

Marta loves to dance, and takes African Dance and Samba Dance classes a few evenings a week. She is always a fun accomplice. She collects percussion instruments, so everyone can find something to bang or shake at the parties holds at her country ranch, which is a 35 minute train ride from where we live.

The actual road to the Marta’s slice of paradise is rough and unpaved, often overgrown. To get there you drive over a bumpy road, past a valley of poppy fields which are impressive in the spring, when the farmhouse is surrounded by lush tree covered hills.

Marta’s Masia is a large two-story farmhouse built in 1500. Inside, the ancient beams in the ceiling are dark roughly hewn trees. The beams on the top floor that hold up the roof are long and at some point a metal girder was added to reinforce the old wood beams. The floor of the second story is simply planks of wood laid across the old beams with square clay tiles added on top of the planks. The kitchen is large and has a big fireplace that has a couch in it. This is one of the cozier reading/napping areas of the house. There are rusty big hooks jutting out, which I imagine they used to hang fresh killed meat on a few centuries ago.

The kitchen is rustic and basic but with inspiring collections of spices in jars and all kinds of things in the pantry to use as a starting kit. It is fun to cook as a team in this kitchen while people sit around and watch and talk or play music. The walls of the farm house are approximately 3 feet thick. The windows are few and small. This makes for a very cool place lie around in the extremely hot summers here. The walls are made out of lots of cement (or what they used as cement in 1500, which happens to be the same ochre color as the dirt outside) and whatever rocks, stones, and bricks happened to be laying around the house at the time it was built (at least that is what it looks like). Inside the thick stone walls have been painted in a thick, cream colored paint that makes the walls appear cavernous. They have fabric draped lamps and lanterns hanging from them. The doorways use large smooth blocks of cement around the opening which gives it sort a Roman ruin feeling. There is a large corral behind the house where the horses stay, blocked in by an electric
fence.

HORSES RUNNING BY

The house is full of couches and comfortable chairs. She has a painting of a horse coming into what appears to be a lit room and a poster that says’ Teatre Romea” of a horse with a Catalan flag draped over it in the living room. Also there are a growing number of colorful naif style paintings sent to her by her boyfriend in Senegal.

Outside the front door is a neglected vegetable garden skirting the front of the house.
The front yard has a big picnic table and a weedy, rocky path down to a small open-air shack with a grill, where feasts are cooked for her musical summer barbecues. There was a big outdoor pit, a bit like the Maori hangi, where they cook all kinds of meat. This is a popular hang out spot for the all the dogs, who also have their own big doghouse/shed to sleep in when things quiet down.


DOG BARK

In her house, upstairs, en route to her bedroom there is a big harem room with about 6 mattresses laid out side by side with fabric, sheets, pillows, blankets, rolled up sleeping bags, all intended for guests who are too drunk or tired to drive home. At the first Masia party Mark and I attended about a year and a half ago, we knew few people, Mark spoke no Spanish, and we were the first to bed upstairs in the harem room, but when we woke up in the morning there were about 10 other people asleep, everyone curled up in one of the provided blankets. Fabric is draped over the big sleeping area like in a brothel or bedouin tent, but no shenanigans took place; just a bunch of drunk Catalan friends (plus me and Mark) sleeping it off. Since then Mark has picked up the language, learned how to play flamenco guitar, and we have connected with many of Marta’s friends. We play music at their parties.

Last year we attended and participated in the third annual Cortos Film Festival, held at Marta’s Masia. There were about 40 or so flim corto entries (including Mark and my 3) which were projected onto a big screen (a huge sheet if the truth be know) draped over the front of her house. It was exciting to see all our films projected onto such a huge screen. They looked great! People paid 15 euros to attend this film festival, eat the food, camp out in tents or in the harem room. There was music and dancing and eating all night long. However too many people showed up, too many didn’t pay, too many stayed too long, so next year it will be held at another, larger venue, a more official one.

I love Marta’s parties because they always evolve into a great jam session. Her friends are varied and interesting; a few veterinarians (who happen to be astounding musicians) but mostly artists, film makers and musicians from all over, though mostly Catalan.

THE SOUND OF AFRICAN DRUMS AMONG CHEERING, DANCING FRIENDS