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August 08, 2004
The end of an era?

Rosario is selling her house.
With her mother gone and gentrification well underway, why should she stay by herself?
She's going to move to Sada where her daughter is, maybe buy a condominium, she says.
''Pa que quero quedar aqui solina? Vo xuntar a mina fia en Sada.''
Why should she wait for the house to fall down around her, she adds.

A neighbor, Juan, a white-haired portly man in a grey beret (boino), noted the changes earlier as we walked along the new waterfront promenade.
"Ahora que somos bellos(viejos, old) se van mejorando todo," he says with a grin.
We sit around under the grapevines in Rosario's yard after a meal of salad, veal cutlets, french fries, buey (a crab similar to dungeness), Albarino wine, cheese, coffee, etc., afraid it will be one of our last there. We rouse ourselves to kick around a ball as the birds chirp, wash some clothes, hanging them on the line by the well, where we handwashed some, mostly whites.
Later, she pulls out a hoe and takes about 15 pounds of what looks to be a type of Idaho potatoes from a 5x15 foot stretch of the yard. The potatoes are of all sizes, some as big as your foot, others egg-sized. The rest, maybe four or five times as much, can wait a few weeks, she says.
It's hard to argue with her thinking about selling. Housing prices are rising, many more than 300,000 euros, and licenses are now required even to raise chickens and sell their eggs.
"Tinyo oito galinas, este invierno cando me vo a Sada, xa botan. No quero mais."
"I have eight chickens, and this winter when I got to Sada, they're going. I don't want anymore.''

Posted by Alex at August 08, 2004 09:46 PM