Hello in the new year from Ballerina !
( or: Beachparty in Galicia)
We would like to tell you about the start of this year for our part, since we find it somewhat special.
Having sailed the coast of Galicia three times, and having come to feel very comfortable and “at home” in the region, we decided to join a group of volunteers travelling by buses from Malaga to Galicia to help cleaning up after the “Prestige” disaster.
We got in contact with students at the University of Malaga, who were organising such tours, and were allowed to join the gang. So in the afternoon of january 2, we all entered three buses going from Malaga to a relatively small city named Corcubion - just east of Cape Finisterre. 16 hours by bus, a couple of hours to be equipped for the task, and then we were ready for the work.
We all knew from the news on TV what to expect - tons and tons of black, heavy, thick oil covering the shores everywhere. We were all equipped with protection clothes, gas masks, and you name it, because the oil itself and gases from it is very toxic. Orders were that anybody who started to feel ill should report to the group leader at once, and he or she would be taken directly to a hospital.
So - it was a very determined and seriousminded group of people who after having dressed properly marched down to the beach we had been taken to……
But: WHERE THE F.. IS THE OIL??????????
This beach -a sandy, charming beach near a sleepy little village - at first sight seemed completely clean.
Nothing or at least very little regarding tools or equipment for collecting oil was present. But after a while we were informed what to do. When we looked closer, there were lots of small dots or balls of oil everywhere on the beach. These were supposed to be picked by hand and put into baskets and later to be transported away on trucks. Okay - we accepted that this is a necessary work that must be done before the beach is clean, but we all were very surprised that this seemed to be all that was to do. Noone said anything there and then, and the job was of course done. But nobody felt that this is what I came for.
We all (about 200 persons) were accomodated in a sports hall, and in the evening the coordinator from the Civil Defence should tell us about the work for the the next day. And to make a long and turbulent meeting short: people really felt pissed off, and the guy had to admit that the work we had been set to, was kidstuff and nothing like the work that really was needed. Before we left Galicia some days later, the picture had been made quite clear to everybody: For political reasons the government wants to cover the rel size of the disaster. Today the government wants the world to believe that everything is coming rapidly under control, and volunteers are only needed for small, nice cleanup-operations on beaches that already are almost clean. The reason for this is that the Spanish authorities actually seem to have the biggest part of the responsibility for the disaster. The captain of “Prestige” asked for allowance to enter sheltered waters, and this was denied. If he had been allowed to, chances are big that the ship might have been emptied without breaking to pieces. Or anyway that the disaster could have been limited to a very small area.
As far as we could find out, 38 beaches in the area around Cape Finisterre are destroyed. Spanish soldiers are cleaning 4 - four - of these, and there are no immediate plans for working on the others !
I think that primarily because of the strong reaction from our group, the operation leader felt forced to give us some real work to do, so on day 2 we were taken to a heavily affected stony beach. And here we really found everything we had “wanted”. The worst of the pictures you have seen on TV would be fairly correct to describe what the place looked like. But pictures on TV can not really tell you how thick, heavy and sticky the damned mess is, how it smells, and how small and powerless you feel when you face the real size of the disaster and the resourced needed for the cleaning up.
But OK - the working group quickly got organized and went to it. In general, I am impressed by the high working moral. Here were no tourists just coming to have a look.
What a job. You do not just take a shuffle, pick up some of the stuff, put it in a basket and then you are rid of it. There does not excist a hand tool designed for this job. On a sandy beach you may use even a bulldozer in some cases, but on a rock or between the stones? We soon found out that the only tool worth using, was our own hands. We all had thick rubber gloves that were taped to our wrists - boots that were taped to our ancles. You just had to dig in, get a full fist and then try to get the shit off into a basket. Only to get it off could be quite a job, since it is sticky like caramel. When the bucket was full, two men would carry it to a big container where it would be still another gang emptying the buckets - another difficult job since the oil would stick to the basket itself. To reduce this problem another group would wash the used buckets with olive oil.
Not everybody worked directly with the oil itself. Since everybody had to wear gloves that were taped on to you - and everybody quickly grew somewhat dirty - we needed helpers with clean hands that were available for all the things you could not do yourself. Taking a zip of water, blowing your nose, get your hear back under the hood……So in order to remove a bucket of oil, there were quite a few working operations and many people needed.
On the third day we were taken to another beach. Here the work was more or less the same regarding the amounts of oil, but while we on day two had done a job that machines could not do, on this day we felt that we had a hard work that would have been totally unnecessary if the work had been better organized. And that was not a very good feeling.
OK - no more about the work, except that this will take years to clean no matter what the Spanish government might say for political reasons, that Spain needs all the help it can get, but that at least for the present this help is difficult to give since there is no political will on the higher levels to organize things in a decent manner.
But as a whole the trip was an experience that we would not have missed. Exept for a French girl and three Peruvian students we were the only foreigners working in this region at this time. This was a unique opportunity to encounter the Spanish culture and way of living in a fashion that I think very few foreigners ever do. Or - “Spanish” culture is perhaps a too unprecise way of putting it - let me say Andalucian and Galician culture.
On a busload primarily consisting of students there are always a couple of guitars. And it was really nice to experience how much the old Andalucian folk music is alive also among fairly young people. Flamenco music - and after dinner - in the sportshall where we lived also spontane flamenco dancing was a big part of the activities.
And the Galician music was in a way just the same - folk music all the way. But rhytms and tunes were very different - a totally different tradition both in music and in dancing. But both are very happy types of music, designed for dancing - and they go well together.
On the local level everything concerning food and accomodation was well organized. The mayor of Corcubion visited us a couple of times every day, and since he was one of the very few who spoke English, we had quite a lot of contact with him. Breakfast and dinner always took place in the local restaurants, that served ordinary but nice local food. (And all the wine you wanted!) The Galicians also organized two small “fiestas” for us - on the first occasion they made and served a local drink named Queimada. Five big clay pots full of something were set to fire. The fire kept burning for at least half an hour while the local witchdoctor stirred in the mixture. When it was ready to be served, he first resited an old Galician verse - to scare away the evil eye and other bad things, and call upon the good forces. Then the drink was served in glasses - still burning with a blue flame. It could have been a scene from Asterix. The drink itself was more interesting than good - consisting of raw spirits with different herbs, lemon , whole coffee beans and lots of sugar. But it is funny to have experienced it.
On the last evening there was a local artist who performed traditional music. He had also made a song about the “Prestige” and this of course became a great hit. So from then on the refrain of this song became a warcry and we have learned another Spanish word - CHAPAPOTE !!!! - simply meaning shit.
OK - this e-mail seems to be more than long enough as it is, so no more about Galicia.
We will be staying in Caleta until approximately the end of January, then we start sailing. The first place to stop is Almerimar, two days sail further east. In Almerimar we intend to stop and have some work done on the boat - like installing solar panels. After that - depending on the weather, we hope to be able to sail relatively fast to Italy.
Best regards from Nina and Bjoern Ballerina