This morning Sol told me something quite interesting.
It started by her saying that she thought that the Ariège is quite a singular area, because it attracts all sorts of people who seek a different way of life, and everyone very much respects the choice of life of everyone else. There are total hippies who live in yurts, and there are people like them who still want modern comfort but in a more eco-conscious way than usual. She says that you can notice this character of the region when you go to the Saturday market at St-Girons, or the Sunday one at Montbrun. At St-Giron "hippies and normals" coexist happily, and everyone is dressed in his own way, and nobody will look at you in a weird way (in fact it feels a bit like Montreal). In Montbrun, you can see all sorts of unexpected things, quite unexpected for France: a wood carver carving wood on the site, a hair-dresser cutting hair, a things-troc (you leave and/or take whatever), etc.
Then she said that this was quite impossible to see in Catalonia, where she and Joan come from. There, there is no "alternative" life style. There are no more small farms. If you want to live on your land, and live from it, and have the children with you at home like Joan and Sol do, people will look at you like you come from the moon.
Why are there no small farms in Catalonia? Well, here is the amazing part: in most of Spain, except Galicia, there is an old tradition which says that the property shall not be divided among the progeny, but rather be passed on in its entirety to the first son. So, farms grew, and never shrank. And now, farms of thousands of hectares are inherited by sons who don't give a damn about them, and everything is mechanized, and there is absolutely no small/family farming anymore. Farmers usually live in a town, and drive 20 km to go to their field in the morning. The wife and kids stay in the town. There is no more "life in the country side".
Hm!
***
Ramon came back here, this time with his wife. She makes bio pig products. Both are quite concerned with ecology and interested in discussing and thinking about the problems more than superficially. The other day, they told me that the biggest and most reknown producer of bio vegetables in Catalonia is their neighbor, and that everyone in the village knows that... he spreads pesticides on his fields during the night.
