Portugal people

January 6th

We’ve had another lovely and interesting day. They just keep coming! This afternoon we arrived in this little Portuguese village, called Pereirio after spending the morning in lovely Mertola.

Once the early morning’s heavy mist had lifted we’d wandered around the old town’s awakening streets where in one, the trees were dressed in crochet work! Some people have been very busy, and it was a pretty, if peculiar sight. We poked about in some of the little shops but all we bought was a loaf of rather heavy, dry bread - the only sort available. 

Then we came upon something truly magical. Outside a non-descript shed was a life-size tableau of some shepherds and a camel. Taking photos led to our being invited in to the shed and we were taken aback by a beautiful presentation of the nativity story. Through a grotto we wandered past more full-size tableaux of different parts of the story until the last -  the nativity scene itself and the arrival of the Magi. The place was filled with heavenly scents and spirit affirming music. I was really moved! It turned out that the whole thing was a single-handed creation over three months since August and it was to be dismantled after Jan 6th. What a shame.

Moving off from Mertola we arrived at little Pereirio, on a plain looking out across miles and miles (sorry - kilometres and kilometres) of gentle wooded hills. The village is a sleepy little place of tiny single storey white cottages (it would be rude to call them hovels). Gareth went in to the small one-and-only bar to see what was on offer. I sat outside enjoying the sunshine with our dogs, Bessie and Pwdin. (Note to self: remember that rural villages like this tend to have lots of free-ranging dogs, un-neutered). Pwdin is on heat! 

Dogs of different shapes and sizes started appearing from every direction so I whisked a quivering Pwdin up into my lap and tried to fend off a big Dalmatian type dog and a determined little corgi thing. Bess was doing her best to fend them off, too, but being tethered to my wrist she was succeeding only in dragging me and the table around. I was calling helplessly to Gareth who was suddenly cloth-eared and deeply involved in finding out whether the smells coming from the kitchen gave any promise of our being able to purchase lunch. A picturesque trio of sun-beaten old folk perched together on a seat outside one of the hovels, sorry - cottages, had a grandstand view of my canine circus but they gazed on dispassionately.

Gareth, oblivious, returned with his tongue hanging out for the promise of chicken and chips if we came back in an hour. A little surprised to see me and the dogs in such disarray and with an expanded retinue, he quickly downed his beer and took on the job of fighting off Pwdin’s suitors. Then we made a quick, apologetic exit back to the camper, so as to put Pwdin into purdah and return for a quiet lunch. It was Gareth’s birthday after all. 

Lunch was a simple affair. Gareth was a bit disappointed that the chips we received with our fried chicken were not the chunky wedges of fried potato he’d seen being prepared to go with the bar owner’s family lunch - clearly a big affair, with salmon. So, he waded through the olives and the tough brown bread we were given instead, knowing full well that these were not complementary and we’d be charged for them as extras (that’s the way of it in Portugal we’d learned). The musical accompaniment for our lunch was the baying of dogs who’d picked up Pwdin’s scent but were (fortunately, for us) either now chained up or behind doors and fences....except the little corgi thing that wanted to get up close and personal with my leg.

A notice on the wall suggested that there was something else musical planned for that evening in the bar. We paid for our lunch and headed back to the van for a siesta and looking forward to coming back for the entertainment, the corgi thing still in tow hoping to get his little paws around our Pwdin. Back at camp a few more dogs were circling the van lasciviously. Such fun, this travelling lark!

At this point I have to say something about the camp-ground. It’s a really good motorhome aire adjacent to the village and a huge area beyond that can accommodate large numbers of vastly proportioned or more modest motorhomes. It was a great place to park up, especially for people with dogs (ahem!). The sad thing to note about this aire and it’s huge extension is that it was at some point a football field - it still has its goal posts. I am intrigued. This whole facility suggests that it was a community investment not too long ago, but one which has not been maintained and as regards the football field, an obvious white elephant. We’d read the tourist information board which explained that the village had been some sort of mining community at one time but that now the age profile of the villagers is significantly past working age. Indeed, we’d seen just two little children, one teenager and no school. So why, I wonder, did anyone (it was probably some bright spark in an EU community regeneration office) think it worthwhile to give a football field to a village populated by octogenarians?

Nor can I see how this aire is doing much for the local economy, especially given the absence of every tourist other than ourselves, anywhere in the village that day or that evening.

Once the sun went down the temperature dropped significantly, but we dressed up warm and headed back to the little bar. Villagers slowly drifted in and greeted each other as they sat down. They certainly reflected the demographic described on that tourist information board. No one took any notice of us, even the old man who was determinedly ignoring everyone, fixed as he was on the TV above our heads. Football was on. Maybe his grumpy demeanour was because his neighbours weren’t interested in getting together to form a team and as a result their football field was becoming a wasteland covered in motorhomes.

We’d just about given up on anything happening when suddenly a small fleet of vans turned up and a horde of people arrived. With guitar and mouth organ accompaniment, they formed a choir, pressed together along the small bar, singing two songs quite tunefully and enthusiastically before all then filing out again with a gift from the patroness - a basket containing wines and cheeses (we’d not been offered any of THAT at lunch time).

Curiosity prompted Gareth to ask a couple of women he’d heard say something in English, what it was they had been singing about. Apparently the song was one of gratitude for the citrus trees that had come from China. Uh, huh.....

Now there’s another thing to puzzle us. Ok, this was Epiphany and in parts of Portugal it’s customary for groups of carol singers to go from place to place on Three Kings night and be rewarded with a gift. It’s called (translated) ‘January singing’. Makes sense. What I can’t understand is the thankfulness for citrus trees when we haven’t seen any since Spain and the area (we were informed by the tourist info board) is a pear growing area. Perhaps that old football-watching guy’s total disinterest in the event was because he’s a pear grower and no one has thanked him it.

One other thing to mention is the appearance on doorsteps of plastic-bottled water. As the bottles aren’t all new ones, and not necessarily full, our theory is that in these remote communities with seemingly so little in the way of utilities, this may be how people warm up water for washing with.  Do they leave the water to absorb the strong sunshine ready to fill a basin or a small bath for a wash at bedtime? Or do they provide some reflective quality at night, preventing collisions and stumbles over doorsteps? Who knows? This is Portugal, so the explanation will probably confuse us.