2) Santiago shows me seed mussels – the thin netting disintegrates in a week, by which time the mussels have stuck onto the rope.
3) These are teenaged mussels, held by Felipe. Raising mussels is a full-time job – the mussels have to be transferred to new ropes as they grow (or there are so many of them that they just fall off), so there is a rotation. I wrote in my notebook that there are 500 ropes per batea – now that seems to me an implausibly high number – but even if I’m off by a factor of 10, and there are 50 ropes per batea, and you consider that Felipe, Santiago, Carlos, and Nando maintain 14 bateas – it is a big rotation!
4) This is a batea. I hopped along those wooden beams! I did not fall into the water! Yeeeaaah!!
5) This is the crane used to lift ropes with full-grown mussels.
6) Many mature mussels make marvelous meals.
7) Carlos, Felipe, Nando, and Santiago – my first (wonderful) impression of the Muros fishing community.
8) Manolo, the net-mender, shows me what a trawling (not trolling!) net looks like in miniature. The real ones are enormous, but I don’t have a number to offer you and I won’t guess because I’d embarrass myself.
9) These are marisqueras, women who dig for clams in the sand. You might be able to make out some specks in the water towards the right edge of the photo – those are also marisqueras! They go waist-deep or more in search of almejas finas, babosas, and japonesas. Only women dig for clams on land, and only men dig for them at sea (going by boat to remoter sandy areas). Very gendered work.
10) Here are some almejas japonesas (I think).
11) Look at the reflection of the clouds in the watery sand!
12) Here you can see how big an area the marisqueras have in which to dig.
13) Part of the road to Louro, the next town over (two different people told me that it was two or three kilometers away – it was six). It is a pretty pretty road.
14) I am headed towards that mountain! That is the Monte Louro.
15) Looking down on the town of Louro from Monte Louro.
16) Fiesta night #1 – this man is singing to ME. My apartment (!) was in the building next to the one right behind him. Music all night long.
17) Look how flashy this is! When people told me that there would be “orquestas”, I expected small acoustic bands playing on wooden stages. NO. This stage came out of a truck – like a Transformer – and the special effects were wild.
18) The procession of the Virgen del Carmen starts out at the church . . .
19) . . . continues through town . . .
20) . . . on to the port . . .
21) . . . and now she is on that red boat! All of the littler boats accompanied the Virgen del Carmen a ways out to sea and then back.
22) I just liked this photo. I took it at the chapel where the Virgen del Carmen was finally set down – but have no picture of the chapel itself. Instead, I made a video while the whole town sang a hymn about fishermen! But I’ll have to upload it later.
23) This is fiesta night #3. More costumes and impressive technological feats of entertainment.
24) One of my adoptive grandmothers! This is Candida, who finally smiled (yeeeaaah!!!) on my last afternoon in Muros. I had accidentally come across Pepita’s house while walking through the upper part of town, and they both, of course, pushed me into their kitchens and fed me cookies and cake and hot chocolate. Candida’s fourteen-year-old granddaughter was with us, and, as we were walking into town, Candida told her, “Go, walk a little faster! I’m going to explain something to Irene.” Then she said, “Irene – do you know what the polvorete is really about?” The polvorete is a song that we had danced to the two previous nights – the shockingly sexual one that pretends to be about a rooster instead of a penis. She started explaining and I said, “Yep, got it, got it” and she cackled and cackled. Amusing loss of innocence (I’d figured it out on my own, though! I was proud of that).
25) Another adoptive grandmother, Pepita, Candida’s sister. She sang along to every song the bands played and never let go of my hand. I will miss these two women!
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