GUADAMUR

ALBAÑALES - SEWERS

"En el patinillo había un almendro y un hornillo para cuando se quisiera hacer la comida al aire libre. En la pared de la cocina que daba a la calle, a unos veinte centimetros del suelo, entraba el sol por un agujero bastante grande. "¿Para qué será?", se preguntaron María y Miguel. Luego les explicaron de qué se trataba. Era el albañal. La palabra no les dijo gran cosa. Recordaban haber leido la palabra "albañal" en algún libro, pero no se molestaron en averiguar su significado.

Una mujer que vino por la tarde a hacer la limpieza de la cocina, les dio, sin proponérselo, una explicación demostrativa, clara, de lo que era el albañal y para qué servía. Tras fregar la vajilla y los pucheros en un barreño, arrojó toda el agua sucia por el albañal hacia la calle. María, extrañada, salió rápidamente al exterior para ver hacia donde iba el agua sucia que arrojaban de las casas, iba a parar al centro, donde se formaba un arroyo. ¡Gracias a Dios que los chaparrones del dia anterior habían limpiado las calles y arrastrado todo consigo!

Miguel se fue a la mina, y, entre tanto, María dio una vuelta por el pueblo. La mayoría de sus habitantes vivía del campo, de sus cereales, del buen aceite de sus olivares, del fuerte y áspero vino de sus viñedos... Casi todas las casas eran de una sola planta, pero disponían de grandes corrales adosados a la casa, donde además de las cosechas, guardaban la cabra, el mulo, las gallinas, los aperos de labranza y el carro.

El castillo lo dominaba todo y daba la impresión de ser el pastor que cuida de su rebaño de cabras o de ovejas algo sucias, en reposo. Las callejuelas sinuosas serpenteaban entre el rebaño.

Aunque con un resultado algo pastiche, el castillo había sido restaurado por su actual propietario con su fortuna particular y algunas inyecciones de la siderurgia bilbaína propiedad de su mujer. El edificio era de líneas severas y clásicas y no le faltaban los torreones, muros externos de defensa, fosos y puente levadizo. Para hacerlo más habitable, estaban cubriendo con cristales el patio central, y en cada torreón habían instalado un cuarto de baño".

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GUADAMUR

In the tiny patio there was an almond tree and a small portable stove for whenever they wanted to cook outside. In the kitchen wall facing the street, about twenty centimetres above the floor, there was quite a large hole from which the sun came in. "I wonder what it's for?" María and Miguel asked themselves. They were told that it was an "albañal". They didn't understand what it meant. They did remember reading that word in some book they had read but didn't bother looking it up.

A woman who came in the afternoon to clean the kitchen, gave them a demonstrative example of what an "albañal" was and why it was there. After washing the dishes and pots in a washing-up bowl, she threw all the dirty water through the hole and onto the street. María, surprised, quickly went out to see where the water was going. The street was hilly and concave, therefore, all the dirty water that was thrown from the houses, settled in the middle forming a gutter. Thank God that the previous evening's storm had cleaned the streets and carried all the garbage with it!

Miguel went to the mine and María took a walk through the town. The majority of its folks lived off farming: their cereals, the good oil of their olive groves, the strong, harsh wine of their vineyards... Almost all the houses were flat but they had their adjoining big pens where, besides the harvests, they kept the goat, the donkey, the chickens, the farming tools and the cart.

The castle loomed over everything. It seemed to be the shepherd which, quietly, took care of its flock of, quite dirty, goats and sheep. The winding streets snaked around the flock.

The castle had been recently renovated, in a pastiche-kind of way, by its actual owner with his own money and some injections from his wife's Bilbao's iron and steel industry ownership. The building had strict, classical lines and turrets weren't lacking either, as well as external defense walls, moats and drawbridges. To make it more homey, they were covering the central patio with glass and in each turret they had built a bathroom.