After leaving Carcassonne behind, we drove along the northern edge of the Pyrenees and eventually up into the foothills to reach Mendive, a tiny village of about 200 people. One of those people just happens to be an amazing advocate for children’s participation in political decision-making, and was the first person Jess was headed off to meet with in order to discuss her new project. Claire invited us to stay with her family for the weekend.
When we arrived, we were greeted by Tomskie, their cat. He was quite the character, inviting himself to meals and even climbing into our car once when I was unloading luggage. (He evidently does this on a regular basis, and has absconded in other people’s cars at various times.) It was a welcome addition to our travels. While I’ve made friends with a number of other kittens in a variety of villages, this was the first one I got to have sustained time with. Yay for friends with cats!
Jessica spent most of the weekend talking with Claire about one aspect of her work or another, but we also just enjoyed hanging out with Claire and her family. Her husband, Olivier, is the reason they live in Mendive. He grew up in the area, Basque country, and evidently declared to her that he was from the most beautiful place in the world. She grew up in Wales and had some arguments on behalf of the Welsh countryside, but he ultimately won that argument. Hiking with Olivier and Claire in the hills above their town we saw what he meant. I’m not sure I’d agree that it’s “the most” beautiful, but it was pretty stunning. So was the wind, which was second only to Patagonia’s in terms of intensity.
It was interesting seeing how Claire and Olivier juggle living in the country with their various jobs, both of which involve extensive international travel. On the one hand, we discussed their original meeting, working in Afghanistan, and how they get from the middle-of-nowhere (Mendive is really far out there!) to various international airports. On the other hand, we talked about their centuries-old farmhouse and learned from Claire how she was going to help her neighbor move his sheep down from the mountains the next weekend as the weather started to get cooler. They live an interesting balance with one foot in the modern world and a toe stretching back to much older ways of living.
It was also great to meet their two daughters. They are in secondary school, but both elected to go to an IB school, so they live away from home Monday through Friday. While they’re both obviously happy to see their parents, they are also incredibly independent, planning various adventures with their friends and spending most of the weekend off with other village kids preparing for various aspects of the town’s “fete” (festival) over the weekend. Of course, this independent streak makes total sense given Claire’s work…the whole reason we were visiting in the first place.
Speaking of the fete, that was another the highlight of the weekend. On Sunday afternoon we went down to the little village community center to observe a typical Basque country town celebration. Evidently, each town has one at this time of year and they are planned to be on different weekends, so the girls had been traveling the fete circuit for a number of weekends in a row as they were invited by friends from neighboring villages and likewise met those friends at the Mendive fete.
As we came over the hill to the community center, the first thing we heard was a group of men singing in Basque. They kept that up, on-and-off, for the next few hours. We spent most of our time there watching a pelote match. What’s pelote, I hear you ask? It’s a traditional Basque game that can be played in a variety of different styles. It’s something like racquetball or handball, where the players (either one-on-one or two-on-two) hit a ball against a wall until one side fails to return it and the other scores a point. It can be played with just hands or with rackets, baskets, or bats evidently. The ball is not terribly light or bouncy, and definitely sounds pretty solid when thwacked.
We watched a 2v2 handball-style match played by fairly professional men from the surrounding area. It was an intense game played until one side scored 30 points, with most points lasting well over a minute, so, all told, these guys were slamming the ball with their hands for about an hour-and-a-half. One of them, in particular, was rubbing his hands quite a bit, indicating just how much playing this game can hurt. Here’s what one point looked like…and you can here the Basque men singing in the background at the beginning and end too.
A couple of still shots:
Not shown was the commentary between points where a local guy seemed mostly to be making fun of his friends (and occasionally announcing the score). Claire, Jess, and I discussed how difficult the game might be to play or not, and got a bit of an answer when two (and later three) drunk guys from the crowd decided to have a go at it after the pros were done. It looked a little like this…
After hanging out a little longer, we went to find Claire’s daughters who were busy helping the rest of the kids prepare talo for dinner. Talo is basically the Basque equivalent of the quesadilla. They are thick corn (and flour, maybe?) tortillas, cooked and then folded over cheese or ham or even nutella. We took ours home to enjoy and later saw a bit of the late night fireworks.
Besides all the fun, Jessica spent most of the weekend picking Claire’s brain about one thing or another related to children’s rights advocacy work and dug through her archive of materials from a variety of organizations from the last couple of decades. Jess and Claire even eventually decided to do some writing together, so it was definitely a productive work weekend too.
Ultimately, on Monday we took off to let Claire and Olivier get back to their lives and we headed to the nearby (much larger) town of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port is famous as one of the classic starting points for the Camino de Santiago. Besides having historical importance, it also lets hikers claim they hiked all the way from France, even though it’s only about a day’s hike from the border. We enjoyed the town’s market and wandered briefly along some of the old cobblestone streets. Everywhere we looked, we saw a seashell symbol, a sign associated with the Camino. In fact, we’ve seen that symbol throughout Europe, in Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland on a variety of pilgrimage routes that eventually connect to the Camino. Here we saw it used on everything from chachka shops to hotels advertising one thing or another oritented towards hikers and pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago. We even saw it on a creepy mannequin who looked ready to cast some sort of hex on passersby.
Everntually we had to leave the beautiful Basque country and head down from the mountains to continue our journey. We hit the road again in earnest headed for Toulouse and eventually Strasbourg. More on that next time…
Did you give the handball a try – many years ago did that briefly – even with a glove it stung.
Lots of beautiful mountains and sheep and fascinating people. What a trip you are on! And I like your notice of quiet things, like the shell image in its many appearances. Your heart and head must be so full.