Crisis? What Crisis?
The mayor of Niguelas, the andalusian mountain village where I live, was recently asked how the economic crisis was affecting the villagers.
Her reply, "Crisis, what crisis," got me thinking.
Clearly, judging from the people I knew, she was right and I set about trying to understand why.
This article is an attempt to share my conclusions and will do so by comparing two fictional families who I will call "Los Robles" (the Oaks) and "the Roses".
The Home Los Robles built their own house thirty years ago.
They did so during the winter months when there was little work to do in their fields.
Over 90% of the materials required were free.
For the walls they used stone from the river bed, brought up in panniers carried by their mule.
The sand, also from the river bed was mixed with hydrolysed lime and fermented straw to form a very elastic mix in lieu of cement mortar.
Almond trunks from their orchards were used for header beams and lintels and Poplar for the common beams and rafters.
Floor tiles were made from clay, again sourced from close to the village.
Fire places were installed in the kitchen and living room.
The house took four winters and was a great way for the couple, as yet not married, to get to know each other properly.
Both extended families put up the limited funds required to buy in the industrial materials and fittings and no bank finance was called in.
No architect was needed as the design was based on fundamental principles handed down through the generations: Low ceilings to trap heat in winter, small windows to keep the heat out in summer, organic materials which beautify with age rather than simply turn ugly.
Proportions evolved naturally based on what their eyes had seen all their lives and the colours and textures, taken directly from nature's pallet, were unfailing in their congruence.
The house, when finished, was a vernacular masterpiece which has never gone out of fashion (as not based on fashion) and as such, other than being extended as a new generation was added, has not required changes.
In essence, their house celebrates its connection with history, the village culture, family values and nature.
It has the virtue of not being unusual as unusual, in the context of village society, means disconnected.
The Roses bought a house in a City whose only connection with them was that Mr Rose was offered a job there.
They liked the new build semi because it had a modern fitted kitchen complete with TV outlet, two bathrooms and a double garage for their cars.
They managed to get a 90% mortgage payable over 40 years which would swallow 60% of their joint incomes.
Running costs were high as the open plan layout and huge windows were thermally inefficient.
So too were the changes that Mrs Rose insisted they made every few years.
Some were inevitable as the chipped melamine and scratched acrylics could not be repaired but most were driven by an odd need to be "fashionable".
When the Roses were asked what being "fashionable" was they settled on "being seen to have good taste".
Over the next 30 years the house went through seven major refits as each fell out of fashion.
Of course, by the third the Roses had moved on as Mrs Rose was relocated over 200 miles away.
Food and clothing Los Robles grow most of their own food in fields close to the village.
The children particularly enjoy setting out to spend their Sundays in the "campo".
Both sets of grandparents plus various cousins invariably come along plus of course the dogs and the mule.
They set off early and are starving by lunchtime when the extended family sits down to a meal of lamb and garlic, sautéed potatoes, baked peppers and fruit.
The four children help their parents picking the fruit and their grandparents preparing the food.
By the time they are 16 they all know how to raise livestock, grow food and cook.
The children drank their first wine at twelve and grew up recognising what a delicious addition the odd glass made to a meal and a social situation.
The grapes of course came from their fields.
On weekdays, they all breakfasted together on milk and local bread dressed with olive oil, ham and garlic.
Lunch was invariably eaten at home and was their main meal.
Dad worked as a mechanic but enjoyed a three hour lunch break.
It took him 10 minutes to walk home via the school to pick the children up.
When Mum was pushed for time a neighbour would cook for both families knowing that she would return the favour when required.
Supper was very light, often just fruit.
All the children were dressed in clothes part bought and part made, all of which were extremely well finished from natural fabrics designed to last.
They didn't envy each other's attire as there weren't enough in the way of difference to inspire envy and anyway, they were more interested in the personalities and skills of their friends then their clothes.
The Roses and their one child (Mr Rose was devastated to learn he had a low sperm count even though they had decided that they could not afford more than one child) rarely cooked in spite of their gadget laden kitchen.
There never seemed to be enough time and anyway, they didn't know how to.
Who needed to anyway when there was a supermarket so close with a great selection of heat and serve dishes from around the world? Breakfast was either skipped or comprised industrial cereals, lunch was eaten out by the parents who had 45 minutes to eat and dinner was the big meal of the day.
Three nights a week they would eat out, with favourite restaurants including the Bombay curry house, the Peking Palace and Jo's American Pie diner.
They always ate far too much and both the parents drank to excess.
By the end of the meal they were virtually immobilized but given that only the drive home and a couple of hours of reality TV shows awaited them, their lethargy was of no concern.
What was of concern was the endless demands being made on them by their daughter Bud whose requests for designer label clothes was putting a serious strain on their knife edge economy and paper thin patience.
Leisure Los Robles didn't really understand the idea of leisure just as they didn't understand the idea of work.
That particular dichotomy had yet to overtake them.
Yes, there were things they had to do and things they didn't have to do but for the most part they enjoyed both.
Fixing people's cars was great fun, as was their family farming outings, making clothes, cooking delicious dinners and rearing respectful healthy children.
With such a large extended family on their doorstep, the few unpleasant tasks could be shared and quickly dealt with.
Yes they had TV and Broadband and they had their place in the household along with making things, playing games, horse-riding, reading and above all else, talking and listening to each other.
None were overweight though Mrs Robles got it into her head to join a gym once.
She left after a week bewildered why people would watch scenes of the countryside on a monitor whilst cycling to no-where when she could get on her bike and cycle to somewhere.
Neither did she understand the weight training which she said was like carrying boxes of fruit but without any fruit at the end of it.
Two of the children joined a theatre group set up by the village council, one joined the local band and the fourth would hang out with his dad learning mechanics when he didn't have football practice.
As Rural Spaniards they had more holiday days than anyone in Europe.
Half were spent in the village which had the best fiesta of the valley, all paid for by the council, complete with live bands, theatre, competitions and 24/7 celebrations.
The other half the family would visit relations who had migrated to the North or to France after the civil war.
Two of the children were getting rather good at French.
The Roses hated their jobs, hated the hour commute on the M40, hated the endless hassles with the cleaner and all the other service providers who seemed set on ripping them off and were beginning to hate each other.
With no extended family or any tradition of self reliance and creativity, they went to the Cinema or some other pre-digested entertainment twice a week.
Increasingly Bud stayed at home or went out with a friend to shop and "hangout" armed with her mobile phone and ten quid, as she found them and their choice of diversion, boring.
Both joined a gym a total of nine but somehow they never kept it up and anyway, they felt what amounted to a civic duty to watch an ever increasing mound of must see TV shows without knowledge of which they would feel social outcasts at work.
They had a total of four weeks holiday a year and would fly as far away as possible to sit round a pool, burn their skins and eat and eat and eat.
Looking back they sometimes got confused as to which pool was in which country.
Consumer Goods Los Robles never bought anything they couldn't pay for.
If they wanted something, like a PC for the house, they saved up.
The wait and the minor household sacrifices saving required only added to the pleasure when the desired object finally arrived.
The dominant social model was the extended family and the village community, so many items were shared.
They had horses which needed exercise so three families rode on them.
A neighbour had built their own sound proof room which was just what their middle daughter needed to practice her trumpet.
In pride of place were human relationships and whereas they had their share of consumer durables they were seen as auxiliary items like a stool might be to a guitarist and never the music itself.
Great Grandma had died with a full head of shiny hair and had never been to a doctor in her life.
The Robles had been passed down the simple recipes which had maintained her in such good health and aspect.
They washed their hair in cold water and home made soap and applied a little olive oil.
They drank herbal teas, ate raw potato to combat diarrhoea, and knew appropriate herbs for most minor ailments.
They had few labour saving devices.
As Mrs Robles would say, "why do I want an electrical tin opener so I can stand in the kitchen watching it open a tin when I can do it myself and keep my wrists strong?" The only cleaning products in the house were ammonia, caustic soap and the bleaching power of the sun.
The Roses bought everything they could and had a particular penchant for mobile phones.
They had few friends to actually call but made up for it by constantly ringing each other and downloading new ring tones.
Their prize possession was a pair of leather motorized vibrating recliners with a pocket for the TV remote.
They shared nothing with their neighbours.
Whereas they were both specialists in their respective fields - he was a Foreign Exchange trader and she a supply chain diagnostician - they had no other skills or handed down knowledge.
They bought expensive shampoos and conditioners to combat the effect of the shampoo.
They once counted 27 different cleaning products each apparently specially formulated to smash dirt from a particular surface.
When the recession hit, Los Robles watched it on TV as though seeing a documentary about the population of another planet.
Mr Robles had no concerns for his job as his clients were his fellow villagers whose economies were as resistant to recession as his was and anyway, their lifestyle was not really based on their income.
They had no debts or wanted any, so such matters as interest rates were of no relevance.
Their high degree of self sufficiency meant that retail price fluctuations were also close to irrelevant.
The Roses did not fare so well.
Both parents worked in the service industry which in turn was highly sensitive to economic downturns.
Mr Rose clung on to his job but Mrs Rose was made redundant.
As the entire structure of their lives was based on consuming and without the cash to feed this habit they fell apart.
Bud was disgusted by their sudden poverty and left home at 17.
Mr Rose had to work all hours for the same pay and became increasingly estranged from his wife who, stripped of the pleasures of shopping moved from antisocial drinker to alcoholic.
Her problem and the shame of having to sell the better of their two cars and cancel the Sky Premium package meant that the few neighbours they had maintained some relationship with were not invited round.
After struggling for two years the bank foreclosed on their latest house and both vow secretly that when they can afford it, they will divorce.
Her reply, "Crisis, what crisis," got me thinking.
Clearly, judging from the people I knew, she was right and I set about trying to understand why.
This article is an attempt to share my conclusions and will do so by comparing two fictional families who I will call "Los Robles" (the Oaks) and "the Roses".
The Home Los Robles built their own house thirty years ago.
They did so during the winter months when there was little work to do in their fields.
Over 90% of the materials required were free.
For the walls they used stone from the river bed, brought up in panniers carried by their mule.
The sand, also from the river bed was mixed with hydrolysed lime and fermented straw to form a very elastic mix in lieu of cement mortar.
Almond trunks from their orchards were used for header beams and lintels and Poplar for the common beams and rafters.
Floor tiles were made from clay, again sourced from close to the village.
Fire places were installed in the kitchen and living room.
The house took four winters and was a great way for the couple, as yet not married, to get to know each other properly.
Both extended families put up the limited funds required to buy in the industrial materials and fittings and no bank finance was called in.
No architect was needed as the design was based on fundamental principles handed down through the generations: Low ceilings to trap heat in winter, small windows to keep the heat out in summer, organic materials which beautify with age rather than simply turn ugly.
Proportions evolved naturally based on what their eyes had seen all their lives and the colours and textures, taken directly from nature's pallet, were unfailing in their congruence.
The house, when finished, was a vernacular masterpiece which has never gone out of fashion (as not based on fashion) and as such, other than being extended as a new generation was added, has not required changes.
In essence, their house celebrates its connection with history, the village culture, family values and nature.
It has the virtue of not being unusual as unusual, in the context of village society, means disconnected.
The Roses bought a house in a City whose only connection with them was that Mr Rose was offered a job there.
They liked the new build semi because it had a modern fitted kitchen complete with TV outlet, two bathrooms and a double garage for their cars.
They managed to get a 90% mortgage payable over 40 years which would swallow 60% of their joint incomes.
Running costs were high as the open plan layout and huge windows were thermally inefficient.
So too were the changes that Mrs Rose insisted they made every few years.
Some were inevitable as the chipped melamine and scratched acrylics could not be repaired but most were driven by an odd need to be "fashionable".
When the Roses were asked what being "fashionable" was they settled on "being seen to have good taste".
Over the next 30 years the house went through seven major refits as each fell out of fashion.
Of course, by the third the Roses had moved on as Mrs Rose was relocated over 200 miles away.
Food and clothing Los Robles grow most of their own food in fields close to the village.
The children particularly enjoy setting out to spend their Sundays in the "campo".
Both sets of grandparents plus various cousins invariably come along plus of course the dogs and the mule.
They set off early and are starving by lunchtime when the extended family sits down to a meal of lamb and garlic, sautéed potatoes, baked peppers and fruit.
The four children help their parents picking the fruit and their grandparents preparing the food.
By the time they are 16 they all know how to raise livestock, grow food and cook.
The children drank their first wine at twelve and grew up recognising what a delicious addition the odd glass made to a meal and a social situation.
The grapes of course came from their fields.
On weekdays, they all breakfasted together on milk and local bread dressed with olive oil, ham and garlic.
Lunch was invariably eaten at home and was their main meal.
Dad worked as a mechanic but enjoyed a three hour lunch break.
It took him 10 minutes to walk home via the school to pick the children up.
When Mum was pushed for time a neighbour would cook for both families knowing that she would return the favour when required.
Supper was very light, often just fruit.
All the children were dressed in clothes part bought and part made, all of which were extremely well finished from natural fabrics designed to last.
They didn't envy each other's attire as there weren't enough in the way of difference to inspire envy and anyway, they were more interested in the personalities and skills of their friends then their clothes.
The Roses and their one child (Mr Rose was devastated to learn he had a low sperm count even though they had decided that they could not afford more than one child) rarely cooked in spite of their gadget laden kitchen.
There never seemed to be enough time and anyway, they didn't know how to.
Who needed to anyway when there was a supermarket so close with a great selection of heat and serve dishes from around the world? Breakfast was either skipped or comprised industrial cereals, lunch was eaten out by the parents who had 45 minutes to eat and dinner was the big meal of the day.
Three nights a week they would eat out, with favourite restaurants including the Bombay curry house, the Peking Palace and Jo's American Pie diner.
They always ate far too much and both the parents drank to excess.
By the end of the meal they were virtually immobilized but given that only the drive home and a couple of hours of reality TV shows awaited them, their lethargy was of no concern.
What was of concern was the endless demands being made on them by their daughter Bud whose requests for designer label clothes was putting a serious strain on their knife edge economy and paper thin patience.
Leisure Los Robles didn't really understand the idea of leisure just as they didn't understand the idea of work.
That particular dichotomy had yet to overtake them.
Yes, there were things they had to do and things they didn't have to do but for the most part they enjoyed both.
Fixing people's cars was great fun, as was their family farming outings, making clothes, cooking delicious dinners and rearing respectful healthy children.
With such a large extended family on their doorstep, the few unpleasant tasks could be shared and quickly dealt with.
Yes they had TV and Broadband and they had their place in the household along with making things, playing games, horse-riding, reading and above all else, talking and listening to each other.
None were overweight though Mrs Robles got it into her head to join a gym once.
She left after a week bewildered why people would watch scenes of the countryside on a monitor whilst cycling to no-where when she could get on her bike and cycle to somewhere.
Neither did she understand the weight training which she said was like carrying boxes of fruit but without any fruit at the end of it.
Two of the children joined a theatre group set up by the village council, one joined the local band and the fourth would hang out with his dad learning mechanics when he didn't have football practice.
As Rural Spaniards they had more holiday days than anyone in Europe.
Half were spent in the village which had the best fiesta of the valley, all paid for by the council, complete with live bands, theatre, competitions and 24/7 celebrations.
The other half the family would visit relations who had migrated to the North or to France after the civil war.
Two of the children were getting rather good at French.
The Roses hated their jobs, hated the hour commute on the M40, hated the endless hassles with the cleaner and all the other service providers who seemed set on ripping them off and were beginning to hate each other.
With no extended family or any tradition of self reliance and creativity, they went to the Cinema or some other pre-digested entertainment twice a week.
Increasingly Bud stayed at home or went out with a friend to shop and "hangout" armed with her mobile phone and ten quid, as she found them and their choice of diversion, boring.
Both joined a gym a total of nine but somehow they never kept it up and anyway, they felt what amounted to a civic duty to watch an ever increasing mound of must see TV shows without knowledge of which they would feel social outcasts at work.
They had a total of four weeks holiday a year and would fly as far away as possible to sit round a pool, burn their skins and eat and eat and eat.
Looking back they sometimes got confused as to which pool was in which country.
Consumer Goods Los Robles never bought anything they couldn't pay for.
If they wanted something, like a PC for the house, they saved up.
The wait and the minor household sacrifices saving required only added to the pleasure when the desired object finally arrived.
The dominant social model was the extended family and the village community, so many items were shared.
They had horses which needed exercise so three families rode on them.
A neighbour had built their own sound proof room which was just what their middle daughter needed to practice her trumpet.
In pride of place were human relationships and whereas they had their share of consumer durables they were seen as auxiliary items like a stool might be to a guitarist and never the music itself.
Great Grandma had died with a full head of shiny hair and had never been to a doctor in her life.
The Robles had been passed down the simple recipes which had maintained her in such good health and aspect.
They washed their hair in cold water and home made soap and applied a little olive oil.
They drank herbal teas, ate raw potato to combat diarrhoea, and knew appropriate herbs for most minor ailments.
They had few labour saving devices.
As Mrs Robles would say, "why do I want an electrical tin opener so I can stand in the kitchen watching it open a tin when I can do it myself and keep my wrists strong?" The only cleaning products in the house were ammonia, caustic soap and the bleaching power of the sun.
The Roses bought everything they could and had a particular penchant for mobile phones.
They had few friends to actually call but made up for it by constantly ringing each other and downloading new ring tones.
Their prize possession was a pair of leather motorized vibrating recliners with a pocket for the TV remote.
They shared nothing with their neighbours.
Whereas they were both specialists in their respective fields - he was a Foreign Exchange trader and she a supply chain diagnostician - they had no other skills or handed down knowledge.
They bought expensive shampoos and conditioners to combat the effect of the shampoo.
They once counted 27 different cleaning products each apparently specially formulated to smash dirt from a particular surface.
When the recession hit, Los Robles watched it on TV as though seeing a documentary about the population of another planet.
Mr Robles had no concerns for his job as his clients were his fellow villagers whose economies were as resistant to recession as his was and anyway, their lifestyle was not really based on their income.
They had no debts or wanted any, so such matters as interest rates were of no relevance.
Their high degree of self sufficiency meant that retail price fluctuations were also close to irrelevant.
The Roses did not fare so well.
Both parents worked in the service industry which in turn was highly sensitive to economic downturns.
Mr Rose clung on to his job but Mrs Rose was made redundant.
As the entire structure of their lives was based on consuming and without the cash to feed this habit they fell apart.
Bud was disgusted by their sudden poverty and left home at 17.
Mr Rose had to work all hours for the same pay and became increasingly estranged from his wife who, stripped of the pleasures of shopping moved from antisocial drinker to alcoholic.
Her problem and the shame of having to sell the better of their two cars and cancel the Sky Premium package meant that the few neighbours they had maintained some relationship with were not invited round.
After struggling for two years the bank foreclosed on their latest house and both vow secretly that when they can afford it, they will divorce.
Source...