Monchique,the convent and the clock

The convent and the clock

Uphill from the village, there is a convent, an old cloister, built on a slope covered with pine and eucalyptus trees. Still in the village, signs on the wall of houses show the way how to reach it. Before leaving the village, on the left hand you will see a small statue of a Holy Mary. She guards the hikers, the would-be pilgrims. When was it built, the convent? Maybe five hundred years maybe a thousand years ago. I don’t know. It is a ruin now, overgrown by plants and ivy, walls partly fallen down. When you arrive at the convent, a man will call you and show you the backside of the ruin, his little garden and the sign of private property. He is the ghost of history. Why is the convent a ruin? The people don’t have money for a restoration of the historical building? Sure, it will cost a lot of money. They prefer to spend it on the maintenance of the little church in the village? That’s where they go every Sunday, not to the convent. They would have to climb even higher; and at Sunday, they wear their Sunday dress and shouldn’t sweat as much as during the days of the week. Moreover, the priest of the church might be too old and unable to climb all the way up to the convent. For sure he is old, if he is the man who tolls the bells of the church. It is done by hand. I can hear it and count the strokes. At times the bells run fast at times they are slow. Sometimes, it seems as if the man forgets what he is doing. The tolling stops and resumes. Counting the strokes makes no sense. So, the hours pass, the months, the years. That’s how gradually a ruin comes into being. I just hear the chimes of the past, the call of the local ghost.

Monchique or an outsider in the village

I am an outsider in the village, not a dog. Sitting on wooden chairs, people talk to each other and don’t look at a person who takes pictures. They are too busy, doing what they always do. Not a look or a nod, no gesture, no sign of communication. They talk about the weather, someone in the family who died, about the quality of the oranges and the price of gaz. A picture won’t change their business, their talks or their feelings. They don’t need a picture or an outsider to feel at ease. Do they need a dog to be insider? And what is it, they have or hide within their own circle, their group, their family? Maybe, it’s the dog, they don’t like. Or is a dog merely an alibi to show they are insiders? Sometimes a dog behaves like an outsider, but always remains closeby as if it belongs to the inner circle. It is not a real outsider? Calling the dog means they cannot miss a dog? It’s possible. There are many dogs in the village. Little ones, weird ones, quiet dogs and barking dogs, all over the place. They have dogs even in their small garden or on the balcony. I think they love dogs. At times, it is better to call a dog. An outsider might disturb their life.

When I talk of the mountains around Monchique

When I talk about the mountains, I talk about the air, its perfumes, its lightness and I talk of a way of breathing faster than in the valley. I get a feeling of being uplifted as if I float on invisible wide wings. I’m like a bird, no I feel like a bird singing early in the morning, when the fog is lifting and revealing the slopes and the valley. The air is moving upward and the birds start to free the forest, to open the woods, to awaken the flowers and to reach for the sky where they seek their soul in the upper blue. It is the hour that life arises from the valley floor and moves upward to the limitless sky opening the earth to the universe. The singing and the moving unite into a kind of jubilation that conquers the mountains, the meadows, the sheep on the slope and my soul setting free its emotions and feelings. I hear the running of water, the calling of the cuckoo, the falling of a pine apple and the beat of my heart growing into one big bang of new life breaching out of its skin, its shell, its banks.

Monchique, a little village in the Algarve

Monchique, a little village in Portugal

For the time being, I am in Monchique, a little village in the southwestern part of the Algarve, the most southern region of Portugal. It is april and the temperature during the day about 20 centrigrades and 10 at night. It’s never cold, they say and mean frost is unknown. Every night I try the wood burner – in vain. There is too much moist in the air and the wood is too wet. In the hills, the weather is often more cloudy than in the valley, but the temperature is also a bit more moderate. The village has about 6.500 inhabitants, shopkeepers, café owners, farmers, builders and street cleaners. It is built on the slope of a hill about 700 m high. Road traffic centers on a square that connects an upper and lower part of the village. A well maintained park covers the lower slope, most of the houses are built on the upper side. Tourists almost never climb down, but al ways walk uphill through the narrow streets of cobble stones. Or they stay in the restaurants along the square and its water works, a fountain and its water lifting mill in miniature. I didn’t count the tourists nor the pubs, pastelaria’s, restaurants or cafés. They are many and I will visit them in the weeks ahead. It will be quite a job. Hopefully, it will help me to get used to the montagnards of this village. They are small, broad shouldered people in old fashioned woolen clothing. Most of the men wear a small hat. The older people carry a walking stick, because of arthritis or other illness of old age. However, they still stroll up and down hill. They have a steady pace and patience knowing life will be shortened when hurrying. The people here live already for centuries the same kind of life, their lifestyle never changed. Do they live in this age?

Yes, they do live in this age, this beginning of the 21 th century, because they like to forget the past but not the tradition. They are traditional; they dress traditionally and think traditionally. They are never in a hurry, but keep an eye on the ball even if there is no ball. Climbing, they know where they go and will arrive. Time is included in their behavior, wrapped in their fashion, fixed in their mind. Time is out of order and present all around. The people’s movements are slow, but steady and simultaneously senseless while without aim. Sometimes the people stop and look around as if for a moment they lost their goal or to show they still are on their way. At times, they interrupt their climb to talk to friends or neighbors or even strangers and smile, because they can’t communicate although they feign doing so. They talk about the weather, the start of the spring, the pain they feel in their old legs. And so they give rest to their body taking a breath for the next stretch of the street. Standing on three legs they look solid and well balanced, firm and decisive. As soon as they start walking again, I see their fragility and frailty, the efforts to find a steady pace, the old age they try to hide. Though they cannot mask who they are, they all look alike because of their traditional dress. I don’t know them personally and therefore they are to me a kind of people, a sort of beings, a category of persons acting as actors in an outdoors theater, personae wearing a mask. Monchique is a mountain, its inhabitants are montagnards. I start to find my way in the mountains, later I will try to understand the people.