Ireland and Kansas Join the Yarn Bomb Squad

Moratinos is known along the Camino for its “yarn-bombed” plaza trees. The local ladies love sitting on the plaza bench on summer afternoons, watching the pilgrims snap photos of their crocheted handiwork. The pilgrims enjoy the splash of color, the odd incongruity of a soft, hand-knitted surface superimposed onto a natural objects.  Which is to say, crocheted and knitted blankets wrapped around the trunks of trees. 

The first blankets went up three years ago, using handmade items donated by knitters from all over Spain and other parts of the world, too. As time, sunshine and weather took their tolls the crochet has been patched-up, replaced, nailed, stapled, stitched, and stuck-up every which way.  We all agreed last year that the installation was due for an overhaul. After the holidays. After winter…

Spain went into lockdown in March, so all the usual Spring maintenance was pushed back, too. The flags sagged. The banners went brown, their corners curled. The once colorful crochet faded and stretched along the seams.

   

Three weekends ago we were allowed out of our houses, so Flor and Marivalle, Sonia, Toni, and Luca, Ana and me, Segundino, Jorge, and Bruno headed for the plaza to do the needed deeds. We started with scissors and step-stools, but soon hauled out the ladders, hammers, and wire-cutters. Ants and mosquitos feasted on us. We freed the trees of their sweaters and un-strangled the trunks where we’d tied things on too tightly. We sent the grubby fabric through a gentle washing-machine cycle.

The following Saturday we gathered again in the ayuntamiento meeting room to survey what remained. (And to sample Flor's cheesecake, and Segundino's "champagne.")

It was messy. Some knitted pieces had turned ugly. Some we snipped apart and reassembled. Some had to be shored-up, their raveled edges repaired. Others we simply flipped over and sewed back onto the trees with the faded side facing inward. We re-strung some pennants, measured out triangles, tried to make the colors harmonize whenever we could.

I am not much use where knitting and crochet are concerned, but I do have some reach online. I put out an appeal. An Irish lady sent us some pennants and a charming shamrock shawl for the olive tree.  

  

An enormous box arrived from California. Inside was a full-size wool afghan of exceptional quality, with a note attached. It was made 40 years ago by Opal Catherine Holtom of Kansas City, Missouri, for her granddaughter, Janet Brovold. Who sent it to us in Moratinos.

A note inside tells all about Opal, and the blanket:

My grandma crocheted a blanket for me almost 40 years ago. To be honest, it was never my ‘style,” and I never used it on a bed. I kept it as a remembrance of all the love she had for me…For years it was stored in the cedar chest my grandpa gave her for Christmas, the day before their wedding. She was 15 years old. That was not unusual in Kansas in 1925…

Today, I am sending the blanket to Moratinos, Spain to reside as long as the threads will bear. Its main plaza… is a holy place, where pilgrims pass by on their spiritual journeys. My grandma was one of the most spiritual people I’ve known… This woman still lives in every fiber of my being, and has informed and guided the parts I like best about myself. So this morning I blessed her blanket with incense, wrapped it around me one last time, and sent it on its way. God willing, I will someday again be in Moratinos, and find it – and her – there in the plaza.

Last Saturday I did an on-the-fly translation of the note for the plaza work group while we continued basted and overcast, sent indoors by a thunderstorm.  We all agreed we cannot cut up Opal's blanket. There was a rush of ideas, some measuring, some arithmetic...

When the job is done, I’ll let you know what it’s become. Grandma Opal’s going to be a Spanish yarn bomber! 

Waking Up

Like magi on their way to Bethlehem, angels are waking us up and telling us to get on widdit.
The sun is out again, the lockdown is slowly easing.  We in Castilla y Leon are still in "phase one," life is is still pretty strict -- we're not supposed to cross the county line. Still, people are outside, smiling.  A few of us are freshening-up the yarn-bombing project in the plaza mayor, planting and trimming trees, installing a handrail up to the top of the bodega hill. The wildflowers this year are stupendous. The trail around the bodegas is overgrown, there are no pilgrims stomping it flat, no one picking the flowers to make crowns and necklaces. 

No one in Moratinos was infected, far as we know. Glory be. We spend our winters sealed indoors in this little town. When it comes to quarantine, we know our stuff.  Winter just stretched into spring this year, without bars to hang out in, without Holy Week or San Isidro celebrations to mark the movement of time.

The people who run the albergue and the hostel came back. Both are staffed now, all sanitized and ready to greet pilgrims, once the number of infections meets zero and border restrictions ease. We still cannot sit down for a G&T or a glass of wine on a bar terrace in our town. It might be legal for them to open, but it's not worth the extra expense and work, they say. Not yet. 

So we walk over to Casa Barrunta in San Nicolas, where they open up for people they know.  Still only drinks. No chipirones in their ink, no paella. Not yet.

Lots of people think the Camino, and Spanish communities, are "suffering terribly" from the Corona virus outcomes. I am not sure how to feel about that. I see lots of communities all over the world suffering terribly. Are people opening their hearts and wallets to support them? 

Clear back at the start of this pandemic, supporters of Peaceable Projects contacted me with concerns and donations, hoping to uphold the camino they know and love.  I will admit to answering, for the first few weeks, with a "charity begins at home" argument. "Keep your money," I said. "You might need it yourself, in your own neighborhood, before this is all over."

I still feel kinda that way, even though PPI has given grants or in-kind donations to several camino non-profits since the virus shut down the trails:  We:
>  Sent a load of groceries and dog chow up to the locked-down hospi at Manjarin;
>  Bought ten wool army blankets for the albergue at El Acebo, when theirs fell to pieces in the wash;
>Supported a GoFundMes for the Albergue Emaus in Burgos, Egeria House in Santiago, and Albergue Acacio y Orietta; 
> Made a couple of grocery buys for the Marist Fathers in Sahagun, whose income vanished when the Albergue Santa Cruz shut down. The fathers stepped in to run the local food bank and clothing closet for Caritas Catholic Charities... but they don't get paid for that work. They still gotta eat.
> We sent two donations to Albergue Paroquial de Tosantos, where the floors need to be replaced;
>  Coordinated transfer of a scruffy old car from a Palencia non-profit to a hospitalero stranded in the  mountains of Leon;
> Sent a month's worth of support to Albergue Izarra on the Camino del Norte. Santi, the hospi there, sold his car to pay his April bills. Wow.     

We did not send money to everyone who asked. I am glad of that. At least two of those appeals were questionable; if you hear someone complaining about PPI, it may be one of those guys who didn't check out.

We still have lots of money in reserve. I expect to use it up soon, as Reality dawns on the albergues and the Camino opens to Spaniards first, Europe later, and finally people from outside. 

I do NOT recommend anyone walk the Caminos anytime soon, not until the wrinkles are ironed-out.  Not even if you've waited for years, not even if this might be your last chance, not even you.  You will likely be inconvenienced, disappointed, hungry, dirty, and unhappy with the experience.  Don't say you were not warned.

There are tons more things to say, but I will get back to those. People dislike long blog entries, so I won't burden you with more.
Until tomorrow, maybe.