Raúl Romano is proud of Otones de Benjumea – his village near Segovia, central Spain, where he recently organised a feast for 350 people, together with music and a talk. But Romano does not live in Otones. Nor do the vast majority of the members of the village’s 400-strong corralón cultural association, which organises the annual extravaganza to celebrate the slaughter of pigs and their conversion into cuts of meat, sausages and offal.
Romano lives in Torrejón de la Calzada, a Madrid dormitory town. Most of the others live in Segovia or Spain’s capital, which lies an hour and half away by car. All call this “my village”, but it is really where their parents or grandparents come from – a place of nostalgia and identity, not of daily life. At most, some have kept up a family house (rather then letting it fall down – since there are no buyers) and spend weekends there. The village’s permanent population has dropped below 40, down by half in two decades. There are no children now. Romano’s mother passed away last month. His father is 96. In a few years’ time only a dozen or so residents will be left.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2ILRymY
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