We spent the other half in Perpignan, France at the 23rd International Photojournalism Exposition, where we explored the boundaries of human atrocities captured in a shutter. Thousands of people walked slowly through the photo exhibits in silence. Each exhibit created a world in front of our eyes. We watched a small city in Japan transform from perfect organization to black tidal wave to rubble to a checker board of cleared streets among the rubble to a lone monk praying in the snow for those who have yet to be found and those whose bodies were found lifeless. All this in a matter of thirty photos.
Sadness and emptiness emanated from fifty black and white photos documenting mental institutions in China between 1989 and 1992. Black and white and lots of gray documented starving mental patients on their beds with no mattresses. The photos were dark. The captions simple: Name, 33, was chained to this tree so that he wouldn't hurt anybody else when his family could no longer afford to pay for treatment. There was a photo of a father chained to his bed with a look of agony, his wife and children in front of him. The caption explains that this was the poor family's solution to prevent him from beating the children.
The photo essay on gang violence in Los Angeles focused on the victims of gang initiation. They were mostly children playing on their porches. One set documents a pregnant woman who had just moved out of the “bad part” of town. She went shopping with her mother in the neighborhood they knew so well. She was shot. The baby survived, but mom was paralyzed below the waist. The child's name is miracle. The photos document mom's struggle raising Miracle and her siblings from a wheelchair. One photo shows the mother in the driver's seat of her car (specially equipped to drive with her hands) watching Miracle play in the side mirror. Often when they go places, the caption explains, mom doesn't get out of the car because it is so hard to get back in.
The documentation of pain, suffering and human atrocity continues. War. Bloodshed. Riots. Earthquakes. The brightness of twenty-two years of diving by a National Geographic photographer provides a welcome relief. He captures the beauty of the world below the sea in corals, a tiny yellow fish hiding in a soda can, huge whale sharks, and clouds of ice seen from below the surface. And then there is the work of Peter Dench, gayly gaiting down one corridor amidst the chaos. He captures England in all its comedy. A woman is passed out next to a long queue for the toilets at a centuries old horse racing festival. A couple is passionately making out in front of a man in a lawn chair puking. All captured with a dry British humor, as if the photographer never cracked a smile.
After four hours, we are exhausted. We drive on for the Costa Brava. Roses, to be specific, where we will soon meet our new host through couch surfing, Quim.
We arrive shortly before dinner to a bustling house full. Quim welcomes us with a warm smile and greeting, insisting we do nothing but get comfortable amidst the dinner preparations. We meet Anders from Norway. He is about 23, studying physical theater. He recently abandoned the Camino del Santiago after a few weeks of racing the crowds to the limited sleeping accommodations at the height of tourist season. For him, it was more spiritual than religious. And he walks on in search of spiritual experiences elsewhere. And there is an Italian couple in the midst of preparing spaghetti with mussels, Luciano and Ruggero. Luciano is from Napoli area. He is studying medicine in Barcelona. He is quiet, sweet and funny. Ruggero works with an NGO in Lima, Peru. He is from near Milano, Italy. He is boisterous and engaging, smoothly switching between English, Spanish and Italian. They are all also couch surfers.
We sit on cushions for dinner on Quim's terrace. He introduces us to the first of many Catalan traditions. “Eat well, shit hard,” is the Catalan cheers. We later learn of the Catalan Christmas traditions, which include a shitting man in the crypt and children beating a yule log of sorts asking for it to give them more shit. Each time mom and dad help ensure the log shits a new present. When there are no more presents, it shits chocolate, then nothing.
The second tradition he introduces us to is pa amb tomà quet. The Italians joke that it is simply bruschetta and was invented in Italy. It involves toasting a piece of bread, cutting a tomato in half and rubbing it along the bread. Then comes salt. Then olive oil. Then toppings, which over the course of our time there, included eggplant, onion, red peppers, cheese and several meats. The highlight of the meats was sobrassada, a spread of pork marinated in wine and mixed with red peppers. We eat salad prepared with vegetables from Quim's mother's garden. We eat pasta with mussels. And we drink wine. Quim tells us stories. He is a high school Catalan teacher and speaks with passion about his work. By the time we finish our pan tomato, it is obvious he loves his job. When we start the pasta, we are near tears at his stories of thoughtfulness between student and teacher. By the time our bellies and spirits are full, we have made four new friends.
Quim is an extraordinary host and tour guide, spending the last days of his summer vacation with us. Each day, he takes us some place new. First it is Cadaques, the summer home of Salvador Dali and a beautiful coastal village with old stone streets that hurt your feet to walk on. We snap photos and talk and laugh as we walk. We stop for lunch where I am introduced to another Catalane delight – botifarra, a grilled sausage served with white beans.
After lunch, we head onto Cap De Creus Natural Park. As we wind toward the lighthouse that marks the Easternmost point of mainland Spain, Dali's inspiration is clear. The fog embraces volcanic rocks that make faces at you. When you look a second time, it is just a rock and a cloud. But then the fog clears for a moment and a human form can be seen on the rocks. For a moment, then gone. The place is surreal and magical. After some hiking, we settle in for a salty and beautiful swim off of the edge of some rocks that jut out into a protected bay. We swim among a few boats, fish and sea urchins. The water is clear and cool.
We end the evening at a dinner party with some of Quim's fellow teachers. Then Acustica, the weekend-long annual music festival in Figueres. The Pepper Pots capture our imagination with a Supremes-like stage performance and sound. “Sometimes,” we discuss on Quim's couch at 3 am after the show, “if you don't look at the crowd, it feels like you are in 1962.”
Morning comes late on Saturday. We spend the afternoon walking Besalu, a small medieval town. An artist who favored the town gave it chairs. One sites two meters off the ground. Tourists climb to it for a photo in it. Another two chairs hang sideways on a wall over the street, twenty feet in the air. The chairs are made of iron, tastefully adding some additional magic amidst the stone of the town. We spend the afternoon swimming in a lake and exploring tectonic caves that we would never have found on our own.
Annette and I relax a bit as we turn our lives over to Quim as our guide. It a nice break. not needing to make every decision about where to go and what to eat. We follow Quim to Figueres again for human castle practice. Here at a cultural center on the edge of Figueres, a group of about 150 are keeping a great Catalan tradition alive. People stand on each other's shoulders nine stories high (the building is built accordingly!). Small children climb nimbly from knees to waists to shoulders and slide back down like a koala on its mother's back. Throughout, this multi-generational group builds and strengthens community, muscle, concentration, and cultural tradition. Castling has experienced a resurgence since the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, which shared Catalan culture with the world in all of its glory. We are gripped by the group's practice for nearly three hours. As the castles grow higher, we marvel and cringe at the same time. Eventually, we are invited to join in as the form the pinya, like a pine cone. In this people stand at the castle's base four people deep to support the legs of the bottom two tiers of the castle and help catch people on their way down. We are welcomed to the group and provided ample explanation in Catalan of what is happening. The group is proud of their tradition and excited to share it.
This is followed by more music at Acustica. Pastora's Saturday night performance is the highlight of the festival. They have a visual DJ, who incorporates live drawing along with the music on a huge screen behind the band. He has three cameras and a cross-fader. At times, I stop dancing and lose myself in the images. Other times I lose myself in the theatrical performance of the female lead singer. And sometimes I just shut my eyes and lose myself in the music.
On Sunday, we visit the Dali Museum in Figueres. They call it a theater-museum, which is appropriate. It is not just paintings on a wall. As you wander through it, you feel like you are wandering through the dark and sometimes brilliant caverns of Dali's mind. Even if the museum is simply an outward architectural expression of Dali's, it, like all of the Costa Brava, captures your imagination. It softens the solidity of things. It leaves you certain the world is not simply how it appears. It is far more complicated, mysterious and beautiful.
By the time we leave for Barcelona on Sunday, we have made plans to meet again next weekend at the street theater festival in Tarrega.
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