Non quero mitificar aquel mundo, pero repito: había nel moito que pagaba a pena conservar. Con levar luz ás casas, poñerlle unha man de chapapote ós camiños, montar unha escola en condicións, e con poucas cousas máis, aquel era un mundo habitable, relativamente solidario, con carencias moi graves. Pero para iso, para salvar as que se poidan, están os reis e os gobernantes, e os políticos todos, para todo iso cobran, que oficio de moito traballo non é.
Hoxe, a aldea non existe. A miña, alomenos. Quedan poucas casas habitadas, e as outras van caíndo unha tran outra. A xente marchou da aldea. A última vez que por aló pasei, vin unha casa da que xa non quedaba pedra sobre pedra, mesmo as trabes roubaran. Nun pao, onde a porta, víase un cartón que dicía: <Respetade esta casa. Algún día hei de volver>.
Por aquelas terras non emigraba moita xente. Logo, despois da guerra, comenzou a desbandada. E máis tarde, tódolos mozos marcharaon a Alemaña ou Suiza e, o voltar, puxeron taberna na vila e xa non viñan pola aldea máis que polo patrón. Un amigo meu, Josep Maria Espinás, fixo unha viaxe polas terras de Palas de Rei e Monterroso. O que conta é o requiescainpace dun mundo. Co que viu e falou escribiu un libro.
Aquel foi o meu mundo e o de todolos galegos, que poucos hai, ben digo eu, que leven máis de dúas xeracións vivindo na cidade. Todos, todos, temos as nosas raíces naquel mundo de aldea. E o que non as teña, ou as esqueza, pouca fondura ten. E digo eu: que pobre é o home que non ten unha aldea!
I don´t wish to romanticise that world but I do insist: there was something in it something in it that was worth conserving. All it needed was a few improwements such as bringing electricity to the houses, paving the roads, spreucijg up the schools nd it would then have become an inhabitable, caring world, even while suffering from other lacks, maybe serious ones. But this sort of farsighted salvage operation is the job of kings and governors and politicians; that's what they're paid for and involves precious little work...
Nowadays the village no longer exits. At least mine doesn't. A few innhabited houses are still standing, the rest are crumbing into ruins one after the after. Te people have gone. The last time I was there I read following cardboard sign pinned to the lintel of a house that hardly had one stone standing upon another, even the fallen rafters had been robbed: "Please respect this house; one day I'll be back".
From that land nobody had emigrated. Then, after the war, te exodus began. Later the lads went off to Germany os Switzerland; when they returned, they set up a bar in the city and only cme to the vilage on the feast day. A fiend of mine, Josep María Espinás, made a trip round the land of Palas de Rei and Monterroso. His account is the swansong of a dying world. What he saw and the people he spooke to served as the material for a book.
That was my world, the world of all Galicians, for few have been living in towns and cities for more that two generations. All of us, absolutely all of us have our roots in that village world. He who has none or has forgotten them is doomed to be rootless for life.
Basilio Losada
Galicia. Nai e señora
Edicións Nigratrea
Fotografías: aldeas mortas do sur de Lugo (Galicia). © Roque Soto Soto
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