Call in the police!

I first posted this story in August 2019 but quickly removed it for reasons I’ll explain later.

This problem has been ignored for too long. Nobody’s doing anything about it. And as it affects me directly, I’ve made the decision to do something myself. But what to do, that’s the question.

After a little thought the answer is obvious. We must go to the police! Explain the situation. That’s what the police are for, to sort out citizens’ problems. First we must decide which police, though. There are several varieties of police in Spain but here in La Gomera our choice comes down to two: the Guardia Civil or the Policía Local.

Maybe not the Guardia, a national force that regularly publicises its success in seizing million-euro consignments of crack cocaine or catching international criminals with false moustaches in Marbella. The Policía Local seems more the right level for our kind of complaint.

I have already prepared a one-page report on the problem, complete with photograph and explanatory text in faultless Spanish. Well, it looks faultless to me. This should save too much nervous babbling and hand-waving when face to face with a police officer.

Choosing our time carefully - not too early in the morning, but safely before desayuno (breakfast) at around 10:30 when everyone goes out for a coffee and sandwich, including most of the police - we head towards what passes for the local police station.

One of the clearest indications that this town is not a hotbed of petty crime is that there isn’t really a police station. The Policía Local have a small office in a multi-purpose building which they share with, among other organisations, the local land registry. It’s on the outskirts of town and not easy to find unless you know where to look. Their sign includes a rather nice modern logo that reminds me of Dr Who’s Tardis, an old-time police telephone box.

Passing through the modest entrance portal into a surprisingly long corridor, we walk past a branch to the right which leads to the land registry then straight on to a small doorway down at the far end. A small sign to the left of the door announces Policía Local: Atención al Ciudadano, Attention to the Citizen, which is encouraging. The door is open, revealing a small office with a large desk but nobody behind it. I knock politely on the door - always best to show respect - and from an inner office emerges a youngish police officer (they’re all youngish when you’re my age), at first cautiously then with a nice smile. ‘Sí?’

We have a small problem, we explain. Nothing serious, but it needs looking at. He ushers us into his inner office and indicates two chairs in front of his desk.

I begin by explaining that we cycle every day into town and often call into the covered market, where we park our bikes in the pedestrian street outside. ‘Vale,’ right, nods the policeman. Clear enough so far. There’s a bike rack, I tell him, where we leave our bikes, and in this bike rack is an abandoned bicycle. It’s got two flat tyres and it has been there for several months. This wouldn’t matter so much except that the bike is right in the middle of the rack where it really gets in the way.

I hand him my written account and point to the photo, then watch a little nervously as he peruses the report - is this too trivial, am I wasting police time? - but he nods thoughtfully. ‘It’s locked to the rack?’

‘It is. Cable and lock.’

‘It would be less of a nuisance if it were at one end,’ he comments. Yes, exactly!

A colleague wanders in to see what’s going on, nods cheerfully at us - we’ve known him for a long time - and takes a look at the photo. ‘This tree’s in the way as well,’ he points out. ‘It’s not a good place for a tree.’

‘It isn’t,’ agrees the first policemen. He straightens up, looking perkier. He’s beginning to see his way to a solution. It might be best, he observes thoughtfully, to get the Ayuntamiento, the town council, to move the rack to somewhere more sensible, away from the tree. And get rid of the bike at the same time.

Well, yes, but...

‘Leave it with me,’ he says. ‘Can I take a copy of this report?’

‘Keep it, keep it,’ I offer generously. ‘It’s for you.’

Nothing more we can do. Handshakes all round, thanks for your time etc, then the first policeman escorts us to the door. We leave feeling we’ve done our citizens’ duty but fairly sure the abandoned bike will still be there several months later. My report is going to be passed to the Ayuntamiento along with a recommendation that they move the entire bike rack to a different location. This will take time.

Two weeks later…
Parking my bike as usual in the rack, it took me a moment to realise that something had changed. Tree still there, rack still there - but the abandoned bike had gone. Six clear slots to choose from.

How wrong I was to doubt! Of course the police would take action! And commendably quickly too - I’m sure there were a few forms to fill in, stamp, copy and file before they could send someone along with bolt cutters to sever the cable. I would like to record here my sincere thanks to the Policía Local not only for removing the bike but also for demonstrating that in a free and open society, the citizen’s voice is heard.

Postscript
Why did I delete this story after its first posting? Because the bike reappeared, that’s why. Just a few days after it had gone. Complete with cable and lock, and in the same place in the middle of the bike rack. I assumed the owner had noticed its disappearance and demanded its return. Best to keep my head down for a while.
However, a week or so later it vanished again and this time it didn’t come back. My best guess is that at the first try someone had neglected to follow the proper administrative procedures for removing bicycles from bike racks, and was obliged by somebody else to put it back before doing so.

---------------------- NOTES ----------------------

The Policía Local wear blue uniforms and drive blue-and-white cars. They can look a bit intimidating because of the various armaments slung from their trouser belts but in all other respects they are very friendly and approachable. Mostly they concern themselves with local matters such as traffic control during fiestas or the daily chaos of the school run.

Also somewhat fearsome in appearance but generally just as friendly are the Guardia Civil, who wear green uniforms and drive military-green vehicles. They are concerned mostly with the heavier issues such as robbery, violence, drugs and traffic accidents so on this island it’s a fairly light workload, but they do cruise around in their vehicles to keep an eye on things. In contrast to the Policía Local they occupy a splendid, fortress-like building on a hill overlooking the town.

The Guardia was once an important tool of subjugation for the Generalísimo, Francisco Franco, and today’s Guardia still has the official motto Todo por la patria – all for the mother country. However, the Guardia themselves are now far removed from that dark history, a well-respected body of men and women, the kind Granny would be delighted to see her grandchild sign on for while other grannies’ offspring roam the world in bare feet.

Bring your own powder

It was a tense moment. The two men circled slowly in a Wild West stand-off, weapons poised, each waiting for the other to make a move. Whose nerve would break first?

Suddenly - the oldest trick in the book - Lorenzo glanced sideways with a startled expression. Miguel looked in the same direction and Lorenzo leaped forward, squeezing his weapon as he went. A jet of fine white powder hit Miguel unerringly in the chest.

‘Aagh! Cabrón!’ (you swine!). Miguel set off at a gallop after his opponent who was disappearing into the crowd, hooting with laughter.

We were witnessing the very beginnings of a culture change. A big one, for which you can award much of the credit or blame to Gomera’s close neighbour, the island of La Palma. And Cuba.

Not so long ago the Día de los Polvos, Powder Day, was a minor event of the week-long party known as Carnaval that fills a fiesta vacancy between New Year and Easter. Aimed mainly at the kids, Día de los Polvos was assigned to the quiet Monday before the big procession of carnival floats and dancers on Tuesday. It was basically a licence for young boys (it was always the boys) to unleash their inner hooligan, chasing each other through the streets with big tubes of talcum powder.

Some of them also targeted unwary foreigners, which they were not supposed to do at all. More than once I had to severely warn a threatening urchin ‘Do not attempt to spray me, young man, or there will be grave repercussions,’ then scold him severely when he sprayed me anyway. After the first couple of years we learned to stay at home on the Día de los Polvos.

The change came about fairly quickly when a few grown men realised that these young delinquents were having a lot of fun. Fuelling the transformation was the television coverage of the Fiesta de los Indianos in La Palma, which the Palmeros had long ago turned into a major attraction that drew crowds not only from all over La Palma but also from the other Canary Islands and even mainland Spain. As in the rest of the Carnaval celebrations this is a day for letting loose, for unlimited fun and loud music, but the chief characteristic is that everybody wears white clothing and pours talcum over everybody else. The music is always Cuban, which is almost impossible to resist dancing to, or jiggling or at the very least twitching, and the air rapidly becomes a swirling fog filled with wild white figures gyrating inside it.

For me the images transmitted by those brave television crews are a stark warning to keep well away from the madness, but other people find it strangely compelling. No doubt under pressure from these more party-minded citizens, the town council here in San Sebastián decided a few years ago to add a little something to our own very low-key event. They organised a dance in the evening for adults, clearly labelled as a special dance for Día de los Polvos. A salsa dance band would play in the main pedestrian street, cafes and bars would be open until late and kioscos would stay open all night.

Guidelines were issued on how one should dress for this occasion, although everyone knew already from observing the Palmeros. White clothing is obligatory as well as practical, given that any other colour will soon turn white anyway, but you are also supposed to present an old-world appearance, vaguely 1800s, with the men parading in smart white suits and a panama hat while the ladies swish beside them in long white dresses. Optional accessories are a white sun-umbrella for the women and a small leather suitcase for the men. Oh, and a big cigar, and a bottle of rum. And bring your own talcum powder.

It was an instant success. Locals prepared for it with typical enthusiasm, turning up in their hundreds to fill the town with music, laughter and a sweet-smelling fog. Amazingly, it has now become one of the most popular features of Carnaval, with two Cuban music groups playing in the evening followed by an all-night dance with two full dance bands.

On the morning after the revelries of Día de los Polvos the pedestrian streets, lamp-posts and shop windows have mostly turned white like the revellers, but the council sends in a clean-up team and a neat little electric vehicle armed with a high-pressure hose to wash it all away.

Ironically, this year the event followed immediately after the heaviest calima we’d had for at least thirty years. Calima is extremely fine dust from the Sahara desert which hangs in the air like a dry fog. Usually it’s more misty than foggy but this time it was denser than a Delhi smog and turned cars and streets a dull pink, so what with that and the talcum powder the town ended up looking like grandma’s bedroom after the kids had run amok with her make-up. Smelled nice though.

--------------- NOTES ---------------

So what’s it all about? Why the talcum powder, why the old-fashioned clothes? The clue is in the La Palma name for the event, the Fiesta de los Indianos. Its origins go back to the 19th century when Palmeros who had emigrated to the Indies - that’s the West Indies, and especially Cuba - returned home considerably richer than they’d left, dressed like gentlefolk instead of peasants, smoking big Havana cigars, drinking Cuban rum and even trailing creole servants to carry their luggage in leather suitcases. They were aping the European colonials who had occupied Latin America. Perhaps a little too showy, perhaps a little boastful of their new wealth, perhaps deserving the gentle mockery they received in the annual fiesta. The event was incorporated into Carnaval somewhat later, in the early 1900s.

The white powder is a bit of a mystery but among the various explanations I’ve read, the most likely is that in Cuba in those early days some blacks and dark-skinned creoles practised rituals that involved whitening the skin. Whatever they used it wouldn’t have been talcum, which is a modern convenience. And one for which I’m sure the local sell-everything Chinese bazaar is deeply grateful. In the weeks leading up to Carnaval they stock up with pallet-loads of the stuff, hundreds of giant tubes, all of which get sprayed into oblivion in the course of a few hours. Beats the heck out of selling it in tiny dispensers for the comfort of baby’s bottoms.