The third chair

Two middle-aged women stood uncertainly in the outdoor terraza of the restaurant, each pointing to different tables. They finally selected one in the corner next to us but then changed their minds, something wrong with it, headed towards another, changed their minds again and returned to the corner table but called a waiter to turn it diagonally and add a third chair. I've no idea why but they were right, it looked better.

When they'd settled, I commented lightly 'Ahora todo perfecto!', everything's perfect now, which established that we were Spanish-speaking foreigners and probably to be avoided. The two women smiled politely and nodded as they picked up their menu cards.

I was wondering about that third chair. If it were meant for another female companion, this could be a girlie night out and likely to become raucous, although at least they wouldn't be shouting about football. The waiter brought them both an elegant glass of beer.

A minute or two later the missing third element arrived in the form of a husband. He approved the ladies' choice of table, nodded affably towards us, sat down then leaned over towards me and said 'Usted uno, yo dos!', you one, me two, smiling broadly and pointing at the women.

I should, of course, have made some cutting remark along the lines of 'Goodness gracious, you expect me to laugh at a grotesquely macho comment such as that, which has absolutely no place in modern society and least of all in Spain where women are treated with the greatest respect and… etc etc,' but I didn't, I pulled a stricken face and said 'Oh, that's not fair at all, I'm off right now to find another.' No point in spoiling someone else's evening. The women probably exchanged eye-rolls but I didn't notice because the new arrival was already engaging us in conversation, clearly out to enjoy himself, and he needed an audience.

He asked where we were from. England originally but now La Gomera, we told him, at which his wife clapped her hands delightedly. She was also from Gomera! We spent a minute or two discussing this happy coincidence in more detail until hubby interrupted to say he wasn't from Gomera, he was from La Palma. I assured him that being from La Palma was almost as good as being from Gomera.

But in fact, he continued, he had spent most of his life in Venezuela. Oh, right. It's difficult to enthuse about Venezuela these days. He didn't try to defend it, running a finger across his throat to illustrate the quality of life there, and we all agreed that it was much better here in the Canaries, whichever island you choose.

He felt this needed a toast and raised a glass of what I suspect was a very expensive red wine that the waitress had just poured for him. 'Le invito!' he offered, have one on me, but unfortunately I already had a full glass of the house red. We all clinked glasses anyway: 'Salud!'

This little incident took place on a brief visit to Santa Cruz in Tenerife, but it illustrates three important features of Canarian life. One, eating out is much more common among ordinary folk here than in Britain, partly because it's cheaper but also because, like all the Spanish, Canary Islanders are brought up to view communal eating as normal and everyday, whether it's breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Feature number two, there are Gomerans everywhere if you look for them. Number three, there are Venezuelans everywhere as well.

Numbers two and three are directly attributable to a mass exodus of restless young Canarians during the mid-1900s, seeking a better way of life than subsistence agriculture. The Canary Islands were largely neglected by Spanish governments on the mainland, especially during the 36 years of General Franco's dictatorship from 1939 to 1975. Many Gomerans tried their luck in the much larger island of Tenerife, while many others headed across the Atlantic to Venezuela.

There is still a steady drift of young people across the 30 kilometre channel that separates Gomera from Tenerife, simply because there are more job opportunities there. We've found Gomerans working as taxi drivers, waiters, shop assistants and hotel receptionists, while others we know have left for posts in the social services, civil administration, finance and all the other things people do.

I don't know of any who have emigrated to Venezuela lately, however. The flow is now in the opposite direction. Several of our more elderly neighbours had brothers or sisters in Venezuela who decided years ago to cut their losses and come back home. There are also Venezuelan immigrants here from the indigenous population. Many already had family links with the Canaries and in any case they speak Spanish. There is a particularly strong feeling of kinship with Venezuela but we also know Gomeran residents from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and, especially, from Cuba. There are lots of those, even more than Venezuelans. Cuba lies over 6,000 kilometres across the Atlantic but there are still many close family ties.

There is even - I happen to know - a Canary Islands association in Havana, the Asociación Canaria de Cuba. We were told about it during a visit to Cuba a few years ago and called in, of course, to say hello one afternoon. It has its own clubhouse complete with cafe and bar, in which we found a good sprinkling of members sitting around chatting or playing dominoes. We were greeted by a small, plump, bald and utterly delightful president who served us beer then spent the next half hour chatting. Canary Islanders are reliably sociable wherever you come across them.

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

I touched on the topic of emigration from the Canaries in a story a few years ago, The clandestine emigrants, December 2016.

The current population of Gomera is predominantly the result of a violent immigration, the Spanish conquest of around 1450, when many of the original guanche natives died. The numbers of inhabitants slowly increased after that, with a census in 1787 recording nearly 7,000 while a century later there were just over 15,000. During the 30 years from 1900 to 1930 the population climbed steeply to 26,000 and reached a peak of 30,747 in 1960, supported largely by fruit exports to the other islands and mainland Spain.

From that high point, emigration to Tenerife and South America (especially Venezuela) brought a decline and by 1990 there were scarcely 15,000 inhabitants. When we two arrived not long after that you could sense the decline by the large numbers of abandoned houses both in the towns and in the countryside.

However, since then agricultural exports have picked up again, tourism has taken off, emigration has slowed to nothing more than a normal healthy trickle and young couples continue producing babies, although typically just one or two rather than the 10 or more of their grandparents. The island's population is now around 21,500 of which some 9,000 live in San Sebastián. In England that would count as more of a village than a town, but here it's our island capital and holds its head high.

For the figures quoted here I'm indebted to an article by Pablo Jerez Sabater in the online magazine Canarias Ahora dated 7 January 2015.