Mecina: Ferreirola

Ferreirola was the only village of La Taha that we hadn’t visited, so we walked there today. The village gets its name from the outcrops of iron in the area. Springs of ferruginous water are common, and iron mining took place nearby.

One thing we’ve noticed in all of the La Taha villages is the stubborn coating of sand from previous calimas. It was especially clear in the church plaza in Ferreirola that the wind carrying the red sand from Africa must have been blowing from the south and the east, because those are the two sides of buildings that are coated. In many of the villages, the damage is not so noticeable, because one and two story buildings have been whitewashed anew, covering over the red sand. But in Ferreirola, the ladders evidently weren’t tall enough to extend the whitewash up to the top of the church and the tower, and the stubbornly clinging red color was very clear. People have told us that it’s almost impossible to clean the sand off a building. Once water touches it, it turns to a viscous red mud which adheres tenaciously.

Three things we were hoping to see in Ferreirola were the Alexander School of Classical Music; a surviving drainage tinao; and the house of a man who used to live on the same small island in Washington state where we live.

On previous trips to the Alpujarra, it seems like we’ve always been one week too early or a few days too late to attend any of the famous Music in the Mountains classical music concerts that are held outdoors on the old eras during the spring and summer. This project was started by a woman from Ferreirola, Cat Jary. Unfortunately, when we got to the building where the school used to be, it was clear that it no longer existed. The last mention I could find online for the concerts was in 2021. However, it wasn’t a total disappointment because the same house that held the music school also played an important role in the making of the film "Al sur de Granada" about Gerald Brenan.

We were lucky with the drainage tinao, finding it right off the church plaza. Of the 13 different kinds of tinaos, this was the only one we hadn’t seen, so it felt like a milestone to find it today.

We’ve known for years that a former Shaw Island resident had moved to Ferreirola and established himself there. We didn’t know how to get in touch with him ahead of time, so we were sort of hoping we might just bump into him by chance in the village. A woman out walking her dog showed us his house, but it was only 9:30 in the morning, which seemed a tad early to go knocking on someone’s door when they weren’t expecting anyone. I had planned to write a note and leave it for him but accidentally left behind both the pen and the paper. 😢Read more