It is Sunday morning, market day in Espéraza in the Aude department, the day of the week when the alternative population of this small corner of Languedoc gather together, come rain or shine.
Like many of the local markets in the area it can be an eye-opening experience to visit one of these colourful events. If you believe the hippy culture ended along with the closure of the Vietnam War, you’ll think again when you go out for your fruit and veggies and artisan loaf of bread, whether you are in Espéraza or Mirepoix, or any of the other gathering places of those who like to turn their backs on conventional life, and wear their old bellbottoms, afghan coats, tie-died T-shirts and hand-knitted shawls. They come to the market to sell to each other, as well as to delighted tourists, home-made soap, soup, baked goods, paella, sheepskins, and cute stitched, knitted, woven, carved, and forged objets d’art. The stalls are a cornucopia of eye-catching, as well as mouth-watering goodies; but even more interesting is to wander round and observe one’s fellow humans, basically made the same as oneself, but now seemingly living in a different world.
Celine and I were staying for part of the winter in the tiny commune of Rouvenac (population around 200), where we had been able to arrange a house exchange for five weeks with a couple of English artists who lived and worked in a small three-storied house overlooking the village square. Exploring that rural area of Languedoc was part of our search to find somewhere to build our nest in the future, but, more importantly, we were staying there to celebrate the holiday season with Celine’s sister, Dagmara, and her family who, very conveniently, lived a ten minute drive away in the much larger commune of Antugnac, population about 325.
In France a couple of years earlier, we had our first taste of the alternative lifestyle, when Dagmara had taken us to the market in Mirepoix, a sizable commune of more than 3,000 people. There, we had our initiation into the world in which Dagmara and her partner Willie live, though little did we realise then just how extensive that world is. The market is held on Place Marechal Leclerc, three sides of which are bordered by 13th to 15th century buildings, creating what is said to be one of the finest surviving arcaded markets in France. The multifarious stalls filled the square, actually a long rectangle, and overflowed into some of the side streets, and as we wandered around, fascinated by the plethora of colours, tastes, and smells, of foods, incense, carved woods, fresh-baked goods, clothing and knickknacks, we often lost sight of our dear sister as she stopped to talk with anyone and everyone. For someone who had arrived from another country, Poland, just a few short years before, speaking hardly a word of French, she had assimilated extraordinarily well and seemed to know nearly everyone there. For such is the goodwill to be found in this community, that no-one is treated like a stranger, everyone is made welcome, and all look after each other in one way or another.
So we should not have been surprised that cool December morning in Espéraza, to witness once more this bonhomie that we found all around us, as we stopped at one stall after another, being introduced to yet more of Dagmara’s and Willie’s friends and acquaintances, from all corners of the globe and all walks of life, all having one thing in common, a lively disdain for “convention”.
One friend of Dagmara’s, a Turkish lady, was hawking her delicious soup, which she kept in a large insulated tureen resting in a baby carriage. We had a long interesting discussion about life in general with Marcial, Willie’s martial arts teacher, a young Frenchman with a Taiwanese wife, who had a table filled with garlic. And we took home with us two large portions of steaming paella, from a Catalan man who is a regular favourite of our hosts. From another friend, Celine was strongly tempted to buy yet another sheepskin – we bought one the previous year from the Scottish Wool shop at Chatsworth House, one of England’s grand country mansions – and then we were both fascinated by one of Dagmara’s soulmates who had a small stall selling three types of very tasty dairy-less cheese, a product she had developed when she realized her son had a serious allergy to dairy products.
Wooed as we were by so many friendly people selling so much interesting stuff, the people-watching was still the most fascinating part of the experience. The stall-holders tended to be on the younger side, well, less than sixty anyway, but our fellow shoppers were of all ages, the older ones obviously clinging to a genuine 60’s youth. There were also several gents of more dubious age and lineage, who we often saw sitting or standing around outside the two or three cafés on the square, that the average American tourist might have mistaken for homeless, but they never begged for money and they troubled no-one. We did have an amusing incident another day, as we were walking back to our car after buying our daily baguette from the boulangerie down a little alley off the square; one of these gents got up as we walked past and said in French, slightly menacingly, something to the effect “You know this is a dangerous place?!”, but he just laughed when I retorted with something like “Why, because you’re here?” They just seemed to be locals down on their luck, with nothing much to do, except, drink beer, smoke pot and maybe bemoan the state of the world!
We were fascinated by the many ways these good people found to make a small income to supplement whatever handouts they were able to get from France’s social security system. Our sister, although very cautious about some aspects of modern technology – she and Willie refuse to have a micro-wave oven in the house – made good use of the internet and Skype. She seemed to have an effective way of talking to women who were having difficulty conceiving, and were willing to pay good money to have her calm their inner selves and help them realise their dreams. Willie believed he could help those with aches and pains, with hands-free massage therapy, and again he found people who also had faith enough in his abilities at €xx a session. On a more practical side, as winter drew in and night-time temperatures went negative (deg C), we were looking for a cheap source of firewood to feed the very necessary log-burner in our little house in Rouvenac. Dagmara and Willie led us on a walk up Sentier des Plâitres, an ancient track, used a couple of hundred years earlier by the lime quarry workers to bring lime down to the windmill on the brow of the hill. Half a mile up the track we turned off, went through an old farmyard where the buildings were in various states of renovation and repair, and arrived at a ramshackle bungalow that appeared to be half wooden chalet and half lean-to garage. This was the home of their friend, Antoine, a gent of Germanic origins, who made some pocket-money with a bit of woodcutting on the side. Alas, his prices turned out to be even higher than the local wood yard, and he didn’t seem inclined to socialise, so we didn’t stay too long.
The history of his home was however more interesting. Originally Antoine and his partner lived in an old bus that they parked in the woods below the farm, and over the years they extended their accommodation over and around the bus, which was still part of their living quarters and was what we had seen in the “garage” part of the building. Probably not totally built to planning regulations, but definitely in accordance with the norms of an alternative lifestyle. Anyway, our walk wasn’t entirely in vain as Willie helped me to collect armfuls of fallen dead twigs and branches, to supplement our store of kindling, another essential item for the never-ending job of “keeping the home fires burning”!
Another day we learnt about some people who had taken to living really rough in a sunken valley set in the hillside behind Antugnac. Unknowingly, we had driven past the wooded end of this valley many times, but only when we hiked above the village and saw all the little huts and rusty old camper vans distributed in that small valley below us, did we realise people were living there, people who were, no doubt, among the crowd we saw at Espéraza market. As expected, Dagmara had already befriended several of these valley dwellers, who were just another part of her social scene, equal in many ways to all the others, however they chose to live.
Donkeys are also a big part of life in the Aude. One bright sunny afternoon, Celine and I were hiking up a track outside Rouvenac when several pairs of pointed furry ears poked up behind the rocks. Establishing that we offered no threat, half a dozen very tame donkeys then ambled out to us, eventually all vying to be stroked by these friendly strangers. They were quite delightful and we spent a good fifteen minutes with them before realising the day was drawing in and carried on up the hill. One particularly friendly little chap decided to adopt us and followed us until we finally managed to convince him that, even though it was the Christmas season, we were just a passing pleasure and not friends for life.
A few days before Christmas, the slightly more upmarket commune of Puivert (population around 500) held a festival des lumières. As the afternoon sun disappeared behind the surrounding hills, all the villagers and other locals, including many who would have looked quite at home at Woodstock all those years ago, gathered in the old market hall where we lit up our glorious mix of simple candles and crêpe paper lanterns. The master of ceremonies then led us off on a colourful procession through the village, lit simply by small nightlights in home-made paper cups placed on walls and on the parapets of bridges over the little stream. Stopping two or three times on the way, for story telling, poetry recitations and folk songs from other lands, we eventually arrived beside the lake in the park outside the village, where a bonfire was ready for lighting, and hot wine and pastries, prepared by the ladies of the village, were on sale to ward off the wintry night air. The pageant already had a slightly surreal feel about it, lit only by the flickering of hundreds of candles, but that became even stranger when the revelers set fire to a string of brushwood laid out on the grass in the shape of a star, some twenty feet across.
Finally, we all took Chinese lanterns and, once lit, they were released up into the dark night sky to drift slowly away over the lake and into the darkness beyond. A beautiful ending to a quite zany evening, well suited to the alternative world we were experiencing in our little corner of Languedoc.