Xiva / UtielIt’s amazing to see happiness in the midst of tragedy. Lives destroyed, and many lost, by the catastrophic floods, but also complicit smiles. To be, all together, with family and friends, knee-deep in mud and removing it from the streets and houses. Hoping for a mother and son who hug and tell each other they can at least talk it out. With the love between a couple walking hand in hand through streets full of debris.
In the Valencian Country and Castilla-La Mancha people are getting out of it thanks to the people. The Utiel high school, one of the municipalities most affected by DANA, is a good example of the destruction. Bent fences, broken windows and all desks thrown in the middle of the yard. where are the students They are all on top of a trailer that goes around Utiel and stops at the house where they need the most help. The young men get down and start loading furniture. They joke with each other and the owners of the house, who have lost everything, smile. Pilar also smiles when she explains that DANA has left the basements that had just been renovated a year ago. They asked for a mortgage that they were still paying. They also paid for the TV. “I have what I’m wearing,” she says as she points to her clothes. He smiles and does so ironically, because a few glasses of wine and a bottle of whiskey have remained intact. “When we’re done, we’ll toast everyone who’s helping us. We’ve lost everything, but at least we weren’t at home,” he says. Relatives and friends, who are from other towns, help him to throw everything away.
But you don’t even need to be known. Fernando came from Sant Antoni, a nearby town, to help in whatever way he could. Now she is cleaning a stranger’s porch. There are firefighters working, also from the army and the Militarized Emergency Unit (UME), but it is also the people who are saving the people. They are the farmers, like Florencio, Antonio and Ivan, who have come with their tractors and trailers to take away all the remains that are being dumped in the middle of the streets of Utiel. They are not from this small town of 11,000 inhabitants, but they have also experienced their own drama: many vineyards have been destroyed by the floods. “What can I do? Come here, I won’t stand idly by,” comments Florencio. They puncture the tires all the time because the streets are full of glass hidden under the mud, but they change it and continue. And so all day. There are people who suddenly start to cry. Everything is together, hugs too.
And there are people who complain: “If it wasn’t for the volunteers, I don’t know how we would do it. I miss the emergency services,” says Milagros. The truth is that the streets are invaded by tractors, trailers and all kinds of private agricultural vehicles trying to clear a path and take away the remains of the wreck. They take everything to a field on the outskirts of Utiel that has become a dumping ground for memories. There is furniture, appliances and rubbish, but also books – like a batch of encyclopedias or a collection of novels, like Journey to the center of the earth, Ivanhoe or The Three Musketeers–, picture frames, prams, dolls and even a pack of condoms. The neighbors are just waiting for the experts and for help to arrive as soon as possible. The mayor of Utiel, Ricardo Gabaldón, explains in statements to the ARA that the damage is “stratospheric”. He can’t give a number right now. Everyone helps clean everything up, but everyone helped each other on Tuesday, too. There were scenes of residents upstairs rescuing those downstairs and people jumping into the water to catch others.
floods
After the floods of water, this Friday the floods in Xiva, about 30 kilometers below, were full of people. A chain of about fifty people carried water from a pond in the center of the village to the main street, where they were throwing it to loosen the mud and throw it down the drain. The water kept coming, and then another group with brooms moved it at full speed. In rhythm it was frenetic. They have come from Xest, Sant Antoni, Requena, all neighboring towns, but also from Valencia. Two completely crippled children sit on a step with a mud-stained ball. “They’ve worked hard, like they’re adults,” says an older woman watching them.
“I think I have faith in humanity again today,” Xiva’s Carmen says from her shattered garage door. Juan, who has come from Teruel, is helping him. They don’t know each other. He regains his faith in the human being when he sees that the Plaza Mayor of Xiva is full of volunteers. A City Council worker has made paella. On a table there is fruit, water, empanadas, coffee… In the houses they are making sandwiches that they take to those who remove mud. It is done by the citizens of Shiva, the volunteers and also the military. No one is more than anyone else. Farmers have lost crops and are clearing houses that are not theirs. A businessman has lost the 60 cars he had for sale in his outdoor car park, and is helping to clear out a workshop in front.
Xiva and Utiel have gone from being isolated, catastrophic cities, where no one could enter or leave, to being collapsed cities, with a multitude of cars queuing at their entrances. They don’t do it to run away from it, but to come in to help.
