Mamies, a dying breed

 

When I bought my first house in Argelès-sur-mer, France with two anthropologists, there was a plethora (I don't get a chance to use that word often) of mamies or grannies. 

Many were dressed in black widow weeds. Any where from two to five of them would bring out their chairs and chat, peel potatoes or maybe snap beans almost every day at least once if not more. If a car had the nerve to come by, they would move back or not.

This was in the 1970s and they were younger then than I am now.

One by one, the mamies have disappeared. The new generation have worked, traveled and dress in jeans, sweats and sometimes even business suits. They may have grandchildren but they will never be mamies like their mothers. 

Three of the old-style mamies remain.

One I don't see very often. When I do she uses a walker. One day, she told me who else had lived in these houses half of which are now occupied by French retirees or summer people from Czech, Norway, Germany, England, Scotland, Sweden and Ireland. Many from the Danish film/television community have summered here turning the area into Copenhagen south for a few weeks.

One house, she said, belonged to a family that earned their living by fishing for anchovies, a regional delicacy. Another man worked for SCNF and beat his wife. Her cries could be heard through open windows. And then there was the shrew who berated her husband, but when he died, she visited him every day in the cemetery crying and apologizing. The school teacher, she said, just died before I moved in. And her best friend Marie-Christine lived where the Swiss cellist now lives, but there was a German family before.

Madam F made sure my two blue pots bought in Spain for 5 Euros each are taken care when I'm away. More than once my pansies have been replaced by carnations or a plant whose name I don't know but will call pretty. She lost her husband this spring. For many years now an ambulance comes a couple times of week to take her for dialysis. Each time I return from a trip, I'm surprised she's still here.

Madam C no longer has her friends to chat with, but she sits on her stairs and knits. I have a pouch she made for me. When I visited the ABBA museum in Stockholm, I bought a kit for a hat like the one of the singers wore. After Madam C made it, she tried to give it to me, but I insisted she keep it. The sparkles sewn into the yarn sparkle in the sun when she heads for the green grocer.

When I was first in Argelès, I spoke almost no French. Now I'm functional but speak with a thick Bostonian accent or so I'm told by those in know, but these mamies speak Catalan, Spanish and French with an accent taught in no French language school. We may struggle but we find a way to understand.