My grandmother Conxa
Last week, our English teacher told us to
write a biography of one of our grandparents. I have three grandparents alive:
Conxa, my father’s mother; Pau, my mother’s father and Rosa, which is not
genetically part of my family (she was my babysitter when I was a little kid
because it was holiday in the kindergarten but it wasn’t for my parents) but,
despite this, I have always considered her my grandmother, so I have had
three grannies!
I didn’t know which grandparent to write about
until today when I’ve decided to write my grandma Conxa’s biography because my
dad was talking with her by phone so I’ve seized the opportunity to interview
her. She has told me that she only remembers few things about her past but I
think it’ll be enough. Let’s check it!
It was on 27 March 1935 in a rural house of
the remote village of Alcanar where Conxa was born in. She went to school for
first time when she was five in a strictly religious nunnery. By the time she
was eight, she received communion and, after that, she received the catholic
confirmation (she was the latest of her class to receive both of them).
Later, she moved to another religious school
near the village library. That time, the school was so different from now,
the boys and the girls studied in different schools, and a boy and a girl
couldn’t talk to each other. One day, Conxa looked at a boy* (which after would
become her boyfriend) and one of her classmates tattled it to the teacher. My
grandmother was physically punished for it!
Furthermore they (my grandma and her
classmates) didn’t do exams (what a happy life!), and the teacher organized
them with the most intelligent girl on the front of the class and the “less
intelligent” one on the back. She was in the second position but it was because
she cheated on the most intelligent girl.
Although they didn’t do exams, every year an
inspector went to check students’ skills. My grandmother only studied one point
from the entire book which they had to study. Luckily for her, the inspector
only asked her the question she had studied and she was awarded as the most
intelligent girl in the school. She was really a luckily girl!
By the age of fourteen, Conxa definitely left
school. No sooner had she left school than she started sewing for 10 pesetas a
month. For the first time, she saw men entering to the dressmaker’s store. This
year (1949), she had, at least, three boyfriends: Joaquim, Francesc and Eliseu.
A morning she was working very hard, a young boy of 16 years called Juanito
entered to the store with comics (tebeos).
Conxa just looked at him, and she immediately remembered the day she saw him in
the school. Conxa fell in love again, but this time it was different from the
other boyfriends she had had, she saw him as her fate.
Then, when Conxa was fifteen, she was still
dating with Joaquim because although she loved Juanito, she had never seen him
again since the day he entered in the store. On Easter’s day, Conxa went with
her friends and Joaquim to the Our Lady of Remei’s mountain (the symbolic
mountain of Alcanar) to have lunch. This day, Conxa argued with Joaquim. My
grandma was desolated and she was walking alone in the arid mountain when
suddenly a young boy riding a bike bumped into her. As soon as Conxa saw him,
she realized this boy was Juanito. For the first time in their parallel life
they talked to each other. Juanito asked her: -“Why are you crying?” and Conxa
explained the truth to Juanito. He comforted my grandmother and he invited her
to get on the bike with him. Then, they sat in the street and they talked for a
while.
But Juanito had to go to work in the country in winter and he had to go dancing to Vinaròs or Sant Carles de la Ràpita on
summer. Conxa, once again, was alone. She tried to have fun going to the
bullring. There was a sad day when she was eighteen, that she went to the
bullring and the entire scaffold (there was a kind of scaffold) fell on her.
Soon after that, Juanito arrived, rescued her and called the doctor. She was so
wounded that her family was already crying for her death but, fortunately, she
could save her life.
After that, Juanito spent more time with her
and even he went to talk with Conxa’s parents to buy her love. Conxa’s parents
didn’t like Juanito but, after weeks of long talks they accepted the marriage.
They get married in 1964 and Juanito started working as Alcanar’s gas station
owner. Besides, they were winning enough money to raise children. So, in 1966
my father, Joan Ramon, was born and in 1973 my uncle, Jesús Josep, was born (in
1969 another boy was born but he died at birth).
This is all the life he has explained me. It’s
an amazing life, isn’t it? Now she lives alone (Juanito died in 2014) but she’s
happy and proud of all what she has achieved because for her there’s anything
else important in the life but family. She’s grateful to God we all live
wealthy and happy and she wishes us a bright future and, if it’s possible, a
free nation.
Genís Fibla i Costa
1BTX A
