"A supernatural force". That is what the American Kara Marlow felt when Marta Pérez crossed her in the virtual world in 2017 from Moreruela de Tábara, a small town in Zamorano that does not exceed 300 inhabitants. Marta was looking for an au-pair to teach her little Julia, three years old, in English. Kara, a gap year somewhere in the world before starting to study Literature. At Aupairworld.com, one of the biggest pages for au-pairs - young people who spend a season staying in foreign homes in exchange for tasks such as caring for children or teaching them languages -, the destination joined the director of the rural school in Tábara, in rural Spain, with a 19-year-old girl from Iowa.
"I had thought about China or Italy. But when I found Marta's profile I knew it was where I had to be," recalls Kara, now on the phone from her home in the United States. This young woman already had in mind spending time in a small town. "I really wanted to because what I wanted was to have space to reflect, write and paint. There I could do all that," he reflects. However, when he got to town, he couldn't help but be surprised. Despite the fact that Google had helped him get an idea of what Moreruela was like, the first thing that surprised him was the lack of children on the streets. In 2015, the town had already closed its school definitively due to a lack of students.
"In the United States, there are no such small municipalities, they all have several stores and at least 10,000 inhabitants," says Kara. On the other hand, in Spain, towns with less than 100 neighbors have increased in our country by 60% in two decades. Only in the province of Zamora, where Moreruela is located, there are more people in towns with less than 501 inhabitants than in the municipalities with between 5,000 and 10,000, according to the municipal register of the National Statistics Institute, with data corresponding to 2019. Among the thousands of consequences of depopulation, one of the most serious is the lack of young people who can ensure the future of these municipalities.
New Zealand's Ruby Rogers had a similar feeling to Kara's two years later, when Julia's younger brother Alberto had already been born. This 20-year-old girl came to Moreruela thanks to Lattitude Global Volunteering, an international organization that connects young volunteers with regional authorities. In the case of Castilla y León, more than 50 schools have language assistants thanks to this program. "What surprised me most was the difference with the New Zealand towns. There, the farmers and ranchers live outside the town and the rest inside. Here everyone lives together and shares a lot of hours on the street," says Ruby.
According to the latest statistics from Aupairworld.com, the page where Kara met Marta, who works with 22 destination countries and has 35,000 active au-pairs , Spain is the third country that receives the most au-pairs in Europe, behind from the UK and France. 80% of young people come from some European state and 8% do so from the United States. Although large cities such as Madrid, Barcelona or Seville continue to be the favorites, families in rural Spain also seek the language enrichment of their little ones.
The family that hosted both Kara and Ruby was a young couple who lived on the side of the country road. They had horses, goats, dogs, and chickens. From the beginning, both Marta and her husband, Luis, were employed in including these two young women in all the traditions of the town: the grape harvest, the festivities of San Miguel - the town's patron saint -, the summer nights on the streets, the slaughter. The latter especially impacted Kara: "It was hard to see, but I learned that there is a relationship with animals here that is very different from that of the United States. They take care of them with all the love in the world, even if they will later become food."
During the day, Kara spent the morning playing in English with little Julia. Ruby also did it when she finished her day at Tábara's school, which lasted no more than five hours a day. The rest of the time, they chatted with the few children left in the village. It was a mutual exchange: they told stories from their countries, they shared the legends of the people. "I learned a lot from the children. We had magical moments. Living in a Spanish town has taught me to take much more care of relationships," says Kara.
Little by little, they managed to win over the entire neighborhood. Although both were in town a couple of years apart, there was no one in Moreruela and the surrounding area who did not know who they were. "All the neighbors were very open from the beginning. Some of them even surprised how physically different they were," laughs Ruby, who is over 1.80 and has blond hair.
For Kara, the day to day was the same as in literary works such as El Camino de Delibes, one of the works she read in the United States before her trip to learn Spanish. Spain left an indelible mark on him that he now always reflects in his university work. There is a moment that this young woman especially remembers: Christmas. "There was nothing to do in town, people were always at home," he recalls. Because he missed his family, he proposed mixing American and Spanish traditions, starting with the classic natural spruce. "So we went to the field, picked up a few branches, tied them, and assembled our own tree. Then I cooked orange peels to decorate it. It is very typical of my American region," he explains.
Whenever Kara wants to return to Spain, she opens her diary. And then he remembers the first time he knew the meaning of depopulation. On one of his daily walks with little Julia, he found a woman collecting signatures to avoid projects for pig macro-farms in the region. The woman spoke to her about how they could end the town's resources and suffocate small and medium-sized livestock companies. "It made me very sad. I think that depopulation overwhelms me more than many Spaniards. I fell in love with life in the towns. I found love, I took away knowing how to live in a simpler way. Thanks to the towns I now like it cook, go to bed later, listen to Spanish music, "he confesses.
A great cultural contribution
David Redoli, a Zamorano sociologist, explains that the presence of au-pairs can be especially beneficial for children in rural Spain: "They open the window to a different world, which is normally difficult to open in towns due to their situation. The cultural contribution is extraordinary. "
Just over 400 kilometers from Moreruela de Tábara, in the Biscayan town of Iurreta, with no more than 4,000 inhabitants, the Italian Rosaria Bozza was taking care of the little Txomin, one year old, in the spring of 2017. "I chose the town It was not random. I did not have high expectations. I was going there on an adventure with the intention of getting to know Spain in a little more depth, "he explains. "It was much better than I expected. I had always heard it said that in the north of Spain they are colder, but this was not the case for me at all."
On weekdays, Rosaría would wake Txomin, eat breakfast, and take the child to kindergarten. After picking up the little one and eating, if it didn't rain, they went out to play in the neighborhood park. And on Thursdays in that town it was the Pintxo-pote , the day when the bars put their pintxos at a lower price and included the drink in the price. " The parents, the boy and I used to go out for pintxos . It was very nice because there were a lot of people on the street and they all knew each other. Every two meters someone would stop you to greet you," he recalls.
"A little before I left, I wanted to buy a book for a friend. I was struck by finding a bookstore about to close forever. I think that situation perfectly reflects the depopulation. Living life in a small town has forced me to change my way of dealing with things, to have much more patience for everything, "says Rosaria. "I live in love with Spain. At Easter we went out to see the processions in the area and I was amazed. In Italy we do not have these traditions. I remember it with great affection. So much so, that I do not even know how to explain it. piles to encourage the return of people from the city to the villages. "
At some point in the interviews for this report, all three have mentioned the same word: community. "In small groups, inclusion is easier because it is more sociologically important: if you have 10,000 people, fitting one does not have as much impact as it does in a group of 100, if only to make life easier for the group," explains Redoli. . For this reason Kara, Ruby and Rosaria remember the kindness of the neighbors as the most impressive thing of their trip.
Currently, the three au-pairs maintain contact with their Spanish families. Kara, for example, returned the following year to meet Alberto and is still playing with Julia by video call. All agree that what they have taken back home has not been so much rural customs as an important emotional souvenir. "I feel that my life in that Spain was not a journey, it was to create another life. We are all pilgrims in this world and we can all learn from it," reflects Kara. And he concludes: "We should take much more care of the peoples."
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