Carlos, 'el canario', sculptor of sand figures and homeless person who died on March 6 in the street in a photo from February 2012.kiki
Juan Carlos Bacalleda was there making dolphins with the sand of the Victoria beach long before Cádiz was what it is today.
Before Rafael Torres launched himself to help homeless people like him: "When I started volunteering, I was already on the beach."
Also long before Susi worked in the restaurant from which she saw him every day.
But last Monday, when Cádiz woke up, Bacalleda was no longer there.
He woke up dead a few steps from his last dolphin, half collapsed, perhaps because he left it halfway or because the rain that morning began to undo it.
And half of Cádiz, already fond of that ephemeral sculptor from the Canary Islands who came to the city for an unknown reason 20 years ago,
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Bacalleda was born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife 56 years ago and settled in Cádiz approximately two decades ago, after spending time in Málaga.
That is how unclear it was that those who came to chat with him for years down the road to Victoria beach —right in front of the homonymous apartment building— which he turned into his house.
“The exact reason for coming here we don't know because he told us various versions.
They all agreed that he was a free soul and that he could not be indoors," explains Torres.
The volunteer began collaborating 17 years ago with the Calor en la noche association, dedicated to providing care to the homeless, and during that time he became intimate with Bacalleda, to the point that the entity became his family gaditana
“The street makes a dent, you create bonds.
In the end, you get to know the person."
Juan Carlos
El Canario
or
El Chicharrero
, as he was known in the neighborhood, spent his days making sand sculptures of dolphins, which he adorned with eye plugs or other repurposed objects.
"They were always dolphins, we joked with him about it," says the volunteer.
His creations became one more element of the area's beach landscape, to the point that they appear in snapshots captured and uploaded to social networks such as Twitter over the years.
A few steps from his sand figures, he lived on the same sand, sheltered only by a couple of umbrellas.
He only changed places on stormy days when he took shelter under some nearby arcades.
“He was a lonely man, he never asked and only talked if you talked to him.
I made friends with him by going down to take my dog out and giving her for breakfast”, explains Francisco Rodríguez,
But, when he was given a talk, Bacalleda was encouraged "to tell jokes and sayings", as Carmen, a waitress at the Arte Serrano restaurant, remembers, the same business in which the young Susi works, accustomed since she was a child "to seeing him there with his figures ”.
She “she had a very affable character, humor.
He encouraged us by telling poems and jokes, playing the clown”, adds Torres.
But the volunteer acknowledges that "his sense of humor was a shell" that protected him from hard life on the street and from health problems - he suffered from epileptic seizures - and that he dragged along.
The neighbors knew them well.
In addition to the heat at night, Juan Carlos did not lack help from nearby residents "to bring him food or accompany him to the doctor," as the concierge of a nearby building, Marcos Torres, recalls.
Photo of one of the sand dolphins taken by Carlos in 2018 and shared on the profile of the Environmental Agents of the Junta de Andalucía on Twitter.JJ Aniceto
One of those setbacks that he hid with jokes was the one that, in 2016, led Torres and Calor at night to pay him and organize a trip to his native island to see his sick mother, who ended up passing away a year later.
I picked it up on the beach.
He was super nervous, so much so that he hid because at the last minute he didn't want to go.
I guess it was the fear of facing the family.
In the end he got on the boat.
When he returned, he told us that he had had a terrible time because he was drowning on the roof, it was also difficult for him to sleep at his family's house, ”Torres details.
It was during this journey that the association came into contact with Carlos's sister.
They even came to think that the sculptor "would not return to Cádiz".
But he returned to his usual place, where years later he has ended up dying of causes still unknown.
Bacalleda was found lifeless at dawn on Monday, March 6, in the midst of the rain with which Cádiz woke up that day.
Her death, despite having no indications of violence, according to the National Police, has triggered an investigation by the court on duty.
The family in the Canary Islands found out the news within a few hours.
“The sister called us to thank us for the attention we have given her all these years,” explains Torres, once again moved, aware of the implicit suffering suffered by relatives of the homeless.
EL PAÍS has tried to contact the family through the association, but has not received a response.
Meanwhile, in Cádiz, the duel for Juan Carlos continues.
Two tribute concentrations have already been held in his honor and the place where he lived looked this past Tuesday with six bouquets of flowers.
In the one this past Thursday, organized by the Association for Human Rights, the conveners cried out in their manifesto because "these people are not part of the landscape."
His death has even reached the political agenda, given the debate that arose as to whether his death on the street could have been prevented, the second so far this year, after another 52-year-old man died in the streets of the city in January. center.
“He has been a very loved person.
We have helped him up to where he has left himself, but he did not consent to a roof, he wanted the stars.
He has gone as he wished.
I know that even neighbors who have offered him a house ”,
explained this past Wednesday the Councilor for Social Affairs at the Cádiz City Council, Helena Fernández.
The Consistory has already advanced that it will take charge of the burial of Bacalleda's remains, once the judge authorizes it.
Fernández assures that his council even tried to get Juan Carlos to move to the emergency facilities set up in a municipal building during the confinement, but "he did not want to".
Torres confirms this point and appreciates the progress made in recent years by the City Council in caring for the homeless.
In fact, the institution has set up a day center that has been added to the existing shelter, modified municipal regulations to allow street registration —essential to access services such as the doctor— and prepares an annual census of homeless people. .
But Torres believes that there are still "many things to do" to address the problems that affect the hundreds of people who live on the streets, the majority of whom are men between the ages of 45 and 65, according to the figure that remains stable in the municipal censuses. .
“The change is evident.
Now there are more services for them, the City Council has a street team and works in a network with associations like ours.
We know it's a complicated group, but there are policies that still need to be changed.
The bureaucracy is deadly for them”, details the volunteer.
The intermittent chirimiri chills to the bone on the late night of last Tuesday.
In just half an hour, more than ten people stand before the makeshift altar of flowers.
In the sand, a white rose reminds him, there is no longer a trace of Carlos, the canary.
"The same morning he died, they threw his things and flattened the sand," complains Miguel, also a waiter at Arte Serrano.
María José, a neighbor of the area, stops her sports walk at the height of the flowers.
She looks at them and recalls how in confinement Carlos the canary "was the only one who followed" on the beach.
"If you are going to write about him, remember him as someone who was free," recommends the woman from Cádiz, before continuing her march.
Operators and agents inspect Carlos' belongings, after his death this past Monday.kiki
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