One of my uncles has led an improbably fantastical life: he speaks with a heavy German accent he acquired as a government-employed member of a biker gang; he lived in a seaside cave on a remote island; he starts each morning with a few chopped raw garlic cloves in his cocoa puffs. To be fair, his parents (my grandparents) were originals themselves, though more amenable to social norms. Phil's first big step into, for lack of a better term, an alternative lifestyle, dates to age 16. To avoid prison after a felony conviction, he served in the army during Vietnam. I don't know all the details, but he re-enlisted and was recruited for some special projects, which resulted in him riding his motorcycle into the former Yugoslavia, often with alarmingly young girlfriends.
At some point he visited the Canary Islands for R&R. He met my aunt Maija, a Finnish lab manager, and they decided to live alongside some hippies on the beach in Gomera. They gradually remodeled a ruined goat shed into an incredibly homey and charming place to live. For years they've encouraged me to visit, so I finally did.
I'm an avowed lover of winter and snow, but this was subtropical PARADISE! Black sand beaches, cactus and coconut trees, eponymous canaries, and tons of hiking trails. Phil and Maija picked me up from the ferry and we drove up along jagged ravines, through rainforest, and back down to the sunny but savage north coast.
Maija is super sharp and fluent in at least five languages, with a sort of Eastern European accent to my ears. To my delight she calls me "Cly-ray," complimented me on my minimal luggage and being "organitzated," and explained quirks of the plumbing and where to put "shit paper." She is quite a talker, and wherever we went she chatted up friends and strangers, welcomed hitchhikers, told me the history of families and farms and the numbers of goats and chickens each had, descended into reveries of grape harvests past and saints' day fiestas and journeys over the steep rocky hills with her favorite donkey and her youngest son running over the mountain to get to school... The river of stories flowed, branching into innumerable side streams, pouring forth ceaselessly with undiminished effluence.
My most notable culinary discovery on Gomera was palm syrup -- similar to molasses, it sweetened my oatmeal and tea, and deliciously caramelized onions with grilled squid. But the most memorable food was a basic, dry little cookie: we ate quite a few while drinking generous amounts of wine with the neighbors, celebrating Maija's birthday. We sang a few songs, Maija started to dance and almost jumped on the table; a strong warm wind blew scented with salt from the breakers a thousand feet below. I grabbed another cookie for my evening walk with the dog up along the village terraces, under a full moon, already planning my next visit.
