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Nispero nemesis
Linda Hall
WHEN some Costa Blanca areas were still rural, families with a terrace or two of nispero trees looked forward to the extra income they promised once spring arrived.
Nisperos are an annual crop but the trees need a lot of year round love and attention, requiring pruning, fumigating, irrigating and composting which cost time and money. That was why small scale growers would get their earliest nisperos picked and packed as soon as possible, to get the best prices.
Everyone pitched in, from greatgrandparents to the youngest child who could be trusted to handle the fruit with care but that was decades ago. Except for the elderly smallholders themselves, most people now have more pressing concerns that have nothing to do with the land. Nor do parents want their children to miss school during the nispero season.
What happens when noone lends a hand? If you belong to a cooperative, people can come along and do it for you, which was what recently widowed Paquita did not long before I left the Costa Blanca.
One day I was surprised to see her 20 or so nispreros being felled but soon learnt why, because the news shot round the neighbourhood like a runaway horse.
The co operative’s cheque for the previous season’s produce had arrived by post a few days earlier and once the day labourers’ pay and other extras were deducted she received €2.50.
In sorrow and high dudgeon she went to the cooperative, demanding cash because she said the cheque wasn’t worth putting in the bank. Then she went home and arranged to get rid of the trees, which must have cost much more than €2.50.
But as she pointed out, she had enough firewood to see her through the winter and if she wanted nisperos she’d buy them at the supermarket.
It’s the saddest epitaph I can think of for the demise of rural life on the Costa Blanca, but I can’t think of one that’s more fitting.
