Fataga and the city council pay tribute to women of the town

The first edition of the Rural Women's Fair, which will be held this Saturday in Fataga, from 10:00 a.m. to 15:00 p.m., will host a tribute to five retired women whose social and economic entrepreneurship has contributed greatly to the formation of society. current fataguera.

 

 

 

 

 

Organized by the Department of Culture of the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council, directed by the second deputy mayor Elena Álamo Vega, and coordinated by the elected councilor Esther Delgado, this tribute will fall to the vital figures of Caridad Moreno Artiles (93 years old), María of Pilar Moreno Falcón (92 years old), María Teresa Reyes López (90 years old), María del Rosario López Reyes (77 years old) and Clara María Cabeza González (71 years old). The Fataga Neighborhood Association collaborates in the event.

 

Caridad Moreno Artiles is Fataga's grandmother. She was born in the town on April 8, 1931. At the age of 19 she emigrated to the tomato harvest following the girlfriend of her brother Serafín. She worked for a year in Juliano Bonny's packaging warehouse in Era del Verdugo, and another three years in Don Bruno's warehouse, where she shared a room with her friend Frasquita, also a fataguera and now deceased.

 

 

In 1964 she married Carlos Vera Vera, a native of Arteara, and had two children: Margarita and Juan Carlos. Her husband died after four years of marriage. They had lived at 23 La Corte Street. When her mother (Anita Moreno Artiles) fell ill, Caridad moved to 32 on the same street to take care of her. And there she continues to live. Her house was always and continues to be a stopping point for all the Fatagueros who necessarily passed through there on their way to agricultural work in the Los Llanos de Fataga area. It was there where she met her husband, who had some rented land.

 

Caridad is saddened that many farms in the town are now abandoned. She believes that it is due to the lack of water, because the lands are mostly cared for by older people who can no longer handle everything. “Young people don't want to know about the land because it doesn't provide a lot of work, and because they find it easier elsewhere,” she says.

 

He recognizes that his life has not been easy. “I have been through a lot and I have suffered a lot. I didn't have a very pleasant youth,” she says, and admits that she loves fruit, especially apricots, and eating French fries with fried eggs.

 

María del Pilar Moreno Falcón, known as Pili and also as Pilita, was born in Fataga on February 29, 1932. Her parents were Bernardo Moreno Alemán and Pilar Falcón. When she was little and young, she worked with her father in the family banana plantations in the La Pista area, in the Fataga ravine, and even before getting married she also helped him in the masonry tasks that he masterfully carried out. “She helped him transport the construction materials, especially the floors that were placed in the Church and in many homes in the town,” she remembers. She also helped her uncle Manolo with the grinding work at the Fataga Mill, of which he was in charge.

 

 

Pili married Sixto García Franco at the age of 28 in 1961, and they went to live on María del Pilar Street, the name of her husband's mother and the town's midwife, where she still lives today. Already independent and with her own family, she helped her husband with domestic agricultural work. She remembers that they picked prickly pears, apricots, figs and almonds to sell at the market in Las Palmas. She also helped her husband in the work of slaughtering animals, a job in which she participated by selling and distributing meat to neighbors. When her husband became a Local Police Officer, one of the first in the municipality, she continued to take care of the house and take care of her family lands. 

 

Pilita had four children: Humberto, Alejandro, Octavio and Raquel. She was widowed in 1992. She loves stews and prickly pears. She continues to help when it comes to making food, and she dedicates her free time to doing crossword puzzles and word searches, a task that gives her peace of mind and that she usually does at the half-open door of her house when she is not doing anything. cold. 

 

María Teresa Reyes López (Tere) was also born in Fataga. She did it on February 16, 1934. Her parents were Carmen Vera López and Jacinto Reyes Alemán. Her first profession, at the age of 15, was also packaging tomatoes in Vecindario. Her marriage to Manuel Pérez Melián, born in Taidía and raised in Carrizal, gave her four children; Manolo, Jacinta, Miguel (who died at the age of 18) and Sonia.

 

 

Tere and Manuel set up a small oil and vinegar store in Fataga, and later the El Labrador restaurant and a craft store. He set up the store because he made drafts and on a trip to the Port of Las Palmas he saw that he could do business with them. She bought them there and brought them to Fataga.

 

María Teresa was widowed in 2004. She has lived in Arinaga with her two daughters for 6 years. She made it obligatory, because she declares herself in love with Fataga. One of her main phrases is “don't forget your roots.” She remembers that her main dish, watercress stew, was the star of the meals she made in El Labrador.

 

María del Rosario López Reyes was born in the Ingenio de Santa Lucía on September 16, 1947. In her parents' store she met her husband, the fataguero Antonio Vera López. The couple has three children: José Francisco, Marco Antonio and Fátima del Carmen.

 

 

After the wedding, María del Rosario and Antonio began life in Fataga. They set up Bar Los Giles together, which last Tuesday celebrated 42 years of opening and operation, and three months later they launched the town's current gas station. To buy the lot from Antoñito García and start both businesses, the couple pledged loans from La Caja de Ahorros. She worked at the Los Giles bar all her life, until she decided to retire at the same time as her husband.

 

Clara María Cabeza González, daughter of the fatagueros Santiago Cabeza García and Felisa González García) was born in Piletas (Aguimes) in September 1953. In the town she is known as Clarita. She worked as a tomato packer for 10 years in the Juliano Bonny warehouse, in Cruce de Arinaga, until she married fellow fataguero Ángel Mejías García in 1974, with whom she had three children: Álvaro, Moisés and Aníbal .

 

 

 

Clarita has been a member of the Fataga Neighborhood Association “since it was founded 50 years ago,” she says. There is no social, cultural, religious or festive event that is celebrated in the town in which she does not participate. She collaborates in any event organized in Fataga. She is currently in charge of cleaning the Church.

 

She was an artisan. She learned to make Canarian drafts in Aguimes, and as such she was a member of Fedac until approximately four years ago. She is currently a housewife and dedicates herself body and soul to maintaining the fields of orange trees, olive trees, lemon trees, grapevines and a few apricot trees that still remain. She sadly says that she has not planted vegetables because there is no water.

 

Every day she walks three or four kilometers with some friends, and dedicates part of her free time to playing the timple, in the folklore classroom of the Municipal Music School, whose classes she attends in Fataga and Tunte.