Planting trees

Since I’ve been living in South Africa we have been going back to the Canary Islands every couple of years. I grew up on the island of Gran Canaria, my parents still live there and my sister and her family are based in Tenerife. It was my father’s idea to bring us back home for Christmas when the boys were little, he insisted upon it. He said this was important for the family, memories are made, relationships built and traditions kept. I hadn’t appreciated his foresight initially, but as time went by I realised how important this was.

The boys spent time with their cousins, they immersed themselves in the Spanish culture, the language, the wide variety of food. We would congregate at my parents’ house, often 17 people squeezed into their old renovated farmhouse. Enough space for all of us. The kitchen abuzz, food being prepared at all hours of the day, we ate like kings. Outings were an impossible task, but the trick was to delegate, work as a team. We would eventually pack ourselves into a bus and a car, waving frantically out the window as we left down the dirt road on the way to the beach or the mountains. A little respite for my parents as we took off for the day.

The boys and cousins are all grown up now. We come back in dribs and drabs. Everyone has an agenda and it’s hard to coordinate a growing family spread all over the world, especially at Christmas time. Our last few visits have been during the summer time. This has come with a whole new energy.

Years ago my father set his mind to buying a derelict farmhouse with some land surrounding it. The family who owned it previously had divided the land into sections. The section my father bought had the rights to renovate the farmhouse, but the two other sections of land were green belt with no permission to farm or build any kind of dwelling. My father had no need to buy these two pieces of land, no body would ever be able to build on it even if they were sold off. But something happened a couple of years ago that rocked the boat and my father decided it was time to buy all 4.7 hectares of green belt land. And so a whole new project began.

When my father has a plan in his head, it’s very specific. He will listen to any amount of advice, be enthusiastic with suggestions, but ultimately he has a clear picture in his mind of what he wants. My mother and the 3 of us have gone along mostly wholeheartedly. More often than not manual labour is involved and as girls growing up we were expected to just get on with it. The joy was knowing that we were working towards building something that would benefit us all.

My father’s newest project is to clear the newly acquired land of alien cacti and plant indigenous trees and shrubs in its place. Last year we helped clear cacti, this year, a lot of cacti has been cleared thanks to friends and family and a man named Floro. This summer we planted trees. 6 trees in total. Each member of the family will plant a tree eventually, I planted mine less than a week ago. An almáziga, a tree native to the island. It overlooks the valley. A short distance away is Alexander’s tree and then Greg’s, and up the hill is Julia’s.

The work force