* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
I have captured this series of photographs for La Vanguardia's Readers' Photos in a roundtable in Calaf, in the Anoia region. The morning fog can be seen, with a reminder to the miners in the area.
This sculpture paying tribute to mining is located in the Bertran i Morros square. It represents a road along which a miner and a mule circulate loading a wagon with coal. It was inaugurated on the occasion of Saint Barbara, patron saint of miners.
In recent years, Calaf has been carrying out several events to recover historical memory and dignify the mining past of the Alta Segarra basin. The sculpture was designed and made by Metalúrgica Busquet.
The images have inspired me to write this story, in Catalan, which reminds me of a miner from Torà when he told little things about the mine.
Pau leaves the house, his mother and sister are also gone. The sister gives her the basket, which weighed more than her, in which she has breakfast and lunch boxes and a bottle of water. The men who work with him wear a boot of wine. But the mother does not give it to him because she says that he is too young. She doesn't know that her classmates let her have a drink.
It's cold today, this damn fog. Once everything is ready, he takes the sumera, which he has already attached to the cart, and goes to work. He knows that, when he leaves, the mother and sister, if they don't cry a little or not. Father left for work one morning and never came back.
But if I'm the one who transports the coal, the men made and remade, they are the ones who put themselves in those galleries, which there are that have to snake to get in. And they are breathing that atmosphere all the time. All their bones hurt and most of them also smoke.
They already see reaching Peace, it's automatic. They all start playing pranks on him, they all want him as their son. The foreman says it's time to start, all the faces change, they take their tools and head inside. Most of them must be praying; yes, after a while, they get animated again.
The foreman comes out, all upset, there's been an accident, they need help. All who were outside run inside; Pau, too.
Suddenly, an explosion... Silence... A person crawls out of the smoke... And at the entrance to the mine he is unconscious. It turns out that when the rescue group enters, they realize that Peace is there. They send him out in a bad way. This saved his life!
