Who are we?
The history of this small village does not appear in history books or wikipedies, but it remains in the memory of those who have lived and cared for it for so many years.
My father tells me that he was born in 1930 at home, in the room where he would later sleep for so many years. Ca de Güí, this is the name that was (and still is) his house, the place where the whole history of Senet Rural is told.
He tells me that when he was a child he used to go to school just in front of his house. The current premises, which functions as a social and medical space, used to be a small classroom where about fifteen boys and girls of different ages shared class, teacher and knowledge. At that time, infancy was very short and adult life began very early. The age of 14 was the age to work.
He explains that the senetins and senetines were farmers and ranchers, but mainly they were woodcutters. They used to cut down trees in order to make taules and sell them on Sundays at the market in Pont de Suert. With the money they earned, they used to buy their own eggs there, because in Senet there was no shop to buy them, although they often went to the mill, which was just a kilometre from the village, where each house made its own bread, "...".i quin pa més bo mare feia!" recalls the avi proudly.
The rest of the days were dedicated to the care and grazing of the animals, except for a few special ones; they not only lived to work, but they also liked to celebrate from time to time! On Sundays, as was to be expected, they went to mass without fail, it was the meeting point with the whole village. They also celebrated the 17th of January, the feast of Sant Antoni, where each house used to raise its own beast in the same meadow. At Easter, the young people of the village would sing along the main street in exchange for the ears and botifarra (a kind of sausage) given to them by the people of the village as a token of their gratitude. The most important celebration, however, was on 24 June, Sant Joan, the town's main festival, when, after the falles, everyone went to the town square, La Serradora. On the same day they called the next year's majordom, who would be in charge of starting the ball. The last important festival of the year was the 16th of August, which they celebrated the day of Sant Roc and they would play a ball while the chord was being played. "Ens agradava molt ballar, ho fèiem tant com com com podíem", says the bird.
In one of these balls he met his grandmother, a young girl with seven brothers and sisters who, at just a few years old, had already experienced the misery of the post-war period first hand. She had been born in Nerill, a small village in the Ribagorçà region, but she soon moved to Senet to live with her father.
Casa Güí was large, had three floors and many rooms; it had a tradition of being the dormitory of many Galician and Andalusian workers who at that time built the ravine of the village and lived temporarily in the Pyrenees. Therefore, the wife would take over the relay and take care of the farmhouse while the father took care of the animals and worked at Enher. This was an ENDESA hydroelectric power station that began operating in the 1950s and provided work for many young men and women. Ca de Güí was not the only farmhouse in the village, there were two more: Casa Lluís and Casa Mossèn Joan. All three houses housed for twenty-two years the workers who were working on the construction of the old Viella tunnel. The situation led to the creation of a canteen to serve the workers, which is how Ca de Güí became the village bar. The aunt explains that in the morning, when the workers arrived, she had prepared for them "a pot of cigars with salad and everything she had in the fridge". Later on, when they were economically stable, the father and the mother's daughter had their mother, an only child who was brought up in the village until she was eight years old. With the rural exodus, mountain tourism was becoming more and more present for people who lived in the city and wanted a change of scenery, and over the years, the aunt already had her fixed and reliable clients. At the end of the 80s they sold their remaining livestock and tore down the cowshed and part of the barn that the aviary had built years ago and in that space they built some apartments, right next to the house, in order to be able to accommodate more people. The farmyard became the garage and part of the barn was converted into six apartments; the other part of the barn remained untouched, occupied by a few chickens and all the farmyard tools. .
These apartments, however, were only in use for a few years, because as they got older, all of them suffered the worst weather conditions in the village and so they decided to close them and leave the farmhouse to go and retire in the city, Lleida, where their daughter, my mother, lived. They say that childhood is sometimes longer than life. In my case, the summer was always longer than the rest of the school year. I spent it in Senet, with my mother, my father, my sister, my aunt and my son. The freedom that that village offered me (without having anything and at the same time having everything) was immense, every day I had many possibilities. I still remember when my aunt was working there and I was very young, the house was always crowded with people, both upstairs and downstairs. They would greet her and ask for her, they would say, Mrs. Maria. The parties they held there were almost longer than her stay. As time went by, the village became a breath of fresh air for the family and the house, a temple that the father and the mother, with a lot of effort, had built. In 2019 we had to take over the remaining part of the barn where the boy kept his clothes and so many records, we had to open it, as it did not comply with the regulations in force at the time. So, when we pulled it down, my father and I saw that it was a good opportunity to renovate the outside of the house and the six apartments that had been practically intact since our grandmother had had them built, in order to give life to what our parents had created and imagined one day. Thanks to the work of many people (architects, workers, managers, designers...) in 2022 we started this exciting project: rural apartments for all those who want to enjoy the Pyrenees and get to know the village of Senet. We do it with great enthusiasm and esteem, that's why we wanted to share what it means to us. At the moment, the boy is 41 years old and the girl is 81 years old and they continue to live in Lleida in good health. This year they have wanted to go to the village to see how part of Ca de Güí becomes Senet Rural. Andrea, May 2022
Els Nostres Apartaments
