Who are we?
The history of this small village does not appear in history books, but it remains in the memory of those who have lived and cared for it for so many years.
My grandfather explains 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 reigned (and still reigns) in his house, the place where the whole history of Senet Rural starts.
When he was a child, my grandpa used to go to school right 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 moment where adult life began.
He explains to me that the Senetinos were farmers and ranchers, but mainly, they were carpenters. They dedicated themselves to cutting down trees to make tables and sell them on Fridays at the Pont de Suert market. With what they earned, they took the opportunity to buy groceries right there because there was no establishment in Senet where they could stock up, although they often went to the mill that was located a little less than a kilometer from the town and there each house made its own bread, «and what better bread made mom!» remembers the grandfather proudly.
The rest of the days were dedicated to curing and grazing the cattle, except for some special ones; not only did they live to work, from time to time they also really liked to celebrate! On Sundays, as expected, they went to mass without fail, it was the meeting point with the whole town. They also celebrated the festival of Sant Antoni, on January 17, where each house showed off its cattle in the same meadow. At Easter the youth of the town dedicated themselves to singing along the main street in exchange for eggs and black pudding that the townspeople gave them as a token of gratitude. The most important celebration, however, was that of June 24, San Juan, the town’s biggest festival in which, after the descent of the fallas, everyone danced in the town square, La Serradora. That same day they appointed the butler for the following year, who would be in charge of starting the dance. The last relevant festival of the year was that of August 16, which celebrated the day of Sant Roc and danced a paso doble while the accordion played. «We liked to dance a lot, we did it as much as we could,» says the grandfather.
At one of these dances, he met his grandmother, a young girl with seven siblings who, ever since she was a child, had lived closely with post-war misery. She was born in Nerill, a small Ribagorzano town, but she soon settled in Senet to live with her grandpa.
Ca de Güí was big, it had three floors and many rooms; It had a tradition of being the bedroom of many Galician and Andalusian workers who in those days built the town's ravine and temporarily inhabited the Pyrenees. The grandmother, then, took over and took care of the house and the guests while the grandfather took care of the cattle and worked at Enher, an ENDESA hydroelectric plant that began operating in the 1950s and gave work to many Senetinos and senetines. Ca de Güí was not the only country house in the town, there were two more: Casa Lluís and Casa Mossèn Joan. The three houses housed the workers who were dedicated to the construction of the old Viella tunnel for twenty-two years. Then, the house saw the opportunity to offer canteen service to serve those workers and that is how Casa Güí became the town's bar. Grandma explains to me that at noon, when the workers arrived, she had prepared for them "a stew of chickpeas with bacon and everything else she found in the fridge." Later, when they already enjoyed economic stability, the grandfather and grandmother had a mother, an only child raised in the town until she was eighteen. With the rural exodus, mountain tourism was increasingly present for people who lived in the city and wanted a change of scenery and over the years, the grandmother already had her regular and trustworthy clients. At the end of the 1970s they sold the cattle they had left and demolished the cow pen and part of the barn that the grandfather had built years ago; in that space they built some apartments, right next to the house, to accommodate more people. The farmyard became a garage and part of the barn was converted into six apartments; the other part of the barn remained intact, occupied by a few chickens and all the granny's farm tools.
They say that childhood is sometimes longer than life. In my case, the summer was always longer than the rest of the year. I spent it in Senet, with my mother, my father, my sister, the granny and the granny. The freedom that that town offered me (having nothing and at the same time having everything) was immense, every day I had many possibilities. I still remember when my grandmother worked and I was very small, the house was always full of people, upstairs and downstairs. They greeted and asked for her, Mrs. Maria, they called her. The talks they had with her were almost longer than her stay. Some of these six apartments were in operation for a few years, but with age, the two could withstand the weather conditions of the town worse and so they decided to close them and also leave the country house they lived in to retire in the city, Lleida. , where his daughter lived, my mother. Over time, the town became a breath of fresh air for the family and the house, a temple that the grandfather and grandmother, with much effort and love, had built. In 2019 we had to say goodbye to the remaining part of the barn where grandfather kept the tools and so many memories, we had to take it down. So it was that by overthrowing it, my father and I saw that it was a good opportunity to rehabilitate the exterior garden of the house and the six apartments that were practically intact since the grandmother had built them, in order to give life to what a day our grandparents had created and imagined. Thanks to the work of many people (architects, workers, managers, designers...) this 2022 we started this family project: rural apartments for all those who want to enjoy the Pyrenees and get to know the town of Senet. We do it with great enthusiasm and appreciation, that's why we wanted to share what it means to us. Andrew, September 2022
Our Apartments
