Camiños da auga, Lavadoiros

Starting point of the route: Rúa das Galeras, Espiño laundry public space
[3/7155]

They, the laundresses, are always carrying the laundry basket on their heads, they are the ladies of wind, water, soap, bleaching, sun and whiteness but they are also always coping with cold, fog, humidity, flu and rheumatism. The fields next to the rivers Sar and Sarela, the fountains and the lavoirs keep their songs, whispers and conversations. There, in the water they left dirt and when they bleached and dried the clothes, everything was whiteness and light. After getting ironed, clothes got back home reflecting the hard work involved, which is hardly ever neither acknowledged nor paid. The laundresses took “leftovers” from their homes to feed the animals of the farmhouses in a symbiosis that exposed the rural and the urban world in the same territory, Compostela, which always needed cleaning, hygiene and clean clothes to use again.

Encarna Oteno
Historian