Seventy years ago, in the harsh winter of 1939, [Madame Genis'] family were among half a million Spanish refugees who poured across the French border.
They were fleeing the firing squads after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War.
Initially interned in camps, the refugees eventually settled, finding jobs in farming or the vineyards. Their Catalan work ethic blended in with French rural traditions of self-sufficiency.
The remoteness of the Pyrenees has attracted other settlers too.
After the social upheavals of 1968, many hippies abandoned the big cities and came here, bucking the trend for people to leave the land.
They scratch a living from their scruffy farmsteads, and keep up the tradition of neighbour helping neighbour.
Last autumn, on the day that Lehmann Brothers collapsed, my neighbours Henrique and Gianno appeared on the doorstep, armed with chainsaw and rope.
They offered to cut down some dead trees in the garden if they could keep the wood in exchange.
The reality of this simple transaction was in sharp contrast to the unreality of the virtual fortunes, vanishing like smoke across the world's capital cities.
Matt and I were just chatting about this on yesterday's evening walk. We feel so much calmer here, and not only because of the fresh country air. We are currently unemployed. If we were lacking work at home, the media frenzy over the failed economy would have our anxieties running high. Here, we have to go out of our way (about an hour's drive) to find a recognizable newspaper. In fact, I find myself a little crazy to be checking the online versions of the papers at all.
That is not to say the community here is immune to financial woes. Some people in this village are trying to retire -- but cannot find someone to buy the farms that have been in their family for generations. The community buys the goods because they are what's available, in addition to the fact that it has been buying them for years. But without the founding family standing behind the farm, there is really no way to keep it afloat. The cost of renting the land and the equipment would equal, if not exceed, the net profit. Perhaps with an overhaul of pre-existing marketing plans (or, as the French are lagging behind, even an introduction of contemporary marketing schema) could turn this position around.
