The final scene of Madison Bridges There was so much narrative force that the dialogue between the protagonists did not need words, but frightening looks in the rain, a thread and tears that came out from where the tongue could not know. The initial strength of Iowa’s covered bridges was remarkable, but unstable and doubtful. Constant maintenance and rehabilitation requirements. I woke up with them visiting the two surviving teawood bridges in the municipality of Garafía, northwest of the island of La Palma, and thinking of Robert J. Waller, author of the novel Madison County Bridgeswho took the Roseman Bridge as a metaphor for indecision, and I say to think that, if the center took place in Palma, the end would be different, because the tea stands out from the rest of the other pine forests, above all by its enormous resistance.
The Carmona Ravine Bridge and the Los Hombres Bridge were designed by the engineer César Peraza Oramas in 1958. For their construction, the carpenter Esteban Pérez used tea wood from Garafía. The fortress of both allowed the circulation of vehicles such as guaguas (determinants for going to school) or trucks (determinants for distributing food) which provided service to the animals for decades. Its conservation helps to remember the struggle of the inhabitants of the north of the island against one of the most abrupt and accidental orographies of the Canary Islands. The open sky challenges the abyss supported by the strength of unbreakable wood, obtained from old trees that have sometimes survived fires. Local historical heritage, they are the silent testimonies of a time when to find (or separate) pastors and villages had to cross ravines to move from isolation to connection, from oblivion to memory.
The architect Félix Rodríguez de la Cruz explains to me that “tea is the heart of the canary pin. Since the dawn of the 16th century, the forestry use of this pin has been fundamental both for the creation of utensils and furniture (precious objects, tiseras, boards, suelos,…). All the mills were made from tea. In our homes, however, we have tea chests (like tea chests). trunks) in which clothes, grains and past memories were kept… Until the 18th century, the houses were built exclusively with this local wood, the necessity superimposed on the obvious damage caused to the pinar forests by the importation of other woods such as Riga pine”.
Félix says that the castellans who arrived in the post-primary years of the 15th century saw the possibility of obtaining resin from these pins, which was used to caulk boats, as well as alquitrán. “There are remnants of horns in the northwest, very heavy use that is retreating considerably into the pine forests. The tea is tough, there is no rot that bites, it is powerfully tough.” I observe the incredible health of the tea counters on the maritime avenue of Santa Cruz de la Palma and I sympathize with this emblematic wood of a magnificent island. I ask the expression “it burns like tea” and am told that it burns easily because “its resin is combustible”. When I think of Clint Eastwood on the bridge offering flowers to Meryl Streep for a glass of tea, José Val del Omar comes to mind: “He who loves burns, and he who burns flies at the speed of light.”
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