Report from the red zone: the struggles continue in Carboneras

And in all of Almería (the province). I just learned the other day that Almería was the last province to surrender to Franco's forces, 31 March 1939 -- two days after Jaén and 3 days after Madrid. It was not until Almería surrendered that the war was over. Except, it wasn't really over, merely interrupted for 36 years.

I'll have much more to say about this after I've had a chance to digest lots of new information and time to write it up in something clearer than my cramped notes. Besides the splendid little library of Carboneras (whose computer I'm using at this moment), there are all the splendid people, and the less splendid but nevertheless very interesting people, that I've been interviewing, in my quest to understand how Andalucía in general, and Carboneras and environs in particular, got so red (anarchists, socialists, communists). And of course there's snorkeling and trying to negotiate our way through the local bureaucracy (we're trying to build a house here). I'm getting deeply suntanned, mostly on my back -- because I spend almost all my water-time face down, watching all the bright-colored fish and seeking out the wonderful octopuses (octopoi? Is that the Greek plural?) in their reef caves. More later on the reds, both home-grown and the many who've come through or settled here from distant places.