Martin. (june 2005)

..after the training session I decided to wander around the small town of St Gaudens for a while. It’s a small city which is an hour’s drive from Toulouse. It was my second day of training and I was all excited to be in France for the first time. Anyway.. I ended up near a church where there was a lot of singing and few cultural activities going on, so I hung around for a while and had coffee at a near by café, and enjoyed watching people moving about. I was feeling very relaxed. Then I decided to head back to the hotel we are put up. On the way back through one of the narrow streets I heard live music.. some one was singing stairway to heaven. Oooh.. I love that song so I decided to find out who/where etc.. and ended up at a closed shop with a street singer seated in front of it humming away and strumming his guitar. He had a cap in front of him for passersby to drop in a euro or two.. I stopped by and listened to him for a while and after a song or two struck a conversation with him.. actually I asked him if he took requests :-P and he agreed. Stairway to Heaven, Hotel California, Winds of Change and a few of my other favorite numbers followed. After an hour or so he was ready to leave because the church rush had reduced and he had to make it back home before nightfall.. He had made around16 euros that day. He then talked about his family and how he was actually Dutch and how he hated the governments and struggle for financial freedom and material things and how he got on the road five years ago and had never looked back. He seemed and interesting person.. so I decided to offer him a lift back to his house as he was already getting late..

Martin: But your car wont be able to reach my house..

Me: Oh.. why not ? I have a VW Touran – its an MPV”

Martin: I live in the mountains and there are no roads that take you all the way.

Me: OH WOW – you live in the mountains ? awesome.. I always wanted to do that.

Martin: Yea ? you are welcome home anytime – and you can meet my wife and daughter..

Me: Thanks. I think I’d like that.

This is where I found Martin, infront of a shop close to the church.

So we set off to the mountains.. Of course there is a bit of risk involved with going off to the mountains with some stranger gypsy I had met an hour or so ago.. hmm.. but I always had a bit of “living on the edge” in me :-) It was a wonderful drive with the Perynees on my left..and we drove up to the mountains to as far as the MPV would take us which wasn’t much because the ground was muddy and wet from the rains and the car was skidding all around. Then we set off on foot following the narrow pathway through the mountains, We came across a natural lake and a waterfall.. We sat there for a while and emptied a can of local beer we bought at a store at the gas station, and talked for a long time about life and world and music and women and African slaves and many other things I don’t recall. We continued for another 40 mins uphill and I loved every moment of it, the fresh air, Martins stories about survival in the mountains, natural beauty of the perynnees etc.


The beautiful lake we passed by on the way to the settlement.


Finally we reach his “settlement” where there were four families living.. His wife came out running to greet him – he had been gone for four days to earn money. Later in the week they would take their donkeys to the market and load them with their supplies for the next month. This was their routine. But on the other hand they also grew vegetables and tapped in fresh water from the mountain streams. So the only supplies they required were just rice and flour and meds and few other handy items for the camp. They even brewed their own beer which was amazing.

Martin with his daughter Josephine infront of the strong house where they take refuge during heavy thnderstorms.

We sat around in their open air kitchen, drank, ate and danced to the music they played. It was awesome! Later they made me sing a Hindi song and I struggled with “papa kehte hain bada naam ..” from QSQT. I suck at singing so had to give up soon. We all sat around and talked a lot more and I also played with Josephine their one year old daughter.. she was so chubby and cute and she was born in the mountains in their little camp.

The open kitchen cum dance floor cum chillout lounge.

As it got late it was time to say good bye and after I turned down Martin’s offer to walk down with me to the car, I set off on my return journey by myself. I am very good with directions so I had no problems getting down and my cell phone had good coverage through out in case of emergencies.

Long after my visit I still think of Martin and his family and life in the mountains.. and how happy they were to see me :-)

Wonder if they still remember my visit to their little camp??