"We worked the land to be able to live. We worked from morning to night," explains María Jorge Cruz timidly, a native of Conil and chosen as Rural Woman of the municipality of Tías 2025. The Tías City Council celebrated International Day of Rural Women this morning with an act of recognition for María as a representative of the primary sector.
During the event, presided over by the mayor, José Juan Cruz, the deputy mayor, Nicolás Saavedra, and the Councilor for Culture, Pepa González, several gifts were presented to the honoree, and a video was shown in which she recounts her experience as a woman of the town "born and raised in Conil." "I was born on April 4, 1950, I am from Conil, and I have not moved from here since I was born," María said with a smile.
José Juan Cruz explained that this recognition “also goes to our ancestors, to all those who have cultivated the soil that sustains us and have dedicated themselves to the primary sector, and to the women in our environment who, as the backbone, support our natural resources and our historical and cultural heritage.”
Nicolás Saavedra added that "María represents the quiet strength of so many rural women who, without asking for anything in return, have kept the heart of our towns alive. Her story reminds us that our society is also built with the hands that sow, with the patience of care, and with the dignity of daily work."
María Jorge Cruz, daughter of Prudencia Cruz López and Antonio Jorge Mosegue, demonstrates a very close relationship with the land. Her life has been linked to the countryside, first accompanying her grandparents Eufracina López Cabrera and Cristóbal Cruz Umpiérrez, and later her parents, Prudencia Cruz López and Antonio Jorge Mosegue.
In addition to the tasks of planting and harvesting onions and tomatoes, they would travel to Playa Blanca with the donkey and the camel "to sell what there was," and at home, she clarifies, there was no stopping, gathering grass or tending to the animals, the goats, chickens, and pigs. "I remember my grandfather would slaughter a pig and put it in a shack with salt so it would last for months. Those were different times."
María, who also worked in the cleaning service of the Tías Town Hall, nostalgically remembers the old festivals when there was no church in Conil and they enjoyed the celebrations in Entre Montañas or Masdache, or those of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Tegoyo.
She married Emiliano González Rodríguez and had five children: Rosario, Pedro Emilio, María Lourdes, Nieves María, and Carmen Teresa, who, along with her grandchildren Nerea, Mateo, Carla, Iria, Ainhoa, Gabriel, Aday, and Famara, bring joy to her life.
