By Lorenzo Lemaur Santana
Continuing with our vocation to present the realities, or the optics that we capture of different aspects that determine and configure the idiosyncrasy of the city of Arrecife, often called the ugly duckling of Lanzarote and which we like to venture is only a transitory situation towards a splendid, comfortable, cheerful and socially just city; which, as happened in the reference story, will soon reach the splendor of the swan, raised, slowly, very slowly, and with ups and downs, not to say scarce, processes of democratic participation of those who inhabit it, of those who suffer it day by day while we build it.
Well, on that journey, we have moved to the Valterra neighborhood, a very emblematic neighborhood of the City, which dates back to 1956, at least its primitive neighborhood which is made up of 10 blocks of houses, 5 to the right and another 5 to the left of the street, which in that section is pedestrian, Governor José García Hernández.
Then, the one known as the "seafaring neighborhood par excellence of Arrecife" has been growing and by 1969 as many houses were handed over, located in front of the old Casa del Mar, which was also the General Hospital of Lanzarote and today the Social Security offices and the Valterra Health Center, with its emergency service and everything.
Precisely in front of the Casa de Mar I remember that, back in the 70s, a handball court was set up for the Carmen festivities and girls' matches were played because at that time, one of the five teams that played in the women's island handball league was called Valterra and many of its players were from the neighborhood. I remember a match in which the coach was Fausto Rodríguez, who was a great player for Unión Deportiva Lanzarote, a defender for more information, and who also played handball very well. The famous Margot Cabrera, who lived in Lomo, and Agueda Batista also played on the team, as did Fefa Montelongo, Lita, Nieves Tejera, Choni and Rosi, the Andalusian sisters Conchi and Gloria who came to work at the Garavilla factory, all of whom were from Valterra. Margot told me, talking about the subject, that she herself helped mark the lines of the field with chalk more than once. They were also "tough" who then played soccer with the popular and ill-fated Antonio Caprile. Margot also told me that they bought a white shirt, and then a wide red band, because of the colors of the neighborhood and their mothers sewed it crossed to the chest, as well as the numbers, which were black.
From the old neighborhood, its picturesque color, typical of the salt with which they were built, is very unique; In addition, each street only has houses on the sidewalk of even numbers, from 2 to 32. I think they will be the only 5 streets in Arrecife with only portals for the even numbers. This neighborhood has a peculiar structure. Each block, numbered from 2 to 16 in the eastern area and from 18 to 32 in the western area, has 4 houses in each portal, except in the corners which are duplex houses, specifically in numbers 2, 16, 18 and 32. In other words, in total, 26 homes in each block, so 52 in each street, so the sweep consists of 260 homes.
Clavijo y Fajardo, Benito Pérez Armas, Doctor Alfonso Espínola, Francisco Fernández Bethencourt and Adolfo Topham Martinón give their names to the aforementioned five streets, with only portals on the odd-numbered sidewalk. Excuse me for repeating myself, but it caught my attention a lot.
Of the aforementioned 260 homes, saving the 20 duplexes on the corners, from the living room the house is distributed in a small bathroom of 4 square meters, a living room of 12 meters, its kitchen of 6 meters and 2 rooms, one larger of 16 square meters and another of 12. The floor was cement and neither the bathroom nor the kitchen were tiled. The fronts are 7 meters and the bottom of each plot is 14 meters, of which 4 are terrace or garden, located on the sides of the entrance. Many of them have been adapted by their owners or tenants of the lower part in exchange for giving their part of the roof to those of the upper part. In addition, each house had a small cistern located on the street. The stairwells are one meter wide. Families with more than 7 children came to live here.
Those and so are those 260 homes that were delivered mainly to sailors and workers from the factories of the time: La Rocar, Garavilla or Lloret y Llinares. Of these, 60 are currently in property litigation since there is a lawsuit filed since their tenants consider themselves to be their owners and the property of the aforementioned factories consider themselves to be the beneficiaries since, apparently, at the time, they were awarded to the factories for accommodation of their workers.
