Six families with eighteen young people, but only four surnames, populated the Ponte Hermida that Manuel Taín Fernández remembers, one of the owners of the ten now semi-ruined houses in a village in the Ourense municipality of A Merca that his aunt Josefa abandoned. the last neighbor, a winter of 1974. For thirty-four years now in Ponte Hermida you can only hear the river Arnoia, about two hundred meters from the houses. The village, documented in the 16th century, today rests largely under a tide of brambles. The six heirs are willing to sell the houses and a perimeter of farms half a kilometer around for about 100,000 euros, with the sole purpose of restoring life to the village, on the border with Allariz. Next week they will agree on the final price in a meeting, encouraged by the attempted purchase of a Mallorcan developer who was able to access the town by quad. The mayor of A Merca would be willing to finance the paving of the access road - about two kilometers long - if there is a private initiative to rehabilitate the town. Manuel Taín himself, who everyone knows as O Sete, also gives away a farm on the banks of the Arnoia for free on the condition that it is finally converted into a recreational area. A lower price than a small apartment in a Galician city, although the neighbors are unanimous that the sale is made exclusively together. Exploiting it for rural tourism, thanks to the river beach, or rehabilitating it for repopulation, following the example of other villages in Ourense, keep the illusion of the natives alive.With a black beret, a sickle and an overflowing health at 69 years old, Taín appears in A Parroeira to show what remains of the houses where, without a doctor, most of the members of his family were born: "I can't come here. Now I spend eight days sick ... with melancholy. I was born in this house and I cannot see how it falls. For me it would be a pride to die and see it inhabited ". His light eyes blur. The journey that connects the town with a secondary road was only a cow road until "the day of Hurricane Hortensia"; a date from 1984 that the neighbors especially remember because the road was opened and it was inaugurated with a party. Now it is included in a hiking trail. The jeep trip is delayed because of the stops requested by Taín, who knows every corner of a land of mills and chestnut trees. "There is a path there from where Allariz's horses arrive," he says. The Ponte Hermida bridge is the only stone bridge that remains standing from Allariz but some cattle troughs and stones from the road were looted, according to their testimony and others, such as the communal oven at the entrance to the town, is buried under the branches of a laurel. Land of mills "It is the greatest house of the memories of Ponte Hermida. Look what a stone balcony!", he exclaims. The mother's house and that of four siblings, that of the grandfather or that of Aunt Hortensia, with four other children await Manuel upon arrival in town. "My niece was born here. Her mother gave birth there, in this corner," he points to a corner of a deteriorated wooden floor in which a closet has been thrown. Large stables, chicken coops and even a room for smoking the sausages show the life that was hidden behind the structures that still remain. "In this staircase the summer gatherings were held, in which we all got together to tell stories," he recalls. In Ponte Hermida there were two mills, with eight wheels and two "albeiras" (stones in which only wheat was ground to make white bread, softer than those of the common mill) to which more than a hundred donkeys arrived each day laden with sacks to grind. Manuel's grandfather, Pedro Fernández, was a miller and had eight children in a time of prosperity for the town. The miller's grandson also shows what remains of the construction, on the Arnoia River, and a wall that his own grandfather built to lessen the effects of the rising river. There, in the middle of the bridge, an imaginary line traces the division between two municipalities: "From here, it's A Merca, this is Allariz," says Taín. The latest rains increase the waterfalls in the river area, helped in summer by bathers, as evidenced by the remains of garbage in the vicinity. In the village there is an area where there are apple trees, overlapped by the undergrowth of abandonment, in an area where one day there was also an orchard and where there is still a fountain. The original town, according to the documentation that he was able to access in the archives, was closer to the river and is attested by the foundation of a house that still preserves part of the structure. However, on the way there is "the authentic cemetery" and where, according to Taín, numerous bones were found. The neighbor also remembers the stories that he one day he heard from his mother. They installed a pole with a banner on a high rock, which functioned as a mailbox: the postmen who arrived on horseback knew from the flag if there were messages or not. He also heard about the existence of an underground tunnel on the way, because an earthquake caused the subsidence of stone walls one and a half meters high. Dingy areas and roads that zigzag make up the way back. In some small vineyards, some older people are busy pruning vines, taking advantage of the waning moon. Only men with umbrellas and women in mourning on their evening walk cross the road. "This river was the first nudist beach" "This river was the first nudist beach in the region", the neighbors joke in relation to the banks of the Arnoia river as it passes through the village. Sixty years ago, everyone bathed in the river bed, where the mill of Manuel Taín's grandfather is located, but always naked. One day a boy came to the village offended and saying that he had seen a man "that he is not like the rest", as they remember. The only difference from the foreigner was that he wore a bathing suit, a garment that the neighbors were slow to learn about. Mischief was guaranteed with the women, who bathed in petticoats and underwear, due to the transparent result of the fabrics when they came into contact with them. Water. The river enclosure, which crosses the hiking trail, is still frequented by bathers today. Ironically, and according to Taín that he also visits the area in summer, many still keep the tradition of diving naked in the water.
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