CAMINOS ORGÁNICOS / ORGANIC PATHS
BENICARLÓ - IES Ramon Cid - IES La Salle
"I was an ocean full of depth and beauty, but you were afraid of my sharks."
I live in the suburbs and my daily organic path is a bit far from the urban areas, it's a fairly quiet road that I know so well that I know who lives in each house. Many of these houses are only occupied during the summer months or on sunny Sundays for a paella.
My journey begins by picking up two of my friends who live in the same area as me, but I'm the one who goes to pick them up because my house is the furthest from the high school. I leave the house around seven forty and collect one of them. Afterwards, we make a roundabout and meet the other friend. We always have to wait for her, she's always late for everything and the days she is not, it's surprising for us.
Then we arrive at the entrance to a path we call "winding road", which is where I took the photo. The amazing thing is that it was a coincidence. We were going to the school on this narrow road, and one of my friends dropped her keys. I knelt down to pick them up and saw a shadow of some branches that I really liked, suggesting depth, the depth of the sea. I really like the sea, for me it is part of my person. I noticed a parallel with the bad experiences that many of us young people go through. Experiences that can affect our self-esteem, increase guilt, create dependency or make you see life in a more negative and insecure way... in short, that make us see "sharks in our inner ocean".
At this point in my life, I have to say that I've discovered many ways to overcome conflicts like these and to know when it's not worth wasting time overthinking situations.
The road is quiet and not crowded, it is a narrow one-way road for vehicles. I would say that when there is more movement is when we finish the exams and come to comment on them. This year we are already in high school, we take everything very literally and serious.
Sometimes we also like to talk about the dreams we had the night before. I have had the same dream many times since I was a child. It was a nightmare, in fact, now when I think about it it's not scary, but to my inner little girl it was. I used to dream of wolves talking to me and yelling at me. It lasted many years and many nights and came to an end when I grew up and we came to live here in Benicarló. It's strange.
We also love talking about paranormal things, a shadow that was moving, a door that opened by itself, and even more "dense" things like the dimensions of the Universe, objects that disappeared centuries ago that no one has ever found. Talking about death and murder stories also captivates us a lot.
When I almost arrive to the school, at the end of the winding road, we cross the road and meet the rest of the group of friends and we always stop to give each other hugs while someone shouts: "Girls, it's late". Finally we arrive at the parking lot and the amount of motorbikes there always catches my attention, all parked in a row, a "sea of motorbikes". I have a very developed sense of hearing so noises often bother me. At home I often have to shout to be heard, but then, I am able to listening to my parents' conversations downstairs, even as they make their coffee. When I did synchronized swimming, one of the reasons I practiced it was because underwater nothing is heard and there I felt happy, calm.
Finally there is one last pedestrian crossing, which brings us to the main door of the high school.
Martina Martínez
Mi camino orgánico transcurre por la entrada y las afueras de Benicarló, durante el camino me llaman la atención bastantes lugares. El primero es una pista de karting abandonada, antes pensaba que era una feria ya que había un tren pequeño que recorría el lugar. De pequeña le preguntaba a mis padres “¿cuando abren la feria?” Pero siempre ha estado abandonada. Lo que más me llama la atención es una bandera de cuadros, típica de karts, que la veo desde la carretera.
Luego nos desviamos hacia un camino, este tiene un aspecto bastante triste, ya que las hierbas que lo rodean están muy crecidas porque no las cuidan. También paso por una fábrica de autocaravanas y una extraña casa blanca abandonada, la cual no sé ni lo que es ni de quién es.
Después paso por el centro comercial, yo apenas lo he visto en uso, ya que cerro cuando yo era muy pequeña. Ahora parece que lo están intentado volver a poner en uso, pero no sé si conseguirán revivirlo. Todo esto era la antigua fábrica de muebles Palau. Donde ahora está el aparcamiento, antes había unas piscinas y pistas de tenis que construyeron la familia Palau para sus trabajadores y sus familias, pero como trabajaba mucha gente venía casi todo el pueblo.
Al lado del centro comercial tenemos la residencia de los Palau. En ella asesinaron hace mucho tiempo a una monja, esta historia la sabe muchísima gente de Benicarló. La asesinaron seguramente por un robo, y por eso cerraron las piscinas, para siempre. A mí esta historia me la han contado muchas veces de pequeña, siempre me ha llamado la atención ya que me intrigan los temas de asesinatos. Actualmente en la casa vive gente, ya que se ve ropa y por la noche hay luz.
Un centro comercial daría mucha vida a Benicarló, como antes, cuando había muchos locales y restaurantes abiertos. A mí siempre me hubiera gustado vivir en una capital, por eso me gustaría estudiar en Barcelona o Valencia. Benicarló es un pueblo muy grande pero no hay ni tiendas ni actividades para nuestra edad. Aquí todo está muy enfocado a las fiestas y las peñas, pero son para la gente mayor de 16 años, excepto las fallas que son para todo el mundo.
Lorna Martínez
Fotografía: Miriam García Troncho