I have been vacationing now for two weeks in this French Pyrenees farming village, where every morning feels like a Friday morning: a swim at about 10:30, then collect my mail from the internet café and peruse the International Herald Tribune with my morning café latté before breaking for lunch. Lunch is the key to life in the south-west. All businesses close between midday and 2:30 pm, towns and villages are deserted, except for the cafes and restaurants where the farmers, business people and truck drivers tuck into the plat de jour, four courses, including a half liter of Bordeaux, for 11 euros. The pace of life is slow here, in what is reputed to be France's friendliest region. There isn't a cinema nearby, only miles and miles of cornfields. Corn is grown to feed the geese, which provide the fois gras, which I enjoy with my aperitif whilst attending to the BBQ each evening. Shopping is restricted to the boulangerie for my daily bread or the aisles of the supermarche, and every Tuesday, a farmer's market is set up in the village square. Playing chess and imagining shapes in the clouds from my position on the lawn under a substantial Birch in the back garden has replaced the hunt for DVDs, accessories and the next pair of shoes. Every second day, Sophie and I usually have an outing. We drive our two-door shot-gun grey rental car to a nearby village, poodle around and have an ice cream. Then, we meander home along the back lanes through the corn fields, looking for idyllic picnic spots or just a piece of grass under a shady tree. Sophie has read four novels so far. There are two main cultural pursuits in this region of France, besides lying on the grass. One is the sport of rugby. I have yet to see a football pitch; it is all rugby posts here. They loom from behind school buildings and in each town they mark the local stadium. In the regional capital, men's clothing boutiques are named after famous French players and even the traffic roundabouts are decorated with wire sculptures of rugby players. They are a religious people in the southwest, as seen from the millions of pilgrims who visit Lourdes. But that is not the only site of pilgrimage. In the village of Grenade, rugby pilgrims come by the busload to the chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Rugby. They hang old rugby jumpers, pray to the Virgin Mary for success on the "paddock and light candles for those who have been injured. Bullfighting appears to be the other pursuit followed with great passion. On Bastille Day, July 14, I attended a bullfight in a neighboring village. It seemed the revolutionary thing to do. I stayed for the death of two bulls that afternoon, but couldn't be bothered with the remaining five, it all seemed a bit pointless, not to mention gruesome. We had visitors fly in from London for a few days, so the bullfights, which I thought were going to be the French version, where the bull is not killed, would make for a fun afternoon. It was hot and sunny; a spot of lunch, a traditional type of tango dancing was being performed with a precise technique and a party atmosphere filled the arena late in the afternoon for the bulls. It was at the start of the corrida de toros, when the trumpets blared, that I realized we were to witness a slaughter. Because behind the medieval costumes of the musketeers and the colorful, glittering suits of the matadors, were the mules in harness. I had seen this once before in Madrid. The job of the mules was to drag the dead bulls from the arena. I've seen plenty of animals being slaughtered in my time including a dramatic morning in the back streets of Mohandiseen on Eid Al-Adha. So, it is not the gore that I find offensive, it is the method. No animal should be taunted and made to perform - except a little brother of course, but still you are not going to run him through with a sword in a ritual that was stylized by the Spanish aristocracy in the 18th century, are you? No, it is much better to beat up little brothers on the rugby "paddock, and then, of course, you can pray to Our Lady of Rugby for forgiveness.KHAWAGA'S TALE HEAD: Pyrenees Part 3 By Peter A. CarriganSpecial to The Daily Star Egypt I have been vacationing now for two weeks in this French Pyrenees farming village, where every morning feels like a Friday morning: a swim at about 10:30, then collect my mail from the internet café and peruse the International Herald Tribune with my morning café latté before breaking for lunch. Lunch is the key to life in the south-west. All businesses close between midday and 2:30 pm, towns and villages are deserted, except for the cafes and restaurants where the farmers, business people and truck drivers tuck into the plat de jour, four courses, including a half liter of Bordeaux, for 11 euros. The pace of life is slow here, in what is reputed to be France's friendliest region. There isn't a cinema nearby, only miles and miles of cornfields. Corn is grown to feed the geese, which provide the fois gras, which I enjoy with my aperitif whilst attending to the BBQ each evening. Shopping is restricted to the boulangerie for my daily bread or the aisles of the supermarche, and every Tuesday, a farmer's market is set up in the village square. Playing chess and imagining shapes in the clouds from my position on the lawn under a substantial Birch in the back garden has replaced the hunt for DVDs, accessories and the next pair of shoes. Every second day, Sophie and I usually have an outing. We drive our two-door shot-gun grey rental car to a nearby village, poodle around and have an ice cream. Then, we meander home along the back lanes through the corn fields, looking for idyllic picnic spots or just a piece of grass under a shady tree. Sophie has read four novels so far. There are two main cultural pursuits in this region of France, besides lying on the grass. One is the sport of rugby. I have yet to see a football pitch; it is all rugby posts here. They loom from behind school buildings and in each town they mark the local stadium. In the regional capital, men's clothing boutiques are named after famous French players and even the traffic roundabouts are decorated with wire sculptures of rugby players. They are a religious people in the southwest, as seen from the millions of pilgrims who visit Lourdes. But that is not the only site of pilgrimage. In the village of Grenade, rugby pilgrims come by the busload to the chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Rugby. They hang old rugby jumpers, pray to the Virgin Mary for success on the "paddock and light candles for those who have been injured. Bullfighting appears to be the other pursuit followed with great passion. On Bastille Day, July 14, I attended a bullfight in a neighboring village. It seemed the revolutionary thing to do. I stayed for the death of two bulls that afternoon, but couldn't be bothered with the remaining five, it all seemed a bit pointless, not to mention gruesome. We had visitors fly in from London for a few days, so the bullfights, which I thought were going to be the French version, where the bull is not killed, would make for a fun afternoon. It was hot and sunny; a spot of lunch, a traditional type of tango dancing was being performed with a precise technique and a party atmosphere filled the arena late in the afternoon for the bulls. It was at the start of the corrida de toros, when the trumpets blared, that I realized we were to witness a slaughter. Because behind the medieval costumes of the musketeers and the colorful, glittering suits of the matadors, were the mules in harness. I had seen this once before in Madrid. The job of the mules was to drag the dead bulls from the arena. I've seen plenty of animals being slaughtered in my time including a dramatic morning in the back streets of Mohandiseen on Eid Al-Adha. So, it is not the gore that I find offensive, it is the method. No animal should be taunted and made to perform - except a little brother of course, but still you are not going to run him through with a sword in a ritual that was stylized by the Spanish aristocracy in the 18th century, are you? No, it is much better to beat up little brothers on the rugby "paddock, and then, of course, you can pray to Our Lady of Rugby for forgiveness.
