Our heritage
of our past and a part of our present.
The stones here speak, because they are a part
of our past and a part of our present.
Benigembla
El Safareig
"The washing place is where the inhabitants of the village used to go down to in order to wash their clothes in the traditional way. The rectangular-shaped pond with sloping slabs on the two longest sides was built next to a water source and covered with a porch in order to have shade in the summer.
There, where the women gathered to clean sheets, blankets, towels and clothes, it was a sort of space to gossip (‘xafardejar’) and comment on the affairs of the village. In fact, the word ‘xafardejar’ derives from the phrase ‘to do laundry’ (‘fer safareig’ or ‘safarejar’), and at the same time the word ‘safareig’, of Arabic origin (ṣahrîǧ = puddle), indicates the place where the clothes were washed.
In the washing place there were a series of unwritten rules that everyone respected, ensuring a smooth operation of the facility: the women distributed themselves along both sides of the washing pool, with on one side the women who were using soap and bleach, and those who were rinsing out the clothes on the other side. In this way and through the use of different ducts, the water with bleach did not mix with the clean water.
The washing place in Benigembla has the curiosity of being far below the village, at the same level as the river. This is something which was fairly common in towns and villages that were located higher up than the local river or stream, in order to facilitate the construction of the washing place and thereby avoid huge engineering investments to raise the water to the urban area." (1)
(1) Vall de Pop (2018) “El safareig de Benigembla” (Benigembla’s washing place), extracted from https://www.vadesentits.com/benigembla
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Benigembla
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