Travel by DAR

Azores: A Question of Concrete

(First published in the New York Post)

I went two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic to learn why he did it. Why my next-door neighbor spent a month painstakingly building a classic New England stonewall by hand – then smeared a thick layer of ugly concrete along its top. My only clue was that he hailed from the Azores, so it was to the Azores I went.

Well, I confess I always had a hankering to explore this archipelago anyway, the last bit of Atlantis 1000 miles off the coast of Portugal that served so colorfully as pit stop for Herman Melville and other 19th century whalers (as well as cross-Atlantic yachtsmen of today). My neighbor was just my excuse. But it was part of a larger question – why do people from different cultures favor some styles that strike us as innately un-beautiful? Call my quest an exercise in multiculturalism, scented with hibiscus.

The nine islands themselves are quasi-paradisiacal. Picture the green softness of thick mosses against the black jaggedness of volcanic rock formations, all sprayed by white cascades of surf. Picture black-and-white Holsteins who live their entire lives outdoors, swinging their pendulous utters as they saunter to the portable milking units that dot the rolling pastures, producing 17 gallons of stress-free milk per day. The people, too, are unhurried – a handsome, hearty, and happy people, living amid an oceanic stillness that is not shatterred by the occasional peep of a wild canary or roar of a scooter or peal of a church bell. The stillness always laps back to fill the silence, moderated by the sound of the Portuguese language itself – the Azoreans are full Portuguese citizens, with the lowest unemployment in the nation – full of swishing fish sounds, like the sea that surrounds them.

Add to this that the Azores are still so un-touristy that you will have trouble finding an English language newspaper, and you will feel like you’re like visiting the Portugal of 25 years ago. Despite a recent renaissance, there is no high gloss tourist guile here – your guide will encourage you to leave your initials on the wall of an abandoned lighthouse, and will assure you that they had only one TV channel until five years ago (they didn’t have broadband until last year). A mere four-hour flight (direct from Boston and New York) will take you to where the laundry snaps in the breeze, azalea runs riot, and the cobblestone streets smell of baking bread.

So why are they paving paradise? What’s this love affair with concrete everywhere? The first thing you see out of the airport on San Miguel is a concrete factory, and concrete either comprises every available object or is slathered on top: road signs, roofs, decks, park benches, pillars, wharves, telephone poles, fireplaces, mailboxes, chicken coops, bus stops, breakwaters, silos, trail markers, even roadside crucifixes. Beaches are paved, living rooms are divided from dining rooms by cement partitions, and vineyards with cement walls to protect them from strong winds are approvingly called “well-preserved.” Here’s how they lay a badminton court: place two truck tires on the ground, put a pole in each cavity and pour concrete everywhere else. The shoreline is pocked with concrete tidal pools for bathing; suburban backyards sport personal cement mixers like gas grills that turn. And old-fashioned stonewalls that lack a concrete topping of concrete? They’re considered as unfinished as a birthday cake without frosting.

So what’s a multicultural reading of this phenomenon? The primary reason, I discovered, may be geographic. Lying along a massive fault-line that bisects the Atlantic which over the centuries has created a mountain range known as the mid Atlantic Ridge, the Azores have historically been subject to violent earthquakes as well as devastating volcanic eruptions. Walls and such need all the shoring up they can get. Cement fits the bill not only because of its holding power, but also because it resembles the omnipresent volcanic rock that they prize for patio tables, outdoor chairs, and even sometimes as balconies in place of wrought iron. And volcanic rock, after all, is nothing but solidified lava, an amalgam of different kinds of minerals melted together – a lot like an acned cousin of cement, more large-pored but from the same rough-surfaced family.

Seen this way, suddenly the cement everywhere seemed organically of the earth, and an entirely natural building technique for the Azoreans to have brought with them when they immigrated to the traditional whaling coast of southeastern Massachusetts. Who was I to throw stones at their well-deserved concrete heritage? Coming home, my Azorean neighbor’s cement-frosted wall doesn’t look so bad to me anymore. It looks kind of … finished. Now if I could only figure out why my Filipino neighbor lets a cigarette dangle from his mouth when he weed-whacks ….