Country boy, meet city girl.
Inspired by a Hollywood western, a Spanish dating association is
trying to slow a population drain from the country's beleaguered
central villages, introducing bachelors to women bussed in from the
big city of Madrid with hopes of ending a bride shortage.
Candeleda, a town of 6,000 on the banks of the picturesque
Lobera River, hosted a weekend fiesta to welcome 68 women for a
meet-and-greet with the village's single men. Ancient cave
paintings show Candeleda has been inhabited for some 5,000 years,
and resident Jose Miguel, 67, said he would hate to see its
population dwindle after such a long history.
"I've checked out the few widows and single women here," said
Miguel. "I signed up for this to meet new ladies and to hopefully
show them the beauty of my town."
The group, Asocamu, was set up in 1995 to promote rural
re-population by organizing parties for single men and woman, but
Spain's painful financial crisis and the lure of city jobs has made
the need more pressing than ever, Manuel Gozalo, one of the
organizers, said Sunday.
Many villages are falling into ruin, with national statistics
showing that of Spain's 5,000 villages up to 100 are under imminent
threat of abandonment.
Large swathes of central and northern Spain are at risk of
depopulation. In the small agricultural communities of Spain's
central plain single, male residents were finding the loneliness
too tough to endure, Gozalo said.
Asocamu credits as its inspiration the 1951 film "Westward the
Women," starring Robert Taylor and Denise Darcel, which tells the
story of how the American west was populated by organizing wagon
trains of women to provide company, and brides, for lonely
pioneers.
In the red-roofed village of Candeleda, men and women danced,
flirted — and considered their prospects. Blanca Fernandez, 52,
works in sales in Madrid and was attracted by the idea of a nice
day out and a chance for romance.
"I know it's difficult to find the love of one's life, but some
of these meetings have led to marriages," she said.
