Women of height
On Wednesday, TV3 aired the third episode of País d’altura, the program that travels across Catalonia from a bird's-eye view, with the ordeal of the corny jokes in the script read by David Verdaguer. During the aerial journey, from time to time, it touches down to earth to interview people linked, both geographically and emotionally, to the area being discovered. The episode was dedicated to the Terres de Lleida, and three of the interviewees in the latest broadcast were very interesting because they are profiles that, unfortunately, are not often seen on television.
The first was Àngels Sabaté, a daughter of Alguaire and an air traffic controller at her town's airport. We discovered how she establishes her relationship with the environment and she recalled her happiness when she secured a position at the Alguaire control tower when everyone else aspired to go to Madrid or Barcelona. Shortly after, the program stopped in Agramunt to meet Zoe Valero, who, after studying law and completing a master's degree to practice as a lawyer, chose to continue at her father's nougat and chocolate workshop and incorporate innovation into tradition. The master nougat maker explained how she had initially ruled out dedicating herself to the business because she had assumed without realizing it the sexism that exists around this profession: "What a pity that you don't have a boy and don't have family continuity," they would tell her father. Valero understood later on that these inertias could be broken and it was beautiful to see her now by her father's side, contributing her knowledge and personality to the work. Later on, we met Raquel Sàlvia at the Montsec Astronomical Park. Since she was little she wanted to be an astronaut and, although the possibility of traveling to space has not become a reality, she continues to observe the sky and carry out outreach tasks at the Observatory.
The rest of the interviewees were also well chosen, but because of their youth and passion, they had something that made them different. In an increasingly Instagrammed, frivolous, and egocentric world, and a television that increasingly needs to trail behind celebrities and the virality of their broadcasts, these three interviewees broke the pattern. They showed a different way of building their identity and expressing themselves in front of the camera. They did not need to present themselves as extraordinary for their stories to be interesting. They did not appear to reinforce a personal brand. They had more of a desire to share than to stand out. Their sincere fulfillment emerged from their own values and convictions, associated with this idea of rootedness. All three drew attention because their way of explaining themselves did not revolve around navel-gazing but rather their relationship with work, with the landscape and the territory, and, above all, with their bond with others. People with their own experiences and not with media or spectacle pretensions. And that really makes you think of a high-standing country.