When she is proposed an interview to appear in this space, Eva Ribalta Ferrer questions whether she is the right person. She prefers to be one of those who sit at the back in a conference to listen and not raise their hand to speak. But at 52, she has understood that she must combat this discretion to help foster the visibility she has championed since 2019 through the Associació Esport Femení Lleida.

When we return from a stay outside Lleida (whether longer or shorter) and we see the profile of La Seu Vella on the horizon welcoming us, we feel deep inside that very local and popular: “I’m home!” Even if it seems unbelievable, we even say it when the temperatures climb above 43 °C. Mind you: with our mouths more pursed and fans in hand. In any case, the emotional bond we have with the city’s most iconic monument is glaring. La Seu Vella is a symbol of Lleida. It is pride. It is love. Yes! All in all… do we know it well enough? And the rest of the city’s heritage?

Her real name is Eva Espejo Fajardo (Lleida, 1988), but she is building a brand with her artistic ingenuity. She calls herself Hippiiaa, a symbiosis of the hippie universe with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for her cultural dissemination goals on social networks (she has nearly 50,000 followers on Instagram and 30,000 more on TikTok). But, she also makes herself known as La Catalana Indígena, because she also wants to assert herself as a defender of two heritages, that of Catalan and that of nature simultaneously. An amalgamation of proposals that betray her multifaceted character.

It all started more than three years ago. The company Iltirta, dedicated to disseminating knowledge about archaeology and a collaborator of the University of Lleida, designed a simple card game to liven up one of the days of the Iberian weekend that is convened annually at the archaeological sites of Catalonia. It was an incipient proposal, made with domestic and limited resources, with no other pretension than to provide a good time for tourists and enthusiasts.

The municipal farm El Camises, in Sant Martí de Riucorb, will become an agri-livestock test space starting in September with the aim of facilitating the incorporation of new professionals into the primary sector. The initiative aims to respond to the lack of generational renewal in agriculture by offering an environment to launch a livestock project with technical support, available resources, and a much lower economic risk than a conventional farm.

The (Z)ona Ponts festival consolidates this summer its commitment to turning Ponts' heritage into a vibrant cultural stage with a second edition that, until September 4th, offers five music and performing arts proposals in emblematic spaces of the municipality. After the good reception of the first edition, launched following the millennium of Sant Pere, the festival reaffirms a small-format model that seeks to create artistic experiences linked to each place.

Storm winds are blowing for Lleida football. To the category descents of two historic clubs from the region, such as Unió Esportiva Tàrrega (which falls to Segona Catalana) and Borges CF (to Tercera), three more simultaneous ones concentrated in Lleida city are added. It has been a long time since so many sporting failures have been accumulated in the capital: AEM's women's team will no longer continue in the Primera RFEF after thirteen years of competition; Atlètic Lleida, despite having opted to compete in the Segona RFEF, drops dramatically to Tercera; and Lleida Club de Futbol, in addition to falling into the abyss of the Lliga Elit (the sixth level of Spanish competitions), cannot find an investor to cover its debts and is one week away from disappearing.

Despite being a convinced atheist, I have a past where I went to catechism. This involved, to make matters worse, having to go to the twelve o'clock mass on some Sundays. The most intense and anticipated moments for the children (and not so much for the children) were when the music came into play. Especially on the most significant days, when acoustic guitars appeared. Without a doubt, the closest to Harlem gospel we could experience. Hallelujah!

The mayor of Tremp has worked for thirty years as a Catalan teacher. She began in municipal politics in 2007 and, when she became a deputy in the Parliament of Catalonia last term, she requested a compulsory leave of absence which she extended after the 2024 elections, when she was appointed delegate of the Generalitat in Alt Pirineu i Aran.

The Arbeca-based punk-folk band Pork Chop Boys has launched a crowdfunding campaign to bring a crowdfunding campaign to life, Trans(in)humància, a 190-kilometer itinerant cultural project. The band members will undertake this journey on foot in the fall, from their hometown to the Shepherds' School in Enviny (Pallars Sobirà), following ancient transhumance routes and performing concerts at each stage of the journey. For ten days, the group will walk accompanied by three horses and a donkey that will carry the necessary equipment for the route.

Exactly thirty years ago, the Farrera Centre of Art and Nature (a village of just over a hundred inhabitants in Pallars Sobirà) was seen as a wild idea. It was founded by the painter Cesca Gelabert and the geographer Lluís Llobet, two neo-ruralists with anti-system ideas who already had a home in Farrera. They were convinced by the Irish activist Bernard Loughlin (1950-2018), who had been director years earlier of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, the name of a house-refuge for renowned European artists and writers. “You should do the same in Farrera, and only the two of you can build it,” Loughlin insisted to the young Catalan couple.

The Tàrrega-born Jaume Ponsarnau has just turned 55 and is doing so at one of the best moments of his sporting career. He has surpassed 500 official matches as a coach in the elite of Spanish basketball, has just renewed with Bilbao Basket until 2029, was chosen best coach of January in the Endesa league, and this Wednesday evening he plays with his team the decisive match of the FIBA Europe Cup final against PAOK Thessaloniki with only a six-point disadvantage.

The school canteen service in public schools is always a cause for debate. The high cost of its management, menu policy, food origin, supervision... The fronts are multiple. The debate has been a constant for years everywhere and with a very clear trend: public administration, represented by the county councils, is progressively taking over the control and management of this service, despite the reluctance of some town councils and, above all, of students' families. Families criticize the commodification of an activity that they consider essential for the development of their children and demand more participation in its decisions. “It is a space that takes more than two hours and requires it to be well constructed, well accompanied, that it becomes a well-structured learning time to avoid conflicts,” argues the director of the Federated Associations of Students' Families of Catalonia (AFFAC), Lidón Gasull, who laments the prevalence of a “completely privatized and outsourced canteen system, which is not directly linked to the school”. A large part of the reasons for this reality is that the service, previously always managed by families or the schools themselves, is now mostly managed by school councils, which entrust it to private companies through public tenders.

—If we buy the prepared calçots, the essence is lost”, I said to the group chat of the gang a few days before our traditional annual calçotada.

The school canteen service in public schools is always a cause for debate. The high cost of its management, menu policy, food origin, supervision... The fronts are multiple. The debate has been a constant for years everywhere and with a very clear trend: public administration, represented by the county councils, is progressively taking over the control and management of this service, despite the reluctance of some town councils and, above all, of students' families. Families criticize the commodification of an activity that they consider essential for the development of their children and demand more participation in its decisions. “It is a space that takes more than two hours and requires it to be well constructed, well accompanied, that it becomes a well-structured learning time to avoid conflicts,” argues the director of the Federated Associations of Students' Families of Catalonia (AFFAC), Lidón Gasull, who laments the prevalence of a “completely privatized and outsourced canteen system, which is not directly linked to the school”. A large part of the reasons for this reality is that the service, previously always managed by families or the schools themselves, is now mostly managed by school councils, which entrust it to private companies through public tenders.

The next May 1st marks fifty years since one of the most daring actions of agrarian unionism in the still tender post-Franco era. It happened in Les Borges Blanques in 1976. Three young farmers from the area, members of the still illegal Unió de Pagesos, prepared a banner and hundreds of leaflets denouncing the policies of UTECO (the Francoist union of cooperatives) and the ruinous prices of oil. They prepared everything to be displayed on Passeig del Terrall, precisely at the time of the inauguration of the Oil Fair in the capital of Les Garrigues, where regime authorities and police agents were to be present. It was a success, but unfortunately the three young men were identified: Josep Pau Pernau from Arbeca, Josep Duch Sesplugues from Espluga Calba, and Modest Panadés Vives from Belianes were captured by the Civil Guard and detained for two nights in the town hall cells, where they suffered some beatings.

Placing the child as the main protagonist of their learning, providing them with autonomy to foster curiosity and ability, claiming the natural environment and parental collaboration, and turning educators into simple guides of the process. These are some of the postulates of the educational model of the Reggio Emilia schools, in northern Italy, considered the best and most innovative in the world (even though they were founded after World War II).

There are women who still carry the label of “the first” or “the only one”. Conxita Villar Mir is the first dean of the Official College of Agricultural Engineers of Catalonia (COEAC) from outside Barcelona. At 29 years old, she had been the first female representative. Today she is the only female dean in the sector in the entire State, the first recipient of an award from the Institute of Engineering of Spain for her contribution to equality, and the only one from outside Madrid. Singularity as both a merit and a symptom.

Ciutadilla, Castellserà, Agramunt, Palacio de Anglesola, Bell-lloc, Bellvís, Alamús, Juneda, Bovera, Torregrossa, Torrefeta, and Florejacs… Bread ovens, especially small ones, have been proliferating in rural areas in recent years. Although still tentative, the opening of new businesses is counteracting a trend that seemed dramatic. "What was in decline until now seems to be a trend," says Toni Frias, the current president of the Bakers' Guild of the Lleida region. But this is no coincidence. At least, not in the eyes of the industry. "It was the result of time and a lot of dedication," Frias states. In recent years, the Guild has dedicated significant effort to promoting and organizing courses and training for new bakers and shopkeepers who have converted to traditional bakeries. "Now we are reaping the rewards," concludes the president of the organization.