Port Saplaya in Alboraia is the neighborhood that has been home to the only female candidate for the Presidency of the Generalitat Valenciana for nearly 30 years. Mamen Peris, the captain of the Ciudadanos (now sailing against all odds) in the Commonwealth of Valencia, lives in her hometown of Alboraia, where in one way or another she has always been in politics. First in the municipal administration and now as an autonomous representative of the Cs. But we already knew that.
If anything digs beyond the lectern and election polls, she’s a “friend of friends”, a “homemade but very wandering” woman, and a vermouth lover. “Fierce advocate of local trade” and “associated” with its neighbors.
This entire series of eliminations is listed without hesitation by Julián, his neighbor for over two decades. He admits that he still remembers the first day he came to the block of houses next to the wharf of what Mamen called the Venice of Valencia. Mamen showed up with her eldest daughter in her arms, she was very small at the time and they shot her right away.
“We live on the same pier and see the sea every day,” this retired medical visitor recalls. They have known each other for over twenty years and their neighborly relationship has turned into a friendship. “We spent many minutes together.” Julián says maybe it’s the effect that Port Saplaya doesn’t have many people at home in the winter. The population living in the houses around this mini-port in Alboraia increases exponentially during the summer months. Throughout the year, Mamen and Julián ask each other for salt like good neighbors. “And milk and more,” julián jokes.
Confessions in “Terrao”
When they meet in what they call the attic, she often prepares him “awesome vermouth”. “We’re more vermouth than anything, with some potatoes and some olives.” Especially in the pandemic, they met on the roof of their house. “When I barbecue, I say, ‘What do you want, Julian?’ said. and he would pass me a plate of meat.
He admits that he no longer has time to share most of his conversations because the first line was crazy. “He comes home too late and leaves too early,” she elaborates.
Policy affairs. Julián knows this because he went through it with her when they embarked on an adventure together at the local party Unión Popular por Alboraia (UPPA). “We live in very difficult times, in local politics you eat everything, good and bad,” she recalls. He is a friend of Mamen and his family. He spent days with his family at their home in Náquera, advising their children when it was time to make decisions about the future.
If there’s one place in Spain where Citizens are absolute fans of the Generalitat candidate, it’s the north. “Every time I go there, he brings me Cantabrian anchovies, he loves them very much,” says his neighbor.
Now, a very intense moment for the candidate, Julián helps his friend with whatever he can. Also with purchase. Since before the pandemic, Mamen Peris has been buying fish from Rosa and Toni’s counter in Russafa market. He came to them through a mutual friend who owned a small but olive store in the commercial residential area of the València neighbourhood. And it has been a trusted client ever since. Rosa and Toni deliver orders at home, which makes it possible to combine long political hours with personal life. These are tellinera and cloxinera, the local produce is “something of great value” and often asks for anchovies, cuttlefish, bluefin tuna or emperor. Sometimes Julián goes to the store and buys for both. It becomes clear with a WhatsApp: “Do you want anything from Toni and Rosa?” writes his neighbor.
Fishermen admit they didn’t know he was involved in politics until a few months before they “started seeing him on TV.” “Mamen is a loyal customer, a very normal person, very straight, doesn’t claim or brag about anything,” says Toni.
When night falls, Mamen is the last to arrive and definitely the first to leave at dawn. Julián has been following his activities through the media lately and is occasionally in public areas. “We hardly see each other beyond the stairwells.” So remember the accumulated anecdotes of meeting in Madrid and sharing cod fritters. Mamen is homemade but very restless. According to Julián, he would love to visit Vietnam, among other places.