Small town swaps Christmas lights for legs of ham

Small town swaps Christmas lights for legs of ham

CREDIT: Parauta.es

THE town of Parauta, in Malaga, has decided not to put up Christmas lights this year, and will instead invest the money in top quality legs of ham for all local residents.

The approximately 300 registered inhabitants of the town, which is just half an hour from Marbella, will also receive traditional Spanish sausages, cheese and Ronda wine.

The mayor, Katrin Ortega, said that initially, she simply thought it was not the time to be putting up lights, with so many people dying, but then decided to give locals something to be happy about, something which some would possibly never be able to pay for themselves.

The Christmas parcels have been bought from a local company for €8,000 and one has been given to each family in the town.

The mayor joked that whereas before, many people didn’t even know where Parauta was, they are now getting requests to live in the town.

Locals are happy with the investment, although the opposition has said that the money would have been better spent on improving the local water supply.

The local budget is approximately €900,000 per year.

Parauta is not the only small town in the Ronda area to decide to invest the Christmas lights budget on other things, although not necessarily legs of ham: the town of Benarraba will gift residents with ‘mantecados’ a traditional Christmas biscuit-like sweet made with lard, with the money saved on the Christmas lights budget this year; Juzcar will be using the money on gifts for the local children and elderly; while Alpandeire decided to spend the money on PCR tests for its 250 residents.


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Jennifer Leighfield

Jennifer Leighfield, born in Salisbury, UK; resident in Malaga, Spain since 1989. Degree in Translation and Interpreting in Spanish, French and English from Malaga University (2005), specialising in Crime, Forensic Medicine and Genetics. Published translations include three books by Richard Handscombe. Worked with Euro Weekly News since November 2006. Well-travelled throughout Spain and the rest of the world, fan of Harry Potter and most things ‘geek’.

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