La Timba

La Timba is a strip of land located at the border of a cliff, between the neighbourhoods of "Covadonga" and "Nostra Llar" at the upper side, and the bottom of a precipice that gives place to the canyon at the bottom of which lie the river Ripoll and the neighbourhood of "Torre Romeu" at the lower side. It is located in Sabadell, in the shire of Vallès Occidental, Catalonia, Spain.

The term "La Timba": meaning, origin and usage

Meaning

The word "Timba" is a female short form of the male Catalan word "Estimbat" ("despeñado" in Spanish), the participle of the verb "Estimbar-se" [Due to the rarity of the word it probably will be found only in advanced Catalan-English dictionaries.] ("despeñarse" in Spanish), meaning "to fall over a cliff" or a "precipice". And this applies when someone has "fell over" an "Estimball", meaning "cliff" or "precipice". And since La Timba is located on a cliff, hence the name of the place.

Origin

Due to the extremely local usage of the word, it is hard to find stated evidences of the term. However, it is very likely that the term was originated at the mid 20th century, when the adjacent lands to the precipice began to be inhabited by both local peoples and immigrants from the southern Spain because the city centre of Sabadell began to be small for the newcomers.

Usage

The usage of the term is extremely scarce and the word is only known by the very few people whose lives have been linked with the neighbourhood of "Covadonga" and "Nostra Llar" all their lives, and even the people living few blocks away the Timba do not know what the word means. When these very few people die, or the speculation reaches this small and tranquil piece of land, located on a precipice between the neighbourhoods of "Covadonga" and "Nostra Llar", and the outskirts adjacent to the Ripoll, the term will probably disappear. It is a clear example of moribund term.

Geography

La Timba has a distance of about 2 km, starting next to the UAB Computer Science and Business faculty, where the "Tres Creus" road bifurcates into the "Santiga" street and then goes down the canyon while the "Santiga street" (which is then followed by the "Ronda d'Orient" street, and the "Egara" Avenue in the neighbourhood of "Nostra Llar") follows it from the upper side of the precipice, and the "Sant Oleguer" neighbourhood. The strip of land that remains between the road that goes down the canyon (the "Tres Creus" road) and the street that follows that road from the upper side of the precipice (the "Santiga" street and then the "Ronda d'Orient" street in the "Covadonga" neighbourhood, and then the "Egara" Avenue in the "Nostra Llar" neighbourhood) is what is called La Timba by the locals. [Probably there is not any proof of the usage of this term on the net and neither could be found in any physical source offline, due to the colloquial nature of the term, which has been transmitted orally generation after generation by the locals of the neighbourhood.]

History

The adjacent lands to La Timba (the upper side of the precipice that gives place to the canyon at the bottom of which lies the Ripoll river), began to be inhabited by both local peoples and immigrants from the Southern Spain in the beginnings of the 20th century. By those times, the city centre of Sabadell could not host more newcomers so the city radius started an unstoppable expansion that, few tens later, would reach the Ripoll river at the bottom of the canyon, with the creation of the "Torre Romeu" neighbourhood. In some cases, the immigrants from the Southern Spain lived in caves in the Timba, as they had nowhere else to stay.

With the time, the local peoples began to cultivate Orchards and breed small farm animals (such as chickens, ducks and rabbits) on the strip between the "Covadonga" neighbourhood and the precipice. Because there are just few metres between the houses and the precipice, the orchards began to descend the precipice to the point that, nowadays, the cliff is filled with them.

At the mid 1990s, the local police of Sabadell closed the fence that sepparates the upper side of the precipice and the slope, and the activity in "La Timba" stopped. During this happening, some acts of plundering were committed by locals in the abandoned orchards.

Nowadays, the orchards of the slope of the cliff are abandoned, and the upper side of the precipice is a green corridor which width varies from a half-metre to not more than 20 m.

Gallery

ee also

* Moribund language
* Sabadell
* Barberà del Vallès
* Vallès Occidental
* Barcelona (province)
* Catalonia
* Spain

References

External links

* [http://www.sabadell.net/ Sabadell City Council's website]