The first bilingual magazine in the Ayora valley.
All good stories start with “Once Upon A Time”, and so to begin.,.
Once upon a time there was a valley called El Hoya – Ayora — where, to quote Señor José Martínez Sevilla, half a dozen villages slept the sleep of centuries.

Then one day, many years ago, an English couple arrived and the valley stirred, opened one eye, yawned a big yawn and went back to sleep again.

But later Spain became a member of the EU and many more extranjeros began to arrive, bringing with them their language and culture — and many questions. The villages, which had been sleeping the sleep of centuries, suddenly woke up and took notice, and words such as «un momento, por favor”, “tranquilo”, “poco a poco”, “mañana” and “cómo?” echoed round the valley.

Most of the villagers offered the hand of friendship, bat there was mach to be learnt on both sides, and it was not always “tranquilo”. Words like “IIow do we do?, “Where do we go for?” ami “No entiendo, más despacio por favor.” also started to echo round the valley. There appeared to he as many ways to do something as there are hairs oii a bali’s tau, and as difficult to untangle the truth when ful! of burrs. There was a great need for understanding, patience, exchange of information and also mach to be learnt about this beautiful valley, its people, its history and its customs.

So it came to pass that a small group of extranjeros, mindful of the great diversity to be found in the villages ami amongst the people who live here, as well as the problems facing the extranjeros who have come to make their home here, decided to produce a news!etter, It was hoped that this newsletter would go some way to help all the people of the valley, local and extranjeros, to form one valley community, living, working and playing together.

Ayora Valley News, a free, bi-lingual monthly magazine was hora.

With tbe enthusiasm and support of Spanish friends for translations, contributions from the people in the communities, letters from readers, and advertising by local businesses and individuals, the newsletter, now a magazine, is growing — “poco a poco”!

It is not easy for the small team who produce Ayora Valley News, there is “mucho trabajo”, and we always need contributions from readers to help fill the pages, But we hope that Ayora Valley News in some small way will bring us all together, to share languages, cultures, information, stories, ideas and fun (even if it is difficult sometimes to translate jokes!), so that we may all live “happily ever after” in “el hoya”.