When I first began going to Spain with Ana in the mid-nineties, I would often hear someone playing a pan pipe in the street, not a song but a strange and pleasant glissando with a flourish at the end--wee-EEEEE-oo.
I would hear it again and again, nearly every day. It would start quietly in the distance and come near and fade again. Finally I asked Ana's father and mother who was playing the pipe and why, and they told me it was the afilador--the man who goes about with a portable grindstone, sharpening knives and scissors. They told me with a good deal of enthusiasm because traditionally the afilador is a Galician, and very often from the town of Orense, where Ana is from.
The distinctive sound of the pan pipe is the advertisement of the afilador. Whenever you hear it you can go down into the street and have the afilador sharpen something for you--a kitchen knife, scissors, whatever.
During our trips to Spain over the last few years I haven't heard any afiladores. I thought they must be disappearing. But last week while in Madrid I heard the pan pipe again. I ran to the window and looked out and, sure enough, there was an afilador.
Here's painting of an afilador by Goya. Notice the grindstone's stand has a wheel and handles, so it can be moved about like a wheel barrow.
Nowadays the grindstone is usually mounted to a bicycle or, more often still, a moped.
Here in the U.S. there is no afilador, so I must sharpen my knives myself. I use a tri-stone and a honing steel.
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