How was Nicolau Pons, according to his aunt: “As a child he did not want to know anything about water and now he is a diver”

PalmaHe was a difficult child to raise, because he didn't like to eat at all. He only wanted to run through the fields, explore nature and, mind you, feed little animals. “As a child, I already knew that a rabbit, a goat, and a pig must eat differently, and I would scold whoever gave them food without taking that into account.” He, however, was a picky eater. Who would have said, twenty-odd years later, that he would have a shop of food made by himself. We are talking about Nicolau Pons (Pollença, 1994), founder of Sa Cabreta, an organic farm and artisanal cheese factory located in the Serra de Tramuntana, in Pollença. One of his aunts, Cati Pons, tells us about him – his mother is one of four sisters and two brothers!

Nico, or Colau, has always grown up surrounded by nature. In fact, he grew up on the farm where he now works: “His paternal grandparents instilled in him a love for nature, and that has marked his way of being, of doing things, and his principles. When he was between six and seven years old and until he was eleven, he moved with his family to the Pedruixella Gran estate to work there. It is one of the largest and most emblematic estates in the Serra de Tramuntana, located in Pollença.

He has always been a mountain boy who didn't like socializing much. Anyone who knows Colau will find this strange to hear: “He was extremely shy and never spoke to strangers. He felt comfortable in familiar environments, with family and cousins”. Despite this shyness, he was a sharp boy, knowledgeable and resourceful in the middle of the mountains. It sounds strange because, nowadays, there isn't a day that Nico doesn't show off his laughter and sense of humor.

To explain these skills and resourcefulness, his aunt describes one of the gifts Colau has: “A very curious thing is that, at only six years old, he was already able to smell mushrooms. He could smell chanterelles, he knew where they were, and even how many he could find. Before lunch, he would go out the door with a basket and go look for them. At six or seven years old, he was already roaming the mountains all alone. And even today it happens to him: he smells the countryside, he knows where to go and where to find mushrooms”. Colau doesn't go looking for mushrooms, he goes to find them because he already knows where they are just by sniffing them!

Another curiosity about this forest sprite is that “he couldn't even stand the sight of water”. “Not for showering, nor for swimming. In fact, he learned to swim when he was a bit older, because he couldn't bear it”. Another area in which Nico has changed radically: “For a few years now he has been a diver and every trip he can take, he takes advantage of it to go to a place where he can submerge himself. Besides, he is a great fan of underwater photography”. From a boy who didn't want to know anything about water to a person who today fully enjoys the underwater world.

On his mother's side, there are many cousins (there are six just from the same age group). The aunt says that the grandmother, with as many sons and daughters as she had, could not consent to having only one grandson until then (Nico's older brother, in fact!). “My mother used to say that she had gone to cry to Sister Francina Aina to ask her for more grandchildren, and that year alone, six arrived!”, says Cati, Colau's aunt. On Wednesdays, when Colau's mother went to the market in El Moll, it was the day the cousins would go to eat at the grandmother's house, who would make them Cuban-style rice. “It was a party for the kids!”. The grandmother passed away in 2017, but Nico has recovered that tradition and has re-established that on the last Wednesday of each month, all the cousins, with their partners, return to eat together.

This is Nico: cheerful, determined, family-oriented. Since he was a child, his aunt says, "he had the resources to get what he wanted." An example? When he became an altar boy to see the most important processions and popular festivals of Pollença from a privileged position. Knowing him, nobody would say so!