What Jaume Carot was like, according to his sister: "He said he wanted to be 'a man alone'"

PalmWhen he was born in December 1960, there were only two television channels. Before discovering and falling in love with the Tramuntana mountain range, he explored the Ports de Tortosa-Beseit. As a teenager, he joined his village's hiking club, and they would go on trips to the Pyrenees. We travel to the Baix Ebre region, in the municipality of Tortosa, to learn about the origins of Jaume Carot, the physicist and current rector of the University of the Balearic Islands, the third of four siblings. Before him came the twins Tomàs and Maria Cinta; the youngest was Elena, who lends her voice to these memories.

The first thing Elena emphasizes is that her parents came from humble beginnings. "They hadn't even finished primary school. The war and the post-war period forced them to work from a very young age. Her father was a barber, like his own father, and her mother came from a family of dressmakers, but she dedicated herself entirely to raising her children," she explains. However, they were very clear about what they wanted for their children: "Thanks to our parents' efforts, scholarships, and odd jobs we did—tutoring, small projects—all four of us were able to have university studies. When we meet our siblings, we remember it and appreciate it very much."

As a child, Jaume already displayed a very defined character: "He was always a solitary child. When he was little and we asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would answer: 'A lonely man.'" However, solitude wasn't isolation, but a way of finding calm. He loved walking in the park in Tortosa, spending hours there. "He was also a voracious reader; he really liked The Famous Five, and then he would read them to me. Without a doubt, what he enjoyed most was reading books about shipwrecks, I suppose to discover ways to survive." Other hobbies that completed his personal world were bike rides and excursions, first through the Ports de Tortosa-Beseit and, as a teenager, towards the Pyrenees. Elena emphasizes her brother's "stubborn" nature, and a touch of "shyness."

The youngest of the Carot Giner siblings remembers that they watched detective series like Colombo, Starsky & Hutch, KojakAnd the movies on Saturday and Sunday afternoons; classical music, which his father liked, was always playing at home, and Jaume ended up developing a taste for it himself. Influenced by the twins, who were older, his musical universe also included songs by Lluís Llach, Raimon, María del Mar Bonet, Víctor Jara, and Simon & Garfunkel, among others.

Jaume followed an old-fashioned curriculum: "Back then, you finished high school at 16 and went to university," explains Elena. Before going to study Physics in Barcelona, ​​there was a key experience. "When he was 14, his parents found him a job in a pastry and candy warehouse. He prepared orders, loaded and unloaded trucks. He would come home angry, tired, and in a bad mood." That summer marked a turning point. "To avoid going back to the warehouse, he started giving private tutoring and academic support. And I would say that's how he discovered that what he loved was teaching."

After a stint as a high school teacher and while working on his thesis, an opportunity changed his life: "The professor supervising his thesis saw a job opening at the UIB (University of the Balearic Islands), encouraged him, and he got it. He was 22 when he landed in Mallorca." That period strengthened his bond with his younger sister through a beautiful correspondence. "He liked Mallorca, we would visit him, and he introduced us to a lot of gastronomy, new recipes." She says "new" because Jaume has always loved to cook: "I suppose it's because he really enjoys eating, but he's been experimenting and trying different things and cuisines from other countries since he was young." A dish that never fails? "His 'arroz sucio' (dirty rice) turns out very well."