Gaza City, Skip Schiel
When I was in Jordan I bought a lot of pirated DVD's. After dinner I would avoid the awkwardness of trying to converse with my host family by jumping in bed with Across the Universe or No Country For Old Men or whatever had looked appealing at one of the myriad movie stores downtown. This was a pretty lame trend, as my Arabic will reflect, but moving on...one day I saw a movie called Imagining Argentina. It starred Antonio Banderas and my favorite actress, Emma Thompson. So I bought it for a dinar. Emma's Argentine accent wasn't the greatest, but I got it because it was about the dirty war in Argentina. Backtrack: When I was in Buenos Aires I went to see the "Madres de los Desaparecidos," the Mothers of the Disappeared who still march with photographs in La Plaza de Mayo every week. They're still looking for news of their children who were among the roughly 30,000 people who were "disappeared" by the government between 1976 and 1984. I researched the war out of morbid curiosity and found out that to this day the witnesses in these disappearance trials are disappearing themselves. So it was an interesting movie, but the only reason I'm grateful for having purchased it is the song at the end. It was a Portugese song, translated into Spanish by Mercedes Sosa, and covered by Antonio himself. It was gorgeous. I downloaded a fuzzy version off some obscure website and it took a few years of unproductive appreciation to sit down and translate it.
Maria, María
Es un don, es el sueño, el dolor
Y una fuerza que nos alerta
Una mujer que merece
Vivir y amar como otra mujer del planeta
Maria, María
Es el sol, es color, es sudor
Y una lagrima que corre lenta
De una gente que ríe
Cuando debe llorar
Y no vive, apenas aguanta.
Pero hace falta la fuerza
Hace falta la raza
Hacen falta las ganas, siempre
Dentro del cuerpo y las marcas
Maria, María
Confunde dolor y alegría.
Pero hace falta la maña
Hace falta la gracia
Hacen falta los sueños, siempre
Dentro la piel y esas marcas
Posee la extraña manía
De creer en la vida
Translation:
Maria, Maria,
She's a gift, she's the dream, the pain
A force that speaks to us
A woman who deserves to live and love
Just like any other
Maria, Maria,
She's the sun, she is heat, she is sweat,
And a tear that runs...slowly
Down a people who laugh when they should cry
And they don't live
They barely endure
But we are lacking in strength
Missing our people
Missing our dreams, always
Under the scars of the body,
Maria, Maria
Confuses her joy with her pain.
When our desires have gone,
With all our grace,
With all our ways of giving,
Under the scars of the body,
You carry the notion inside you,
That life is worth living.
This is what I think of when I read journal entries from delegations to Palestine. Everyone seems taken aback by the peacefulness of the people they meet, and how the most horrendous of circumstances can be explained with no trace of anger or hatred. It's a shame this side of Palestine isn't considered news-worthy, but it shows a vitality that I think would resonate with a lot of New Orleanians. As well as news of all the constructive responses taking place, since all we seem to hear about are the destructive ones.
The last bit is literally,
Under the skin and these scars,
You possess the strange notion
To believe in life.
