Esto es lo que puedo decir sólo en español

Un buen lugar para ir en San Salvador es el Centro Cultural Español. Esta semana hubo un conversatorio-documental de Neruda. Entre palabras y palabras yo me iba perdiendo en memorias que ya no eran las de él. Me acordaba de Adriana, Edna, Nancy, Carmen, María Augusta; todas dándole pelea a la inmediatéz. Aveces pienso que los recuerdos me vienen migración de por medio y que por eso extraño más a latinoamérica ahora que estoy en latinoamérica.  Mientras me daba vueltas la idea de qué significa volver, me acordé de lo que dice mi hermana de vivir el aquí y el ahora y entonces volví a poner atención. La lluvia ya no me reconoce... dice la grabación con la voz de Pablo y mis ojos no pone resistencia a mis lágrimas (siempre me pregunto cuál es la parte de los ojos que se conecta con la garganta que ayuda a tal resistencia...pero ese es otro tema). 

Estoy estrenando ciudad, pero es como si estuviera estrenando la ropa heredada por mi hermana mayor... como si me hubiera imaginado en ella desde afuera y al ponérmela me quede grande. 

Y esto es lo que puedo decir en español (es que decir es diferente a escribir)

The MARAS (part I)

"... In my barrio we pay our monthly vaccine to the MARAS or to other ZIPOTES playing MARAS. I didn't have to pay before because they knew me. Now there is a new generation. Anyhow, vaccine or no vaccine - new generation or old generation, my BARRIO is a cemetery..." Jaime (whose mouth I am posting).

"What are the MARAS?" Consultant working in El Salvador for 4 months

"We don't have MARAS here. The problem is in the COLONIAS. It is very peaceful here" My Landlord

"If you see someone with tattoos, then he is a MARERO" Cab driver

"We have accomplished more than expected. More than 2500 MARAS are in prison now" "We have a prison just for them"  "...60% of prison inmates are serving time for gang-related crimes."  Government spokesperson in-salvadorean-news

"La Mara" is a street in San Salvador where the first name of the gang comes from. It's last name SALVATRUCHA (SALVADOR's TRUCHA)  is a guerrilla group that fought during the Civil war. The MARAS are the sons and daughters of the war. The civil war that displaced families to the US. The war between immigrant gangs (mexican vs. salvadoreans) in the US (mostly LA). And the other wars that we don't know much about.

So far, I haven't seen the signs of the MARAS (that is: wall and skin graffiti) except for the fact that is part of Salvadorians language. Yes, every other word is MARAS. 

"Now they tattoo themselves in parts you can't see to avoid profiling. Like the tongue or the palate" Cab driver 

When I open my office window I can hear the laughters and screams from a nearby schoolyard. This morning the voices were clearer and louder. This morning the voices were adult. I shortly connected the dots.  Today the news reported on yesterday´s earthquake (yes there was an earthquake yesterday) and on a citizens´ manifestation against including water as an environmental service in the new Free Trade Agreement between Europe and El Salvador. What I was hearing from my office was the manifestation itself. I was surprised not only because it was taking place in a residential neighbourhood (instead of downtown) but also because the manifestation grew by the block (despite decree #108). I joined the street and found out they were going to a Hotel nearby, where I overheard the FTA negotiations are taking place. I googled (or researched) the facts of today´s manifestation...no luck. I can only share what I saw and heard. 

In the neighbourhood (vecindario)

Walking is another way of writing. Steps are words. Commas and semicolons are given by the gaze (the gaze of the pedestrian and the gaze that follows the pedestrian). In spanish is also a matter of accents (tildes). Houses in a San Salvadorian Neighbourhood have an accent in their walls clearly dividing the inside from the outside as in se-pa-ra-ting sy-la-bles. In my neighbourhood everything happens inside unless you reinvent its grammar.

Between - Within

Between

From afar cities belong to provinces (or departments), zones, countries, regions, continents. Cities can also belong to cultural clusters. There are world class cities that belong only to themselves, and the rest.

Within

Zooming in, cities are fragmented: centres within centres / peripheries within peripheries /centres within peripheries / peripheries within centres. Neighbourhoods, squares, strips, streets are entities that miraculously intersect.

Between - Within

Without intersections the between, as an urban/mediated moment, cities are confined to their fragmented immediacies.

This is a blog about one city: San Salvador

I start with Carlos Cañas (who was born the same year my Dad did) and his piece Horizon (which I saw at MArte - San Salvador). Don Carlos, as Sao Paulo´s Bienal curators: Lindo, Imberton and Janowsky put it, synthesizes the hybrid men of cultural cross-breeding. The condition of hybrid becomes a lense, or better a mirror, for an immigrant that comes back to look back and forth.

I am one of those latin americans that decided to leave a few years ago and one of those that has the opportunity to come back. Not to the same country, not to the same region of departure, but to latin america, a place beyond categories and categorization.

My attempt is to describe or better, narrate what my hybrid eyes see. The horizons of the returning mirror, paraphrasing Don Carlos' piece which I googled, copied and, pasted in this entry.

Day of arrival: March 29