I don't know Santa Marta,
I saw her yesterday on the other side and stopped after seeing the death of most of my lifelong street, which I kept alive in my mind... childhood.
The hourglass had been left on the beach and I lost track of time.
It was one of those emotions that have no way of being managed.
I thought about how terrible it is to normalize "for rent". The "for sale" or the "closing down sale".
The dreams of the Martas who started their illusions, the terrible outcome of throwing in the towel in the middle of August and not being on the beach.
The covid camouflaged in globalization that has sneezed without any kind of security measure to the little one who knew he had low defenses.
The lack of sensitivity of those who don't even question the disease.
Santa Marta losing faith.
Although she is not the smallest of the saints, but behind her there was someone very big who must have gotten tired of continuing to believe that she was.
And near Santa Marta, a dead Calle Real that becomes a neighborhood of any other place.
That the tone of the local person no longer sounds familiar, but the voices of others from there do.
Everyone deserves to rebuild their lives in other places, as I always say, fleeing from hell is logical and natural.
But normalizing the cultural death and DNA of a place is the greatest of tragedies.
That Calle Real no longer sounds like a conejero and you hear more of a "parcero" than a "chacho mi niño" is sad.
No offense to anyone because it's not about that, but I also ask for respect because it hurts me to lose the identity of my city.
I ask that whoever reads me and has in their head the place where they were born, imagine it full of different conversations and colloquiums, and try to find theirs and not find it.
It is a tragedy. Losing the identities of places, with their people and their customs.
It hurts me not to hear "mi niño" in my street.
It hurts me not to see chinijos, or mothers who perpetuate the cry.
Letting the customs, the culture, the life of an area die, IS LETTING HISTORY DIE.
Santa Marta, I hope faith blooms again for you.
I hope to get up again in Arrecife when it sounded like Lanzarote.
Amalia M. Fajardo
