Hi! A few days ago we posted this entry on the exclusive zone. And just because the very name of this web section –“Exclusive Zone”– we’ve decided to post my text again here on this, the main, web page so that it is not exclusive at all. Please follow the link that you will find below and sign in if you consider the report appropriate.

REFLECTIONS FROM SAHARA

I refuse to believe that everything happens by chance. Someone told me once that life is a dancing between your destiny and your own actions: that’s the rumba I want to dance, be it or not the right beat. I refuse to believe that my journey pals, those travelling the world with me on board of this musical boat, are here just for the music: they do of course play to the beat of a “son”, a sound of melody and rhythm, but they “are” masters sometimes and apprentices some other times (we all look into each other’s souls). And, whether we want it or not, we are all connected.
This speech that I’m giving you here –a bore for some people, potentially identifying for some others, is just a collection of thoughts which came to me in a Madrid-Barcelona train. Two days passed since we came back from the Sahara and a mixture of perennial tastes covers my body again and again (laughter, excitement, after-dinner conversations over land and rugs but, above all, learning) making up a unique dish in the world. Learning, indeed, ‘cause as writer Eduardo Galeano reminds us, the thousands of people who commit to this people are not giving alms; but simply calling for justice, a crystal clear justice. No ruptures or doubts, though full of scars, wounds marked by the time and the sand. But I stress that it’s no charity, ‘cause the begging hand is always beneath the one which gives alms, and this is not the case.

I’ve got the feeling that it has been my best paid off concert ever (just comparable with a few ones Brazil and Mexico; that’s how the South is like). As you can imagine, I’m not talking about money but a different type of compensation: they paid us (me and the musicians coming with me) with silence filled with speech, key and simple words illuminated with content, legendary habits full with unwritten aphorisms and, above all, the whole encyclopaedia of “The Power of Adaptation” in capital letters. For me, that’s what the Saharawi people are.

I come with sand in my pockets, just like Manolo García used to sing, and yes, I do want to be the last one in the queue to stay with them. Javier Bardem said that this place was a little more than the hell’s backyard, and I agree with him. A dry backyard, I would add, though sprinkled with flowers watered with love, calmness, joy and communication. I come moved and all excited, loaded with tired energy and yes, I’m unwilling to believe –I’d better say I refuse to believe– that everything happens by chance, that these great musicians and better people who coming back to me (Bikôkô, Tirtha, Miki, Didac and Nico) are with me just for the music (I’ve learnt and I keep learning a lot from them but that’s another story.)

Today, in this little notebook, the unwearying saharawi people are the real major figures of our story. I hate pamphlets, slogans which are too specific, the phonetics and sound bytes broken down by fundamental irregularities which most politicians express and send out again and again, without rhyme or reason. But sometimes, just a few times, I like to pronounce clear and loud these worlds brimming with truth: FREE SAHARA!

Someone said that it is equally pretentious to say that God exits as to say that he does not. I just know that, for me, that limited water that we used there to take a shower, is blessed water. Suggestion or inspiration? I don’t care: I came nice and clean inside out.

Thank you, Galat

PS: the other day, talking with Bikôkô, we got to the following conclusion; a flag takes the meaning out of whom raises it. If you believe in communication, raise it!
Signed by Dani “Macaco”. Get more information at www.todosconelsahara.com, then, if you wish, sign in. One Move just for one dream!!!!