The line of people was endless, Mexico’’s Palace of Fine Arts was besieged by thousands of admirers who, instead of bidding farewell to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, carried flowers to express their gratitude.
Many arrived early in the morning and stayed outside the building waiting for their time to pay tribute to him, although they knew that the ashes of the one-of-a-kind author will not arrive until the afternoon.
Inside were his ashes and all those who wanted to say goodbye to him, to lay a flower, to thank him for the food with which he nourished endless dreams, to say their favorite phrase in a book read so many times.
However, in reality, he was outside: in the deep and thirsty eyes of an elderly woman who was lost in the paths of Macondo in the crowd, in the melodies from the guitar with which a group of young people filled the wait with music, in the afflicted face of a child who asked his father why he had died.
The tribute was not limited to the walls of the building, it was not necessary to look for him only there, Gabo was in the voices of people, in the rhythm of vallenatos played by a band that was accompanying the march to the vestibule of the building, in some tears that rolled down, discreetly, as if they were bidding farewell to a very beloved relative.
When the funeral cortege arrived and Gabo’s ashes were placed in the middle of the vestibule at the Palace of Fine Arts, the hall burst in applauses, because friends, relatives and guests joined for a minute to honor the Nobel Award winner, journalist, script writer and narrator.
Outside, the crowed also applauded here and there, when someone read a fragment, another one shouted “Long live Gabo”, when that boy took flowers from a too formal bouquet, pulled the petals off and launched them to the wind.
The world celebrates Spanish Language Day
Miguel Cervantes de SaavedraIn tribute to the writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, deceased on April 23, 1816, each year is celebrated in this date the Day of Spanish Language.
Known as El Manco del Lepanto, Cervantes left among their works the novel The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha, monumental text that contributed to the enhancement of world literature and Spanish language.
Described as the first modern novel, this has been the most translated and edited book in history, only by the Bible.
Initiative of writer Vicente Clavel, this date was first celebrated in Valencia in 1926 and then the holiday began to be celebrated throughout Spain for later in 1964, being adopted by all Spanish-Speaking countries.
However, this celebration today comes when the world says goodbye to another great writer of Spanish language, the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, who recently died in Mexico City.
Author of extraordinary texts, included in Gabo’s work there is a play that many consider another Don Quixote, One Hundred Years of Solitude, which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1982.
It would be worth to devote then this Spanish Language Day to García Márquez, for his contributions to journalism, literature, and even cinema, one of his passions.
Ancient Cave in Spain Could Hold Origins of the Study of Astronomy
A cave located on Spain’s Canary Islands, in what was probably the aboriginal region of Artevigua, could reveal an unsuspected knowledge of astronomy by the ancient islanders since it marks equinoxes and solstices, while inside it the light recreates images related to fertility.
The cave was used as a temple and, besides its astronomical function, the light creates in its interior a mythological account of fertility, the likes of which exist nowhere else in the world,” archaeologist Julio Cuenca, who has investigated the area since the 1990s, said.
