oh my god!!!!!! the famous ''cultivo una rosa blanca'' poem we all had to
memorize in grade school!!!!! i never knew that it had been the basis for
guantanamera.
i was a member of the communist party when i was in my late teens, and
guantanamera was very popular among us. the party was clandestine [however
you pronounce it]. in fact, if it was known that you were a marxist, you got
killed summarily by the paramilitary. [there was a ferocious military
dictatorship in argentina from '76 to '83.] so one way we had to identify
one another was to hum or whistle guantanamera. for example, after a
surprise rally or any event in which we had to act quickly and disband, each
one of us had to be counted, basically to see if we had all survived. so we
were assigned different spots in the city we had to pass by, humming, of
course, guantanamera! we didn't know which one of the people in that busy
spot was our contact. sometimes it was another student, sometimes a waiter
having a smoke, etc.. but guantanamera was the clue that we were members of
he party and that we were [still] alive and not ''desaparecidos''.
wallyk, who, for all his flippancy, has lived a dangerous life.
bob wrote:
(the next verse says,)
I cultivate a rose in June and in January
For the sincere friend who gives me his hand
And for the cruel one who would tear out this
heart with which I live
I do not cultivate thistles nor nettles
I cultivate a white rose
Cultivo la rosa blanca
En junio como en enero
Qultivo la rosa blanca
En junio como en enero
Para el amigo sincero
Que me da su mano franca
