I miss Marta

8 days in Scotland today and if not for the few days I spent with Hannah's family there will be very little to nothing I'd have learnt from this culture. Thye hills call me as the cities present grey and dark buildings, cold winds, vehicles that dont stop for people and people that cut off people when walking as they rush inside a bus, a train, a fast food store...
Celia Cruz' words resound in my head: "There will always be empty glasses if we rely on water from the city..." The best memories are my bus drives as i see the countryside and the countryside sees me: bottled up in a tin can, scrapping these plastic panels, yearning to come out, pleading to get dirty in the mud, to fall on the ice, to listen to the animals at night... I shut my eyes and remember Marta. I try but the sounds of her rackling chain are replaced by screeching tires, evading potholes are replaced by evading careless people that won't even acknowledge you when they bump you...
I miss Marta and miss the road. Soon now, soon...
Promise to come back, to see it properly, when the highlands can offer me a ground to sleep in, some shelter to cover me at night and a 1001 stories to fill my head and heart....

Address to a Haggis

And is this little three legged animal that brings me to costumes of a proud nation: food, drink, a little dance, a speech and endless tales of trips warm up the night. No other way around it: have to come back!!


Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaining trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o' need,
While thro' your pores the dews distill
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Lobour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reeking', rich!....

Escocia

Horas en aeropuertos, estaciones de trenes, buses y unos ultimos 30 minutos en auto me traen a mi nueva parada. Donde es? bho! miro alrededor y veo solamente la sombra de estas colinas escocesas. Es muy tarde ya, solo se puedo observar sombras iluminadas por una tenua luna. ¡como quise disfrutar de esas colinas! mas la decision de la pachamama es otra: nieve cubre los alrededores, nieve nieve por doquier, el blanco manto q me prometía Paris lo encuentro aquí....
Escocia, este pedacito q conozco es bella, aun cubierta de blanco. Sueño con encuentros de celtas, bailes folkloricos y gaitas por doquier. Lo q no puedo soñar es la sorpresa q me espera al dia siguiente....