IN STEREO

[We have] to start working for us, to educate ourselves: the mere fact of not graffitiing the walls, of not littering, of being kind, of giving a smile. I mean, so that the cold does not close our mouths, so that it does not make us introverted. That is what I try to express in my tours. Because even if you are in the worst moment of your life, I think people do not have to see your sadness, see your worries. As they say, a smile gives a lot of light and does not cost electricity. Yes, I sometimes try to get them to see how it is at present, and leave out what has happened – death, torture, and all that. I prefer to omit that sometimes. It’s very intense, everything that people here have gone through, I mean. In the colonial time – or, because of all the people who died for the work, in the ‘time of exploitation’, sometimes I prefer [to say] – of course, it was another time, another mentality. I tell it like it is. Of everything that happened, what hurts the most was that it was in the name of God. Everything they did was in the name of God – which God was not aware of! So then, don’t omit those details. Maybe it’s bad to say – I could soften it so that it’s not so strong. But it is what has happened; it’s the reality. I think everybody already knows that with the silver that has been taken, a bridge [could have been] made [from here to Spain] – and with the bodies, another bridge. So I prefer to look forward. I mean, what has happened is part of history, but now: forward. Not as a city of ‘poor things’, of “When will they remember us?” of the forgotten. I like that optimism. – Gris