Flower of Azalea
April 29th, 2016
She couldn’t have been six years old, or around that,
barefoot. Leaning on a support beam, or hiding behind her mom’s body, Azalea would
spy on me with her bright eyes full of mischief and shyness. Sometimes she
would come up to my chair and with her little finger she would trace along the
plastic armrest, up anPuchica! if that isn’t the prettiest name I have heard. And Azalea laughed
through the few teeth she had at that age. Did you know that there’s a song
named after you? She shook her head. Should I sing it to you? She nodded. Like
the froth swept along by the mighty river, flower of Azalea, life surprises you
with a hug. I changed the words to the bolero
so as not to fill her little head with too much drama.
From time to time I would run into her again, always in
COPINH’s community center, Utopía, with
her mom who would complain to me about school. Other times I would watch her
playing around with her friends. Groups and groups of people would come through,
for an assembly, for a ceremony, for a meeting or a party. Berta would be
there, organizing, drinking coffee, fooling around, rallying people. Azalea would
watch her with her eyes open wide because she drove a car like the men and
spoke strongly.
Azalea had grown up. I ran into her at a mobilization of the
Lenca women of COPINH during the occupation of the Attorney General’s building,
an energetic action that grew from the fury of Berta’s sisters. Definitely the
most powerful action so far. The women with their voices, their forms of
protest, their strength and determination. Azalea was there holding up the
traditional Lenca vara alta, she is
an adolUtopía
still resides in her face. What are you doing here, little girl, I ask her
playfully. Well, here in the struggle.
Here in the struggle, it echoed inside of me. Later I heard
her speak to the press, speaking about la
compañera Berta, about COPINH, about her Lenca people, and then later in
the People’s Summit. I listened intently to the crisp way she spoke, as
resolute as a spring of water or a blooming tree. Her grounded words, precise, were
spoken without raising her voice or gesturing wildly, without pretense or
imitation.
Azalea, the small flower of the mighty Gualcarque River. They
threw stones at her that day when the delegation was attacked by people close
to the company, that day when the crowd was divided, some indignant at not
being well-enough protected, everything out of control, some coming to
understand the difficulties lived through by people resisting industry’s
advance, all feeling in their bodies the fear, experiencing the hate, the
viciousness that followed Berta to her death.
On one of those long trips I took with Berta, miles on end traversing
the land, those trips where we would laugh and debate, or be quiet for hours,
we were coming back from a comrade’s funeral and I, caught up in my middle
class anguish, told her that at this rate we would end up losing all of this
country’s best fighters. And she, speaking more as expert than prophet, told
me, Well yeah, they kill the becompa. I
insisted, Berta, so then who is going to change this country? It’s not like
there’s a lot of people with that level of determination, other wise we
wouldn’t be where we are. And she looked at me with those dagger eyes that she
would sometimes bring out, raising her voice: What the fuck is wrong with you, with
your curly-haired self, the people are
who will make change, the ones who always struggle, the sons and daughters of
the people, we never run out of fighters, some come first and others later, but
have some confidence, compa, otherwise
what are we doing? What do we do all we do for, huh?
Here in the struggle, Azalea said, just barely a young woman,
with that mischievous Lenca smile, the same one Berta would have on as she says,
See? What did I tell you?
Melissa Cardoza
April 2016
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