"give them a light"

The translation, as promised to Duo Guardabarranco's song "Dale una Luz", which everytime I hear it, moves me to tears. My Nica friend Hultner says, "We have a saying as Nicaraguans--that we love life so much, we would die to live in freedom." As a student of American history, I told him that it was for that same love of liberty that Americans gave their lives 230 years ago. There is always more that unites us, if we only look for it.

"Give them a light"

In a place the sky cries with tenderness
In a place all is green in festival
In high waters not far from Corn Island and the Bluff
A man-child fishes, a bag in the ocean

In a place burns the sky with stars
In a place it saw me play as a child
I had friendship, a friend that will play no more
But the street, today it is named for him

In a place it rains so much it blocks out the sun
And the quagmire always kisses your knees
An elder is learning his first letters
He has no glasses but he will know how to read

In a place where the water is grand like volcanoes
And the shark made its nest in sweet water
The hurricane gives the forest mortal fear
Trembles the earth, trembles the ocean of this place

Give a light to the people who have searched for
Their freedom against heaven and against mankind
Give a light to this nation which loves life so much
In Nicaragua

What is so beautiful about this song is how it poetically represents the salient events of Nicaragua's history and culture and natural beauty, all in one. Stanza one is a reference to the Atlantic Coast, stanza two to the war that took the lives of so many Nicaraguans in the 70s and 80s, stanza three to the literacy campaign the Sandinistas led, stanza four to Hurricane Mitch (1998), and the final verse to the passion of la gente, that love life with all there is to love, but have struggled so much to find a light in the dark times that have dominated their recent history.

Oh, Lord, let your light shine in this land, in the hearts of Nicaraguans from Bluefields to Pochomil, from Somotillo to Penas Blancas...