Mucho Guaguancó

Mucho Guaguanco by Orquesta Salsa Latina

After walking around the gloomy hot room greeting as many family members as I could recognize, I sat with my wife to my left and paternal grandmother’s youngest sister to my right. Everyone around me seemed quiet and vacant. Instinctively, the blankness forced a search for any small talk that would alleviate the uneasiness I was feeling. I was sitting next to an aunt I had previously only met once. All I could think of was her famous crispy golden empanadas that I savored on my first trip to Colombia close to nine years prior. Cute wrinkles sprung to life around her slight gentle grin as she explained, “Mijo, es que estas manos ya no me dan para cocinar como antes.” The quick arthritis conversation helped me subconsciously settle into the journalist persona that has guided living in Medellin. As though paying attention to the little details that go into being Colombian will somehow make up for all the years I lived as an American. I tried to soak in as much of my first Colombian funeral as my awkwardness with the situation would allow. This after all was my first opportunity to share in pain with my paternal family.

I was probably focusing too hard on the light blue cement walls that made the room feel old and damp as I found myself back in a sea of silence. As I turned away from my aunt, I watched intensely at my grandmother’s empty stare to see if I could somehow share in her pain. Losing a son, even one knocking on his sixtieth year, must hurt deep. I decided now was a good time to walk over to Mamita. As I placed my hands on her shoulders, kissing her grey filled head I softly whispered in her ear, “lo siento Mamita.” Grandma replied as though she long came to terms with the life that once flowed from the coffin a few yards away, “menos mal ya esta descansando porque vivia una vida muy desordenada.” My sister and I always joke over our grandmother’s dry demeanor. So I wasn’t surprised by her response.

People mostly sat with their arms crossed in deep thought only speaking when it came time to recite the prayer the short curly haired middle aged woman pried out of them. Who was this woman and why was she directing my uncle’s farewell with a chant everyone had perfectly memorized? Some of my uncles and cousins sat outside feeling the hot unforgiving Antoqueño sun conversing about nothing in specific, while a one legged roughly bearded drunk seized the moment to ask for some spare change. This bum provided the only entertainment for the day as he suddenly remembered the long history he shared with my uncle. His begging turned into a persuasive act as he rambled incomprehensible best wishes. Chest thumping and kisses were directed at a heavenly figure. He played the role to perfection, convincing me he was a dear lifelong friend of my uncle until a policeman politely escorted him out of the funeral home. Perhaps my uncle had slipped him a few bucks from another world to add some spark to his uneventful farewell.

Mucho Guaguancó by Johnny Ventura

With the exception of a cousin I’ve never met in Florida, all of my father’s family lives in Colombia. I didn’t know much of anything about them until my early twenties. The continental time and distance made it difficult to form a connection with this side of my family. So as I sat there amongst basically strangers, I mostly felt curiosity. Although moments such as these build relationships, the lack of closeness with my father’s family seeped through my dark grey polo shirt to grab hold of my attention. I felt sad for my family for their loss but found it difficult to feel something more for my uncle.

I saw him five or six times in my life but never had the opportunity to dig deeper into who he was other than the troubled life his physical appearance displayed. I always saw him dressed in a pristinely ironed button down shirt neatly tucked into form fitting blue jeans that stopped just short of his brown penny loafers. However, his profoundly depressed eyes, overly wrinkled forehead, and rough sandy skin spoke a different story. He suffered from severe alcoholism, which made him sort of an outcast in the family. I was told he was an artist, a painter to be precise, living a rather lonely existence. Although I did see brief joyous moments from him at family parties that perhaps only those that really have nothing to live for can transmit.

The curiosity I felt was more towards how my family dealt with death since my personality seems to resemble more of my father’s family. My parents' families are polar opposites with my father on the reserved introspective side, leaving me feeling a bit different amongst my mother’s spontaneous, extroverted side. The death of my maternal grandfather in 2002 was a very public display of pain, filled with tear shedding and emotional outbursts. My mother and aunts periodically threw themselves on his coffin pleading for my grandfather not to leave them.

The vision of my paternal family didn’t fail. Very little emotion seemed to exist at the wake or funeral. I asked my father to tell me a good story of my 59 year old uncle’s childhood. He quickly brushed the question off as though he hadn’t heard me. His response was a clear request for privacy. It seemed as though he had long expected his brother’s fate and spent the funeral reflecting on the future awaiting his own alcoholic heart. I shared with a cousin the encounters I had with my grandmother and father and my perception of the dryness of our family. He explained that they displayed their emotion hours before on the night of his actual death.

The last memory I have of this uncle was his whacky high powered uncoordinated dance at the family Christmas party. Before stepping on the dance floor for what evenutally turned out to be his last performance, he announced a soft “watch this” with a wink at the start of a salsa. He seemed full of life during that dance even if the alcohol and three daily packs of cigarettes where reaching the end of his feeble heart. As my friend Saul would say, “la salsa la cargamos en las venas”, while tapping on his forearms as though preparing for a guaguancó syringe. My uncle had certainly been injected with a bit of life as soon as he heard a salsa at that family gathering. The image of his footwork made me question if a private mourning is what he would have wanted as the final story to his troubled life. Would he have preferred Mucho Guaguanco?

Mucho Guaguancó by Rafael Labasta

The death of a family member, no matter how close the relationship, always seems to conjure up the thought of your own mortality. We’re all on borrowed time with birth impling death.  The clock begins to tick the moment you leave the birthing center. Conversely, I enjoy the idea of death implying birth, especially during this period of my life where I’m reinventing myself. If such a joyous occasion as birth goes hand in hand with death, why do we westerners treat the latter with such sorrow? When I die all that’s left of me is the memories imbedded in the lives I’ve touched. I don’t believe I’ll descend to heaven but if I do, I’d like to believe my friends and family would rejoice in what follows of my existence. If the Christian vision isn’t fulfilled then the least my friends and family could do is celebrate not morn my life. The thought of having a party to celebrate my death seems so much more appealing than one of privacy or emotional outbursts. When I’m gone, would my family honor my wish to say good bye at the sound of the horns and percussion that have been such an important part of my life?

Peace
DJ Walt

Lyrics to Orquesta Salsa Latina’s version of Mucho Guaguancó:

El día en que yo me muera
Quiero que me pongan flores

El día en que yo me muera
Quiero que me pongan flores

Yo quiero que me despidan con un toque de tambores
Yo quiero que me despidan con un toque de tambores

Que suene el compas
Del guaguancó
Y el quinto también
Y el tumbao

Pero que venga bongo
Con su tambo
Y suene con fe
Mucho Mucho Guaguancó

Cuando vaya lo mejor
Con uno pa’ otro lado iré
Dale mucho Guaguancó
Y también aguanile

Chorus:
Aguanile, Aguanile Mai Mai
Aguanile, Aguanile Mai Mai

Hay…. el día en que yo me muera
Quiero que lo sepa usted
No se pierdan el velorio
Pa’ que gocen del bembe

Chorus

Hay… yo soy hijo de Chango
Y tu hija de Yemaya
Ven pa’ que goce la rumba
Que la fiesta va’ empeza’

Chorus

Hay… negrita ven a gozar
Mira que la vida es corta
Vamos a vacilar que la vida corta es

Chorus

Yo… yo soy hijo de Chango
Y tu hija de Yemaya
Ven pa’ que goce la rumba
Que la fiesta va’ empeza’…. aja!