El modesto misterio

El Salvadorian male immigrant yet to be identified

Author: Guillermo Osorno

Photographer: Ricardo Ramirez Arriola

No one knows his name. It matters, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Rather, at least that’s what I think. I believe he is dead, that’s for sure. I believe the hardest part is over. This is also sure, although I know it was something he was regretting along the way because he didn’t know that things could get any worse. I believe at one point he had to walk barefoot. I believe he was mugged at gunpoint on a train before arriving in Oaxaca. I believe his life in El Salvador wasn’t a good one. I think the Mara Salvatrucha killed his brother or perhaps a family member. I believe he went to the United States to locate a family member, to see if they wanted him. I think along the way someone told him that they had been kidnapped by municipal police officers and that they asked his relatives from the United States for money. The officers then beat that someone, released him and he ended up at a shelter, where the two met. I think he didn’t know what to say to him. I believe he and the rest of people killed in Tamaulipas were caught so that they could beg for money. I believe as he had the blindfold on, before they shot him, he agreed to drink water from puddles and begged to eat.

Las Mujeres Matan Mejor – Omar Nieto
The book I’ll be translating is a novel about a former police woman. She security for a government official in Mexico. The country is in turmoil and she must keep him safe.

For my final translation project, I will translate from Spanish to English a short story “La agonia de Rasu-Niti” of the Peruvian author Jose Maria Arguedas. This author grew up speaking Quechua which was first language and he learned Spanish at the age of 11 years old. Even though he wrote all his books in Spanish, his work shows his great ancestors’ past.

I wonder when you were on top of that train, if you manage to grab any of the plastic bags filled with water or tacos that the ladies who lives next to the train’s track throw because they can’t tolerate someone in pain and hunger pass so close to them. When do you all three lost your path? How come did “the law” chase you until you were forced to hide? Was it the Samaritan, who promised to take you to Monterrey, who sold you to your killers for some coins? Who authorize those men to call your home asking for two thousand dollars rescue, like they were drunken gods with the right to mutilate lives? Lizardo, haven’t you ever heard the Mexican border is a dangerous territory? Well, at least, have you ever heard there is a war in Mexico where immigrants are trophies and the authorities allow these suspicious purchase-sale activities? Dear Lizardo, your body was found next to your bothers-in-law, Karla and Noemi’s husbands, and next to another 69 immigrants at a ranch in San Fernando. You were just few little cliffs away from Unites States. In Los Astales, the news makes everybody’s lives fall apart like a dynamite explosion and break their hearts. There is a picture of your wife Yesica in the local news-paper; she looks so sad and so pretty. There are no signs that she is pregnant but she is. I wonder if your unborn child Lizardito can feel her anguish. I am sure when he is born; she will tell him about you, and how the president declared you a national hero in a ceremony that you couldn’t assist. Your body is still stranded in a Mexican morgue. Lizardo, who send you there without proper identification documents? There was no way to identify you, even though your family recognized you as the young guy with the crazy hairstyle. There is a small piece of land waiting for you next to your home, where your body will be resting.

Gelder Lizardo Boche Cante, 72migrantes.com, # 37 by Marcela Turati

Me intriga saber si desde el lomo del tren pudiste atrapar alguna bolsita con agua o uno de los atados de tacos que lanzan las doñas avecindadas a la orilla de las vías, que no soportan que el hambre y el sufrimiento se paseen tan cerca. ¿En qué momento ustedes tres perdieron el camino? ¿Cómo fue que ‘la ley’ los correteó hasta obligarlos a esconderse? ¿El samaritano que prometió llevarlos a Monterrey fue quien los vendió a sus asesinos por unas monedas? ¿Quién autorizó a los hombres que llamaron a tu casa, para pedir 2 mil dólares por tu rescate, a actuar como dioses borrachos, con derecho de mutilar vidas? Lizardo, ¿habías escuchado que la frontera mexicana es territorio perdido? Vaya, ¿al menos que en México se libra una guerra donde los migrantes son un botín y que las autoridades contemplan con sospechosa indiferencia esa compra-venta? Encontraron tu cuerpo, querido Lizardo, junto a los de los esposos de tus hermanas Karla y Nohemí, y a los de otros 69 migrantes en el rancho de San Fernando. Nomás tras lomita quedaba Estados Unidos. En Los Astales, la noticia desmoronó como polvorón la vida de todos, desgajó corazones como pasa con los cerros tras las lluvias. ¡En la foto de un diario tu Yésica luce tan triste y tan linda! El vientre aún no se nota abultado. No sé si Lizardito siente la angustia que guarda ella. Seguro que cuando nazca le contará de ti, le dirá que el presidente te declaró héroe en una ceremonia donde no te dejaron estar presente. Sigues varado en una morgue mexicana. ¿Quién te manda, Lizardo, no tener cédula de identidad? No hubo manera de identificarte aunque tus parientes empeñaron su palabra en que tú eres tú, el adolescente de las milpas mal trazadas. Un surco de tierra te espera en casa. Ahí tu cuerpo será sembrado.

Dire que la traducciones fueron muy buenas, le voy mucho credito a las que traducieron esta parte de Don Quijote, por que contiene un vocabulario bien escojido por el autor, no es ordinario y hay que entender que se necesita de mucho esfuerzo para traducir Estas palabras. Comensando ya lo hace dificil “en el lugar de La Mancha” esto es muy dificil de traducir dandole el mismo sentido y sonido que la copia original. En la traducciones se trabajo mucho en el tono y el sentido. En todas las traducciones se lleva en el mismo drama sin cambiarle el tono o el significado al contexto original. Muy buenas traducciones Los traducturos se merecen mucho credito por que en verdad el vocabulario que es usado en Don Quijote es muy complicado y no ordinario. Es Un vocabulario muy culto.

Peyeto: Be generous to me and allow me to call you with the same nickname the ones who loved you in Suyapa did, your poor neighborhood Nacaome southern Honduras. I’m writing to you full of shame. I have carried it since August 24, when I heard you were dead two days ago. I almost didn’t know anything about you, then .you were a body stacked with other 71, your face was missing, identity, biography. They weren’t needed. I distressed imagine your fear, thinking of the cold, in the cruelty, in the previous rumble. I wished that was a lie, that the ranch where they found, were somewhere else. Not in Mexico. We murder you. my grief is greater now than I have been unraveling your story. It hurts me, Peter, knowing that you were only 26 years old, that you were a brave man. Nothing seemed able to stop the way you had chose. the pain you felt last year after knowing that your daughter had died didn’t kill you. Nor sadness defeated you when your wife left you. No.
You decided instead to give a turn to your life, grab the road north from there and help your parents, that today find no comfort. No desististe when the owner of Gift of God, the business for which you used deliver bread, believed that by refusing to pay the money he owned, you would have regret of leaving. Nor worked out that last conversation with the oldest of your four brothers, who also came to Mexico threw to the United States, and lived so many horrible things that vowed never to return to the land from which he was deported. Was your visit to Mexico which cut short your walk. Sorry Peyeto.

For the final project I decided to translate the first two chapters of the great novel Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen. This is the story of two kids growing up who learn about love. I really like it because each chapter is narrated alternatively by each of the two protagonists so you get to read both points of view of the same situation. You rarely have that in a book so I find it extremely interesting.

Alejandra Garcia

For my final project I will be translating a romantic regency novel: “A Kiss at Midnight” by Eloisa James. She is one of my favorite authors in this genre. I picked this novel because it has elements of  the fairy tale: “Cinderella” but with twists such as a poor prince, a heiress, circus with elephants, lions, etc.

Otono, el Rey Oscar y cancion de otono en primevera-Ruben Dario

Dime y a Un gato-Jorge Luis Borges

Arbol de mi alma y con la primavera-Jose Martin

Continua el mismo asunto-Sor Juana

Aqui hay 8 peomas y 4 autores.

For my final project I choose to translate a text called “22”  This text is part of a book in processes “Pajaros Muertos” by David Miklos and is published in the “El Futuro No Es Nuestro”  Narradores de Latinoamerica. David is a writer and editor. The novel relates the story of a man living in a Monaco Gris for 22 year. His car was his home and bedroom.