EDELMIRA: A meeting from another dimension

(Reinaldo Cedeño and Edelmira Palacios. Taino Radio Satation. La Habana)

By Reinaldo Cedeño Pineda

The Spanish translator: Luis Ernesto Oliva

Original in spanish:  EDELMIRA, un encuentro de otra dimensión
http://laislaylaespina.blogspot.com/2016/02/edelmira.html

Sometimes we know other people without being aware of it, we can feel them, even smell their scent in the air…. until one day they just vanish into the thin air.

She was born in 1953, five months before “Moncada Garrison’s Storming”, in Santiago de Cuba. Life was not vey kind to her, nevertheless she was kind to others.

I had heard so much about her that I rushed myself to meet her, to recognize her. Creation has always been a mystery. She comes from the time of foundations: one had to stop being to be.

The Seventies. She came to “CMKC Radio Station”, substituting Antonio Lloga for some time, in the first  broadcast news report for children in Cuba. She created the program schedule for children in CMKW, “Mambi Radio Station”. She worked with the children and for them. She was a fairy in a worker’s outfit. 

The Nineties. She made her way to Havana. Radio Enciclopedia. Metropolitan Radio Station. Taino Broadcast. During seventeen years she wrote, musicalized, directed, and produced Art and folklore. A challenging program, with a historic-anthropologic insight.

She interviewed researchers, writers, and artists both from Cuba and other countries.

She was very generous when she invited me to record her program. I looked into her eyes so hard that I could see her wounds. She looked back into mine until she covered them with her tears. It was an  encounter form another dimension. 

She took from me what I had no idea was there to be taken. She recited poems by heart, what I avoid to do. I was overwhelmed. Only her infinite patience must have allowed her to orchestrate that literary space. 

I listened to it together with the teacher Maria Antonia. In her small radio, at her small table. She would not let me lie about this. I will never be able to thank her stature, her caring.

During the celebrations for the Five Hundred Years of the city of Santiago de Cuba in 2015, I met her again. I barely had enough time to squeeze her hands in a friendly handshake, and place some books next to her.

Edelmira Palacios has jumped over oceans. She is so far yet close. She worked for the Cuban Radio Broadcast, for cuban culture, from her eighteen to her sixty years of age. She was a fairy in a worker’s outfit. She is my friend.