1 de mayo...

My grandmother used to say that "in May it only rains in cursed places". Waking up on a first of May, -which has always been considered the official beginning of spring and would steer country-side walks and pic-nics even to city dwellers like my family- in the pouring rain was really something new and given Barcelona's weather, quite disappointing.

So be it! I am not "catching" May this year. Instead I am sitting on my couch, looking at the rain outside the window, the wind bending the palm-trees, as disappointed as me, or even more for not being able to dazzle the tourists, who have flown from all over Europe only to find Barcelona at its grayest. The Old Port looks emptier than ever, no outdoor tapas, or claras, umbrellas instead of sunglasses and anoraks instead of shorts (although some visitors still believe you can fight reality with hope and go around in sandals).

And as the Spanish would say "1 de mayo mis cojones!"

Nonetheless, 1st of May is not only about flower-picking and pic-nics. It's labour day for the Europeans at least although the legendary strike took place in Chicago. I felt a bit bad about not doing anything to participate but as it often happens, the mountain came to Mohamed. So around noon, I heard trumpets blowing and drums rolling in front of my place, all this under heavy rain. I opened the window to see a hundred people with their flags and their umbrellas strolling down Passeig de Colom, singing "A las barricadas" a worker's hymn from the 30's often sang during the Spanish civil war.

the lyrics go something like this:

Black storms are shaking the air and dark clouds shade are view
but even if suffering and death awaits us, our duty calls us against the enemy
the gift mostly precious is our Liberty, we have to defend with faith and bravery
High flies the flag of revolution that will bring people to emancipation
On your feet worker people, towards the battlefield, reaction must be defeated
To the barricades, to the barricades, for the triumph of our revolution!

I stood there on the balcony for some five minutes, under the rain as the least I could do for these people, who after so many years and with the rest of the world having grown (or better say having decayed) to be thinking of them as funny romantics, or even stupid and back-ward, they still keep singing about barricades in times when barricades are becoming more and more invisible. The worst thing of all though, was that right across the street, in front of the building of the Capitania General, two police cars full of cops were "discretely" following the demonstration, as of they were monitoring the movements of possible common muggers and thieves, or -God forbid- terrorists...

To the spirit of these people, who keep keeping the cops under terror, who are frowned upon by their own townsmen as retrogressive rebels with out-dated causes, to these few but dedicated successors of the Haymarket Square martyrs, is this post dedicated.