Patria

Patria

The word means “homeland.” Communist Cuba has been using it as a rallying cry for a half century….”Patria o Muerte!” “Homeland or Death.” But it doesn’t have to be a call for the spilling of blood. It means so much more.

There are several blogs written by people living in Panama that I read on a daily basis, one of which is: http://joycepa.wordpress.com/. Back in August, 2008, she had a post with a couple of music videos attached. One was someone playing the Panamanian national anthem on the piano and the other one she listed as: “having Ken Burns’ effects.” I loved that one and played it over and over again. The music is outstanding. Probably half of the visuals were from old post cards circa the 1950s and while interesting, in a historical sense, it gave the viewer little in the way of what Panama is like today. Of course it is in Spanish and my grasp of the language, while good enough to hold a basic conversation with someone, isn’t good enough to be able to translate a song.
After five months of listening and watching the video I did a YouTube search and discovered that it was written by Panama’s Minister of Tourism, Ruben Blades, who is an Emmy Award-winning singer and composer. One of the versions I watched had English subtitles. I present it here for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGEGo_j9XH4&feature=related.

I have one beef with the translation, though. It is translated here as with his having his“heart in his hand.” My Spanish is adequate enough to know that a more literal translation would be that he had his "soul in my throat." "Heart" in Spanish is "Corazon" and "Garganta" is "Throat." The word they translated as "Heart" was actually "Alma" which is "Soul." In English we often refer to having our hearts in our throat when things get emotional. But maybe I quibble.

I like the inserted videos in the clip which show today’s Panama. So now that you know what the song is saying I give you these other videos showing different scenes of modern day Panama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxCrw0GSy4s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yFXhfVahc8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdPlaNK0vsM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGohL6Sge0U&feature=related