Gonzalo Ledesma
A challenge I
overcame: The fear to connect myself with people
A dream for my future: That we all love one another. Love
A
hope for the global community: That we accept our fears. That we truly love one another or at least have respect for one another.
Another character and crazy-cat, Gonzalo is another cardboard-book publisher, and amazingly some of his first words to Dani and I were along the lines of "Have you heard of Alejandro".... as in Alejandro, our newly-met friend from Eloisa Cartonera in la Boca! What a small world... or perhaps what a series of well-oiled apt and meant-to-be connections. :-)
Gonzalo is part of La Propia Cartonera collective from Uruguay, which function in a similar way to Alejandro's crew, making copies of classics and new literature and poetry, hand-binding them in cardboard and hand-painting and sticking titles and cover images on for distribution. Loaded with a sports bag full to the brim with these books, Gonzalo hand-picked a couple of titles to gift to both Dani and I - hugely generous of him (thank you Gonzalo!)
The reason for the bag-full was that Gonzalo had come to BsAs for a gathering of poets and artists that the La Boca crew were also involved with... part of the same festival Toro had just invited us to the following day... (seeing as that was part of our reason for being in San Telmo, looking for the bar where the event was that Gonzalo had just been in, perhaps not such a coincidence that we crossed paths then?!)
When we met Gonzalo Dani and I were on a post-dinner tipple search (we'd just enjoyed the delicious target of our first search of the evening - a traditional Argentinan steak.... mmmm! [I have to admit at this point, rather ashamedly, that with regards to another typical "must-do" in Argentina I missed out - I never did dance Tango... a definite reason to return to the city at the nearest opportunity!]).... so we three-musketeered it into the night and were able to procure post-shut-down a bottle of this Blender's Pride that is proud to declare on it's label its Scottish origins... a little dubious apparently, judging from the Argentina upturned nose reaction - it seems 'blend' is a loose term and the whisy is fermented near to BsAs and isn't highly respected for its taste.
Anyways, Blender's Pride did us proud enough... Gonzalo, Dani and I sat in the open air of a lively square in San Telmo, sipping and chatting the night away, with Gonzalo giving me last minute tips on approaching the language change (being as he's Uruguayan and placed on the border with Brazil and Portuguese he seemed to know a fair amount of the language, or at least to sound accent-wise like he was talking Portuguese).... happy hours and a fun despedida, thanks folks!
Gracias para compartir esa noche tan lindo con nosotros Gonzalo, y mil gracias para los libros... me habías inspirado con tu pregunta "porque no lo haces en Londres"... voy a ver que pasaría cuando regreso...
Suerte en todo tus proyectos y aventuras.
Un abrazo desde Brazil
:-)
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