By Train to Macondo
A great writer returns to his birthplace at a time when his grandniece is exploring her own imagination.
On May 30, 2007 after 24 years of unintentional exile, the Nobel prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez returned to his hometown of Aracataca, Colombia on a train painted with yellow butterflies. The train left from Santa Marta late in the morning and passed our school during lunch recess. Children, teachers, and workers flocked to the fence to watch history float by. Some of us stood on tables, while a hundred children raced to the end of the school grounds to watch that “magical train” pass. One of my students was a passenger riding it. She is nine.
Every recess just before lunch, she sits by me while we watch the kids play soccer. She tells me stories from her week and the funny or startling things she’s seen and heard. She began slipping me scraps of fiction and drawings at the beginning of the year, and I was so delighted and amused by her unconventional stories, I told her that although I’ll treasure them forever, I don’t want her to lose such great work.
I found an unused, blank notebook on the top shelf of our classroom’s closet. I slipped it to her unobtrusively, and she spent the next hour eagerly copying down her tales of the beautiful witch who jilted a hapless prince at the altar and flew to Rome and became a millionaire instead…of the girl who murdered the devil because he had once told her that he was her father, and then later (absentmindedly) told her to kill her father…of the man who walked out his front door, hit his head, and promptly forgot who he was…of the lonely sun and the lonely moon who found each other by chance, while the stars first ridiculed them, and then later attended their wedding… There are also poems and songs: lyrics of heartbreak and love, lines of friendship and trust.
It was only last week that I found out who her great-uncle is.
A teacher’s days are long and hard. Sometimes it is difficult to see any significant change or progress in one’s students. The work can be overwhelming, the challenges insurmountable. But all it takes is a few minutes of listening to what a student has to tell you and a weary day is transformed into something life-affirming and new. Give students room to use their imaginations, to discover themselves, and watch how the future shines in their eyes.
I look forward to sitting on that wooden balance beam tomorrow to watch the kids play soccer and listen to her tell the story of today. Maybe I’ll even ask her to write it down.
Authored By Ana María Correa, Colombia