Rosa María, the girl from the spring, was also one of those fairy tale characters wrapped in a pink cloud, which her father invented so that the world would never forget the existence of his daughters. With songs, poems, unique nicknames, or affectionate phrases that he knew how to say, Rafael Calixto Escalona was in charge of perpetuating the name of his girls over time, as was the case with Ada Luz, his first-born, and then Rosa María, his second. little girl.
She was a dream that her father foresaw before she was born. Maye, eight months pregnant, didn’t know what she was going to have, her father did, and she imagined the baby in a thousand ways. He was sure that this second birth of his wife would not be a boy, but rather the companion that Ada Luz needed to share. ‘Rafa’ was also unaware of the big problem that was coming his way and it was not to play, after having given the impossible, nothing less than a house in the air to the girl Ada Luz, it was essential to save a similar gift for the baby he It was already transiting from Paris to Macondo.
Escalona and her daughter Rosa María, inspiration of Manantial.
Despite the machismo of the men of our region, even more marked at that time, the fact that the first daughter, nor the second daughter that he foresaw, would not be a little man who should inherit the mythical name, Rafael Escalona did not feel disappointed in the least. On the contrary, his inventiveness was stimulated more by trying to build colored dreams in glass bubbles for his other heir.
What Marina Arzuaga, ‘La Maye’, and ‘Ocha María’ never knew about the story, was that that other castle of fantasies began to be woven with stitches of love, between party and party like this: once Rafael returned from any of the many parties he enjoyed up in the mountains, alongside Poncho Cotes, Miguel Canales – Poor Migue -, Andrés Becerra and many other partygoers from that group; When crossing a stream he thought that a similar gift was what Rosa María deserved upon her arrival into the world, so that her princess-girl silhouette would be reflected in her waters.
While everyone was talking about a chicken that they were going to eat upon their arrival in Valledupar, Escalona did not neglect his work, which was already beginning to take shape. It would be a Spring that would come from the highest part of the mountains, with spy functions, so that Rosa María could never lie about her lovers who came to visit her. Bad luck for the composer’s second daughter, because looking at it another way she would have to introduce all her lovers and the grandmother had her sayings, aftertaste and gave advice that in the long run was very wise due to so many unpleasantries that could be avoided and that one of Rosa María’s younger sisters, followed to the letter. The question was: “Do not present a boyfriend, my daughters, because a boyfriend presented is a boyfriend real.” However, as in all of his songs, Escalona did not stop playing with cunning and this was not going to be the exception; The indigenous malice or the jealous father’s feelings were evident again in this song, which was only known three months after the girl’s birth.
A GIFT FOR ADA LIGHT
The day Ada Luz turned one, she had a nice gift, the birth of Rosa María; but the proud dad had to postpone the celebration and keep her song to himself and everything. Contrary to what was expected, the girl’s birth was not good, the girl almost suffocated when she came to the world of poets and songs, which caused severe bronchitis for more than three months that threatened to not let her live.
Marina and Rafael lived the worst moments of their lives with the girl’s long illness that managed to bring more than one tear to the Patillal poet, who, moved by the imminent death of the child, decided to make a pact with God that no one ever knew. One day, when he told me this story that I owed to my beautiful sister, he told me “I tell you the saint, but not the miracle,” and no matter how much I insisted, I couldn’t get him to know what the pact was about, he only confirmed that it was complied.
Escalona and her daughter Rosa María, inspiration of Manantial.
It was in March, almost on the eve of spring, when Rosa María began to regain her health and came back to life. Grateful to God perhaps, one morning while he was watching how the little girl was bathed with medicinal plants to finish curing her illness, he brought up the song from the depths of his being, which by then with so much agony was like an ode to life. . That March morning, the Escalona family, the neighbors, the doctors, friends and compadres, learned the lyrics and melody of ‘El manantial’, a song that was born long before Rosa María brightened this world with her presence, long before that the Lord would test the faith of a family; long before the girl knew the essence of the bohemian and partying man who was her father, a great man but with virtues and defects like every human being.
However, many times since she was a teenager, Rosa María had the fortitude and character to express her thoughts to her father, to make it clear to him what she did not like and to establish her position in life, because that temperament and personality that Today they define it, they were nourished with the sap of the same tree from which their roots descend. Today, that girl who made a spring of love spring up in the dreams and fantasies of her father, she is an exemplary mother, a tender grandmother, a good sister and the most pampering of her aunts. Rosa María has never stopped pursuing her dreams and she continues to draw her desires in the sands of that spring of affection that covers her life alongside all of us who love her.
LYRICS OF ‘EL MANANTIAL’
I am going to make a spring flow
At the top of the mountain range
Where you can only bathe
When Rosa María feels hot.
Rosa María does not have to envy
Whoever else buys a modern dressing table
To look at yourself you have a mirror
The beautiful waters of this spring.
Where will Rosa María bathe?
Where will he bathe every day,
I don’t have to buy him a dresser
Because it looks better at the spring.
Rosa María does not have to envy
With the beautiful waters of that spring.
If lovers go to visit her
Rosa María will not be able to deny them
Because their mark will be painted
In the sands of that spring.
If lovers go to visit her
Rosa María will not be able to deny them
Because their mark will be painted
in the sands of that spring.
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