Every morning a man exhausted by his cruel task leaves for the mountain and leaves his little children, all in the cabin, crying innocently without having to eat and a pitiful voice that sometimes scolds them, that is the echo of the soul of a poor woman.
Look at the picture of that farmer, look at his eyes bright with longing, who raises his hands crying out to heaven with his trembling lips asking for a cry.
Give me sustenance sir for my children
Give them sustenance, sir, they are your children
The poor peasant spends thousands of jobs, the strength of his arms is not enough for more, so he goes to teach the oldest of his children to take the path that his father takes, the child knows his destiny very early and takes the youngest to learn to work.
Look at the fate of those peasants, look at their companions crying, what a cruel fate for those poor lives, blessed God, take away that punishment.
As I carry peasant blood in my veins, I have a noble heart without hatred and rancor, also my strong and calloused hands because I am a machete, drainer and ax cutter. I am used to the struggle of life and I love poverty because I am too.
And to Jesus Christ I raise my prayers to give us strength to survive, if you do not hear them I send you a letter with my patron who is San Agustín. No more poverty sir, this is the end.
The above text is the lyrics of a very little-known song by the maestro Hernando Marín, called ‘Galería del campesino’, recorded in his own voice with the accordion of trirey Alfredo Gutiérrez.
The content of that song evokes those past times of the Colombian peasantry, especially on the Caribbean coast, it reflects the vicissitudes of the man from the countryside, who more than anything else was a farmer, a freehand farmer, who very little felt the presence of the State. .
But despite everything, they were noble people, who in the midst of their limitations contributed a lot to the food security of a region.
Even so, they were people from whom one could never expect bad actions against their community, their mentality was always that of honest work, a rough task from sunrise to sunset and very little rewarded.
As the teacher ‘Nando’ Marín says there, from the eldest son to the youngest, from an early age the only thing he learned was to work and serve, first his family nucleus, but whose work radiated benefits to an entire population.
The question is: How much of that noble population has remained in these modern times? Information indicates that the number of rural population in Colombia continues to be high, however, their ways of life are different and most of it is concentrated in urban centers in tasks other than those in the fields.
The latest studies reveal that 23.7% of the Colombian population is rural, that is, close to 12 million people, but they are dispersed in the urban areas of the country.
In the past, a date like today, June 2, National Peasant Day, became a great cultural festival, it was perhaps the only scenario in which the peasants had some attention from the government, the mayors, and even governors, organized a special day in which the peasants received donations of work tools, in addition to the entertainment with musical groups, speeches and all a celebratory paraphernalia. Nothing has remained of that, now there are very few who remember this festivity.
The history of the peasants is the history of Colombia, let’s remember that our main economic vocation was purely agricultural, which it still is, only that it already occurs to a lesser extent compared to past times.
Evoking those old peasant times is a call to value our country people, the main support of the regional economy, in their proper dimension.