is so long that I think, at times when I can to stop and above all to dispel the fears of my mind: I do not seem all that fair. They call it 'La Guerra del Futbol', but even if I am a poor ignorant peasant, I feel an enormous stupidity. For a week I am here in Chalatenango, on the border with Honduras, which has become our enemy. I was called to arms because, they say, the Hondurans are communists who threaten our civilization and our democracy. No, I do not understand anything. But it seems equally absurd that all this is born from a lot.
I like the football. Ever since his father Bruno arrived in our community. It was he who made me love. Father Bruno was an Italian priest, and had three passions: the poor, his hometown, Bologna, and fútbol. He spent hours telling me about how beautiful it was running after a ball, sweating, getting angry with teammates and opponents, then get a drink with them. I always spoke of his city and the team of his city, which was a big fan. He spent hours to describe me and the other friends, a few years ago, the Bologna managed to win the Italian league, beating an opponent much richer and stronger. He also got a shirt of his team, a nice shirt, with red and blue stripes.
But how can a game is made for a war? No, it's absurd. Yet it seems that is indeed the case. A few weeks ago the national of Honduras and El Salvador have met for a playoff that would qualify them for the World Championships, which next year will be held in Mexico. The first meeting is held in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and ended with victory for 1 to 0. But there were incidents, insults to our players, who had to leave the country accompanied by the army. At the news of our defeat, a girl of eighteen years, shot and killed himself. To me it seemed quite out of this world, how do you kill for a game? But maybe I was wrong. There were a state funeral for the girl, with the coffin wrapped in the flag, the President of the Republic e tanti ricchi. Dissero che dovevamo fargliela pagare cara, agli honduregni. Infatti la gara di ritorno fu un trionfo, El Salvador vinse 3 a 0 e si qualificò per i Mondiali. I giocatori dell’Honduras furono portati fino al confine dentro carri armati dell’esercito, perché la folla voleva linciarli. Dio, che assurdità! Fatto sta che, dopo qualche giorno, fui chiamato alle armi. Mi diedero un fucile in mano, m’insegnarono a smontarlo e rimontarlo, a marciare, a fare il saluto ai superiori e mi mandarono qui, nel Chalatenango, insieme a tanti altri poveracci come me. Non va nemmeno troppo male, visto che sono il solo, tra i soldati del mio plotone, a saper leggere, anche se non sono mai andato a scuola. Ho cominciato a lavorare the earth when I was six, and then I stopped just to come here. But Bruno father taught me and my friends to read and write. I also gave the books a while. I like fantasy stories. My passion is to 'Treasure Island', I've re-read at least four or five times. Also 'Moby Dick' is very nice. I sometimes wonder how certain people to make up stories so beautiful. Maybe they have time to do it, or maybe they never had to deal with hunger, fatigue, afraid ... But I digress.
As I said, the fact of being able to read helps me here. Besides me, I can only do the two officers who commanded the platoon, but they are hardly ever there. So when a telegram arrives, a telegram or something, call me. For this they are careful not to send in dangerous actions. But is not that this put me safe. Camped in the forest, more or less on the border, we are always in the mud, because it rains all the time, makes a very hot day and very cold at night, and occasionally get a few shots of cannon, some discharge machine gun, with the fear that you also enter the bone, like the rain and cold. And when we can rest a little, we begin to fight against insects and other animals. The other day a friend of mine was bitten by a poisonous snake and died an hour later because no one was able to help and relief did not arrive.
But I still do not understand. How is it possible that all this is born from a football game? No, I think, although I am a poor ignorant peasant, there is something else underneath. Of course, here we have never seen all those gentlemen who speak of their country, that we must save it and defend it from attack of the enemy, but they do not want to know what is happening here? That poor people are dying, are suffering from terrible wounds, for the insects that do not give you respite for the rain, the cold, but, above all, for fear? I've never been so scared in my life. Each time I hear a noise, I jump and I think "Here is the end." Wait a second, I realize that nothing happened and I stand by waiting for other noises. I've learned one thing: the worst, leading to more damage, no loud noises, large explosions. No, they hiss, the whistles. What a sniper's bullet fired across the face, that of the snake, the bomb that is going down ... Well, I've digressed again.
I said that those who decided all this, the President of the Republic, ministers, army officers know very well that this war is being done to a game. But then, why this is happening? Too bad there is no father Bruno, I'd like to know what you think.
Sometimes I get nostalgic for the strange Italian priest. It was very different from those I had known until then. He arrived in Nejapa, my village, four years ago, in 1965. A strange thing was, for example, wearing the habit only when he said mass. For the rest it seemed one of us, a peasant like us. As we worked the land, was a bricklayer, to assist the sick. He spoke with us. Of course, he said strange things for religion. He said that Jesus Christ was a poor man like us, and that he had rebelled against poverty and injustice. It seemed to me a very strange thing, and it seems strange even now. But I trusted Father Bruno. At one point he also began to tell us that, like Jesus Christ, we too would have to rise up against poverty and injustice. That the rich and powerful are not those of divine right, but because the poor have usurped their wealth and their power. I do not know, I am a poor farmer, but it does not seem so bad these words. The problem was that one day his father Bruno was attacked by four people from elsewhere, who beat him and sent him to hospital. Father Bruno was healed and went between us. Despite the beatings took began to say the same things, and to insist that we learn to read and write. He said that if one knows ten words, and another knows thousand, the first will be overwhelmed by the second. This too is a strange thing, but I just know it's true. So I agreed to go to him to learn. Of course, it was not a simple thing. When you come home at night after you broke my back for so many hours in the fields, you do not really want to go to school. You just want to lie down, close your eyes and nothing else. You can not even take off your shoes. But despite the tiredness, force myself to go to his father Bruno, because when I was there with him, as if by magic the tiredness vanished and I was hours listening to him, as if during the day instead of working in the fields, I had not done nothing.
Luckily I learned to read fast enough, because one day his father Bruno was sent back to Italy. I still remember, was one of the worst day of my life (apart from those I'm going through here, of course). He called us to church and told us that his superiors had decided to call it in Italy. He said that he would go to a place very different from ours, a small village that stood on high mountains where it was very cold and where for so many months a year there was snow. I have never seen snow, but they say that snowfall makes a really terrible cold. We complain, someone suggested to rebel against this, but Father Bruno stopped us. His face was sad. He said that he had to obey their superiors which, when it had become priest had promised three things: poverty, chastity and obedience. I thought that something was not right, but as he spoke to us of Jesus Christ as one who had rebelled against injustice, he told us that we should have done the same thing, and instead he bowed his head in that way? No, something did not return, but I did not dare to ask. It was so sad, so tired, that I preferred to keep that question for me. I helped him put a few things he had in a bag and took him to the bus. We embraced, and it was there that gave me some books and especially the shirt of Bologna, his team. He said, "Take care, Facundo, playing ball as many times as you can, because it is a beautiful thing. " Here, I'd like to know what you think about him, of this war. To me, he would agree: they call it war fútbol, \u200b\u200bbut the ball has nothing to do nothing. So why are we here at ... Oh my God! You got a whistle, the usual hiss ... Luckily nothing happened ... But now, there's planes, there are people screaming to get away, my God, I do now? Yes, I wear a helmet, here, here the air, a rumble here, these are bombs, my God, he 'runs out quickly .... Maybe I should not be here huddled, I should run under some shelter ... but I can not even to move ... my God, I beg you, make 'runs out quickly ....
The only time an officer has died, because he had jumped the gun in hand, we have made to the peg and they buried with full honors. But when one of us dies, nothing. After the last attack by the Hondurans have been killed four of my platoon, more than a dozen injured. I'm fine, just some scratch their ears ringing for explosions and a lot of fear. Together with other survivors, we are burying our comrades, not even put in a coffin. A large pit, and throw them in, as if they were animals. Even this seems very fair. Us dying, suffering, at least one coffin, a priest, a prayer. If there was Father Bruno .... We finished filling the grave. I stop for a moment, and I decided to recite a prayer. Will have little, but better than nothing. Father Bruno, when burying someone, he always said a sentence of its parts: "Let it be light the earth." For me it is a beautiful line. Here, I try to pronounce it for these poor friends of mine, but there is something that I did not come back. I do not know, I can not understand ... I see this our earth, hard, wet with blood and rain, heavy ... No, I think for us poor people, for us the war of fútbol players, and all other wars in which the official are buried with all the honors and the soldiers were thrown into mass graves, no, we can not even land to be mild. And even that seems very fair.
Tale Piero Cavallotti
