Who are you? Jorge Toledo

My favorite question to ask someone in an interview is “Who are you?”

Sometimes I have to repeat the question. Occasionally the person rambles (Who am I? they ask. Now that’s a question. But how can I answer that? How should I know?...Who am I?). Other times he or she might sit quiet for what seems like forever, eyes flicking about the room, searching, grasping. The silence hangs, but I steady my gaze. And I wait.

And then it happens. The silence breaks and rippling out through the space between us – sometimes as a whisper, other times as a declaration — something is born. People begin to reflect upon who they are, what they stand for, what they believe in, who they want to be.

In one of my final interviews this last week, I asked the question to Jorge Toledo. “Es el pregunton!” he told me, chuckling. “It’s the big question, the question.”

Jorge is from the tiny island of Graciosa just north of Lanzarote. He was born into a family of timple (say Tim – play) players. The timple is a tiny string instrument, cousin to the ukelele and cavaquinho.

I interviewed him on day 365 of my journey. When I met him around 5 p.m., the sun glowed silver through the low clouds, and the vendors just packing up their skirts and beads to wheel their carts to tents on the beach. People were starting to move through the streets, lured by the cooler breezes of early evening and the smell of tapas wafting from restaurant kitchens.

We were sitting in the small plaza in front of the house where he was born. Today it’s paved with concrete, and sunny tables from the portside cafes revolve around a spiny cactus. But when he was born, the plazita was used to dry salted fish brought back by Graciosa’s marineros from Marutania and the Spanish Sahara. When they were dry, women would cross the bay and climb the Cliffs of Famara, children in their arms, 25 kilo baskets on their heads, to sell the fish in the small towns of Haria and Ye of Lanzarote in exchange for basic foodstuffs. At that time Graciosa was extremely poor. Graciosa receives very little rain per annum and months can pass without a drop from the clouds. The soil does not support large-scale agriculture; fishing was a way of life. I was told the women used to scale the cliffs barefoot – a forty-minute climb – and only when they had arrived in the outskirts of Haria would they slip into their shoes. To save face, one man told me.

Jorge’s first memory is sitting barefoot outside his front door, inhaling the smell of earth bathed with rain. A rainbow fell into the bay that morning, and he rain after it in hopes to pin it down. I thought I could catch it! he told me. “Agua fue sagrado,” “water was sacred then,” he explained. He remembers his grandmother stooping down to peel water from the puddles, smoothly and carefully so as not to disturb the earth. “We bathed once a week, and washed our dishes in the sea.”

Graciosa was an island of marineros. The older generation used to wear loose blue slacks and tunics. On the fishing boats that traced the African Sahara gracioseros were known as “los italianos.” When there was no wind, the sailors stayed at home and there were dances. Music rang through the streets, notes jostling along the sandy passageways to disapate over the sea. Jorge learned to play the timple on a piece of carboard, strumming the corrugated fiber until his fingers felt the music. Like his father and his grandfather before him, Jorge joined the fishing industry, but he always carried his timple with him.

These days the fishing industry lies buried beneath slabs of concrete, but if you stop and chat with one of the older men who stroll the boardwalks at sunset, you’ll hear stories upon stories. I met Don Pepe and Jose one evening and after chatting for over an hour, the following day they invited me to La Peña de Amistad, a group of old friends who meet every day during the summer months to cook lunch and play cards in a club house.

Jorge misses the musical traditions of his youth, when people gathered in the plaza to play at dusk, when there was spontaneity to music, constancy, like a heartbeat. He’s started teaching classes to the younger generation, and slowly this tradition is returning. One night I joined some friends with a few plates of tapas and a bottle of sweet local wine and Jorge played and we sang into the very early morning.

So Who is Jorge? Listen in! I did very little editing on this piece – let it unroll in real time so you can hear him thinking. It’s a bit noisy, in the central plaza, but I think it gives a feel of what Graciosa is like, the community there. If you listen until the end you can hear Jorge play along with Gabriela, one of his students, 6 years old and a big fan of Hannah Montana.

Here’s the translation:

Jorge Toledo Quien Soy.mp3

And one more question, let's see, who are you?

Me? Who am I? I don't know. I'm Jorge. And what else? I'm Jorge.

A musician?

Musician, no. I don't like that word. I'm more than that. Who am I? I'm a friend. I'm a person. (Professor, see you tomorrow! passerby) I can't define myself simply, I don't know. Someone that likes...that likes....love, music, fiesta, synchronization, simplicity. Someone who doesn't make conflict, who avoids conflict at all costs. It's easy. Never cause friction. We have all of this! I'm not a philosopher... I'm a person. I'm a human. It's important question for the mind. Who are you? Who are you?