When I was a boy I had a friend whose father was from Latin America. When I was over at his house his father would be watching a news item on T.V. that depicted the horrors of the Vietnam War and my friends father would exclaim that the world is like a “flea Market”. He was a very explosive man, given to fits of rage, but with a warm and caring nature.

Years later when we were in our late teens I asked Mr. Enrique why did he always refer to bad things on television, specifically in the news, as a flea market. He look at me and said it was an expression in Latin America. A flea Market is called a “cambalache”, but a cambalache, as he used it, is more. “you see, a cambalache in my country is a flea market full of people that would do anything to sell anything. They are “traicioneros”, trators, they will cheat you if they can. So, the whole flea market is “traicionero” treasonous. “Our world, my friend, is a cambalache where production and profit are worth more than a human being”. “Soon” he said, “we will only be a part of that greater machine. The worth of a human being will only be measured by his or her ability to produce something of value. Even nature will only be there to be exploited by production and profit”. He seemed to lose some of his famous energy and his gaze had a faraway look as though he was at once looking into the past and the future.

Long after Mr. Enrique had passed from this cambalache, I had a feeling of overwhelming anxiety while studying for an exam in a course in the Politics of the Middle-east at university. I remembered Mr Enrique and took a break. I decided to check-out his song so I went to the card catalogue and looked up the word Cambalache.

It was in fact the title of a book and in it there was Mr. Enrique’s song. And it was translate.

I read it through three times and I only wished I spoke and read Spanish because if the English version was any indication, we are in fact as Mr. Enrique put it, all in a cambalache.

Here is an excerpt from Cambalache

The world has been and is rotten this I know in 1506 and the year 2000
There always have been thieves, traitors and victims of fraud, happy and bitter people,
the real thing or a cheap imitation.

But, that the twentieth century is a display of insolent malice, nobody can deny it anymore.
We lived sunk in a fuzz and in the same mud all well-worn…

Twentieth century bazaar, problematic and feverish!
If you don’t cry you don’t get fed and if you don’t steal you’re stupid.

Go ahead! Keep it up! That there, in hell we’re gonna reunite.
Don’t think anymore, move out of the way.
Nobody seems to care if you were born honest.

It’s the same the one who works, day and night like an ox,
than the one who lives from the others, than the one that kills or heals
or than the one who lives outside the law

Something to think about!

If you would like to hear the song in Spanish go to
http://www.planet-tango.com/lyrics/cambalac.htm