We speak with Pepa Aurora, Agüimes, teacher, writer, oral narrator, infinite smile, interviewed by Lori Help:
Pepa Aurora grew up mostly among sisters in the southeast of the island of Gran Canaria. There she has a large room for herself, her library ... "A room of her own" as the writer Virginia Woolf also defended.
As he poses in the distance, he looks at the camera and comments: “An ideal window for reading, mid-morning. A preciousness. I have the sea at my feet. I have it all… ”The house is flooded with a laugh red from poppies and white from almond trees.
After the photos, he continues to convey hope with his mere presence. The look and the words that he gives make us fall in love. She is a generous and strong woman.
Pepa Aurora, thank you for granting us this interview. Was working at school an open door to practice written and oral storytelling?
If she hadn't been a teacher, she might have written, but nothing else.
He has been telling stories for more than 40 years in schools, in libraries,… Do you remember when you said “I want to tell out loud”?
Well, I started before I was a teacher. It counted because in my town, in Ingenio, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, cousins ... everyone counts. When I was little I used to go to a place called "El Puente", in the square, to be told stories. It was the only way out we kids had. I heard stories from oral transmission and at the same time I was transmitting them. Years later I collected them in the book «Tales of the Oral Tradition in the Canary Islands, to read and tell». Those are the stories from my childhood, the stories I heard on the bridge.
At the same time, I was lucky to have a grandfather who was a teacher and they told other stories: From books, tales of the Arabian Nights… Before finishing my teaching I already knew the difference between a creative tale and a tale from oral tradition.
When I first went to America I saw a shaman telling stories. He was a man who had hardly had contact with people from outside his jungle. The man spoke little Spanish and Graciela Alzola, an anthropologist, was translating him. He began to speak of the origin of the Universe, of the stars, ... with original stories typical of the Amazon jungle. As a teacher I felt stunned.
All peoples, no matter how primitive they may be, have a handful of precious tales in their history. Those people spoke to me of the origin of the world in their own way, they spoke to us of the endemic flower, of the animals that he knew. And the story was beautiful.
As a result of this I wondered what the first inhabitants of the islands were saying. The legends are Canarian stories, but they are not the stories that mothers and grandmothers could invent to explain things that were unknown.
All peoples have a handful of precious tales in their history
YAIZA SOCORRO - PHOTOGRAPHER
How important is it to tell out loud?
Orality teaches a lot. It will never go out of style because we are beings of the word. It is not going to die, only that if it is taken as an artistic business it takes preparation. It is important to have sufficient training to know where the stories come from.
You were the first oral narrator in the Canary Islands more than 40 years ago. He brought stories of our islands to America and received the Shaman Award for the best stage oral narrator, in the Spanish language and where the public took part in the voting.
Although they know me, the fame of the oral narrator is very ephemeral. My fame was not because of what was told but because it told the stories that I lived. By working with children all my life, I see the failures in society and in schools. He did pedagogy by counting.
How is Pepa Aurora when she counts
I count as I am, as is, with my way of being and dressing. I'm natural. People receive you right away if you give yourself as you are.
I use Canarian Spanish. For 40 years I was transmitting it in poems, rhymes, popular sayings, so that small people learn and use canarisms. In «Millo Tierno», in «Papá Teide» ...
What does orality contribute in screen times?
It is essential because it is the memory of the peoples. You tell any story and speak from your memory to the memory of the listening generation. A person who does not learn to listen is unhappy because he gets used to the visual and does not memorize.
If you use historical memory, if you cultivate it, you learn to act differently. If you keep it in mind and you have to make a decision, you don't act the same as people who only have a screen. You can understand that things are a certain way because other people have fought for it.
Orality is telling, talking, talking, it is vital for the survival of the human being. Oral narration is important at the level of telling what happened to us. And listen. Cultivate listening.
Is the protest girl who was Pepa Aurora still alive, does she live within this adult woman?
You are right. Canarias has its own personality and it is necessary to vindicate the daily language in the family; our way of being that is not at odds with any other, our cultural ancestors, our history. I will continue to do so.
The language changes over time and gets old. It is not about putting into operation the words in disuse but the words that we have used and continue to use on a daily basis, which are Canary Islands, some endemic and others derived.
Maintain and cultivate through literature. Children receive them through children's literature, they learn what they mean and the importance they have in our daily lives.
Also tell them about the ravines where they walk, about the endemic plants that are essential to continue living.
And you have to act with knowledge. You have to tell them about things that are in use. For the children to know.
When you started writing about endemic species or a water treatment poem, were you an ecologist?
Writing to the water treatment plant was rather an integration to new norms and new words to everyday language. The language is alive, it grows and new words emerge. They have to be learned, they are incorporated and used. If children do not know the words, or the use or benefit they may have, they also do not know the space where they live.
In my first days as a teacher, I discovered in a chained poem by Juan Ramón Jiménez, that he quoted the chamarin bird. I didn't see it in the dictionary. I found out through a colleague that that was the name of an endemic bird in the Huelva area and he made it universal. I asked myself, that school day, why not make the alpispa universal.
Around the school where I worked there were balos, it was full and in front of me. So I learned about the balo of the Canarian ravines, which is not only exclusive to our islands, but its seed in summer feeds the insects around it. This plant is an ecosystem by itself. Well, seeing this, I got on and wrote a story about balos.
It is necessary to vindicate the daily language in the family; our way of being that is not at odds with any other, our cultural ancestors, our history.
YAIZA SOCORRO - PHOTOGRAPHER
Your stories have female protagonists. Does that feminine world arise as a result of growing up among so many sisters?
He came out to give women a voice.
The girls were not in the stories, they were not hikers, or adventurers. He was not given opportunities. I am not a vindictive feminist because I am also learning. I grew up in a time where women were always minors. I keep reflecting every day. Right now I am writing about a leading girl again, a girl who discovers and loves the space that they have had to live to respect and defend it to the fullest, for the immediate future.
You have written both prose and essays and poetry, focused on children's and youth literature. How has children's and youth literature evolved in the Canary Islands?
To dignify it there was a great struggle. 43 years ago I published my first book I did what I thought I should do in spite of the people and I continue to do what I think I should do. I fought a lot and now at this point he already has his body
Another handicap is that we don't have the means. I have edited in South and Central America and even in the US my poems are taken to school for Spanish-speaking children. But it's me alone.
Currently there are already people who make very good children's and youth literature in the Canary Islands and will soon compete internationally.
What about the story house?
The house goes on but things have happened. That building needed a reform and the city council could not do it. Then we found a place but the pandemic caught us. Since we don't know when this will end, we can't go on for the moment.
The idea includes orality. We do not want it as a school but as a house where we can welcome any fan of stories. It will be a welcoming place, where we can give lessons, meet, talk, expose problems, seek solutions, work with all that and that people learn the basics of stories. Learn and help. There is a group of people involved in this and it will be resumed.
Any advice for people starting to count?
Tell what you have, what you know, honestly to yourself. Telling how you are without any artifice and being respectful with orality and training, knowing the origin of stories.
Pepa, we are waiting for those books, the one that is ready to edit and also the story you are currently writing. We want to meet that girl and share with her and with you.
Thank you always for your good doing and your infinite smile.
Lori help, share with us this haven of sweetness that is Pepa Aurora to enjoy this April, April 23, book day.
