إلسا باسيل، من مواليد نيكاراغوا. والدها فلسطيني من نيكاراغوا ووالدتها من الأرجنتين.
تعرّف نفسها باسم ELSA BASIL منذ عام 1977.. جدها الأعلى صالح باسيل فريج من بيت لحم في فلسطين، بدّل اسمه عند القدوم إلى نيكاراغوا فصار اسمه ANTONIO MARCOS BASIL.
Elsa Basil: An artist who loves her Palestinian roots
* Suad Mark F.
As a journalist, write for the magazine of the Salvadoran Palestinian Association USUL - RAICES, it's not just a privilege, it's a mission: to interview Palestinian Arab people born in Central America, to learn how they identify with their origins. It's very difficult to interview a person who loves and knows very well; I'm going to interview my daughter, what as a journalist I consider a big challenge, and I think for her it will be a unique experience.
Elsa Strap Mark. That's what it was called before leaving for Palestine. In that Arab territory he collected a lost name for those of his blood: Basil. Elsa does and lives art. Paint, writes poetry, sings, is a composer of her own music. She is part of the new generation of Nicaraguan singer-songwriter. He was born in Managua, from a child he manifested his artistic talent; he has roots in Arabs and Argentines, the daughter of a Palestinian poet born in Nicaragua and an Argentine painter. He studied guitar in Cuba and San José, Costa Rica. The singer-songwriter is a woman who, in addition to composing the music and writing the lyrics of her songs, is an integral artist. He also works in painting and with the plastic arts has managed to extend his vocation and sell his paintings well.
P. Tell us a little about how Elsa Basil's name is born...
I recognize myself and I am known as Elsa Basil since 1997. I had heard before making this decision that my maternal name was not the Frames and that it had been a mistake to inscribe my mother's great grandfather-my great-grandfather, who was I was calling Saleh Basil Freij. You could never tell why upon arrival in Nicaragua the name was changed to Antonio Marcos Basil. So, upon returning from a trip to Palestine where I walked through my origins, I made that decision, regain our Palestinian last name artfully, and when I came back, the first thing I did was rescue the last name, although legally I am still Elsa Correa Marcos.
P. When you talk about your roots, who do you look reflected in?
In principle in the law of our nation as territory. I met Palestine and reaffirmed myself in it, so that when I remember it, I walk Belen where we are from, and think of its olive trees, its ancient streets, the sound from the mosques of prayers sung, the smell of bread, that cream color that excels from its infrastructure, its reddish land. And I walk through it all from the faces, religions, the love of the people who live there and their pain of not living in freedom.
P. How do you feel Palestinian culture influences you?
Palestinian Arab culture touched me very deep in the gourmet part, so much so that the whole heritage of great grandma and aunts who were showing us culinary secrets, to me, are like musical sounds on the palate and I was keeping in my memory ... That twice opened an Arabic food restaurant. His music and poetry also marked on me. I musicalized two poems translated into Spanish by great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
P. Overall, how do the Palestinian people live?
The Palestinians have in their eyes a look of pain and faith, a look of strength and hope. It is not fair to live exiled in your own land, it is not fair to be an immigrant, it is not human what is done to the Palestinian people who still living in their own land, the Israeli government assaults it, runs over, kills. I struggle to understand, when I think the Jews suffered Hitler's attacks. I can't fit in my head or soul.
P. What was the hardest thing you lived in Palestine?
It's two antagonistic things. Difficult maybe not the word... But I felt violent and harassed as I entered and was questioned at Tel-Aviv Airport, then pass the chek point, asking Israel for permission to enter my origins. The other thing is that I come from a Western education... and I think to my family that looked a little ′′ liberal ".
P. Do they give you wishes to come back?
Yes, many desires to return and now that the years have passed and maybe I see life more intensely, I would like to take advantage to feel the air, carry my voice and my guitar and sing and say to them: here I am, I am part of you. I am a piece of Palestine elsewhere in the world.
* poet, narrator and journalist.
Descendant of Palestinian families who arrived in Nicaragua early in the last century.
