HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014
13 July 2014
This line from Mahmoud Darwish means: “We love life whatever way we find our path to it” Or “We love life – whenever we can”. He wrote this to me in response to my message below telling him about Hassan Abdulrazzak’s translation of his previous message.
Dear Jonathan
Mahmoud Darwish said,
نحبالحياةمااستطعناإليهاسبيلا
this, they will not take from us
H
Dear Hossam,
Our friend, Hassan Abdulrazzak, has translated your message and, of course, I am thinking about you, Abir and Salma. You are in my heart.
Yesterday when I was making a guitar exchange with Yara, Jamal’s daughter, there was a strange repeated sequence of sounds on the Skype signal and about a minute afterwards there was an explosion that was very close. It was so close that even I, in London, ducked down!! I noticed how Jamal kissed Yara’s hand afterwards when they realised they were still alive.
I was teaching the chord sequence of The Girl from Ipanema, the celebrated Brazilian bossa nova song by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Yara is extremely clever at guitar. She picked up the difficult chord sequence quickly, much more quickly than I did!
I’m looking forward to performing The Girl from Ipanema on Skype with Yara once we get the melody line over the chord sequence.
You know why I’m telling you about this.
Sending you love,
Jonathan
Read Hossam’s next message. Next.