Wednesdays at 9 pm New York time the USA television channel ABC play's a show that I like to watch, at the same time a Mexican called Elías who owns a garden centre it's recording it to it's hard drive, and as soon as it finish he will upload the file on the internet without collet not even a cent for doing it. He has the habit -he says- because he likes the show and he knows there are people in other parts of the world that are waiting to watch it. He makes it with dedication, the same way he does it when he transplants his gardenias to make them bloom.
At 11 pm that very same wednesday, Erica a Canadian violinist who's 24 and loves classic music download to her hard drive Elias' copy and make's the subs in english so the deaf fans can enjoy it, and upload the subs in a forum as fast as she can. She doesn't get paid by that, and she's not interested in the plot; she made it because her brother Paul is deaf and he loves the show, or maybe because she's aware that there are more deaf people, besides her brother, who can't listen music and have to content themselves watching tv.
At 3:35 early morning of thursday -Venezuelan time- Javier download in Caracas the chapter that Elias record and the text that Erica wrote and synchronize. Javier could watch the show in it's original language because he knows very well the english, but before that he needs to translate it, he feels an strange enjoyment when he learns new etymologies, but above all he's pleased by sharing that, that interests him. To make it faster Javier divides the english text file in 8 parts and send by e-mail 7 of them, keeping himself the first one
The second part immediately arrives to Carlos and Juan Cruz, 2 night employees from a blockbuster which is in Buenos Aires (Argentina). They use to waste their time playing chest, but thursday early morning they translate a piece from the show, because both of them are english students in order to stop being night employees, and also because they never missed a chapter.
The third part of the text is being waited for Charo a potter from Alicante who is enchanted by the plot and needs to watch urgently the show, without waiting for the spanish tv to emit it late and with a bad dub 50 years later. The fourth part is received by Maria Luz a printer blond and tall who also works at night in a morning newspaper from Cuba: Maria Luz stops for a while her work: the cover of the newspaper and quickly starts translating her part. She says she does it to practice the language, because she wants to live in Miami.
The fifth part travels by the internet to Raquel and Jose Luis' computer, and andaluz couple that lives from the poor profits that got from their bookstore at Sevilla's downtown. They have been married more than 25 years, and they haven't had children, and some time ago they used to translate Yeat's poems just to been able to read them; she in one language, him in the other. Now that they had started to use internet, they discovered that besides good poetry there is also good tv shows.
The sixth part arrives to Ricardo at Cuzco: Ricardo is a lonely homosexual -and depressed a lot of nights- who excitedly translates as makes sleep his cat Ezequiel. The seventh is received by Patrick an englishman with a nice face who traveled to Costa Rica to perfect his spanish, he was robbed by a gang almost leaving the plane, but he felt in love with the country anyway, and he stay to live there. And the eight part arrives -at the same time than the other parts did to the others- to Ashley a south african girl whose mother is Uruguayan and who's a fan from the show because it reminded her (and she's not wrong) to her favorite book: Treasure Island.
These 8 people, who had never seen each other, and have nothing in common but being fans of the show or from a language which is not their first translate to the spanish the part who belongs to each one. It takes about 2 hours to each one to finish their parts, and another 2 hours to discuss the others parts, then Javier, the first one, put the whole text together and uploaded it. None of them gets paid for this work which is done every week, for some of them is a way to practice and for other is just a way to share something they like.
After this in Rosario (Argentina) Fabio, an adolescent "at the wrong time" who still lives with his parents even when he's 23 finally finds the subs in spanish. With a program he puts the subs in the original video, because he wants desperately to watch the chapter. Sometimes his mother interrupts him in the middle of the night:
-Are you still using the internet Fabio? When are you going to do something useful for the others? Or do you think that everything starts and ends in yourself?
-You are right mom, let me turn off the computer- He answers, but before going to sleep he puts the file in his shared folder so anyone, from anywhere can download it. Fabio never forgets to do that.
Thursdays I woke up at 11 am, almost at the same time that Fabio -who I don't know- has gone to sleep in Rosario. While I make the mate* and check my e-mail, I look up in the Internet if there is already the original version with spanish subs from my favorite tv show, that was on the air 8 hours before at the ABC tv channel in USA. I always -it has never failed- find a good file and I spend the rest of the morning downloading it, so I could watch it at the tv in the afternoon after lunch. While I wait I write some story or an article for Orsai*; I do it because I find it pleasant, and because maybe, there are people somewhere, waiting for me to do it.
This article talks about internet and says, with some more or less words, what Borges already said years before and so much better than me in a wonderful poem called: The fair ones:
A man who cultivates a garden, as Voltaire wished.
The one who is grateful that music exists.
The one who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology.
Two workmen playing, in a cafe in the South, a silent game of chess.
The potter, contemplating a color and a form.
A typographer who sets this page well, which may not please him.
A woman and a man, who read the last tercets of a certain canto.
The one who caresses a sleeping animal.
The one who justifies, or wishes to justifiy, a wrong done him.
The one who is grateful that there is Stevenson on earth.
The one who prefers others to be right.
These people, who go unnoticed, are saving the world.
- Jorge Luís Borges -
Original text in spanish; http://editorialorsai.com/blog/post/los_justos
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