Musician says he carries his music on his back

        He was resting there in a niche alongside an important looking hotel on Cordoba avenue in Buenos Aires. His head was bobbing with sleep as I focused the camera, but his eyes popped open just when the shutter snapped.

        "I'm a musician," he said, as if introducing himself, instead of pronouncing his name.

       "That's my guitar, she is my lover. We always travel together." He pointed to the instrument with a slight movement of his chin towards his left side.

       "Is she faithful?" I ventured to ask, trying out my penchant for irony.

       "More than any woman!" he quipped.

        "And maybe easier to get along with!"

       "Could be...I take her everywhere. She is my means of livelihood. I would never part with her."

       "You sleep with her even on the streets..."

       "Listen: I am poor. I cannot affort to stay in a hotel, so I play wherever I can and sleep wherever I find a place to rest my body."

      "Do you play at bars, cafés...theatres?"

     "No! On buses, trains, sometimes at the plazas"

     "Must be hard to make a living."

     "Of course. When I was young I did play in bars and cafés and we had a band..."

    "What happened?"

     "Everyone went their own way..."

     "That happens in life, doesn't it?"

     "Nothing is forever, although sometimes you think it is. But I am happy because I am free."

     In fact, there was no bitterness in the tone of his voice and his gaze was warm. There is something about music. Its vibrations send messages of life pulsating through the body--even when circumstances seem so adverse, as in the case this man, who has never given up his love for music, in spite of his material poverty.