»collected stories«

I collected tons of stories on my trip. Wrote them down. But didn´t post them. Sad ones. Horrific ones. Some containing such incredible acts of cruelness and violence you wouldn´t believe. I didn´t post them. Though I think they need to be told. But not by bloging. Not in quick dropped lines. Not in quick red posts. It would be a lack of respect to their victims, I think. I think this is the wrong context. I think it would make a wrong impression of this country. Of this place.

But as the medellin diaries are turning to their end I want to write down a last one. A nice one. A story about big bove. The one. The true. The honest. If you might lost you´re faith in it, here´s a true Columbian love story. Collected a couple of years ago. It just came back on my mind.

I was on my trip through the USA. Left NYC and headed Tampa, Florida to visit Alleida and Guillermo Leon. Columbian relatives I never met before. She is my mother´s cousin from her mother´s side. He is her cousin from her father´s side. Alleida might be in her fifties. A woman of an unbelievable natural beauty. Gallant but quiet. Almond eyes with cutest rings underneath them. My fetish. The years didn´t harm her at all. They made her more interesting. Guillermo might be in his sixties. A small bold man with a huge heart. Everything he likes he calls “perfecto”. A person impossible not to like. He is a pretty famous well earning anesthesiologist in Tampa. Huge is their mansion. Tragic their story: Their daughter died in a plane crash on a trip to Columbia a couple of years ago. She was heading a family party in Bogota. Not wanting to go, but her parents wanting her to come. She took a later plane. It crashed.
But as I was sitting and talking to them in their fabulous living room I realized that I never ever saw an couple like Alleida & Guillermo before. Just the way they were sitting in front of me holding hands. The way they treat each other. The way they touched each other. The way they looked at each other. The way they act with each other. So lovely. So nice. So gentle. So adoring. Each sentence starting or ending with “mi amor”. Each view saying the same. So I just had to tell them, that I never saw before a couple in their age where you still could see how much they love each other.
And then Guillermo told me their story:
In Bogota at the age of 12 years Alleida got sick. A doctor was needed but couldn´t be afforded. So a chain of phone calls through the family started reaching my granddad, who knew that his nephew was in town by accident. Guillermo. A medicine student not a doctor yet. Having a scholarship. Studying in the US. Being in Bogota for a visit. So he went over to Alleida´s, took care of her and gave her medicine. When he was about to leave he came back to her bed and asked her if he could get a photograph of her. Alleida was surprised. By her 12 years of age she was not really interested into men yet. But Guillermo said he was surprised by himself, he just would have never seen in his life a girl such as beautiful as her. Alleida gave him a tiny photo and Guillermo left.
8 years later, 20 year old Alleida was sitting bored on a family party. She noticed the unknown gentleman immediately stepping the door, crossing the room, heading her and asking her if she would like to dance. She said yes and while dancing the well looking gentleman introduced himself as Guillermo, the formerly medicine student, who had asked for a photo 8 years ago. By now he was a doctor living in the states being here for a visit. He told her that in all those years he never was able to forget her. Opened his wallet and showed her the photo she gave him. Alleida was pleased. During the same dance Guillermo asked Alleida if she wanted to marry him. And Alleida said yes.
I was stunned when the story was finished seeing both holding hands sitting in front of me. Then Guillermo got up. Opened his wallet, picked out an impregnated tiny old photograph and gave it to me. It was the photo he got when he met her first. Showing Alleida at the age of 12. As beautiful as you can´t imagine.

This is Jesús Torres. Some call him Don Chucho. He is el animero. The soul gatherer. The last of his kind, he says. On midnight 30th of November the animero goes to cemetery, rings his bell and spells a prayer to call the souls of purgatory. Then he leads them through town, followed by other people, who wait at graveyards entry for him. On every corner he stops, rings the bell and prays a father our for the souls of the dead. He´s hooded with a cape skulls printed on, a hat and gloves. Necessary to be safe. As well he´s not allowed watch to the left, right or back. The souls could possess him.
The aim is a trip for the souls to visit their old homes and their relatives. It brings luck, he says. We were three animeros. But my two fellows died. One got poisoned while drinking and the other had a heart attack. This is a tough job. It´s very scary on cemetery. And sometimes I can hear them whistle. And sometimes I cry, because I know the souls of my buddies walk behind me. I miss them a lot. And I´m the last. Theres no one left keeping the tradition. But somebody has to do it. There are a lot of haters out there, who don´t believe in what I do. Drunk people. They yell at me while I´m on the trip. I mean that´s ok. I don´t care. They can mess with me, but they better don’t mess with the souls of the dead. Some of the drunk haters did. Some of them ended in prison. And some of them died. No, you detter don´t mess with souls. I stopped drinking ages ago. I do sports. Lots of sports. Cycling is great. And I stopped smoking, he says while I took a deep drag. He really is in good shape.

My uncle Enrique works as an lawyer. On his final exams his favorite teacher wanted him to swear never to take a narcoterrorists (cartel belonging drugdealers) as a client. His teacher had a well running office and one day a guy came in wanting him as a lawyer, because he was accused for cocaine smuggling and said his Padron would have recommended him, though he never had any contacts to a cartel before. The teacher didn´t want to take the case but couldn´t say no, because of the law. So he made him an incredible high price hoping he would look for another lawyer. It was 2 500 000 pesos for starting the case and another 2 500 000 pesos when finished. The guy called his boss and next day his lawyer got the first payment in cash. So he took the case, the guy even came free and got the rest of the money. A couple of weeks later a bunch of armed narcoterrorists came into his office, knocked his secretary out and told him, he would owe them 5 000 000 pesos. The lawyer scared but confused said: well we had a deal ... and one of the narcos said: well you better call your wife. His wife answered crying the phone saying, that here would be some persons saying he would owe them money. Afterwards the narcos reminded him in his two daughters, knowing exactly in which school they were, what they were wearing today and what class they´d have right now. The money was partially already spend and invested, so that he couldn´t pay immediately and got exactly 8 days to pay. If not his family would be killed. He was forced to sell his house and stuff. The place for handover was his daughter´s school. If he wouldn´t be able to pay, they´d shot her first. Lawyers get killed very often because of knowing to much about their clients.

Went up to that rehab in highlands again to film next and last part of the documentary. But Marcela had a fight with her boyfriend and ran away a day before. She´s still missing. Situation fragile again. So filmed some impressions at the rehab and I hope it´ll we be something funny and nice by it´s own.
Afterwards I got Jaime to know. He´s in rehab cause of cocaine addiction. 18 years old. Very funny. Very nice kid. Dark skinned. Bright shiny eyes. Same his smile. All time handshaking. A wickedly cool handshake. Having an eye on everything. All time on the run. Awesome kid.
With 14 he inherited a piece of land by his granddad and started to run a coca plantation with his brother. With 16 he took most by his own. I mean, imagine being 16, living on the rural, being poor, having nothing to do and owning as much blow as you want. Hmmm. We hang out rest of the day and drank agua panella. Now I´m theoretically all about the little tricks in cocaine production (Don´t boil it too long!) and aware about what you can do with the trashes (Periquo).
“So how much is a gram?”
“For you? The finest and cleanest? Well, 2 500 pesos (that´s 90 cent). But actually I sell it in kilos. One kilo is 200 000. And it´s really clean. You could still make more of it. … Or periquo or smack. … On the streets you might pay 10 000 for a gram with quality like mine. 3000 is regular. But you know, not that good.”
This is just something for a little thought, next time you might lick toilet lids, not to waste your 70 times more expensive goods in your favorite club.
“And now you stopped?”
“Yep, I´m clean for two month. I was really wasted.”
“I mean production.”
“If I stopped production? Are you nuts? How the fuck should I pay rehab. And beside that, business is going so great since I stopped taking it all on my own. No, no I´m still in business for sure. ... But now I have to ask you something: What´s wrong with german soccer?”

While studying during an internship my uncle Enrique had to take the case of an guy being caught inflagranti violating a girl. He was absolutely guilty and has been being accused for violating girls before. So he got sentenced for 12 years and been send to a very tough prison I actually forgot the name of. While finding this to out the guy started crying and was scared to death about not surviving this. He begged for revision for another prison, but the judge – a quite young – neglected.
Same day my uncle got a call at 1 30 a.m. cause a body was found in the same prison and a lawyer was needed for the autopsy. The body was lying face down and when turned around my uncle recognized him as the same rapist, being judged just some hours ago. He was stabbed about 80 times with a short knife, which was not reasonable for his dead. He was tortured before and got the shit beaten out of his body. Starting from his fingertips every single bone of both arms was broken and crushed by body building weights. The skin of his penis was peeled of like a banana and got cut afterwards in little pieces, while he was still alive. At the end someone must have had mercy and shot him a bullet in the head. He came into the prison at 7.30 p.m. and was dead at midnight.

Edwin grew up with his family consisting of ten people on the rural side of antioquia. His family had a well running finca. His sisters took care of chickens, his brothers were farmers, he was something like a cowboy and so on. During the civil war by the paramilitary AUC the land got occupied, so they were forced to pay “protection money”. Their neighbor got problems with paying and then shot. So when his wife called edwins´ family for help, they brought him to the hospital. For sure, they were friends. But just by doing this, the problems and the pressure by the AUC got worse. When in his mothers little bar an AUC guy got arrested by the police, they were forced to escape same night and leave everything they had behind. Cause just by that fact he got arrested in there and the guess, they could have anything to do with this, they would have got killed. Without anything they came to city. This is actually a classic for all the fast immense growing of favelas and barrios in the big cities. Though they had luck finding help by friends and being able to rent their finca to make a living. Sometimes Edwin lends a friend´s car and masks himself to drive and take a look at his beloved home. If he would get recognized he could be dead. “Pues, haci pasa la vida”, well, that´s how live goes, he says.