01/05/2002

Believe me when I tell you that war has taught me one thing, and one thing only. Not how to
cope with the loss of loved ones, or learn to leave everything behind. War hasn’t taught me to
hold back my tears, to keep my pain hidden from the world. No.

War has taught me that​ forgiveness is possible​.

On the first of May, 2002, Bojayá was as peaceful as ever. The humidity and heat -a signature
characteristic of Chocó- was lingering as always. And the mud, caused by the night’s rain,
splashed the roads here and there. A change in the monotony of the streets.

As I walk out of my house, I can immediately see the wide expanse of trees. Trees that are
brimful of life: green and full and big. When people think of Bojayá, they imagine a poor village,
excluded from the outside world; a place where dirt, mud and blood is everything there is to see.
Yet in my eyes -eyes that have scanned this horizon for years- my home is so much more. It is
laughter in the street and passionate dances. It is running barefoot and knowing every single
villager. It is smiles that capture the heart. It is food and culture and happiness… It is life.

But life was extinguished from my town. Extinguished so suddenly that many of us thought it
was a dream. A flicker of the candle before it would light again in all its splendor. A glitch, a
malfunction, a mistake; anything but reality.

It is hard. Hard to walk the same streets and remember that day. Hard to read the list of names
of those who have been lost. Hard to turn around and see all the children laughing and chasing
a football, before realizing that your eyes are playing tricks on you and the kids you swore to
see were nothing more than ghosts crafted by your mind.

On the first of May 2002, I walked my son to soccer practice. His ​Spiderman backpack hung
loosely from his still-scrawny body, bobbing up and down every time he stepped in the
dust-paved road. His eyes were set capturing the trees and the houses and the stray dogs,
filling with magic that was enough to make me forget.

But just for a while.

​ ad already arrived in Bellavista.

The war was coming, that’s what the men said. The ​paracos h
But the government said not to worry. And the FARC was moving faster than expected. But the
government said not to worry. Again and again, we were told not to worry. We were safe, we
were guarded. They wouldn’t harm us because we were civilians… As if that had ever stopped
them.

The day was warm. Sweat was making my shirt stick to the back. My son, holding tight to my
hand, was talking about his upcoming birthday. ​Do you think it will rain​? he asked. No, certainly
not; he had been a good boy and God should give him a day of unyielding sunlight, right? A
child’s mind is so pure, war and hatred are concepts they will never understand.

Still clutching my hand, we walked up to the pitch. The property was basic: one small shack that
acted as a ​tienda and four big fields. Tufts of overgrown grass decorated the place, and a faded
sign above the entrance showed the name of the soccer academy. There were a few ​Rimax
chairs scattered around, occupied by busy mothers cheering on their kids. As soon as we
arrived, my son turned around, gave me a kiss on the cheek and ran off to play with some other
boys. Running after a football and dirtying their uniforms, you could hear their laughter; a sound
so innocent, so pure, that war could be forgotten for just a minute.

That was the last time I heard him laugh.

As soon as my son ran away with his friends, I made my way back home. The road was
different. I could now see the fear in the faces of my neighbors​–​a fear that had not been there
when my boy was walking down the street with me. It was raw emotion of bloodied eyes and
dark circles, of nights spent praying and hoping. It was fear of running away, of losing
everything.

It was mortals seeing the face of Death.

By noon, the tension had grown. I hadn’t told my son -what use was scaring a five year old?- but
there were rumors of confrontations. People were saying that we ​should worry, that the
government was unable to protect us, that they were coming, and coming fast. Many were
saying that running away was futile; they would kill us all. That this was our doom. Our death.

At the end, we hid in the church. I ran back to the fields, along with many others, and took my
son in my arms. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he didn’t cry. Not one tear. He
took my hand and ran to the church, his brave soul never faltering. Alongside us, men and
women were sprinting, finding refuge. There were cries and shouts and curses rising through
the air. At that moment I understood. War turns us into something else; something not human.
We were just a mob moved by fear of war, of weapons, of death.

The church was filled with 700 bodies, clustered together in vain attempts to lock away the
reality. This isn’t happening. War isn’t here. Not in our peaceful home. ​Kids cried, women
prayed, men talked and yet the war continued. They were out there, fighting for something we
couldn’t understand. Power? Money? Drugs? Land? Dignity? Hearing the screams, it was easy
to forget that they were also human; people with families and stories and dreams. People just
like you and me. Kids who had been taken away at night and given a rifle. Parents who had
done everything to keep their children alive. Men and women forgotten by the country, left
behind to rot. How often do we forget that?
The night came and went, and the onslaught continued. No one dared to leave the church. Not
when hell was waiting just outside the door. The paramilitaries were running through the street,
closing in on us. They were moving fast, using our own houses as bunkers. And the FARC were
farther out, planning, plotting, firing. They were tracking the position of the ​paracos,​ waiting to
find the shot that would bring them all down.

My son’s eyes were closed. Dreaming, hopefully. Forgetting the hatred that had now consumed
our country. How did our home turn into this? Between mountains and rivers, a field of death; a
blend of red and black, blood and ceaseless night. ​Colombia​. A magical land plagued with
bodies left lifeless. A place where guns had replaced books, and peace was a distant memory.
Colombia,​ ​Colombia, Colombia. ​I did not want this to be the country my son grew up in,
surrounded by wounds and hatred. I prayed he would know a different home, a different reality.

When the rays of sunlight were filtering through the crack in the door, our future was shaped.
The action that made us who we are now was set in motion. It came in the form of a gas
cylinder bomb. A bomb that went awry. One second I was there, patting my son’s head, drinking
in the miracle of life, of children, of parenthood, and the next second everything went black.
Black with blood and rumble and death.

The air smelled of fear and dreams forgotten. Of cries into the void and prayers unanswered.
Everything was still, life hanging suspended from invisible threads. Were these the same
threads that connected us to one another? The threads of our destiny? The threads that brought
me my son, that made Colombia a bloody field of hearts cut open? How mocking to have them
choke and give life; to destroy and create all at once.

On that day, we lost 79 souls. 48 of them were children. One of them was my son…

… my son, my son! Taken right in front of my eyes. I lost him, I failed him, I let him suffer. That
day my heart was ripped, shredded to pieces. What good was life when the only light that
helped me get through each day was burned, silenced, killed. What good was life when the
colors around me grew muted, when happiness became a distant memory, when I lost my will to
exist.

I will not lie. That day, when my boy was taken to Heaven, hatred consumed me, burned me
whole. I would never feel his hand on mine, hear his laughter. I would never see him grow, start
a family. I would never get to say, with all the love of a mother, that he was my biggest gift. All
because we were pawns in a game of power, of land, of dignity. Pawns in a game of violence.

But years later, I say: ​forgiveness is possible.

Possible in a way that I have forgiven my son’s killers.

Possible in a way that my neighbors no longer cry when they remember that day.
 Possible in a way that the entire town has stopped seeing blood instead of rain; heard
cries instead of laughter.

It has been a long road. A road of sorrow turned to hatred turned to despair turned to
understanding turned to healing turned to forgiveness. A road where many Colombians still find
themselves. A road that seems endless.

A road.
But all roads must end.
And at the end of this journey we must find what we have been looking for all these years.

Peace. At last.