Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 139

(1/3) “I knew nothing about the guerrillas before I joined...

(1/3) “I knew nothing about the guerrillas before I joined them. The only thing I knew was that they lived better than me. I grew up on a farm in a rural area. We were very poor. My mother abandoned our family so I had to take care of my younger siblings. My father was a good man, but he didn’t give me any liberties. He didn’t let me go to town. He didn’t let me go to school. He didn’t let me have a boyfriend. I wanted freedom, and the guerrillas seemed like my only way out. They used to drive by our farm in their jeeps. They seemed powerful. Even the women wore camouflage. One day the guerrillas stopped by our farm to buy some chickens, and I told them I wanted to join. I was only thirteen years old. They told me to meet them at a certain spot at 5 AM the next morning. I didn’t even say ‘goodbye’ to my father. They told me that I was never allowed to speak to my family again.”

(Bogotá, Colombia)

“We’ve been at war in this country for over fifty years. There...

“We’ve been at war in this country for over fifty years. There have been hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of victims. So a lot of people don’t like the work that I do. I manage a reintegration program for ex-combatants. I’m trying to take away the main tool of war– human beings. We can’t punish everyone who fought against us. We can’t jail them all. That will only divide us further. So we must find a way to reconcile with the 60,000 ex-combatants that live among us. We must educate them. We must find them jobs. If we reject and stigmatize them, we will always be at war. Reconciliation is a very hard task. There are a lot of open wounds in this country. People don’t want to forgive. Ex-combatants are often viewed as monsters. My job is to show that their blood is like ours. If we can’t break the idea of ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ we will always be divided. Reconciliation is the only way to change the course of our history.”

(Bogotá, Colombia)

“I’m unemployed right now, but it’s my own decision. I’m...

“I’m unemployed right now, but it’s my own decision. I’m trying to rethink my life. I’ve been a biology teacher for the past seven years. I’d wake up at 5:30 AM every day and wouldn’t get home until after 5 PM. Then I’d spend the evening preparing lessons or grading exams. Teaching was beautiful but I didn’t like the philosophy of the school. The focus was on being as productive as possible. The kids were stressed. They had no time to be children. I just didn’t feel that life should be like that. It can’t always be about growing, growing, growing. There have to be cycles. So I’m trying to take a step back. I’m trying to enrich myself without having an exact objective. I’m reading, and doing yoga, and participating in a dance group. But it’s been hard to appreciate the moment. I’ve always felt such a pressure to work. And when I’m not producing, it’s hard to escape the feeling that I’m doing something wrong.”

(Bogotá, Colombia)

“My father never valued my mother. She did everything for him....

“My father never valued my mother. She did everything for him. She worked all day, then she came home to cook dinner. My father just came home to sleep. She’d bring him his food on a tray. Everything had to be perfect: right colors, right napkins, everything. But he’d still call her names. He’d get drunk and yell at her for nothing. My mother was submissive and accepted it all. She’d even get mad at me if I tried to intervene. Eventually my father had an affair with our neighbor. And two years ago he left our home to be with her. Recently I spoke to him on the phone. He sounded depressed. He’d just broken up with the woman. He told me that he’d given her everything, but she still left him. He’d cooked for her, he’d treated her well, and he’d bought her whatever she wanted. But nothing was enough. I asked him if he realized what life was teaching him. He had no answer.”

(Bogotá, Colombia)

“I’m really bothered by people using cocaine. I get angry when...

“I’m really bothered by people using cocaine. I get angry when I see people doing it for fun. So many horrible things have happened in my country just so people can have ‘fun.’ Cocaine was the motor behind the war in Colombia. It financed the drug lords, the paramilitary, and the guerillas. It paid for the bombs, and the guns, and the kidnappings. It corrupted our government. It ruined our reputation. There isn’t a family in Colombia that hasn’t been hurt. All of us lost friends and family members. And this violence was funded by people who use cocaine. Yet none of them feel responsible for what happened.”

(Bogotá, Colombia)

“My mother abandoned me as an infant. My father left when I...

“My mother abandoned me as an infant. My father left when I was seven, and a year later I began working as a maid. My earliest memories are cooking and cleaning. When I turned seventeen, I got a job on a construction site. I met a much older man there. I thought he was very handsome. And he was so nice to me. He’d bring me flowers, and apples, and oranges. If anyone was aggressive toward me, he would defend me. He made me feel whole. It was the first time that I’d ever felt truly happy. When I found out I was pregnant, I was so excited to tell him. I thought I would finally have a family. He’d always told me that he wanted to be with me. But when I gave him the news, he said: ‘I have a wife and children. We can never be together.’ Even now it hurts to remember. It hurt me more than not having parents.”

(Medellín, Colombia)

“My sister was murdered when I was twelve years old. Her...

“My sister was murdered when I was twelve years old. Her husband killed her because of jealousy. After that it was just me and my mom. I stopped studying. I became the black sheep of the family. I left the house and went my own way. There was a gang in the neighborhood. They gave me a place to live. They gave me work. They gave me marijuana and cocaine. I was always high. My job was tocollect protection money from local businesses. There were five of us who made the rounds. When I turned fourteen they told me I was ready to ‘test the knife.’ There was a shopkeeper named Maria. Her husband was a pain in the ass. He would always scream at us and call us sons of bitches. So we stabbed him over and over. There was blood everywhere. I felt like throwing up. Afterwards I felt empty inside. So I just did more drugs. And the way I looked at it—if my sister got killed, why shouldn’t other people die? At least that’s how I always justified it to myself.”

(Bogotá, Colombia)

“We’ve been dating for a year and a half. It’s been a...

“We’ve been dating for a year and a half. It’s been a wonderful relationship but recently it’s changed a lot. I feel like I’m the one holding it together. I’m the one that calls. I’m the one that texts. We used to talk every day, but now she’s not even trying. Maybe she just feels smothered. Maybe she’s testing to see if I’ll stick around. I just don’t know. I can’t decipher what she wants. When I ask her directly, her answers are never precise. She keeps saying: ‘I’ll think about it.’ So I keep giving her one last try—over and over again. I just want to get things back to the way they used to be.”

(Bogotá, Colombia)

“I gave the last nine years of my life to my job. It was all I...

“I gave the last nine years of my life to my job. It was all I did. My work made me feel ‘needed.’ I was an accountant and I could do things that nobody else could do. My bosses kept telling me how important I was to the company. But one day they asked me to ‘touch up’ some numbers to make them look better. And I realized I was giving them way more of my time than they deserved—so I quit. The first thing I did was rest. The second thing I did was repair the relationships that I’d been neglecting. I reached out to old friends. I arranged to be with them physically, and not just over texts or Facebook. At first I was nervous because I didn’t know what we’d talk about. It had been so long. But it was easy. One of them had just gotten a scholarship. Another was becoming a father. So much had happened in their lives that I had missed. It felt so good to reconnect. For nine years I’d been focusing on numbers. It wasn’t real. Now I’m connecting with people again, and I feel like my feet are back on the ground.”

(Bogotá, Colombia)

“I didn’t even really like animals. But my daughter said she...

“I didn’t even really like animals. But my daughter said she wanted a pet. So I brought home this kitten, and told my daughter: ‘It’s your responsibility. I’m not going to get involved.’ But now the kitten loves me more than the girl. I call him JJ. He’s always the first one to greet me when I come home. When I leave for work, he lays on my flip-flops by the door. He always wants to be with me. Right now we’re coming back from a trip to the store. My daughter is a little jealous. She’s always trying to steal him from me.”

(Medellín, Colombia)