When the guerrillas were around, I fought for what was mine.
And when the Paras came, I fought for what was mine.
A guerrilla commander once said to me,
Brother, you have to pick sides.
And I said, No, I choose no side.
I was neither a para nor a guerrilla.
My life has been moving from one place to another.
From here to there.
From there to here.
When work was slow,
when one armed group started bothering me,
I picked up and left.
Even when I got together with my wife Edith,
I didn't settle down.
I told her, I need a woman who will come with me.
In 2009, we were living at a farm,
eight hours by mill from the nearest village.
And that's pure mountain, pure jungle,
with some farms in the middle.
Those years, they were the most stable part of my life.
The FARC were in around.
There were no guerrillas or paramilitaries.
Later that year, in 2009,
the whole mountain went to hell.
That's when the huge machines started coming up
to extract gold.
And as the machines went up,
the plague came down.
Suddenly, there were guerrillas everywhere.
One day I ran into the local FARC commander, Jimmy,
and he asked me if I was selling my mills.
I said to him, why would I want to sell my mills?
But the following day, two guerrillas showed up at my door
and they said that Jimmy sent us, we want a pig.
I said, well, if you want to take it, take it,
but I'm not going to give it to you.
They just grabbed the pig and left.
My wife Edith said to me, oh dear,
it looks like things are going to get complicated around here.
Jimmy came and said, what's wrong with you?
Every time I send for something at your farm, you talk back.
And I said to him, the only difference between you and me
is that you have a rifle.
You guys are the law around here,
and you say that you protect us, the peasants.
But what you do is the opposite,
because what you do is steal from us.
When something is about to happen, you feel it.
The night of Good Friday, I didn't sleep.
At around 5.30 in the morning, someone said, open up.
Then I opened the door and I recognized two farmed militianos
and then I saw a machete coming towards my head.
I raised my hand to protect myself.
They cut my hand, felt on the floor.
The other guy shot me three times
and he didn't even hit me once.
I just pretended I was dead.
Then they left.
And a month later, there was another knock on my door
and it was two guys wearing masks.
And they said, we give you 24 hours to get out of here.
And then I asked them, what are you?
Guerrillas? Paras? Army?
I gave up.
Apparently, we are not meant to be on that land.
These days, I get up at about one in the morning
to pick up wood for the fire.
I had to learn how to use a hatchet with my left hand.
You know, something like this, it traumatizes you.
I'm always nervous. I don't sleep at night.
I had to start my life from scratch many times in the past.
But this time, it is the hardest.
And it is because of my hand.
If I had my hand, I wouldn't be here.
I'll be up on a mule, up on the mountain, cutting wood,
doing something, anything.
But like this, there's little I can do,
except wait for someone, a government, an NGO,
a kind-hearted person to give me something.
To be continued...
