Series of photos

Working late

Exeter

House in Bramcote

Stories (First attempt)

A few days ago one of our Italian friends at the University asked me about “Narcos” the new TV show released in the UK recently. She is from the south of Italy, so she makes no problem about the constant references that other friends make to her about the mafia. There is no fuss for me either, when the same friends make some references about our Colombian history as drug dealers. That’s why when she asked me about that TV show, my answer was laconic but sincere: it is just more of the same.

I don’t want to sound like a weeper, but from some time now, I feel like if Latin American problems have been situated in the bottom of the list for the rest of the world. I don’t really know if that is bad or good, but what I think is that is important to show the complexity of our history and its violence for a century or more.

Further than a mere exercise of language, this is a transition to another language.

My idea is to create stories about the history narrated from one of the most interesting websites about Colombian reality: verdadabierta.com. If some economic profit comes from this (not that I expect any), such profits should be given to the victims in Colombian conflict.

Landfill

A big black bird flies through the sky. You can see the circles it describes in firmament. I try to follow it with my eyes, but sometimes it disappears under the dense clouds that rise in the morning. I’m alive.

They ditched me late in the night, but perhaps because they were drunk or perhaps because I wasn’t the only one, they thought I was dead, like the others. I’m not. I’m stuck. I can’t feel my legs; they are like something dead that I have to haul. I tried to crawl but I'm very tired. Some dogs are barking in the distance.

There is no pain. Not anymore. I can't bear the smell, though. That smell is calling the chulos. There are more now, flying over us in circles. I remember I watched on the TV some chulos flying over a dead deer; the commentator has said that they can feel the heat that rises from the rotten carcasses. I'm not the only one.

From anywhere, dump trucks came full of debris from destroyed buildings. Blue walls, red roofs, green toilets, yellow storeys, black curtains are falling over us. Everything that has been built in my country is falling over me. But even now, I can see the sky.

Through an aperture I can see that the chulos are flying away. Wait! Wait! Can't you see me? Wait! Come for me, take me. I'm dead! I'm dead!