Dangerous Places

Dangerous Places

Dangerous Places

Narration of a genre history In Colombia, during the 1980’s, more than with tinges of 86.000 people were victims of forced action. disappearance.

The

Editors and publishers: Stefany Gabriela Conde Golindano José Gabriel Molina Buitrago Estefania Vásquez Arenas

Design and layout:

exact number of those killed is not yet know, but Bernarda, Emilio and Pedro are not part of this number, not by a long shot.

Published by: Inglés III (B1-1) Julieth Nathaly Gil Ardila Universidad Católica Luis Amigó

José Gabriel Molina Buitrago

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Dangerous Places

Forty years ago, when Colombia was in one of its darkest times; when violence, assassinations and persecutions were the daily bread, a group of brothers left for their town, Santa Rosa de Osos, in search of the body of their brother who had been murdered a few days before. This adventure would become a story of terror, one like many stories that can be told in Colombia, when love and the desire to give eternal rest endangered the lives of others.

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Dangerous Places

Emilio, Pedro and Bernarda. They embarked on a trip to their town’s childrenhood in search of the body’s brother Joaquin, killed days before, apparently by an armed group’s retaliation. They wanted to take the body to Medellin for burial. The trip, could be said, to have been uneventful when they arrived at the town, claimed the body and were about to return to the city.

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Dangerous Places

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Dangerous Places

It was not know which armed group had killed Joaquin, but it was assumed that it was a retaliation, beacause he had gone to reclaim some fields that belonged to his father, who had also been killed for taking those fields. However, it was never taken by armed groups or claimed by the family, out of fear that something would happen, and that something happened to Joaquin.

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Dangerous Places

However, let us return to the present: the body had already been claimed by his brothers and sister, had been placed in a coffin, mounted on the car and they were preparing to leave the town. Bernarda, she could not say if it was instinct or pure coincidence, but at the edge of the town, in one of the last stores, there was a man sitting, he was fat, with a moustache and suspicious factions.

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Dangerous Places Bernarda still remembers the fear she felt when she looked into his eyes, she didn’t have a good feeling in that moment... and she was right.

The road from Santa Rosa to Medellin was not the exceptional road it’s today, there were ravines, holes in the middle of the road and falls that it was said that if your car fell there your body would not be found for a long time, besides the fog was very tock because it’s cold land. It was a trip that had to be made with care.

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Dangerous Places They left the town and set out slowly fot the city. About 15 kilometers had passed when behind them they heard some shouting, insults, this made them look at the source of the sound, there was a car, two men in the vehicule, one of them was the one Bernarda had seen before, guns in their hands. In the middle of the noises they heard that they were profaning their brother’s name; it was evident that they were being followed. If did not hurry would dissapear or be killed.

Atlthough it was dangerous, they increased their speed, prayed to God, they only wanted to get home safe and sound. In the farthest places from civilization the men began to shoot at them, one hit the car, but they fled from the men for 38 kilometers to La China in Bello, there they entered the urban area in every available street.

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Dangerous Places After circling for about 30 minutes they came out onto the main road, they were no longer being followed, but continued on their way to the city at high speed

Today they still say that they don’t know how they got home safely.

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Dangerous Places

Colombia a dream of peaceTirso Vélez So that in the fields the barking of the dogs at any dawn is not the sinister prowl of death that wanders be the handshake of hands be it the warm smile of the friend who arrives and not the dark maw of the rifle that threatens.

So that soldiers and guerrillas are not for each other the tenebrous smell of death sniffing out the trembling life so that bombs explode of bread and toys and our children run amidst the rubble of kisses.

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“Among the vast landscapes of this country, memory and oblivion contradict each other, when it comes to a story like ours, it is inevitable to think that something like what you will read in this narration did not happen, in a scenario where everything is possible, a family he fearlessly ventures back to his origins, what begins as a normal journey ends in a race for life.”