Colombian Anthology | Translation

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The following English translation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

[Daniel A.]: This is Radio Ambulante, I’m Daniel Alarcón.

These weeks, while we work on the next season, we’re going back to our archives and rescuing early Radio Ambulante stories — the ones we published in our first years of existence. Many new listeners have joined since then, and it feels like a good moment to share those early episodes in which we were defining our style and honing our skills. So today we’re going to listen to three stories about Colombia.

We start with one about violence and the wounds that endure, published just as we launched Radio Ambulante: in July 2012. I’ll leave you now with my past self.

[Daniel Alarcón]: I’m Daniel Alarcón. Today in Radio Ambulante: No Name. In Northern Colombia there is a town called Puerto Berrío. There, since the 80’s, bodies have appeared floating down the Magdalena River — hundreds of anonymous bodies, victims of the violent conflict. Journalist   Nadja Drost traveled to Puerto Berrío to investigate the relationship that has formed between the living and the dead. 

This story is told by Annie Correal. 

[Julio Marín]: Most men normally go… face down… And the women always go face up. 

[Annie Correal]: When Julio Marín fishes in the Magdalena River, it’s not uncommon for him to find a body in the water, one more person who’s suffered a violent death. 

[Julio Marín]: I say it’s like a, eh, a… like a floating cemetery… you see the bottleneck… clogged because you can see so many bodies in the river… you can find seven, eight in the river, one after another… it’s very tough… and at night, you say to yourself, “Ugh, what’s happening?”

[Annie Correal]: I ask Julio how many bodies he’s seen. 

[Julio Marín]: In the… in that river? Hmm! Murders? I’d say at least, around 200… murder victims in this river… and you find body parts. Who’s hand is that? Uh, where could the rest of the body be? And who could that person be? Why did they do that to her? Who could that guy be? And where could they be going? Ugh, and where are they coming from? 

[Annie Correal]: For decades, paramilitary groups have thrown the bodies of their enemies — guerilla fighters and civilians — into the river, turning it into a dumping ground for bodies. The vultures flying over its water announce the arrival of one more body. 

It’s a sunny day in Puerto Berrío, a town with about 50,000 residents. The gravedigger, Ramón Morales, is opening the municipal cemetery. His rings and necklaces reflect the sunlight, and the keys to the cemetery hang from a chain hooked to his belt. 

[Ramón Morales]: Let’s see, this pavilion is a pavilion that is made up of three blocks, A block, B block… Let’s head up there a little… 

[Annie Correal]: Ramón takes me to a large pavilion, about the size of a bus. There are more than 350 graves, one on top of the other. This section of the cemetery is reserved for people who can’t buy a grave — for the anonymous bodies that come from the river. Most of the graves are painted with the letters ‘N.N.’ 

[Ramón Morales]: It’s an N.N…

[Annie Correal]: No Name. 

[Ramón Morales]: They have numbers… 

[Annie Correal]: The N.N.’s graves are the most decorated in the cemetery. Some of them have bouquets of flowers and figurines, and they’re painted in vibrant colors.

[Ramón Morales]: This one for example: Guillermo Zapata. Chosen. 

[Annie Correal]: Yes, chosen. ‘Chosen’ means that someone has picked this body — they’ve adopted it. When they adopt a body, they give it a new name. They baptize it and pray for its soul. Sometimes, they even make up a name with the initials N.N. 

[Ramón Morales]: Nevardo Nava— Nevado. N.N. Right? Narciso Naclares. N.N. 

[Annie Correal]: I ask Ramón why someone would pray for a stranger. 

[Ramón Morales]: They believe, according to what they say, that these people that they don’t know, that they’re… they’re the least protected, right? They’re so unprotected they don’t even know their names. They’re the ones that are most likely to grant favors. That’s the belief… right? Well, come on. I’ll show you over there. Look… 

[Annie Correal]: Protection, work, reconciliation. Those are the favors people expect from the N.N.s. According to the people of Puerto Berrío, there are people who have even used their N.N.’s burial date as lottery numbers… and they’ve won. Ramón shows me examples of the favors written on many of the graves. They’re plaques carved with messages of thanks. 

[Ramón Morales]: Thank you, blessed souls, for the favor received. 

[Annie Correal]: He doesn’t know exactly how many N.N.s have been buried at the Puerto Berrío cemetery. 

The records are incomplete, and the bodies are constantly in the process of moving: they go from a pavilion to a warehouse or in other cases a mass grave. 

What he does know is that violence has decreased in recent years, and there aren’t as many deaths as there were before.

Good news for Colombia, of course. But, for devotees to the N.N.s, this brings up an issue: there is a greater demand for N.N.s than there are bodies. Sometimes they even have to share. 

María Dilia Fajardo is closing up her cantina downtown. She has a towel slung over her shoulder, and she’s moving between the three tables of the establishment until she takes a seat.She tells me about her N.N. 

[María Dilia Fajardo]: When I saw her I named her María de los Ángeles… 

[Annie Correal]: María used to visit her N.N. every Monday without fail. 

[María Dilia Fajardo]: Well, at least I imagined she was a woman… a pretty, white woman, around 17 or 20 years old maybe… blond hair [pelo mono], pretty. 

[Annie Correal]: “Pelo mono” means “blond.” One day, María realized that someone else was visiting the N.N. that she had baptized. That someone was Jair Urego. 

[Jair Urego]: No, this is the first… 

[Annie Correal]: Jair Urego is sitting in his yard on the other side of town. He has a few framed photos, all of a grave —that same grave that houses the N.N. María de los Ángeles. Only Jair gave her a different name: Gloria. 

[Jair Urego]: The first time I saw that N.N., a w— a woman, and I asked her if she was a woman. And besides, once I dreamt of her and she was a blonde… and she was a blonde woman. 

[Annie Correal]: This unidentified body has two devotees, but she still grants them favors. To thank her, they got together some money and bought her an ossuary.And what name did you put on the grave? 

[María Dilia Fajardo]: Gloria María de los Ángeles… 

[Jair Urego]: … Urego Mena. 

[Annie Correal]: They even celebrated the anniversary of her burial. 

[Jair Urego]: Ah, I show up and I get a… and I buy her a cake, a little cake, I buy her a bouquet, and I bring it to the cemetery, and I light a candle for her. 

[Annie Correal]: Colombia is a country with more than 50,000 disappeared persons, the result of five decades of conflict. 

In Puerto Berrío, that violence is a reality that can’t be avoided. Almost everyone has lost a friend, a neighbor, a relative. 

[Nuri Bustamante]: Rice, sardines, and little arepa… 

[Annie Correal]: I meet Nuri Bustamante in her home. She has two laminated photos in her hands: one of her son and the other of her daughter. She uses them to fan herself as the hot sun streams through the window. 

Nuri had nine children and one N.N. According to her, her bad luck started when her N.N. was moved to a mass grave. Not long after, her 21-year-old son disappeared. And then, her daughter Lizeth, who was only nine, went to the corner store… and never came back. 

[Nuri Bustamante]: And not long ago I had a dream, it was really nice, in it I saw myself talking to a young woman, and I said to her, “Are you Lizeth?” and she said, “Yes, mommy, it’s me,” and we hugged and cried. 

[Annie Correal]: The justice system is slow, and finding a disappeared person in Colombia is extremely difficult. So Nuri and thousands of people in her same situation know that they need a miracle to find their loved ones. Without remains, without answers, they rely on the N.N.s. 

[Nuri Bustamante]: When we adopt them, we give them a name because we hope that just as we’re giving them a new identity, we’re baptizing them again, someone somewhere will come across another person like that and do the same thing. Because we don’t know if they’re out there: our people, our children, our siblings, any one of our loved ones. 

[Annie Correal]: Every night in November, the month of souls in the Catholic calendar, the devotees of Puerto Berrío march through the town after midnight. The procession starts at the cemetery, where an animero awaits them. 

[Hernán Montoya]: Dear Lord, most loving redeeming Father of souls, may you take them from the harsh prison of the… 

[Annie Correal]: The animero, Hernán Montoya, is someone who supposedly helps souls in Purgatory find peace. He’s a thin man with a kind face, who looks older than his 57 years.He’s smoking a cigarette to calm himself before calling everyone together. Then he puts on a black blanket made of plastic. 

[Hernán Montoya]: When I put on this outfit I become… I’m like the police of respect, the priest of respect. 

Good evening. 

[Followers]: Good evening. 

[Hernán Montoya]: Those of you who are not devotees of the souls in Purgatory or don’t believe in them, who are only messing around, do not follow me… Let me tell you, you do not play around with the souls of Purgatory. One Our Father… and one Hail María  

[Annie Correal]: Hernán rings a bell to call forth restless souls, to get them to come from their graves. Then, they leave the town. Many are carrying candles in their hands. Two hours later, they return to the cemetery where people have left glasses of water on the graves for the souls in Limbo. 

[Followers]: Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil, amen. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee… 

[Annie Correal]: Puerto Berrío isn’t the only place where there are hundreds of anonymous dead filling the cemeteries. 

There are many—too many—towns that are experiencing the same harsh reality. And in those towns, the N.N.s aren’t a topic of conversation. But Puerto Berrío is different.

Here, people can’t trust in life, so they chose to put their trust in the dead. 

One day, while visiting Nuri, the mother who has two disappeared children, she tells me that she never adopted another N.N. after the first one was lost. 

[Nadja Drost]: Have you ever wanted… another N.N. 

[Nuri Bustamante]: Yes. Because I’m still asking for her. I have to keep asking for my daughter.

[Annie Correal]: When I heard her, I remember that one afternoon in the cemetery, the animero showed me five graves of N.N.s, hidden behind a wall. Perhaps Nuri could have the N.N. she wants so badly. I tell her about the graves. 

[Nuri Bustamante]: Really? 

[Annie Correal]: Then, we go. Nuri’s voice shakes when she asks me to go a few blocks out of the way. She explains that she always avoids the corner where her daughter disappeared. 

I show her a few tombs behind the wall with the letter N.N. and I ask her if she would prefer a man or a woman. 

[Nuri Bustamante]: They tell me that… I’m better off with a man. 

[Annie Correal]: Nuri inspects the graves. Finally, she picks one, knocking on it to get the N.N.’s attention.

[Nuri Bustamante]: I commit myself to you. Give me what I ask for. I need two very big favors. 

[Annie Correal]: Nuri asks for a job for her son and for help with the money she owes.Then, she takes a brush she brought from home and starts painting the grave. She picks a pretty, happy color: sky blue. 

[Nuri Bustamante]: You ask for me, and I’ll plead for you. 

[Annie Correal]: With those words, Nuri makes a pact with a deceased person, and another N.N. gets a new life. 

[Daniel A.]: This story was hosted by Annie Correal. Annie is a reporter for the New York Times and covers Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. The research and writing are by Nadja Drost. Nadja is an independent journalist.

We’ll be right back.

[Daniel A.]: We’re back. The next story is called Nohemí and was produced by our Editorial Director, Camila Segura, in 2013. Here’s the story.

[Nohemí]: The first memory I have from when I was little was when I arrived to Bogotá. Before that I don’t remember anything. I must have come with somebody but I really don’t remember who it was that brought me.

[Daniel]: This is Nohemí and this memory is from when she was 7 or 8 years old. She went to Bogotá from what we believe was her native town, in Tolima, a state in the central-western side of Colombia.

[Nohemí]: I certainly had never ridden in a bus, because it smelled strongly of gas and I got dizzy, I threw up, I was feeling really bad.

[Daniel]: Today Nohemí. Camila Segura, Radio Ambulante’s Senior Editor, researched and produced this story.

[Camila Segura]: Nohemí doesn’t remember much more. She doesn’t have any memory of her mom, or her dad, or any of her relatives. Years later she found out that a supposed uncle had given her to the military mayor of Anzoátegui, a town in the Tolima, in the years 63 or 64. A gentleman called Vitaliano Sánchez. Vitaliano gave her to his mother-in- law, Doña María.

[Mónica Sánchez]: My father brought her for my grandma. She was a present he brought to her from where he was visiting.

[Camila]: This is Monica Sánchez, Doña María’s granddaughter and Vitaliano’s daughter. She is one of the main characters in this story, but let’s go back to Nohemí and what she remembers after she arrived to Bogotá.

[Nohemí]: When I arrived, I went to a neighborhood called Los Alcáceres and saw that witch. That woman was terrible, she was a witch, a witch.

[Camila]: The witch Nohemí is talking about is Doña María, Mónica’s grandmother. She is the first person Nohemí remembers from that part of her life; and that immense house is the first place she remembers clearly. On that day, Doña María explained to Nohemí she was going to be in charge of all the housework and was to get up around 4 or 4:30 in the morning/

[Nohemí]:  I remember clearly that in this house, the first day I arrived, I peed the bed. Then of course, as you can imagine, the bed was a total mess, full of pee, so the first thing they did was get me up and put me inside the washboard, and hit me for being dirty and hit me more for being dirty, and why did I have to pee in the bed and this and that…yikes…Doña María used to give me some tundas, My God.

[Camila]: Tundas which means beatings. Nohemí received, from the first day, lots of beatings. Beatings because she peed the bed, because she didn’t clean well, for just about anything. In this house she lived about one year but she didn’t always live there. Doña María used to lend Nohemí to relatives who didn’t have a maid. Mónica tells me:

[Mónica]: She was the one who started with the whole idea of lending her, so she would lend her to an uncle who didn’t have a maid or to her sisters who were old. They will lend her. She was a collective little slave.

Until she came to our house, until my mom said, “This is mine.”

[Camila]: There came a time, then, when Nohemí came to live permanently with the Sánchez family: Vitaliano, his wife Eunice and, at that time, their six children. All of them were younger than Nohemí who was about 9 years old. Mónica was probably between one or two years old at the time.

[Mónica]: For me Nohemí was always there. Nohemí is in my memories since forever.

[Camila]: Nohemí became like a big sister for all the children, especially the youngest ones.

[Nohemí]:  I was the one who took care of them, who gave them their bottle, who changed them, who dealt with them.

[Camila]: On her first day, Eunice, Mónica’s mom, explained to her what she was to do…

[Nohemí]: You have to help me with the girls, with the housework, you have to get up early, to make the bottles, to cook the food, to…

[Camila]: Even though the work was hard and she was responsible for taking care of six children, the change for Nohemí wasn’t that bad, because she wasn’t the only kid in the house any more.

[Mónica]: Nohemí was a playful girl, happy, fun, a big joker… uhm, loving. She was like… she was like one us. Especially with the girls, it was a friendship…

[Nohemí]: Maybe because I didn’t have anyone, I had nothing in life, the children were my family, since I was living with them day and night, for me they became part of my life.

[Camila]: Mónica feels that Nohemí, in some way, was her sister. But from early on in her life she noticed the difference in the treatment she Nohemí received from her parents, but especially from her mom, Eunice…

[Mónica]: My mother. Nobody else. My mother treated her bad. That’s the memory I have: she always got some awful beatings, my mom would go into some insane rage for almost anything, because something had come out wrong or just because. We never got beatings, but Nohemí got beatings every day in her life. And some scenes were so horrific because of their inhuman abuse.

[Camila]: Nohemí remembers the majority of the children helping her on what they could in order to avoid Nohemí getting another beating from Eunice.

[Nohemí]: So, when we thought Doña Eunice was coming home, the children, they themselves ran around helping me put away pots and hide them, so she couldn’t see them dirty or hide the mess we had made under the bed just so…they became my accomplices.

[Camila]: According to Nohemí, Eunice never lost an opportunity to hurt her. If it wasn’t physical abuse, it was verbal abuse:

[Nohemí]: She would say: you are a nobody, your mom is this and that and works in the street.

[Camila]: Nohemí was told thousands of times she was in that house, with them, because her mom was a prostitute, a vagabond, someone who had abandoned her because she didn’t love her.

[Nohemí]:  I started hating my biological mother. Meaning, I wanted to be as far away from her as possible. Why? Because as time went by I started realizing the situation I was in. And I put all the blame in my biological mother, because of her I was living in such bad situation.

[Camila]: But Nohemí remembers well the day her biological mother went to Mónica’s house asking for her. Nohemí had been living there two years. We are not sure of her exact age at the time, but one can calculate she was about ten years old.

[Nohemí]: I found out because Doña Eunice told me: “and your so and so mother came.” I did get to hear her voice, while she was talking to that lady.

She heard her, but didn’t see her. Nohemí was washing clothes in the shower. She tells me she didn’t dare to come out of the bathroom. She was too scared of Eunice. But she was able to hear what Eunice was telling her mother:

[Nohemí]: But the girl is like one of my girls, she is treated like a queen, she has everything you can’t give her, she is studying, she is the little princess of this house. Of course, this lady left totally convinced that was the truth, that things were like that.

[Camila]: But we know she wasn’t treated as a princess. Psychological abuse, beatings, incessant work – and rapes. Several people, several times.

[Nohemí]: The first was Vitaliano, Mónica’s father. He raped me very young, he must have raped me when I was about nine years old.

[Camila]: And two of Eunice’s brothers: Julio and Edgar.

I ask her if she finds it hard to speak about this horrible thing and she tells me no…

[Nohemí]:  Not at all. No, because, let’s see, for me it’s not horrible, you know why? Because for me it was all a game. I was always the maid for everyone so for me it was as if someone loved me. Meaning, at the time I saw it like that, obviously when I became an adult and started understanding life, I understood all of it was bad.

[Camila]: Here I have to confess something. When she told me this, I couldn’t stand it anymore and tears came out. And the most absurd thing happened. Nohemí ended up consoling me. She even offered me water before continuing and her voice also started quivering.

[Nohemí]: [crying] Let’s see, I also had some beautiful moments. Back then, they had a country house in Anolaima full of fruit and there was a river, a creek, and for me it was my only place to go vent, to go and sit there and stay a long time and since I was a little older I was able to… able to cry…And I sat to think, and I would think: why do I have to live such hard life? But really, I thought it was… I used to think it was a normal life for any human being.

[Camila]: She had nothing to compare it to. That was her life, she got beaten. And raped. So the years passed. The majority of people in the neighborhood they lived in – all military people like Mr. Vitaliano – had noticed the mistreatment to which Nohemí was subjected. Nobody said anything, until one day, a neighborhood girl, the daughter of one military man, came to her.

[Nohemí]: She told me one day, “Gosh, Nohemí, are you going to continue living your life putting up with this life?” I told her, “But I, ummm, what…what else can I do?” I didn’t know how to take a bus, how to do anything, nothing. She told me: “Nohemí, do you want to go and work for one of my aunts?” I told her “Sure, let’s do it!”

[Camila]: Nohemí was 14 or 15 years old. At that time Eunice spent long periods of time in the country home and left Nohemí in charge of the house.

[Nohemí]:  I would say “God, if I leave and my little girls…” all that love I feel for them.

[Camila]: All the children were at school.

[Nohemí]:  My God, I kept imagining the moment the children came home and found the house empty. But for sure I left everything ready, I woke up early, and left lunch ready, clothes washed, everything, everything. I left everything impeccable in case… they found me so they wouldn’t beat me. [Laughs]

[Camila]: The neighbor’s driver picked her up at 1pm, and that’s how Nohemí escaped from the Sánchez’s home.

[Mónica]: It was mostly a relief. I was at the time about 10 or 11 years old and it all came to be a story from the past, right? We pretended to forget it all and…and I thought I had forgotten it but…it’s… something…something I carried deep inside of me, it stayed deep inside all of us. I am sure.

[Camila]: Mónica grew up, without her friend, her semi-sister, and she became the rebel of the family. She fought with her parents all the time, and when she got drunk —alone or with friends— all her rancor and anger came out. In her 20s, she left Colombia and moved to Europe, to live far away from her family. But she never forgot Nohemí.

[Mónica]: I carried all that dirt in the bottom of my heart and it would surge in the most unexpected moments. It wasn’t very often, it was once in a while, but it was something I would end up confessing: this is what my family did, this is what my mother did and this is what we did, because we let it be. That, the confession, always came back.

[Camila]: Monica became an alcoholic for many years, until one day she decided to stop drinking.

[Mónica]: After the detoxification, comes therapy and you have to take out all the dirt. And there, in that process, which lasted several years, came a moment where it became evident the issue of Nohemí was the most serious issue in my life, it was something I had to resolve. [crying] And that’s what I did, my mother had her phone number and…

[Camila]: And she called her.

[Daniel]: We’ll be back after the break.

[Kelly McEvers, host de Embedded]: Hey, I’m Kelly McEvers, from Embedded. Bill Spencer works at a coal mine in Kentucky, and when I started to ask him about a future without coal, he knows what I’m gonna say…

So if …

[Bill Spencer]: Coal goes out, I’m done for…

[Kelly]: Coal Stories, on the NPR One App or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Guy Raz, host de How I Built This]: What does it take to start something from nothing? And what does it take to actually build it? I’m Guy Raz. Every week on How I Built This, we speak with founders behind some of the most inspiring companies in the world. Find it on NPR One or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Daniel]: You’re listening to Radio Ambulante, I’m Daniel Alarón. When Nohemí was a girl she was taken away from the town where she was born to live with the Sánchez family, a well-off family in the capital of Colombia, Bogotá.

She was there for years as a domestic worker, suffering all kinds of abuse until she was finally able to escape when she was 15. But fortunately, the story doesn’t end there. Decades later she came across an unexpected ally: Mónica, one of the children in the family that had abused her so much. Camila Segura continues this story.

[Camila]: Let’s back up a little bit. So, for many years, Mónica felt extremely guilty about what had happened with Nohemí. She grew up watching her mom insulting Nohemí and hitting her over anything. And of course, Mónica never did anything because she was only 9 years old when 15-year-old Nohemí managed to escape.

But as an adult, after going through therapy, Mónica kept going back to the issue with her sister Marta. They were telephone conversations that lasted hours. They talked about their parents, their siblings, and many times about Nohemí.

Marta was the only one, out of the 7 siblings, who had talked to Nohemí a few times, so Mónica asked her for Nohemí’s phone number.

Mónica lived in Montreal and Nohemí in Soacha, near Bogotá. One day in 2004 Nohemí’s phone rang.

[Nohemí]: I was just arriving from work when ring ring ring. I answered: “Alo”. “Hi, Mico,” they are the only ones who call me ‘Mico.’ I asked her: “Is this Martica?”, since their voices sound so much alike. She said: “No honey, it’s Mónica.” And I was like: “Oh! No.” Oh, if I’d had bad days, that was the most beautiful day of my life.

[Camila]: They talked for about 4 hours and Nohemí told her everything that had happened after she escaped from her house. After a year staying with the neighbor’s aunt, the owner of the house kicked her out firing his gun- because Nohemí had thrown a party. For months she lived in nearby parks, until one day she left with a guy who paid for a hotel room and forced her to sleep with him.

When the guy stopped paying for the hotel, they kicked her out. That’s when she got her first paid job at a bakery and in that same place —a few months after prostituting herself— she would meet the father of her 3 children:  a good man, although their marriage didn’t work out, who paid for her elementary schooling and helped her get a job.

Nohemí told her about all this and more. She shared with Mónica one of her most painful experiences: when her first born son was 16 years old, a stray bullet killed him at school.

They kept talking about everything and Monica told her:

[Mónica]: I told her I was aware of what had happened and about the abuse she had endured. [Crying] And… and that it was something that you just don’t do to other people. It was the first time we said it openly.

[Camila]: They talked about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Mónica’s mother, Eunice, and Mónica felt the need to apologize for what her mother had done.

[Nohemí]:  I told her: “Look, I’ve already forgiven everything she did.” She said: “No Mico, it’s not fair for her to have done what she did to you.” And since they saw everything, that’s what bothered them so much.

[Camila]: For a long time, Mónica had suspected that Nohemí had also been abused by her dad. It was something she couldn’t shake off, so during that first call she dared to ask.

[Mónica]: And she told me “No, baby, no, your daddy was very nice…” and this and that and… and no. So I…I believed her.

[Camila]: After that call, Mónica and Nohemí started talking regularly on the phone. Mónica was tired of living in Canada. She felt lonely, guilty and dreamt of returning to Colombia.

[Mónica]: Well, when you are far away you idealize everything, right? So, I started to paint a beautiful scene in my head where we were all going to be together again, live happily ever after and forgive each other about everything.

[Camila]: She shared the idea with Nohemí, since the plan included her.

[Nohemí]: She wanted to build a condominium in Cartagena. And build everyone their own cabin. And have us all go and reunite there. So, I went with the idea, but I know that would never be possible. For starters because, how was I going to live with them? I mean, no. I would be their slave again, and I’m not a slave anymore.

[Mónica]: I started to make a plan in my head which included living with her when we got old, and I would be the one to pamper her and return a little bit of all the love I had received from her.

[Camila]: In 2008 Mónica sold everything and returned to Colombia after living more than half of her life abroad. She arrived to her mom’s, in Bogotá, although her priority was seeing Nohemí, so a few days later she went to her house. She tells me about that first meeting after more than 30 years.

[Mónica]: An emotion, a great joy, and especially a great familiarity. There she told me more things about my mom. Things I didn’t remember. She told me about a horrifying scene where my mother pulled her hair out with…with a brush, in an incredible way. She would sit, grab part of her hair and roll it in the brush, and when she was close to her head she would pull it out.

[Nohemí]: Until my head was covered in blood.

[Camila]: The level of abuse against Nohemí was awful. Shocking, even for Mónica, who grew up in the same house. And there was something else, perhaps more disturbing: in spite of everything, Nohemí didn’t only blame herself, but she also thanked Eunice for everything they had given her, for teaching her how to cook, for giving her food and shelter. Even though they never paid her. Mónica was horrified.

[Mónica]: Oh please, and it’s a lie that they gave you everything, they didn’t give you anything, they took everything from you and they didn’t give you anything!

[Nohemí]:  So she told me, “You don’t have anything to thank my mother for. Nothing!”

[Camila]: Mónica spent the next two years in Colombia, trying to reconcile with her past. First with her mom, which she didn’t’ achieve. Then with her dad, and this was perhaps the most difficult surprise of her adult life. She moved to the coast to live with him and she found an aggressive and cruel man. But also, he started telling her stories of drunkenness and women, like if he were talking to a friend from the army barracks. The father she remembered was someone else, and now, she had more doubts than ever.

She talked about it with her sisters, and they confirmed memories of violent scenes. So she called Nohemí again, to settle her doubts, once and for all.

[Nohemí]: So one day she called me and said “Mico, I need you to tell me something. Did my father rape you?”

[Mónica]: She told me: “Yes baby.” She told me: “He did that to me, he raped me. He was the first one to rape me.”

[Camila]: This was a turning point for Mónica. Her question —and mine— for Nohemí was: and why didn’t you ever report the abuse?

[Nohemí]: Do you think they would pay attention to a nameless, poor idiot, who had nothing? Who is going to believe that I’m reporting a prestigious Navy captain?

[Mónica]: So I told her: “Well, now you have me, and if you want we can report them, and I’m with you till the end, but we are going to get to the bottom of this.”

[Camila]: And that’s what they did. They started with something simple: a claim in the form of a letter addressed to Monica’s parents, compiling Nohemí’s story, including all the abuse. This is how that letter begins:

[Mónica]: Mom, dad: The day has come when we think it is unacceptable to continue staying silent about the abuse that destroyed our lives.

I’m talking about that girl that you, dad, took away from her mother and you, mom, enslaved miserably. Her name was apparently María…

[Camila]: Mónica sent each of her parents a copy of the certified letter. And she waited, to see how they would react.

[Mónica]: There was no response to the letter. Nothing.

[Camila]: The day after she sent the letter, Mónica emailed her siblings, her children, her in-laws, and her ex-husband. She sent a copy of the letter she had sent her parents and an explanation of her motives:

[Mónica]: That it was about time we take on the guilt we all carried. That’s what I learned in therapy: you have to face things, go in search of the truth and expose it. The dirty laundry is not to be washed in the house, but rather outside, under the sun, and stretched out, exposed so all the dirt can come off.

[Camila]: Her siblings didn’t take it well. According to Mónica, they thought it was unfair to have to pay.

[Mónica]: They were worried about how much it could cost.

[Camila]: But it wasn’t just about money; but rather their reputation, the name of the family, that’s what her siblings were worried about.

[Mónica]: That’s what they were ashamed of: the neighbors finding out. As if they didn’t already know! There’s that scruffy, abused, beaten girl, always dressed in rags. Who doesn’t go to school, who doesn’t get any medical attention, whose teeth are rotting out. Everyone saw that.

[Camila]: After the negative reaction from her siblings, and since it was obvious that neither Vitaliano nor Eunice were going to reply to the claim in the letter, Mónica asked Nohemí if she wanted to do a tutelage.

A tutelage is a legal mechanism which pretends to guarantee the immediate judicial protection of fundamental rights. The key word here is immediate because – normally – there is a statute of limitations meaning, the time that can pass from the initial violation of the rights.

When Mónica asked her, Nohemí said:

[Nohemí]:  “But baby, and, what… or what… I mean, I don’t know anything about that.” And she said: “No, you don’t have to worry about any of it.”

[Mónica]: And so, by having my testimony and my help, it was something else. She said: “If you help me then, of course, I’ll sue them.” I told her: “I think you should, and that is what I have to offer you: my support.”

[Camila]: Mónica contacted several lawyers who rejected the case.

[Mónica]: Since the story was so old. But then I realized that it wasn’t an old story. Stealing her, enslaving, and mistreating her, yes, that’s old; but they continue to do so today, they are violating one of her fundamental rights: the right to know the truth.

[Camila]: The truth Mónica refers to is the truth about Nohemí’s story, about her identity, about her origin. It’s a little bit confusing, but I’ll try to explain it in the clearest way possible:

The Sánchez’s always told her that her uncle had intervened so that her mom would give her up for adoption to Vitaliano. But Nohemí found the only document about this alleged adoption in the Sánchez home… And although it shows who we think is her mother —a woman named Rosario Arias— giving her up to Mónica’s grandmother, the document is not signed by her mom —it´s signed by her uncle. And the girl in the document is not even called Nohemí.

When Nohemí was 23 years old she went back to her town and with that document, with the name of her mother shown there, she was able to find her baptism certificate in the town’s church.

[Nohemí]: When I find the baptism certificate, oh surprise, my name is not written as Nohemí anywhere, but rather as María Arias.

[Camila]: Mónica felt compelled to help Nohemí decipher her story, so she continued insisting everywhere possible. She went online, got a template of a tutela document, and wrote the draft herself. A little later she found a lawyer, Ximena Castillo, whom, when she saw what Mónica had written, did not hesitate to take the case. She corrected what Mónica did and got her settled. This is Ximena:

[Ximena Castillo]: We did not mean to revive closed cases in judicial terms for the crime of torture, rape, and human trafficking. But rather vindicate Nohemí as a human being with the right to an identity and a family, the same for her daughters. That is, because Nohemí doesn’t end with Nohemí, Nohemí continues, and Nohemí’s daughters have a right to know where they come from.

[Camila]: They passed the tutela to a municipal judge. Nohemí, Vitaliano and Eunice testified. The lawyer told me she was there only during Vitaliano’s declaration. 

[Ximena]: And Vitaliano didn’t accept any of the facts, nor did he show any hint of regret.

[Camila]: I tried to talk to Vitaliano, to Eunice or to one of Mónica’s siblings, but they told me that their lawyer preferred they didn’t make any statements.

In Eunice’s and Vitaliano’s testimonies in court, the phrase “charity work” is repeated several times. Eunice declares that she didn’t treat her as a maid because “who makes a 5 or 6 or 7 year old handle a gas stove that can explode?” And when they ask Eunice how she disciplined Nohemí, she says: “The same way I punished my children:  a slap, a shake of their arm.” When they ask Vitaliano about Nohemí’s condition in the house, he replies: “She was considered a domestic worker, not a maid, but someone special that was growing up with us.”

That’s how the Sánchez’s defended themselves and with this first tutela, they won. The judge said the statute of limitations for the crime had already expired.

Nohemí appealed and went back to lose in a superior court, where it was argumented that the delay in claiming showed her lack of urgency when it came to defend her rights. Ximena explained to me these verdicts in the following terms:

[Ximena]: There was a problem of attachment to formality and of laziness of the judicial officers who had the case under their knowledge. There was apathy, indolence, as often happens in this country, where it is common that the law is for those who wear ruana, but not to favor them, but to discriminate against them.

[Camila]: The lawyer submitted an insistence and this one was passed to the Constitutional Court, which on December 12th, 2012, gave Nohemí the right.

The court ordered Vitaliano and Eunice to compensate Nohemí with money. But additionally, it ordered the Ministry of Interior to search for Nohemí’s family and act in order to prevent this from happening to other minors.

The court’s ruling made headlines in all major Colombian media outlets.

(SOUNDBITE FROM NOTICIAS UNO)  

[News anchor]: The Constitutional Court ordered a family from Anzoátegui, Tolima to…

(SOUNDBITE FROM EL ESPECTADOR)

[News anchor]: Slavery in the 21st century. Pay close attention, because the Constitutional Court…

(SOUNDBITE FROM CITYTV)  

[News anchor]: The Ministry of Interior must find the parents of a woman who, since she was six years, old was taken from her home in Anzoategui and enslaved by a family….

[Camila]: But even though it’s tragic and outrageous, Nohemí’s story is much more common than what we’d like to believe. In Colombia alone there are 750 thousand people who work as domestic workers and everyday there are hundreds of reports of all types of abuse. In this context, Nohemi’s accusations might not be too much of a surprise, what’s surprising is the court’s ruling, which many described as “historic” due to the way it overcame the obstacle of statute of limitations.

A few days after the verdict, Monica’s brothers released a statement where they say that, for them, “the allegations do not make sense” and that “this situation is terribly painful due to its origins and consequences,” as they are seen as “an unpleasant duty to bring them out in the open.” They added that the “real origin of all these accusations is the brilliant intellect, eloquence, and at the same time, serious mental problems of our sister Monica.”

[Camila]: Ximena, the lawyer responds like this:

[Ximena]: Well, I would love for Colombia to have several mental patients like Mónica. People as smart, as supportive and as brave. And with such a sense of responsibility. I would love this to be a country full of that type of insane person.

[Camila]: Now all that’s left for Nohemí is to wait for the result the judge will give in a civil court for the amount she will be compensated with. And without a doubt, for a woman in her situation, that money can change her life. But there is something else much more exciting.

[Nohemí]: I mean, how do I wish I had my mom here and hug her, and have her here laying down, and give her many kisses, and love her, yes I would love to find her. I would love to find her and bring…if maybe she was in a bad situation or something. The past doesn’t matter, what for? What does it matter? But how I would love to have her, to have a brother. In other words, my blood.

[Camila]: And is just that, ultimately, Nohemí’s legal case was all about that, about a girl who never had the opportunity to meet her mother, of knowing nothing about her biological family. And now, with this report the Interior Ministry must give her, perhaps, one day not so far away, she’ll be able to know something of her own story.

[Daniel]: In the past five years, Nohemí —with the help of the Ministry of the Interior— managed to find her biological mother’s whereabouts. They met in August of 2014. Unfortunately, the meeting wasn’t what she had expected. They aren’t in touch today. According to the court order, the Sánchez family has to pay an indemnity but Nohemí still hasn’t gotten that money.

[Daniel A.]: We’re back on Radio Ambulante, I’m Daniel Alarcón. The last story we bring you today in this anthology is a little different from what we usually do, because after the introduction, you’ll only hear one voice: that of the protagonist. His name is Christian Martínez. Here’s Instrumentos de guerra.

[Christian Martinez]: We were used to traveling a lot, and there were always checkpoints set up by the guerrilla, the army, or the paramilitary. But whenever they stopped us, we would say that we’re musicians and they would let us go. But that day it was different.

[Daniel A.]: That is Christian Martínez. When he was 21 years old he played bass in a tropical band from his hometown, Aguachica, 600 km north of Bogotá. The band was made up 16 musicians, and they played in local festivities around the area. At this time –we’re talking about 2003– the conflict between the Colombian army, the guerrilla and the paramilitaries was still in full swing.

One day Christian’s band played at patron saint festivities in a town in the mountains, five hours away from Aguachica.

The celebration ended at around 1 AM, and it was a hit. As soon as it was over, the band got on the bus to go back home.

But they wouldn’t get there that night. Something happened.

[Christian Martinez]: We came to an agreement and promised that this had to stay between us. We could never talk about this.

[Daniel A.]: Welcome to Radio Ambulante, I’m Daniel Alarcón. Today, War Instruments. Remember: we’re in northern Colombia, in a lonely road, at one in the morning. Here’s Christian.

[Christian Martinez]: I was tired from the trip, from playing. Many of my bandmates were already sleeping. Others were awake, but the lights on the bus were off. And halfway home, after a couple of hours, the bus stopped.

I was half awake and I heard some voices from people that had gotten on the bus. These people were wearing uniforms, they had guns, and they said they were from the guerrilla, the National Liberation Army, the ELN. And they were asking us for our IDs.

They said, “OK, get off the bus, this is a search”. That’s when I got more nervous, because at other times they had just asked us for identification and let us go.

 But this time they made us get off the bus, put our hands up, they searched us, searched inside the bus, searched the instruments. So things started looking more complicated than I thought.

And I started thinking that there shouldn’t be any problems, because I knew we were not carrying guns, we didn’t have drugs, just instruments.

After they searched us they said, “Now get on the bus because you’re going with us”.

That’s when I felt the world sinking, because that sounded practically like a kidnapping.

[Christian Martinez]: My hands got cold. We were all pale. We got on the bus and they told us to cover our eyes; to get some shirts, t-shirts, anything, to cover our eyes so that we wouldn’t see where we were going.

I could hear my bandmates praying out loud. We were all about to cry, about to shit our pants. I think the bus took a different turn, because when the bus stopped around 30 minutes later, we were practically in the jungle.

The bus stopped, they made us remove the t-shirts from our eyes, and they told us, “Well, now get ready because you have to walk. You have to walk through this mountain with us, and you have to bring your instruments”.

And I thought “What!?”. And that’s when one of them said that it was their commander’s birthday and that we had to play at his party.

On the one hand, I was glad to hear that we were being kidnapped only to play. But in turn, we were still hostages.

We started taking the instruments off the bus, but then another problem came up: if we were in the dark, on top of a mountain, how the hell were we supposed to carry our things? And that’s when I heard a couple of guerrilla soldiers say, “Hey! give me that drum, I’ll take it”. So with a gun on one side they started carrying the congas, the cymbals, etc. and we followed them.

We walked in a line. It was cold and there was no light, at all. Just a guerrilla soldier leading the way with a flashlight.

We walked through the mountain for about 20, 25 minutes, when at a distance we started hearing music. And as we got closer we started hearing voices and seeing a little bit of light. Until finally we got to the camp.

The camp was a farm. There was a party with food, because they were cooking sancocho, we could smell the chicken soup.

The party had amplification. They had speakers and microphones and a mixer. They had prepared a place where we would play and we went there right away, tuned our instruments, connected our instruments, and started playing.

We wanted to give them a good show, because we wanted them to be happy with us. We didn’t want to make them mad because we knew our lives were in their hands.

When we started playing we were trying to cover how scared we were. We were pretending that we were OK, but we were not feeling well at all.

I was super nervous, with cold hands, cold sweat, pale. A bandmate was about to throw up from the fear. It was like a nightmare.

[Christian Martinez]: But we started playing and something happened.

People began to enjoy our music and they started dancing and smiling. And we looked at each other and started to smile for the first time too. We forgot where we were, with whom we were, how bad our night was and for a moment we began to enjoy it.

Everything was going great, and then we heard gun shots…Papapapa!

¡Wow! Man, when I heard those gun shots all I wanted to do was toss my bass and start running. But I couldn’t, because I was like that, frozen; and many of the members of the band were also shocked, some ducked. And the first thing I thought was that the army had gotten in; it was an ambush by the army and we were in the middle of a shootout and we were going to get killed right there. “They killed us!” I said.

But no, what had happened was that a guerilla soldiers was dancing, drunk, and he got his gun and starting shooting it at the air, like a crazy person.

We didn’t want to keep playing because things were getting ugly. The truth is that it was a very strange experience. They had guns and they made us do whatever they wanted. But at the same time they were treating us like their guests; they offered food, they offered liquor –they even paid us after we played. So it was like sleeping with the enemy.

So when we were eating we took the opportunity to talk to our director and ask him what was going on. And the director told us that we shouldn’t worry, that they were happy, that they just wanted us to keep playing and after one more round we would probably be able to leave.

A bandmate got an idea: after we finish eating we would start playing songs that are not as upbeat, like more mellow, so that they would sit down, and to create a heavy ambience so the guerilla soldiers would start getting sleepy and sit down and let us go.

[Christian Martinez]: We got on stage and started playing those songs. The plan was working. I was seeing people getting tired, like they didn’t want to keep dancing, like the drunks were starting to sit down.

So we kept playing a couple more songs and our director told us to stop, that we didn’t need to keep playing because they wanted to listen to other music they had on CD. So we stopped playing, we started packing our instruments and leaving.

We walked back through the same path. It was still dark, but the sun was starting to rise. I could hear the birds singing in the trees, but not much else. We were all silent. I think people were praying. It was like a time for reflexion, to be honest. We just kept walking and in about 30 minutes we got to the bus.

We got on the bus, packed the instruments and left.

Once we were relatively far away from that area we started yelling and laughing and saying, “we’re free! we’re free”. It was like a moment of happiness when we realized that thanks to God we had come out alive, that we had been very close to talking, eating and drinking with death.

And the director told us that we had to promise that what had happened had to stay between us, that we couldn’t talk about it or comment on it with anyone else in our homes or with our friends.

[Christian Martinez]: Where we lived, our town, there were more paramilitary than guerrilla soldiers, and the paramilitary were the enemies of the guerilla. So if the paramilitaries heard that we had played for the guerilla, they would think that we were guerilla or that we were collaborators, and they would treat us like guerrilla. They could hurt us, they could kill us. So we all agreed, and we promised that it had to stay between us. That we would never talk about this with anyone else.

However, after many years I want to talk about this for several reasons. I want to share my story because I want people who are outside the country to realize that most Colombians, like me, don’t want to be part of this conflict. We don’t choose to sponsor any of the sides involved, but we are still trapped in the middle of this war. And that is why we are afraid to talk; because talking against the guerilla, the paramilitary or government corruption is dangerous for all of us. I’m tired of this situation. And I’m tired of being silenced by fear.

[Daniel Alarcón]: Christian Martínez keeps playing music and now he lives in the United States. The song you’re hearing is called “Muerte”, and he composed it.

A version of this story in English was originally released by one of our favorite shows and podcasts: Snap Judgment. The producer, Nancy López, was part of our team when we first launched Radio Ambulante over three years ago. ¡Thanks so much, Nancy! And thanks to Glynn Washington, Snap’s executive producer. You can find a link to that story on our website.

This version in Spanish was produced by independent radio journalist Jennifer Dunn, who is also Christian’s wife. The story was mixed by Martina Castro and edited as a team by Camila Segura, Silvia Viñas, Martina and me.

The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Adriana Bernal, Aneris Casassus, Diego Corzo, Emilia Erbetta, Camilo Jiménez Santofimio, Germán Montoya, Sara Selva Ortiz, Samantha Proaño, Natalia Ramírez, Juan Pablo Santos, Bruno Scelza, David Trujillo, Elsa Liliana Ulloa, Luis Fernando Vargas, Franklin Villavicencio, and Mariana Zúñiga.

Carolina Guerrero is the CEO.

Radio Ambulante is a Radio Ambulante Estudios podcast, produced and mixed in Hindenburg PRO.

If you enjoyed this episode and want us to keep making independent journalism about Latin America, support us through Deambulantes, our membership program. Visit radioambulante.org/donar and help us keep narrating the region.

Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I’m Daniel Alarcón. Thanks for listening.