ForJose Cubillos
A boat in the port awaits me
I don't know where it will take me
I'm not looking for greatness
Only this sadness I wish to heal
Enrique Bunbury - The Stranger
In the last two weeks, in addition to the topic of conversation that the presidential runoff has meant with a promising conservative for "change" like Rodolfo Hernández, and perhaps derived from that turn, in free time, sharing lunch, a coffee, When conversing with friends, compás or colleagues, with taxi or picap drivers, there is a constant that has fixed all the talks: a desire to soon seek other horizons to live.
This thirst to emigrate —from my particular perspective— does not occur only with one age group, it encompasses young people, seniors, students, workers, professionals, seekers , unemployed, men and women. The air that runs through us, those of us who consider this possibility, is probably marked by the fatigue that living in an almost static country implies, which, when presented with an opportunity to advance in fundamental minimums, faces an onslaught from the likes and well-off in thestatus quo.
The lack of opportunities, going out into a precarious job market, living by rummaging, not knowing how to make ends meet, living in a country where rights are privileges of a few and where it is better not to bother seem to be the reasons behind these decisions considered in the short, medium and long term. A few decades ago our parents and elders, moved by the armed conflict or economic inequality, looked for better opportunities in the exodus from the countryside to the city. In our case, in more urban generations, it seems that the most promising horizons are outside our borders.
I will bring to this column three conversations, held in recent weeks, to better exemplify this search for other horizons. For obvious reasons I will omit the names of each member.
cross borders
First conversation:I arrive early at the office and when talking with Doña Ana, from general services, while we share a cup of coffee, she tells us that her eldest son, a muralist, hopes to go to Spain to look for work and study. He has tried three times to enter the National University and the District University, but has barely obtained the minimum required score or has stayed in the specific test without concluding the admission process.
"He's very smart," says Dona Ana. My three children are intelligent, but he has had a spark to think a lot since he was little. He likes to defend rights, he has made murals from a very young age, I used to accompany him to paint, and now he wants to go to Spain. He already got his passport. I encourage him, I tell him not to stay in the country for me. In the least expected day I leave this world, but he will continue and will have to fight for himself to live better. I am looking for someone to help me receive him in Spain at least while he gets a job for the first few days.
Second conversation:The next day, Don Gerardo, Picap's driver, for some reason told me that the situation is very difficult for people who live with a minimum or from the rummage. Bogotá is a very expensive city and now everything costs double or triple what it cost before. He tells me during a short tour:
—José, you know that a minimum is not enough. I want to go to Mexico, to cross through the hole. It's hard, that scares me, but here you can't get anything, it's up to you to search for the money. Some of us do it with these applications, but that is illegal and we have to work almost secretly where the police don't notice. I already started saving to go to Mexico.
Third conversation:Before starting a meeting and after taking a look at the topics of conversation on Twitter, Francisco and Juliana tell me that if Hernández becomes president, they will leave the country to study and work in Europe or North America. Juliana suffered from the coronavirus in England and returned to the country a few months ago. Here he finished a specialization, but he has not been able to get a stable job. Francisco, for his part, is looking to start a master's degree that he does not want to study in Colombia because the costs are very high.
"If that Mr. Hernández comes up, I'll go," says Francisco. We have already lived 4 years of Duque, this country cannot stand another period with a disastrous government. With the State of Shock that he plans to declare, he will repress worse than Duque in the 2021 protests.
"If necessary, I'll leave the country to wash dishes in Canada," Juliana answers. If Hernández is president, it will go badly for women, those of us who work in consultancies with universities, those of us who believe in research and science. With the desire to reduce the state, it will even end the Public Universities.
These are just some of the conversations I've had in these weeks by chance projects I'm working on and the network of friendships built over the years. Parallel to these conversations, remotely or through social networks, I talk with colleagues and friends who have already embarked on the route. Some to cities like Amsterdam, others in Nebraska or some other place in the global north to which you have to adjust for the hours difference to coincide remotely in a meet. It is not easy to leave your life with its contradictions, dreams and hopes, to leave your family, your friends, your pets for other horizons. But when they look back on what Colombia offers for its citizens, they are filled with courage for better living conditions that they have found in more diverse and pluralistic societies. They wait to return if the country changes, knowing how difficult it will be.
These are not easy times. And although a light of hope is glimpsed according to the possible electoral results of the coming weeks, it will be uncertain if in a short time whoever writes these letters (or whoever reads them) will be taking a flight to other more utopian, dignified and supportive places. . I would like to remain more optimistic and feel, as García Márquez expressed, that "it is still not too late to undertake the creation of a contrary utopia, a new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one cannot decide for others even the way of die, where love is truly true and happiness is possible. Where the lineages condemned to 100 years of solitude finally and forever have a second chance on earth”.