Photo by Megan Keiko Naito
I grew up with remnants of war around me.
Bombings, town takeovers, kidnappings - they were everyday news. It was normal to me to hear how conflict and war was impacting Colombians. I did not have the analysis yet, but as an adult I see how all that violence was mainly perpetrated in rural areas with Afro-Colombian, Indigenous and peasant communities affected the most. It was a strange feeling because the war seemed close yet so far, and my kid brain never thought that I would be directly impacted by it. It was something I saw on TV.
Yet, I was twelve years old when war arrived in Villarrica.