There are some perks to living in a warzone...

There are some perks to living in a warzone... first you develop the ability of sleeping through almost anything; Gunshots and minor explosions for example. You get to see the dark side of life since forever, you learn to live in a truly rotten society (you guys think your health care is broken? here is basically inexistent!). You learn the rules to live in no man’s land, to not expect anything from your government and that the answer to most (if not all) problems is definitely money.

You learn to look beyond the general moral rules of good and evil. The values system is different, it does not hurt at all that fellow citizens dies in a massacre, it doesn’t hurt that children are starving, that your maid, the woman who babysit you your whole life, prepared your meals, and washed your underwear kidnapped children of others people for ransom in her spare time.

You learn that one block away there is a center for prostitution and drugs (not to consume... but to export of course). You learn that politics are corrupt to the bone, and that the downside of that matter is not to be in it... 

You also learn to objectively look at a situation no matter the amount of casualties. You look beyond the massacre to see whose fault is it really is, not only here but anywhere else, being Iraq or Vietnam, it does not matter the time or space.

But most importantly you find that problems cannot be solved, at least not without extreme radical change (and that unfortunately means taking the rough decisions)... so where does this leaves this image that Colombian is passion? That Colombia is a better land for tomorrow... where does this leave all our goodness and expectations...

Well today the country was indeed paralyzed for an hour, where everybody just halted to show the terrorist that we had enough. Now, I'm very critical of my country's situation, but I must admit I had not experienced this ever, and god knows there have been marches, manifestations and all sorts of crap during my lifetime. Yet, today was something Huge. Why I say that? Because I was involved me... it reached me, I live on a part of the city that is pretty much excluded from what happens and it even got here... it was something... an hour where you wear a white shirt and say: "yes we can still dream of something better"