There are just a few things in the world that can really scare me. Since I was a child I use to watch horror movies that spooked me so much that I soon became unable to scare by thing that normally a person can get scare. Then I worked as a paremedic in one of the most violent and crazy cities of the world, Caracas, Venezuela. If taking care of people that has been victim of so much violence, accidents or illnesses doesn't take your fear or disgust for shocking images and terrible situations away, then nothing will do.
During all my life the only fear still present in some way inside me has been the fear of death. Mostly the fear of not being conscious, not having ideas and not being able to think or wake up is what scares me the most. Working as a paramedic also made me think of the fear of having brain dead or staying in a vegetative state.
That fear has now scalated because I think in the consequences, if I die, that will make an instant effect on my son Kevin and his mom Ruby. Or even worst if I'm not able of taking care of them enough to keep them alive through everything that we're living and what is coming to us very soon. This is the worst fear I've felt in my life, and watching my son's face smiling not knowing what is going on just breaks my heart in one million pieces.
There are different elements that are making everything a living hell for us now. Ruby stopped working because of COVID19 months ago, quarintine is doing impossible to get a new job for her or for me for obvious reasons, I sold all my audiovisual equipment to hang as much as we can in here, so no more cameras.
We are in Medellín with some friends from Venezuela, who wanted to leave the country last year and we built this plan of taking care of each other living in Colombia as refugees but soon as the quarintine started and we stopped working all relations started to deteriorate, we started to smell bad for everyone and our friendship started fading. The only person making money was my friend's girlfriend and she didn't wanted us in the house anymore. Her mind state has been altered to the point of being watching us everytime and everything we do, like with delusion of persecution. Many things were wrong before and now it has scalated to the point that no matter what pandemic is everywhere, no matter how bad things are in Venezuela, they want us out and there's no friendship anymore.
We can't do much in here due to the quarintine and measures taken by the Colombian governtment. We can't stay outside in the street, or walk the street with all our stuffs, or even look for shelter anywhere, we would be penalized. Also, if we take a non-authorized bus to the border we could be penalized as the bus driver and the transport company.
The government realized many announces in some of which the president stablished that no one could be evicted from the rented places but with shallow conditions. The payments had to be discussed directly with the owner, can be posponed, but if you don't have a job what can you or how much time can the owner be without receiving any payment. To Venezuelans is a little different, we don't have a real voice and if the owner want to evict you is better if you just go. What is happening to us is different, because we don't have a contract with the owner, we were left behind in the second contract by our "friends" and they are the only ones on the contract now and they are the ones directly asking us to go.
We don't have another option than go back to our old place in Venezuela, moving back to what we fight so much to escape. To me, there's so many fears in there that I can't express the emptiness that I'm feeling now, the fear to die in the process of moving back to a place in which you die everyday slowly because that's the dictatorship's system to keep the people under their boots. When we manage to escape from Venezuela last year, there wasn't enough food, there was almost everyday blackouts, there was not enough water, not enough cooking gas, not enough public transport and no health supplies or medicines. It was a place to die slowly but certainly as many have. Now everything has worsened, and with the signaling of DEA and the US to the regime's heads they have unfolded all their criminals, terrorist and guerrillas (collectives), to suppress the people's claims for food, medicines, water, basic supplies or even electricity.
This are hard times for everyone, even in countries where something like this never happened before and I mean a constant bad situation with no soon solution, like we in third world countries always live and deal with. My mental stability has been in a rollercoaster journey since months ago because I never dealed before with people with so bad and hidden intentions in my life.
We were supossed to come together and prosper as survivors from a country in dictatorship, as refugees looking for a better place to rise and protect our children, but now I know that not everyone thinks like that. In the moment that they started making more money than us and we failed to make enough money or lost our job we became disposable and not welcome. They have online jobs and they still having the same incomes.
On our side as a family we did many things, I started soon working as a music producer on a studio but all the money income wasn't destined to pay the producer, so I left after too months, then I did some work on video editing for a writer in the US and it was good for a while, we did photographs for artists, models and some audiovisual jobs that helped us a lot meanwhile Ruby worked first on clothing manufacture, the payment was terrible and she left after two weeks. Then we started selling lunches for construction workers, car workshop workers and teachers. After two months doing that a friend gave Ruby a job on a restaurant in the kitchen and it was well payed. When things were going well, Coronavirus quarintine started and restaurants were closed.
As I write this Ruby is looking for shelters for refugees during this time, because honestly I rather be on the street or in a shelter than go back to Venezuela where there's no future for my son and where we probably die.
There's another threat if we go back to Venezuela. The regime has displayed a system to receive all the venezuelans that are coming back to the country from many other countries (Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Colombia) due to the same problem, they all lost their jobs and were evicted. Some of them even are going back walking all the way, but that is now prohibited and they must use only the humanitarian system to go back to the venezuelan border, where they are received by the armed forces and taken to improvised shelters for quarintine with no water, no electricity and forced to deliver phones and whatever they want to take from you. Some girls have been invited to offer them sex in exchange of skipping being in quarintine in there.
The humiliation has increased in a big way in one year. There's no justice, there's a lot of impunity and life can cost 2$.
If you want to help us you can donate to my BTC wallet:
3NV2RSj6dNircc9NerxAm9vyXSQLDHrv7s
If I don't come back here again there's Ruby's account @ruby.eob that is active again and she is with me in this journey, if I don't make it maybe she does. I wish this to be just an exaggeration and don't turn into reality.
I wish everything ends up well for all of us in this wild world people.
All pictures by me.