I want to give a special shout out to all of those that take their time to read and find interest in learning more about someone’s background without even knowing who they are or if they’ll ever meet one of them, nor looking how much this and that person is earning so I can “make” friends with him and not judging books by its covers. I think it goes beyond all the monetary issue, which materialistically speaking is necessary for human sustainability, but thanks to platforms like this. I’ve been motivated to take on new experiences and discovered that I had a hidden passion for Crypto and now writing. Sometimes I had a lot of things in my mind that came from the heart that I wanted to let out but I kept them all to myself, now I understand how important it is to leave written down on a piece of paper all your hopes, ideals and dreams. I had introduced myself briefly before, but I thought it was important to go a little further into my life and what I’ve been through to be where I am now.
CHAPTER 1
Growing up in a violent Colombia in the early 90's was one of the main reasons why my parents opted for migrating to the United States chasing that famous American dream. I’m proud and grateful for being raised in a middle class family that even though we didn’t have lots of money, we always had food on our table, a roof over our heads and clothes to wear; this made us richer than more than 75% of the world’s population. Knowing that money is important to survive, it wasn’t really the main issue, my parents concern was to get me out of the environment I was being exposed to so I could become the man that I am today. It wasn’t easy being an 8 year old boy witnessing killings in the streets where I grew up playing and drug abuse in almost every corner of my neighborhood. This definitely wasn´t the future my parents were trying to give me and raise me in.
As a result of all this, they made the decision to apply for the American visa around February (1999) but our concern was that all Colombians were and still are stereotyped for being drug traffickers, so it wasn´t easy to receive an approval from the American government. A few days before, we had just recently survived to one of the most devastating earthquakes that had been experienced in our country which destroyed 75% of the city of Armenia – Quindío (as a result of this named the Miracle City because it was supposed to disappear due to the magnitude of the earthquake) and a year before this we had experienced a flooding losing almost all of our belongings.
I remember my mother telling me on the way to the embassy “when we get there, don’t be nervous” so I stood strong like my parents always taught me, to face obstacles when they show up ahead of you in life and you think you can’t overcome them anymore, you get your inner strength out and defeat them (the strong survive). Now here we were being interviewed by a very nice lady, whose main concern was if our families were fine and how we were doing, without asking anymore questions and just as simple as that gave us the approval of our American Visas; something we were afraid of because everybody made it seem like you were going to take a lie detector test, it seemed like it was a piece of cake and the race to fight for the long-awaited American dream would have begun!
Next chapter under construction!.....