“The Lopez”

In our beloved city, before the great neighborhoods and complexes, the communities were

made up of small accentuations in which little by little a group of inhabitants was forged to

later acquire a name and thus a presence in front of the citizens.

In its beginnings, how the arrival in these new lands is related meant for many families and

especially for the López family, not knowing what the future would bring them, because the

present, that present that they still yearn for today, was taken away because of illegal

groups on the sidelines. of the law.

The López are from a town in Catatumbo called La Concepción itself, which is within the

jurisdiction of Aspasia, la playa and Hacarí, recount their grandchildren to whom it was left

through the stories that at the time seemed like a novel fictional and terrifying today is the

reality of many peasants in our country. The Danube farm which did not reach a farm but a

plot was on top of a mountain where the view was the greatest attraction of that beautiful

place, his grandparents and father grew up in that place thus forging a bond especially with

that place where they were happy and also where their greatest misfortune occurred, their

main economic activity lay in coffee, in addition to this one or another dairy cow, chickens,

ducks etc... the ordinary life in the countryside, they say that one night and after dinner very

early in the afternoon and ready for the night's rest, it was interrupted by the presence of

men who without saying a word attacked the humble door that gave security to the

inhabitants of the house to enter and force them to leave this , in a hostile and denigrating

situation, kneeling in that corridor where they used to rest after lunch, they were questioned

about their origin, family and others, then this situation of anxiety a and uncertainty those

men who laughed, ate at the stove where Mrs. López had left some breath for the next day
decide to let them in for some belongings but with a horrible decision Mr. Aníbal López,

grandfather and father of this humble family had to stay in that place and with those men.

When quickly leaving our beloved Danube, no more than a few steps adjoining the main

road, large bursts of rifles are heard, which means that in the midst of fear and

bewilderment we run for more than 1 hour until we reach that village where the only

companion It was the moon of that disastrous night, so in the midst of this situation my

mother with her little savings we got on those big buses bound for a new land.

Today his grandchildren wonder what happened to their longed-for grandfather and

especially to his imaginary Danube which, although for them it is a story that they have

built with their imagination, is as real as their grandmother's reeds as well as their already

deteriorated memory. .

This is a clear example of how all those communities and families have been fragmented

and forced to change their lives and habits due to the indiscriminate war of a few against

the state, but in the long run it affects those least involved. As well as the history of the

López there are many more that are anonymous and included in oblivion by the state.

As a way of thanking the family for their openness to this story, they decided to send a

greeting and advice as they called it "the poor and needy are annoying, but one never

knows when we will have to experience situations that leave us in that position, student and

work for form a better community in which to live and be supported” Natalia Rincon

López.