Paris, a three-month-old cat, remains clinging to Santiago Buitrago’s neck, making sure that his master will not leave him. The 16-year-old boy hastily finishes packing his belongings with his mother, Jenny Alexandra Valderrama, making sure that they do not leave anything in what was his home. 2.5 meters wide by 6 meters deep. To say that a container has more space than that house built nine years ago on a mat on a cement sheet and roofed with zinc sheets.
“Chuchito, I can’t keep it,” says Jenny, referring to the image of Jesus crucified. She picks it up and dusts it off with the blouse she’s wearing, then she ‘sings’ him a kiss. A mattress, a bed, a washing machine and a television is the mess that comes out of an alley in the Corinto village of Manizales. To get to what Jenny and Santiago call home, but which a foreman classifies as a ramada, you must go through a labyrinth.
(Enter the special: United Colombia, where differences can live’)
The reason for the fret is an act of solidarity, of humanity, in the midst of the pandemic. A miracle, say some neighbors, a stroke of luck assure others. For Alexánder Villada, Santiago’s best friend, “it’s a chimba” (term to refer to something extremely good).
Santiago Buitrago; Ana María Echeverri Jaramillo, director of the Fundación Obras Sociales Betania, and La Rolita, entering the apartment in San Sebastián.
Freddy Arango | HOMELAND
Jenny Alexandra was brought out of anonymity by LA PATRIA’s photo editor, Freddy Arango. At the beginning of March, when he was passing by the Manizales Gallery in the middle of a downpour, he saw this woman unload from a truck what was left of a washing machine turned into scrap metal. He asked his co-workers about her, all men: “She is the brat to disarm them. She is the only woman who is measured to put a washing machine or refrigerator on top, she is measured to whatever”.
With this information, he proposed in the council that the Newsroom of this newspaper carries out daily and in which each journalist exposes the issues they want to address, to narrate the story of ‘Rolita’, as Jenny Alexandra is known in the junkyard where she works. . The theme was to recount the job of this character, regarding Women’s Day.
After receiving approval, he made the graphic report applying that journalism is not a circus to be exhibited, but an instrument to think, to create, to help man in his eternal fight for a more dignified and less unjust life, according to Argentine journalist Tomás Eloy Martínez.
from heart
The house where ‘Rolita’ and her son lived testified to poverty: mat walls and a roof with zinc sheets through which branches from the neighboring hillside grew.
Freddy Arango | HOMELAND
Click, click, click, click, Freddy shuttered the camera, while Rolita shouldered a stove, then a refrigerator, then a window grille; how she throws her life on her shoulder and told him how he was capable of carrying up to 60 kilos. On March 7, La Rolita was the cover of the 35,334 edition of LA PATRIA. She still has the newspaper, but what she did not expect was that a reader and businessman from the city would extend his hand or better his heart, and Through the social networks of this communication medium, he will request the contact of Jenny Alexandra to announce that he wanted to fix up their house.
(Enter the special: United Colombia, where differences can coexist’)
In the report she narrated that when it rained she got up at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning to move her goods and prevent them from getting wet, and that her greatest dream was to be able to fix the house. The businessman, who is a benefactor of Obras Sociales Betania, called sister Ana María Echeverri Jaramillo, director of that Foundation and Caldense of the year 2020, whom he asked if there were available apartments that the same entity builds, for him to buy one and donate it to him. to the Rolita.
Click, click…
The ‘Rolita’ this time loaded her belongings; according to her, it was the weight of happiness.
Freddy Arango | HOMELAND
Together with his son Santiago and his pet Paris on his neck, last Monday they packed their corotos in a van from Betania and moved to San Sebastián, where with tears, emotion and hugs, according to her, she thanked that blessing. “My heart is going to come out. I’m going to have to scream, because if I’m not going to burst with happiness, “she expressed the ‘Rolita’ while she dried her tears and hugged sister Ana María, like a child hugs her mother.
(Enter the special: United Colombia, where differences can coexist’)
Freddy again took out the camera. Click, click, click, click, it closed, portraying the scene of solidarity, while the social worker of Betania, Lorena Duque, broke a cake to celebrate how the weight of life was lightened for the ‘Rolita’, thanks to that businessman who prefers to keep his name secret, but leaves a life lesson.
GEOVANNY MARTINEZ
The Homeland – Manizales
United Colombia
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