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A car with the word Fortulee on the windshield travels, two or three times a week, the dusty trails of the convulsive Colombian region of Arauca. At the wheel Va Álvaro González, a 65 -year -old social communicator. Beside him, Patricia Uribe, his wife and route partner, a 61st psychologist. They have been challenging the war for 15 years and sowing peace through reading in the seven municipalities that make up this border department with Venezuela, controlled by armed groups faced with each other, and where few dare to go.
In all this time they have gone to about 200 paths. Each book or every story read aloud, each literary gathering made, is for them a small triumph. Arauca is a territory crossed by violence, considered the main bastion of the ELN, the last active guerrillas in Colombia. His recent rupture of peace negotiations with the Government intensified tensions, aggravated by the presence of the dissidents of the extinct Farc.
The ELN has a lot of power in the region. The guerrillas have embedded in its social, political and economic dynamics. But, with books as safe -conduct, Fortulee has moved with relative freedom, although prudence is always advisable. Don Álvaro meets Arauca as few. He has toured Palmo to Palmo from his youth, when he worked for a German company linked to oil exploitation. He defended the rights of the peasants in front of companies such as Ecopetrol and Western, who arrived with development promises and, sometimes, denounces that they ended up deceiving them. Oil, far from bringing prosperity, generated above all violence. The scenario was also complicated when kidnappings began by the ELN.
It was during that time when his life turned a turn. One day in March 2003, state agents approached him. They knew their proximity to the communities and offered money in exchange for information. They proposed to infiltrate. Threats refused and began. He had to take refuge in Bogotá, but months later he denounces that he was the victim of a judicial assembly, accused of belonging to the ELN.
He spent two and a half years in prison until, in 2005, he was acquitted for the crime of rebellion for which they had accused him. “What I lived in jail was hard and even at first, I thought about suicide. But it ended up being key to what came later,” he confesses. Between bars, it ended in the library. Organized activities and gatherings and promoted Free mindsan initiative awarded by the Ministry of Culture. “One there does not lose the freedom to think. I discovered the transformative power of books. Works such as The miserable onesby Víctor Hugo, they marked me deeply, ”he said. When he left, Patricia expected it. Together they decided to replicate the experience lived in prison, but this time throughout the Araucanian territory. Thus Fortulee was born.
His arrival on a path is usually an event. Boys and girls come to meet the vehicle with curiosity to ask what book they bring. María, 9, is awake from 3:00 in the morning and, before coming to school, milked the cows, helped with breakfast and swept the house. Then he walked more than an hour to reach class at class at 7:00. Many children here begin their day before dawn. And, in some cases, they are also nephews, children or grandchildren of someone linked to the armed conflict.
The fact that someone goes and performs an activity with them generates great emotion. “We always say that we first want to train excellent human beings and then great readers. We do not indoctrinate anyone, we only help open the mind. And it is not about reading for reading. Through books, children discover that they are not condemned to repeat the stories of pain that surround them,” says Patricia. However, visits to the same path are, at most, three a year. The lack of attractive books in schools and the little habit of teachers limits the impact of the process. “Sometimes a single teacher attends all degrees. When can you read with them?” He asks. Even with Internet access, the potential is wasted. “They have a connection, but there is a lack of accompaniment,” he adds.
The sequelae of the armed conflict are not always visible, but they are there. “When a child discovers a book, receives a hug or simply feels heard, that is deeply healer. Many have lived losses, displacements, abuses. That is why we also take time to listen to them, guide them and remind them that they are not alone,” concludes Patricia. In that context, Fortulee has indirectly avoided that many children end up in an armed group. “Once, in a checkpoint, a guerrilla commander told me mockingly: ‘Don Álvaro, with that Story From reading, he is taking away the Chinese ‘(young people), ”he remembers.” We never tell a child not to go to war. We only offer another option. If I did, on the second day I surely wake up dead, ”he explains rawly. The recruitment does still present:“ Many times they go by their own will. They fall in love with someone from the group or simply get tired of a reality without opportunities, ”he explains.
Fortulee turned 16 this April 28. Patricia and Álvaro are concerned about the future of the project, that no one takes their baton. 70% of his work is altruistic. “There is no support and we do the little we get.” They are convinced that if in each path there was a weekly reading program, many things would change.
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During these 16 years, Fortulee also makes a literary gathering every Saturday in Fortul, the Araucano municipality where they live, and the one that attend more than 100 children and young people to read, discuss and share ideas. Those gatherings changed many of them, like Danna and Inocencio, who managed to open their own way. Danna Tamarón is 18 years old and attends since the age of ten. His first book was The Little Prince. Lo He has read six times and does not tire. Also deeply admire the writer Isabel Allende. If everything goes well, he will study psychology in Bogotá. He wants to specialize in sexology and couple therapy. His challenge is to be able to empower many women in their region to face the dominant patriarchal culture. “Here, the stories of mistreatment are every day bread. Sometimes I would like to run out of helplessness,” he confesses.
Danna remembers that Don Álvaro always encouraged her to read books on her own, and how on a trip to Bogotá, her mother took her to a bookstore and told her to choose the book she wanted. Chose Friend, realize, And there was born his feminist commitment: “Books have the power to change lives. They are like a lifeboat that allows us to have moments to escape the real world and dream.” She also has in her mother a mirror to look at. As a peasant family with six brothers and then single mother, managed to graduate in children’s pedagogy.
Innocent Mosquera is another dreamer in love with Fortulee’s literature and pride. He was able to obtain a scholarship in one of the best universities in the country to study languages, culture and political science. His desire to learn led him to Germany, where today he serves as a professor of German giving integration courses for migrants. “The books opened the door to other realities,” says this young man who feels identified with Tom Sawyer.
