It was a very cold night and a woman who
I had rented a room in
his house in the apartment integrate and I
we were sitting in front of a
small gas stove that treated the
reheat unsuccessfully
that icy room I remember that I
had placed in front of the wall to
leave space for her that was a lot
bigger than me in fact has
called attention
days ago when he’d known
that was much heavier than many of
Iranian women and it’s not that with the
mandatory veil that we have to cover
no women in Iran or are you
gavarnie nat that although pretty is left
a lot of space to see the body of the
women but from what I had seen
in hairdressers or in the homes of
friends
I already sensed that his physique was not
the traditional within women
Iranians and that night sitting in the
floor
we started telling our lives and
our sorrows of love and she told me
He looked very little time in
they will go and do not realize this little
detail but others will go and so
they would realize and that is that my hair is a
act of rebellion in front of the system
then she told me her story and
she was a gifted child who was going
special schools and when it was very
young woman threw herself into the street to take part
of that multitudinous group that then
he made the revolution that would become
in the Islamic revolution in 1979 and
later he went to throw to the street
this time being part of groups of
left who opposed this sector
Islamic who had stayed with the
control of the revolution
all this he did with the passion of the
teenagers with the same passion as
author of these photos that I read was
then a young photographer who today is
my husband and his name is almost fit me
back there and good and like many of
these guys
she also paid the consequences
when he was 16 he finished
jail at a time watching the
jails were so full that they
they had to take turns sleeping the hours
of the bathroon
it was midnight included in those
icy winter nights of Tehran and
what she did was to shave her hair
what in a certain way was also a
act of rebellion against the republic
Islamic
Well, three years went by and she left
free and that day he decided that never again
I would cut my hair again
it’s been a decade that winter I
I met a lot of people heard
many stories I have lived many
experiences in their own flesh and
I promise that he has never been able to forget those
conversations and what she taught me
rain a country that follows me
passionate second to revolutions and
how treacherous they can get
to do with the people who make them and
that I would then have the opportunity to
know covering the wrong calls
Arab springs like egypt or in
Syria also taught me about
Iranian women’s struggle for their
rights and how brave are those
women but also of
contradictions that enclose those
societies and they are so difficult to
understand in books or what are they so
difficult to understand the reports
did for me she broke all the
stereotypes that I as a woman
Western could have about Iran and
about Iranian women and one of the
reasons why I tell them
this story of this woman and that of
many more is that they made me
draw attention to a detail that
me first caught my attention
as a reader and then as a journalist and
is the value of personal stories
personally I think a conflict one
tragedy a society just anyone
it takes a real dimension in front of
our eyes when he has a face when
It is made up of people who have
problems that have qualities and
defects like us and it is in that
moment when we started to create
connections and when we started
break down those barriers and those
prejudices that divide us and it does not matter
that this is thousands of kilometers away
distance
this is me ten years ago when
I got to live to go first
mobility
I wanted to study Farsi and then I was
moved by the goal of wanting to be
freelance journalist starting a
childhood dream that was that I
I wanted to be a correspondent in the East
means for what he could have done
Colombia where it would have been easier
by the tongue for the connections
cultural but as a child he had a
passion for knowing the world
especially this part of the world like this
that moved a little with that arrogance
arrogance that leads him to be there are still
many things that are not explained later
how have you and with the confidence of having
done a master’s degree in relationships
international in which he made a
small and easy to look at I went with the
idea of quickly understanding the
regional policy geostrategy and
everything and I wanted to write a very book
quickly end up finding me with
a great lesson in life that does not
I only become a journalist
but in my relationship with me and with me
environment and I will have a little bit of
myself because I want to emphasize
on the importance of stories
personal and because the account
I do not consider myself different from any
of migration journalists
wherever we come from we have the same
education
but there is a detail that makes us
different different and it’s our
origin and is our past does not
many years after living here and
there I stopped defining myself
nationality but the relationship of many
people with me especially there
where I work is different when
they know where I come from and I’m not
talking about politicians and people
who has the power because for them such
more important time an interview
or tell me your story because I do not
He spoke directly to the ear those
who have power in the world
I understand them and there they but for the
people who are on the street doing their
revolutions in their tragedies in their
conflicts is different for them there
empathy and I feel in close
they believe that I can understand their
story because I said
way am they they from Colombians
who knows a lot know that there is violence
there is nothing against drug trafficking and there is
football but they still believe that I
I can understand that war
that tragedy that I can understand that
hope that nobody in the world
I care what is happening and
also the anger of feeling
stereotyped and that very few
people make the effort to understand
the complexity of the film that
the reality that they live as happens
in Colombia in Iran in Iraq or Syria
for them we are equal and me that
little detail has taught me how
little about myself to think about the
society where I grew up in my family in
what I have been with my environment and I
remember every day that I come from
a country where to where more than 50
years we are in a conflict with a
social division so entrenched that it has
fact that that dialogue between people
that we have different stories
personal we think differently than
we think differently at the political level it
finds roth
for me the conflicts as much as the
from here as those from there we
transform
I do not think any of us have
left unpunished and although the bad though
the violent ones even though the
powerful always have more
leadership
It has also taught me that there are outside
the world is full of people
wonderful that gets up all the
days to fight with your face up to
despite living in the most situations
disastrous that you imagine they are
these personal stories
for me the ones that gives us the key to
understand that complex reality in which
we live there is something that happens to me with a lot
often and when I’m out there and I
I think it happens to many Colombians and
is when they find out that they are Colombian
they call me escobar
then I have already learned to answer
pablo for the mafioso or andrés for the
footballer does not stop surprising me that
the response of many continues to be
André and this answer comes a lot
times of children who do not even have
23 years old but they do know the history of
a Colombian footballer who was
killed by drug trafficking for having
committed a goal car in a world cup
I promise you that even an officer in
mosul fighting against such an enemy
bloodthirsty as the so-called state
Islamic
he told me almost with panic as
if the reality that he had in front of
his eyes were not enough and for me
André Escobar is a great example of
power that have the stories of
between us
for me one of the stories that most
has impacted me throughout my career has
been in this house
happened in iraq in 2014 and when
all of you and all of humanity
I was watching the soccer world cup
brazil and they were happy
the Islamic state in iraq and it was taken
a third of the country many of the
populations that have already been taken
belonged to the Yazidis a
community that stops and if they will be heretics
those who did not reach ory escape were
kidnapped including thousands of
women especially thousands of children
that were later sold as slaves
to the fighters of isis who
they exchanged among themselves as if
they were crystal balls
I’m not very uneasy, so with
the idea of knowing more in depth the
story in September we went
we came to this house in the areas
Kurds of North Iraq
there they did not know how told he lived
samia a girl of 14 years and after
to talk to the men of the house
they accepted that we could
talk to the girl with the only
condition was that we can not take it
photos could not watch video
what for us was a problem
because we knew that the story of
Gianni is going to have the same impact but
we accept wise exempt and he told us his
story and told us that it had been
sold together with a friend to a man
very powerful the Islamic state that is
he had given them to two other men
that they took her to the center of iraq and
they were locked in a house there
men visited her frequently and
the girls were so desperate that
they tried to commit suicide
fortunately without success and for things
of fate they could hear and they were
really lucky and up there
we heard his official story I remember that
when we left that house
one of the girls called him and took us
a room where we find an assembly
lying on the floor on a mat in
a trance state like only
they see in the horror movies and they
I swear I would not believe that they would be
exaggerating the girl was clinging to the
neck grabbed mouth grabbed
the genitals and shouted no no no to the
feet of his bed his mom was sitting
a humble lady who did not stop
mourn and told us that her story
had happened at least two or three
times a day that the girl had
returned had taken to a center
health did not know what to do and did not have
silver
for the DR three years have passed since
then history women and so
he knows many of them in the world
they are still missing
many of them have managed to escape with
a trauma similar to that of samia but for
me and for the rest of the team that
we were there the story is
tragedy has a face and that face is
also the pre-campaign distance and prize
nobel de literatura svetlana ali g vic
says who is a teacher to build
stories from those voices and their
stories of people that for others are
insignificant says that for there
what to create heroes
if at the end ko the common people
account better and I am convinced of
but I must confess that it happens to me
often that when I’m there
telling stories like those of samia I
I think if you who are reading the
article you are watching TV
matter I say will be that that’s me
the only one that really matters is the
I try to be selfish and I remember my
when I was little how grateful I was
I was with these people who passed
around the world telling the story
is that I really think that for those
realities take dimension
the journalist or the writer has to go
to the terrain and put a face to what the
power to politicians call society
civilian refugees victims fighters
it is through the history of those
protagonists that we started to tear down
this unique version that they want us
tell
she is called dina and I met her in gaza
in the hospital of al shifa in the last
war in 2014
was one of the few doctors and maybe
the only surgeon and I get to count her
history because because of my
work I had gone several times to the
intensive care room and the bay
and always leaving life forever
kindly always smiling in these
so many days we had seen so much blood
destruction and so many deaths that
really see her and leave her
life was how hopeful I had
the small eyes of the little bit that
He had slept and he told us that many
sometimes I did not know if his family was
well it took days without seeing them when
rose in the morning did not know if the
house was standing or not to be a woman at
be a surgeon does palestine living in
loop
surely she could have asked
a scholarship at any university
world and had it been achieved given
but I had already decided to stay there
together with his people helping people
that was closest to her I remember
that when we left the hospital all the
team and let’s go with a smile
Dina had returned us from certain
way that optimism and that strength that
we had lost every time
let’s go explode a new bomb on
loop
and it is that dynamite has also
taught and it has caught my attention
about something and it ‘s also how little we
we know each other even though
we live in a world more and more
connected and better informed
and that’s why I think that only if we do
an effort to listen for trying
understand the stories of the other who
We will be taking a big step to get out
of our bubbles but above all
to prevent those those people that
they want to build us barriers and that we
they want to separate come out victorious and it’s
through personal stories like
those of dina or like those of sam since we
we know among ourselves that we started
understand those contexts that in theory
they present difficult
that allow us to create those ties but
above all the most important thing is that we
they allow us not to be afraid between
US
after
”
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