On February 28, 2010, a group of neighbors invaded the plot where my father and mother had lived for 15 years, at the exit of the town of Caruao, going up the stadium. They had settled there looking for the peace they deserved. What they achieved in the simplicity of the countryside, facing the sea, embraced by the mountains and with the hot springs that pampered them every morning.
They were far from realizing that that Sunday morning, while they were having dinner with grandchildren who were visiting - as always, because La Guachafita was the family's meeting place - the screams that were heard and the smoke coming out of the field could respond to an invasion. So it was. This group of neighbors with whom they lived daily decided to arrive with banners from the communal council claiming that the lands do not have an owner, that they belong to those who need them and that they were the original inhabitants.
My parents could not understand this attitude on the part of those who were always kind and seemed pleased with that 15-year coexistence; where my mother helped found a reading room, she told stories to the little children and made them draw, in addition to setting up the church billboards and placing the flowers. They made tea, which they sold to visitors. My dad lent and drove his tractor to anyone who asked, whether to clear plots or to pull a car out of the river. They went down to the town every day to socialize with the community. Diatribes of bickering. National Guard, complaints.
Threats to burn the house down. Press headlines and radio and television interviews. We had to flee as if the invaders were my mother and father. Finally, then-president Hugo Chávez ended the matter, indicating that the lands belonged to the Quinteros - as they always were - but they sent us to look for newspapers in the INTI. My parents returned. It was never the same again.
My dad had panic attacks, my mom started getting dizzy, and before they were two years old they were already in Caracas. My mother suffered an accident, a stroke caused her to lose her memory and my father died because sadness consumed him when he witnessed how her wife, with more than 50 years at her side, got lost in the twists and turns of life. the memory. We threw my father's ashes under the mango tree where they always read and we left the house and the land for 10 years. What made us return? I think my dad called us to rescue the home where they were so happy, to forgive, to leave a legacy. Theirs. Our parents
And that 's how we returned at the call of Juan Carlos Guinand from Comunidades WAO and María Fernanda Di Giacobe from Cacao de Origen and converted the family house into the La Guachafita chocolate school. What was the meeting place of the Quintero family is now the meeting place of this community where cocoa has always been produced, but it was never turned into chocolate. That's what forgiving is about. To build. To lay the foundations for a friendly and peaceful country.
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📌Director/DP:
Branimir Caleta - @caletadp
📌Journalist/General Production:
Valentina Quintero - @valendeviaje
📌Digital Media Manager:
Adeimar Bastidas - @adeimarbl
📌Sound and Drone Operator:
Edward Nogales - @nogalesrob
📌Post production
Gustavo Mendoza - @el.tasto
Alexander Ramirez @damianjr23
📌Graphic Design
Stephanye Cuellar - @stephanye._
📌Motion Graphics
Andrés Ungaro - @gazoo69
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Barbara Mongou - @barbaramongou
Ricardo Miranda - @popinteractive