Yet now he was telling her that she shouldn’t meet with other children to talk about peace.
“It’s too dangerous,” he said, squeezing her hand. “You never know what could happen in a big crowd like that.”
“But Papá, we’re only a bunch of kids. Nothing will happen.”
“It’s not you kids I’m worried about,” he said. “You know the grupos armados don’t like it when people get together to plan something. It doesn’t matter that you’re only children.”
Yeny looked up at him. “But how can we ever have peace if everyone’s afraid to get together and talk about it?”
She could see the muscles in his jaw twitching, and he was silent for what seemed like forever. A few times, he looked back over his shoulder to make sure no one was following them, but the only people in the street were a mother with two small children, a few teenagers, and a priest in a rush.
When they reached the corner where the store was, Papá crouched down and took both of her hands in his. “I believe in peace, Yeny,” he said, “but not everybody does. I know you want to go to the peace meetings, but I’m afraid I can’t let you. It’s too dangerous, and it would break my heart to lose you.”
Yeny felt a swell of anger. Everything was so unfair. She missed how her father used to whistle and walk with a bounce in his step, even when the harvest was bad, or when it didn’t look like they’d have enough money to buy school supplies. He always said things would work out.
The men with guns had taken away much more than their land and their home. She saw that now. They had taken away some special part of her father too. She was angry, she wanted to argue, but the sadness in Papá’s eyes made her bite her tongue.
Children across Colombia gathered in soccer fields, parks, churches-anywhere they could—to talk about peace.
CHAPTER 4
Carnival
It must have been the biggest meeting in the whole world,” David declared.
It was the day after Yeny had gone with Juan to the radio station to talk on the program. Yeny had loved the idea of speaking into a big microphone so that her uncle could hear her, wherever he was, but she had wished she could be in two places at once.
Now they were in the schoolyard, waiting for the teachers to lead them inside. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, not like most days when some kicked a soccer ball around, and others leaned up against the school talking or stood by themselves. Today, everyone was abuzz with news, and Yeny guessed that they were all talking about the same thing.
“I’ve never seen so many kids squeezed onto one soccer field,” Beto said, “and everyone was completely silent, ‘cause everyone was listening to Celia. She’s the person who organized everything.”
“So what did you talk about?” Juan asked.
“About what we can do to change Colombia!” David said.
“Yeah,” said Beto. “We can’t make sure everyone has a job, or enough to eat, or a nice place to live, but we can make sure we treat each other well. That’s an important part of peace. Respect.”
“So we’re going to have a party,” David said. “A party where everyone can get to know each other and be friends. It’s next Saturday night, and it’ll be like a big carnival. A Peace Carnival! We’re going to get a whole lot of kids to come, and there’ll be a dance competition and food and prizes and games, and it’s all about peace, because if you meet someone at a party, you’ll probably become friends, and you always treat friends with respect. If we can get everyone to have parties, then everyone will be friends, and there won’t be any more violence.” David was flushed and out of breath by the time he finished.
Yeny and Juan laughed at such a crazy plan, but it sounded like fun, and Yeny wanted to join in. “Can we help?” she asked.
Juan looked at her strangely. He knew how her parents felt about these big meetings. No one else seemed to notice his weird look, though, and Yeny decided to ignore it.
“Of course you can help,” said Beto. “You too, Juan. David and I are on the publicity team. That means we have to tell as many kids as possible about the Peace Carnival. There are other teams for food, music, and games. Our team’s meeting again on Saturday morning. Wanna come?”
Yeny promised she would be there. Now she only had to convince her parents to let her go. She didn’t think it would be too hard. The publicity team was probably small, and surely the grupos armados wouldn’t care about some children planning a party, right?
“Do you really think it’ll work?” Juan asked on their way home from school.
They hadn’t had a minute to talk since that morning. The whole day, Yeny had been dreaming about the party and the friends she would make. People at school were polite to her, but Joaquin bugged her so much that no one seemed to want to be her friend. The neighborhood party seemed like her only hope to fit in here in the city.
When she hadn’t been dreaming about new friends, Yeny had been thinking about how to convince her father to let her help plan the Peace Carnival. Now, when Juan asked if she thought it would work, she was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t know if he meant kids creating peace, or her parents letting her go to the party.
“I have no idea,” she said, which was an honest answer to both.
They were taking a different way home this time, part of Juan’s plan for Yeny to get to know the city. But all the buildings still looked the same. This neighborhood was house after house painted orange and yellow, and topped with metal roofs. It was going to take her a million years to find her way here.
“You’re not planning to sneak out are you?” Juan asked, glancing at her sideways as they turned onto another wide, dusty street.
“I want to go,” Yeny said, “but not by myself. I’m going to talk to my parents again. I think they’ll feel better when they know we’re only talking about a party. You’ll come too, won’t you?”
Juan was quiet.
A block away, two men in green uniforms strode into the street. Yeny froze, then grabbed Juan’s hand and darted down the nearest street. They ran and ran, and when they stopped, Yeny was shaking.
Juan put an arm around her shoulders and tried to calm her down. “They weren’t the men you saw in your village.” It was the third time this had happened, and Yeny had panicked every time. “It’s only a few policeman talking to each other. They weren’t looking for anyone. Didn’t you see them laughing and smiling?”
Yeny closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew Juan was right. Her father had told her this too. But when she saw men in green uniforms, she couldn’t think straight. She could only run.
Juan stayed close to her as they walked down the unfamiliar street. “We’ll go home a different way,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to show you this part of the neighborhood yet, anyway,” he added, as though it were convenient that she’d suddenly darted down this road.
There weren’t many houses here. And there wasn’t much shade, either. Most of the buildings were garages that repaired cars, and little stores that sold candy and cigarettes. She saw someone leave one shop with a shiny packet of cookies, and she felt suddenly hungry.
“Hey, Banana Girl!”
Yeny recognized Joaquin’s voice, but she and Juan kept walking.
“Don’t you answer when people talk to you?”
Something small and sharp bounced off her shoulder, and Yeny whipped around. “What’s your problem, Joaquin?”
“No problem,” he taunted. “Just saying hola.”
He was sitting on a low wall with a few other scruffy-looking kids. They were laughing, and that made Yeny madder still. Dumb city kids, she thought. Joaquin was terrible, and it seemed as if Juan didn’t care enough about peace to help organize the carnival. Yeny would never understand city kids.
Joaquin tossed another pebble at her. She clenched her fists and marched over to him. Juan could do whatever he liked, but she wasn’t going to let these boys bully her. She wished she had something to throw at them, to knock
them off that wall and to knock those silly grins off their faces. But just as she spotted a stone on the street, Juan called out, “Hey!”
Yeny turned, and the boys looked up. Juan seemed tiny standing there in the middle of the road, tugging on his backpack straps and shifting from one foot to the other. “What are you doing next Saturday night?” he asked, his voice a little squeaky. “There’s a party on the soccer field, and you’re invited.”
Yeny stared at him. Her cousin was braver than she had thought, and the looks on the boys’ faces made her want to laugh. As laughter bubbled up inside, she didn’t feel so mad anymore. In fact, she felt a little embarrassed. She’d spent the whole day thinking about peace and friendship, and now she’d almost got into a fight.
She smiled at Juan, and he smiled back, but he didn’t come any closer.
“The party’s going to be great,” she told the boys, who looked suspicious. “There’ll be games, and food, and maybe a dancing contest with prizes and stuff.”
Joaquin hesitated, but then he jumped off the wall and landed in front of her. “I’m not going to any stupid girl’s party, Banana Girl.”
Yeny shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said. “Let’s go, Juan.”
They headed home. And the annoying boys stayed where they were, joking and snickering about something that had nothing to do with Yeny. That at least was a relief.
That evening, Yeny’s parents and Aunt Nelly were out late, helping a neighbor, and Yeny didn’t have a chance to talk to them about the Peace Carnival.
Long after she fell asleep, she awoke with a start beside Elena on their mattress on the floor. Her chest was tight, as if she’d been running, and her dream came rushing back: Joaquin had gathered her whole class in the schoolyard and given them big armfuls of bananas, and he had told everyone that if they didn’t throw their bananas at her, he would make them sorry. “Ready,” he said. “Aim . . .”
Yeny woke up just before he called out, Fire!
It took a long time for Yeny to get back to sleep, but she did, and when she woke up, she knew what she had to do.
When Mamá pulled back the curtain around her bed and kissed her good morning, Yeny pulled on her clothes and gathered her thoughts. At breakfast, she would talk to the adults.
“Papá, will you be busy on Saturday morning?” she asked, as soon as she came to the table. She stood next to him. Mamá was feeding Carlitos, and Aunt Nelly kept cooking. Juan, Elena, Sylvia, and Rosa were hurrying through their arroz con frijoles, the thick, meaty-tasting beans and rice that they often ate for breakfast. Most of the plantano, plantains, were already gone, and Yeny glanced back at her aunt to see if she was making any more. She was happy to see the frying pan full of crisp, sizzling slices.
Yeny turned to her father, who was frowning at her question about the weekend. Of course, Yeny already knew that her father would be busy on Saturday. No matter what, every day, he went out to look for work. Most days, a few people at the market paid him to unload fruits and vegetables from supply trucks early in the morning. (Once she had gone along with him to see the rows of stalls with piles of every imaginable kind of fruit. Later in the day, Papá said, the aisles between the fruit stalls would be so crowded that shoppers would hardly be able to move, everyone shouting and trying to get the best deal.) Other times Papá got paid to help clean a store or paint a building. Once he got a whole handful of coins just for helping a lady carry her groceries to the car.
But Yeny hoped that this Saturday he would take a break. “I know you don’t want me to go to the big peace meetings, Papá,” she said, “but now there’s a smaller meeting to plan a Peace Carnival on the soccer field. A few kids are getting together on Saturday for that. So I was wondering if I could go, and you could come along to see that it’s not dangerous at all.”
Papá frowned. Mamá stopped feeding Carlitos his mashed-up rice, and turned to Yeny. “A Peace Carnival sounds just as dangerous as the peace meetings, Yeny,” she said.
“But I don’t think it is dangerous,” said Yeny. “And besides, the meeting on Saturday is only a little one. It’s a few kids trying to get the word out about the party, so children in the neighborhood get to know each other and become friends.”
Aunt Nelly arrived at the table with a plate full of plantain. No one spoke. Every one of the children, and Yeny’s parents, were looking at Yeny.
She took a deep breath. She’d have to be careful about how she said the next part. It could work well, or it could scare her parents even more. She hesitated for a moment but then decided to hurry up and get it over with. “The party is important, because there are lots of kids who don’t like each other, even though they hardly know each other.” At once she remembered her terrible dream, and before she knew it, she was telling them about Joaquin. “He’s so mean, and since I’m new, he’s picking on me the most. And if I don’t meet some new people fast, Joaquin might turn everyone against me, and I won’t have any friends at all,”
Papá put down his coffee and pulled Yeny close. “Why didn’t you tell us about this Joaquin sooner?” he asked.
Aunt Nelly pulled out an empty chair. Yeny flopped into it. “I didn’t want to give you another thing to worry about,” she said. “And I thought I could handle it on my own.”
“She’s doing a pretty good job,” said Juan, “but Joaquin’s scary. He’s tall, and yesterday he was throwing rocks at us on the way home from school.”
Elena, Rosa, and Sylvia stared. Carlitos banged his spoon on the table. Yeny blushed, suddenly feeling like a baby herself for tattling like this. She didn’t want to be a sapo, a big mouth. She’d only mentioned Joaquin so that her parents would let her go to the meetings and the party.
“You weren’t hurt, were you?” Aunt Nelly asked.
Juan and Yeny shook their heads. Her parents and aunt gave each other one of those adult looks that she couldn’t always read, and her father cleared his throat. “I think you’re right, Yeny,” he said. “This party does sound important, and I think it would be good for you to be involved in the planning and to meet other kids. I still don’t like the idea of you going to a big party here in the city, but I’ll go with you on Saturday for your planning meeting. There’s a little café across from the soccer field and I can go there for a coffee and meet some new people myself. If you need me, I’ll be close by.”
Yeny flung her arms around his neck, almost knocking her chair over. Maybe her brave, happy father would come back to her eventually. Maybe it was only a matter of time.
CHAPTER 5
First the Soccer Field, Then . . . Colombia!
Yeny, Juan, and Papá made a happy trio on their way to the Saturday morning meeting. Elena and Rosa and Sylvia had wanted to come too, but Papá had said that two young people were enough for him to keep an eye on for one day. If everything went well, he’d let the other ones come later. And he still wasn’t sure he’d want them to go to a crowded, dangerous event like a Peace Carnival.
They could hear the excited chatter on the field well before they got there. Yeny walked faster, and tried to hurry Juan and Papá along, but the sidewalks were crowded today with families enjoying a stroll together, or buying empanadas from vendors. Normally, Yeny would want to stop to see what the hot, fried pastry pockets were stuffed with—meat was her favorite, but the potato ones were good too. Today, though, Yeny wanted to get to the meeting as fast as possible.
She had never seen such a big field in her whole life. It was bigger than all the houses in her village put together, and there were probably about thirty children there. They were running and shouting and jumping, and Yeny could hardly wait to join them. With Joaquin nowhere in sight, maybe she’d finally get to talk to some other kids.
“I’ll be right here if you need me,” Papá said, stopping at the café across the street from the field. The shop had a few little metal tables outside, and several men in white straw hats with wide brims sat drinking coffee. A little way off, a small yellow dog watched them with
one ear up and one ear down. The men nodded to Papá as he arrived.
Yeny and Juan dashed across the street. David and Beto were already at the edge of the field, waiting for them. “You’re just in time,” David said. “I think Celia’s about to start the meeting.”
Nearby, a girl in a bright blue T-shirt climbed onto an empty plastic fruit crate and clapped her hands. Yeny watched her. She had already heard about Celia. The grupos armados had killed both her parents, so now Celia lived with an aunt, and she was one of the kids traveling around the city to talk to children about peace. But Yeny had expected someone older. How could someone this young be organizing meetings? She didn’t look much older than Elena, who was thirteen, and Yeny couldn’t imagine her sister organizing anything.
Motorcycles roared past, and car horns blared. At the far end of the field, a few men were kicking a soccer ball around, just like the boys in the village had always done on Saturdays. Yeny and María Cristina used to love watching those village soccer games, which quickly grew to dozens of people playing and cheering. The games would go on for hours and paused only when a donkey or a horse had to get through with a load of bananas or firewood. She wondered if María Cristina was watching a game like that in the camp right now.
Celia smiled out at them from atop her fruit crate, and the kids crowded in around her. Yeny, Juan, David, and Beto made sure they were as close as possible, so they could see and hear everything. Celia thanked them for coming. “Gracias por venir. I’ve got great news,” she announced, in a strong, clear voice.
“About the party?” David asked.
“Nope, we’ll get to that in a second,” she said. “I want to tell you about something even bigger, something that goes far beyond this neighborhood.”
Yeny and the Children for Peace Page 3