“My dad’s a policeman,” David said. “We should get the police to protect us.” He grabbed an imaginary gun and made clicking noises, as though he were loading it. “Then everybody would know that they can’t mess with us kids.”
Yeny tried not to make a face. The police near her village had threatened people and sometimes demanded money. They certainly didn’t make her feel safe, and she wondered if the police in the city would be any different.
“There must be another way,” said Elena. She, Rosa, and Sylvia were coming to every meeting now. Yeny suspected that Aunt Nelly would let her children go to the election. But even that probably wouldn’t convince Yeny’s parents to let her and Elena attend. Elena paused, then kept on talking. “I mean, aren’t we trying to stand up against violence? It would look pretty funny to have a big election with white balloons, white doves for peace, and peace-protest music, and a bunch of guys standing around with guns.”
“But how else can we make sure it’s peaceful?” David wanted to know. “You’ve got to protect yourself, right?”
Yeny frowned, and she turned to see the expressions on people’s faces. She spotted Joaquin beyond the edge of the group. His arms were folded over his chest, and he was looking in the other direction, as though he wasn’t part of the meeting, but why else would he have come to the field? She smiled and turned back to face Celia, before he spotted her.
“Elena’s right,” said a girl in a green and white high school uniform. “There has to be another way to make the election safe. So many adults—and sometimes kids too—use violence to solve things. But in lots of places, people do get things done peacefully.”
No one said anything for a few moments, and then Yeny had an idea. The others would probably think it was pretty dumb—especially Joaquin—but nobody else was making suggestions, and some idea was better than nothing. “What if we ask the grupos armados not to be violent that day?”
Sure enough, she heard a few snorts of laughter. But Celia glared at the snorters so angrily that they fell silent immediately.
Rocio was standing next to Yeny. She didn’t laugh, but she didn’t look convinced either. “Grown-ups have been asking the grupos armados to stop the violence for ages. Why would they listen to us?”
“Because we’re kids,” said Yeny, trying to sound like she didn’t care about people laughing at her. “Because they probably have children too, and we’re doing such a good job of spreading the word that some of those kids will probably come to the election. And their parents wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.”
“We’ve got nothing to lose by trying, right?” Celia said. “Maybe we could send them letters.”
“But where will we send the letters?” Elena asked. “You can’t just write grupo armado on an envelope and take it to the post office.”
Yeny scowled. Now Elena was making her look silly.
“And do we all have to write?” asked the girl in pigtails. “It takes me forever to write anything. I’d rather do something else.”
“And where are we going to get the supplies from, anyway?” called someone from the back. “Some of us barely have enough for our schoolwork.”
“Okay, okay,” Celia said, pulling her notebook and a pen from her back pocket. “Let’s think about this for a minute.” She chewed on her pen lid. “Who can bring us paper, pen, and envelopes?”
A few hands went up. Celia asked for names, scribbled them down, and asked for five people who would be part of a letter-writing team. More hands rose, and she scribbled down more names. “Now what else do we need?”
“The names of who to write to,” Elena said, still looking unconvinced.
This time, no one raised a hand to suggest anything. The crowd was silent.
“Well,” said Celia, “who would be in contact with the groups? And who do we know who might know them?”
More silence. Then a boy at the back said, “What about journalists? They have to talk to the groups to be able to write about them, right? Does anyone know any journalists?”
“My dad knows a guy who works for the newspaper,” said one of the girls in the high school uniforms. “We could ask him for suggestions.”
Again Celia’s pen flew over the paper. “These are great ideas. Together, we know hundreds of people, and I bet someone will be able to help us out.”
Suddenly, everybody started talking at once. “My uncle might know someone at the radio station.” “My mother works for a TV channel.” “I bet that newspaper reporter who talked to our class last year would help. Wasn’t that Oscar’s older brother?” Within seconds, everyone seemed to know someone who could help.
Only Yeny was silent. She’d never know as many people in the city as she did in the village.
The brainstorming session went on so long that Yeny was relieved when Celia changed the subject. “The other thing we need to do is to start making signs for the election. I know someone with a photocopier who’s going to send me big stacks of ballots—the little pieces of paper you use to vote—but we need people to help with other things.” She flipped to a new page of her notebook and held her pen ready.
Minutes later, Yeny had agreed to find cardboard for signs, help look for voting tables, and go to the radio station with Juan to ask if they could help spread the word about the election. She wondered whether word of the vote would reach María Cristina in the displacement camp in time. She wished she had a way to tell her friends from home, so far away.
Children wore white for peace and made peace banners to carry through the street.
“I don’t hear you talking about Joaquin anymore,” Yeny’s father said that evening. They had gone out walking together, this time to buy rice. He had a rare day off, and Yeny was happy to be walking beside him in the warm evening air. In the distance, she heard someone selling lottery tickets over a megaphone, and somewhere closer a horse clopped along the pavement.
“Joaquin hasn’t been bugging me much lately.” She thought about saying that he’d shown up at the Peace Carnival, but she didn’t want to sound like she was whining about not having gone to the party herself. Above all, her father hated whining. “I keep waiting for him to say something mean, but he hasn’t bugged me in over a week. Maybe he’s figured out that no one can mess with Yeny.” She held her fists in front of her face, like a boxer. “Pow! Pow pow!”
Papá’s eyes crinkled up in a smile. “I hope he’s figured out a better way to handle things,” he said. “He probably hasn’t had an easy life, if he’s always so angry.”
Yeny frowned. “What do you mean?”
“All that anger has to come from somewhere,” Papá said. “Maybe he doesn’t get enough to eat, or maybe someone in his family hits him. You never know.”
Yeny was silent. She’d never actually thought about what made Joaquin the way he was. She’d only wanted him to stop picking on her.
They turned at the big white and red church at the end of the street. Her father nodded to a group of teenagers leaning against the wall. Farther down, Yeny saw a man in a green uniform, carrying a big gun. For a split second, she panicked, and her father’s hand tensed in hers, but he kept walking as though he hadn’t noticed. So did she. They turned onto another street and walked as fast as they could. And after a few blocks, they relaxed a little and slowed down.
Her father took a long breath and shook his head. “Guns everywhere,” he said. “How will we ever achieve peace if you can’t walk down the street without seeing someone with a gun?”
Yeny kept quiet. This would have been the perfect moment to mention the election, children’s rights, and the stuff she and her friends were working toward, but she was afraid of saying something that made her father turn silent and scared again.
Luckily, he brought the subject up for her. “I guess you’ve heard about the vote, Yeny,” he said, and her eyes opened wide in surprise. “Someone was talking about it on the radio yesterday, and it made me think of you and the Peace Carnival.” He didn’t lo
ok angry, only tired.
“I think it’ll be great,” Yeny said, in a voice that was much smaller than her excitement about the whole event. From inside a house, the loud boom-boom beat of cumbia music wafted into the street. Somewhere a car horn blared. Yeny looked up into her father’s face, trying to read his thoughts.
He was slow to speak. “I think it’s a great opportunity for young people to learn about democracy,” he said. “But Yeny, it is still too dangerous for me to feel comfortable about letting you go. We have to be patient. We have to hope that, one day, democracy will work in this country—that one day we’ll be able to vote away the grupos armados altogether.”
Yeny swallowed her reply. If she wanted to win her father over, she shouldn’t argue with him. Besides, they had reached the store and Papá was pulling open the squeaky metal door.
Several people were crowded around the cashier, talking. It was the only spot in the little store with space for more than one person. The three aisles were crammed full from floor to ceiling with bright orange boxes of guava candies, bags of bread, shiny green packets of coffee, boxes of panela, yellow packages of Yeny’s favorite drinking chocolate, and more kinds of cookies than she had ever seen. Close to the cashier was an enormous stack of bags of rice, almost as tall as Yeny. Her father grabbed one off the top, pulled some bills from his pocket, and moments later, they were on the street again.
Yeny wished it were so easy for her to get what she wanted. The election was only three days away, and her parents were still saying no, no, no. What was she going to do?
CHAPTER 10
Letters
It was Thursday afternoon, the last meeting before the vote. Yeny and about thirty other kids had gathered in the field to count how many tables they would have, how many jugglers, clowns, musicians, signs, face-painters, and games. The following day, they would meet again to set up a carnival like nothing any of them had ever seen before.
Suddenly Celia came running across the field, waving a handful of envelopes. “I have news,” she shouted to the crowd. She stepped up onto her fruit crate. “Look at this! Letters! The grupos armados wrote back.”
Yeny looked at the huge grin on Celia’s face, and knew at once what the groups had said. “They said yes! They’re going to respect our election,” Yeny cheered. “They won’t do anything to stop us.” She couldn’t believe her idea had worked.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Celia asked. “Every one of them said the same thing—they have children of their own, and they say they don’t want to tear the country apart. Our elections tomorrow will be safe here, and throughout Colombia.”
Yeny could hardly wait to tell her parents the news. Of course, she could already imagine her mother asking who would be silly enough to believe the groups. But Yeny had an answer for that. As far as she knew, they had never promised to be peaceful before, so why not believe them?
Tonight was her last chance to talk to her parents, to convince them to let her go to the election. She should have developed a plan by now, one that was guaranteed to convince them. But she hadn’t. And she didn’t feel any more confident than before.
There was only one thing she knew for sure: she was going to vote. And so was Elena, and so were Juan and Rosa and Sylvia. Grown-ups were always saying that there was strength in numbers. And in her family, if you included Aunt Nelly, her parents were outvoted six to two.
“We’re gonna change the world!” shouted David, and Rocio grabbed Yeny in a happy, swinging dance right there on the spot.
One more important letter arrived that day. It was waiting for Juan and his sisters when they got home from the meeting.
“It’s from Papá,” Juan shrieked, when he saw his mother sitting on the front step, holding an envelope. She was smiling, and Juan, Rosa, and Sylvia broke into a run.
“What does it say?” Juan asked.
“Does he know if he’s coming home soon?” asked Sylvia.
“Did he hear us on the radio?” asked Rosa.
“He doesn’t know about coming home, but he did hear you on the radio. Come on inside, and we’ll read the letter together.”
“I want to read it!” Juan shouted, pulling off his backpack on his way inside.
“No,” said Sylvia, “Mamá should. None of us can ever read his funny handwriting anyway, and you’ll spend too much time trying to figure it out.”
Aunt Nelly was laughing. “Hold your horses. The letter won’t go bad, you know. We’ll make ourselves a snack, maybe un licuado de mango, and—”
Yeny loved mango milkshakes, but Juan groaned. “Forget it! Open . . .”
“Okay, okay. I was only joking.”
Yeny followed everyone inside and put away her school things. She had never seen one of her uncle’s letters before, and was curious. Juan had told her that his father never said anything about where he was or what it was like there. (If he did, the kidnappers wouldn’t send his letter.) But he would probably write about what they had said on the radio. Thank goodness they had that. Sometimes people simply disappeared, and no one ever found out what had happened to them. That was worse than kidnapping, Yeny thought, because then you didn’t know if they were alive, or if they were being tortured. They were the desaparecidos—the “disappeared.”
Mamá was in the kitchen, making arroz con pollo, rice with chicken. Papá looked as if he’d returned from work minutes before. His fingers were still black from the newspapers he’d been selling.
“Did you hear about the letter?” Yeny asked him, hugging him hello.
He squeezed her tight, and then put his hands on her shoulders and smiled. “I did, Yeny.” His eyes held hers for a moment, like he was trying to tell her something. But what?
“Are you ready?” Aunt Nelly asked, sitting at the table.
“Yes, yes!” said Sylvia. “Hurry up already!”
“Okay,” she said again, as everyone settled into a seat around the table and leaned forward. “My dearest family, I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear your voices on the radio. And hearing little Yeny today was an extra-special treat. I’m happy they’ve come to live with you.”
“Me too,” said Elena.
“Shhhh,” said Sylvia.
“I tell you that I am doing well. I’m looking after myself, and I live in hope that I will see you again soon. Meanwhile, I’m with you in everything you do. Little Juan, I am proud of you for being involved in this carnival that you talked about. By the time you get this letter, it will probably be over. I’m sure it was a great success.”
Yeny crossed her arms and looked down at her knees, in case her face showed that she wished her father could be proud of her for taking part. No matter what, she wouldn’t make her parents feel guilty. That never worked with them.
“I’ve been hearing about another event that you may be involved in. I’ve heard that children around the country are taking part, and I’ve never heard of anything so amazing.”
“He’s talking about the election,” Juan said. “He couldn’t write it out, but I’m sure he’s talking about the election tomorrow. We’re gonna be there, Papá! Just you wait.”
“I’m so proud of you children. You are succeeding where we adults have failed, and don’t ever let anyone tell you that it’s not worth the risk. These things are ALWAYS worth the risk. You must never, never give up hope that change is possible.” Aunt Nelly paused and looked at Yeny’s father across the table.
Yeny looked back and forth between them. Her father had been trying to tell her something with his hands on her shoulders and his smile when she came in the door. Was this it? Was he changing his mind?
Yeny was so excited that she barely heard the rest of the letter. When Aunt Nelly finished reading, she passed the pages around so that Juan and his sisters could reread them for themselves. Yeny’s father looked right at Yeny and Elena. “Girls,” he said, “you both know that you mean everything to me.”
Yeny stifled a sigh. This was the same speech he always gave. He
hadn’t changed his mind after all.
“And you both know that the idea of you going to the election tomorrow terrifies me,” he continued.
Yeny felt like rolling her eyes, but if she had any hope of going tomorrow, now was no time to be disrespectful. So she nodded instead, and listened as though this were new to her.
“But you know what?” Papá said. “If your uncle, who’s been kidnapped and held away from his family for months, thinks this election is worth the risk, then I’d be truly ashamed to make you stay away. Colombia is your home too. You have every right in the world to make your voices heard.”
Yeny hurled herself out of her seat, knocking it over, and raced around the table to hug her father. He hugged her back and rubbed her cheek with one thumb, exactly as he used to do in the village. And when she looked him in the eyes she still saw a bit of the sadness, but there was something else there too: strong, fierce pride.
CHAPTER 11
Kids Make History
On voting day, Rocio, David, Beto, and a whole bunch of other kids showed up at Yeny and Juan’s door. Every single one of them was dressed in white, the color of peace.
“Can you come?” Rocio asked.
“Yes!” Yeny shouted, and twirled around in her white trousers and a white T-shirt. “My whole family’s coming. We’ve got banners and everything.”
“So which right are you going to vote for?” Rocio asked.
Juan answered before anyone else could. “Justice!” he shouted. “The people who kidnapped my father should go to jail.”
“That’s true,” Yeny said, “but if we had peace, he would never have been kidnapped in the first place.”
Children marched, waving flags that said ‘peace’ and cheering loudly about what they believed in.
“Yeah,” said Rocio, “but what about the right not to be killed? That’s in the Constitution too, and what’s the use of having peace and justice, if you’re dead?”
Yeny and the Children for Peace Page 6