Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle

Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle

Ingrid Betancourt

Language: English

Pages: 544

ISBN: 0143119982

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


"Betancourt's riveting account...is an unforgettable epic of moral courage and human endurance." -Los Angeles Times

In the midst of her campaign for the Colombian presidency in 2002, Ingrid Betancourt traveled into a military-controlled region, where she was abducted by the FARC, a brutal terrorist guerrilla organization in conflict with the government. She would spend the next six and a half years captive in the depths of the Colombian jungle. Even Silence Has an End is her deeply moving and personal account of that time. The facts of her story are astounding, but it is Betancourt's indomitable spirit that drives this very special narrative-an intensely intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate reflection on what it really means to be human.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you must be near the fifth month.” “Right, I’ll have to go talk to Sombra.” “Yes, you have to ask them to take you to a hospital. Ask to see that young doctor we saw in Andres’s camp. He must be around here somewhere. Otherwise you’ll at least need the help of a midwife.” “You’re the first to know. Can I give you a hug?” “Of course you can. I’m happy for you. It’s the worst time and the worst place, but a child is always a blessing from above.” Clara sat down next to me and took my hand and

magical bubble that her voice had created around me, I realized I was incapable of recalling what she’d said. I observed Marc’s expression while his mother was speaking, the pain of absence transformed now into bliss, the need to absorb each word like an essential nourishment, the ultimate surrender to immerse one’s entire being in an ephemeral happiness. When her voice vanished, Marc met my gaze with the eyes of a child. In that moment I understood that he’d been on the same journey. Then, as

child was born a few months later. I would often see Sombra playing with the baby, walking around the camp with him in his arms, happy to be pampering a little one. I had accumulated countless grievances against him, but when he was there next to me, I found it hard to hold them against him. I had to confess I had a liking for this vulgar, despotic, brigand of a man. I sensed he must feel similarly conflicted about me. I must represent everything he’d always hated, everything he’d fought against

equipo and wedged it behind his neck above his own backpack. “Go ahead,” he said with a smile. I looked one last time toward the top and began to climb, clinging to everything I could get my hands on. Three hours later, after crossing waterfalls, rock faces, and an astonishing esplanade of stones piled in pyramids like the ruins of an ancient Inca temple, I reached the top. Sitting in a row on the slope, my companions were eating rice. Lucho sat against a tree, his cheeks hollow with fatigue,

“¡Ésos son los chulos! Así es cómo nos miran para después ‘borrbardiarnos.’”15 She mispronounced the verb for “bombard” as borrbardiar, like a child who had not yet learned to talk properly. They also used “look” instead of “see.” I smiled. Would the plane be able to spot us from such a distance? It seemed unlikely. But I felt that it was not even worth worrying about. For me what mattered was the realization that the military was continuing its search and that this marrana was the enemy for

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