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Exoteric Biography of Luis Prada

First published on June 10, 2003.  Original text.

"If you are sure of your faith, you will let others believe as they want.  Insecurity cannot tolerate what is different."
—Anonymous Author.  Original in Spanish, translation.

Preamble

This biography consists of 18 chapters, every paragraph of each chapter is numbered for easy reference.  Seventeen of those chapters describe my present life and Chapter 1, Introduction, is actually the last chapter, the grand finale, the wisdom I garnered as a result of living those seventeen chapters, from previous existences and from soul attunement.  It reflects the evolving person I am today.

In the year 2002 a psychic and channel person told me that I was going to write a book in the year 2003 and that this book contained 18 chapters.  I had the urge to write my autobiography, but just a small summery like a one page to post in my website, not a book, and I had the goal to make it early in the year but I postponed it for months.  After I finally wrote the main core of this work, broke it into chapters, and continued adding material during the month of May, 2003, I counted the chapters, they turned out to be 18.  Unbeknownst to me then and not connecting it with what the seer told me, the prophesy was fulfilled.

Illustrations are used here to enhance the text, they are not necessarily authentic scenes or places in Colombia, although they do have similarities.  Illustrations of paragraphs 3.4.1 to 3.4.8 and Gollum of paragraph 18.4.1 from the movie trilogy "The Lord of the Rings", based on J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece.  Some figures are funny and that is intentional:  I did not want to sound too serious, official and institutionalized here, which I have never been nor will.  The rule in this literary work is that there is no rule, just flows.  A serious person is missing the game.  And life is just a game.

There is a poll at the end of the autobiography, after reading it, if you are interested in buying it as a printed book, then let us know.

All rights reserved.  No part of this material should be published or distributed without prior written consent from the author.  Quotations or small excerpts can only be used without permit.

Index of Chapters

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. This autobiography was intended for people interested in spiritual studies of the New Age and who read the Brother Veritus' Website located at www.luisprada.com.  Anybody else, of course, may read it, but may not fully understand some clues, vocabulary, and concepts given here since it was not intended for the general public.  Now, if you do not fully understand some of the terminology or need further clarification, look for the terms using the Brother Veritus' Website search engine and the worldwide web.

1.2. One of the greatest tools for teaching is the use of life experiences as illustrations, another one is to use entertainment, fun and games, I have worked to merge both of them in this effort.  Teaching with mental pontifications from a cozy chair is boring (I promise never write this kind of books).  This is the value I see in this literary effort which is intended for teaching as is all the material you find in Brother Veritus' Website.  The biography is analyzed and dissected to use it as a learning tool.  Who wants to read somebody else's story unless there be something interesting or a message there?  Celebrity biographies are read because people are attracted to these personalities for their talent and famous status which catches attention.  My case is different, so I have to catch your attention in a different way, using some wit.

1.3. For a very long time I had kept my identity anonymous to create in the readers of my writings and of the Brother Veritus' Website a focus on the message, not on the messenger and scribe.  But over time many people asked the question: "Who is Luis Prada?"  So, I decided to answer this question publishing this autobiography that will be expanded as time changes and more interesting things happen in my life.  I thought my life had been very boring, not worthwhile of writing about, until I wrote this autobiography where I found it was not boring at all but it is all sprinkled with adventure as you will see.  All lives are not boring, each has a lesson to teach and a theme to unroll.

1.4. Probably the only most boring and frustrating part of my life has been to work for the Corporate Beast and dealing with frustrations, pressure, politics, cancelled projects, lack of understanding and credit for my work, bureaucracy, paperwork, endless meetings, sittings in front of a computer and layoffs —more on this will be discussed later in Chapter 17, "Professional Life in the United States" .  Engineering is fun, but unfortunately this is only a part of the reality and a small percentage of what you do in manufacturing companies —not in purely scientific firms, although, they have their own problems too.

1.5. Writing some of these stories has been a bit painful, because they brought back to me forgotten and sad memories.  One recall faithfully brought up with it the next one as in a line of little goblins holding their hands and being ready to be recognized, acknowledged and forgiven.  It was a healing process.  I forgive all persons, circumstances and places I interacted with and lived in and I transmute them with the power of the Violet Flame.  They may go in peace now.  I had to live this first part of my life the way it happened to allow me to grow spiritually and to develop the heart chakra —the center from which Love radiates and compassion flows— for even Greater Work to come during the Aquarian Age.  The best is yet to come.  The Age of Aquarius will be a time of abundance and you cannot receive abundance and understanding if your heart chakra is closed.  I needed that link to Source that could not find with my heavily intellectually-oriented attitude, as you will see in this account.  For me everything was the power of knowledge and the power of the mind, and even though I still appreciate knowledge, it was spiritual knowledge I was really thirsty for.

1.6. This is a historical recount from memory, as faithfully as I remember it, of just another human life with its ups and downs, rights and wrongs, strife and joy.  Some of these events will serve you as inspiration to do even better in life, some others are not worth imitating.  Take what is good for you and throw off the window the rest, like you would have never read it.

1.7. As you will see in some of my stories, at contact with me some people became irritated, as if I intentionally was trying to offend them.  But I was not interested in irritating people but to honestly live my life authentically and with integrity without imitating anybody or following someone else's script.  In fact, most of my life I have lived detached from people and during school years I was a shy boy.  I was just a mirror and a catalyst that reflected others' imperfections and they irritated themselves when interacting with me because were unhappy of their imperfections and mistakenly judged me as the cause of their angry.  They could not tolerate my accomplishments and savvy.  It is a negative feeling of envy, resentment and victimizing some people have before the accomplishments and happiness of those around them.  This negative feeling creates the reality they have manifested and that they blame on others without assuming responsibility for their acts.  I have the feeling that even this biography may irritate some people that have never seen me or have interacted with me, simply because they disagree with the opinions expressed here or may feel envious of my humble accomplishments in life.  But that is their problem as I just said.  This quality of being a mirror for others is a human quality, everybody is a mirror for everybody else and what I said in this paragraph applies to you as well as to everyone else.  Being aware of this truth brings so much comfort and support to those souls who have undergone similar tribulations I have.

1.8. This is the re-assessment of my life.  I came to live in a family with psychological challenges to learn about human psychology so that I could help, with many other Lightworkers, Mother Earth in her transition —her prophesied destiny.  It is also that I had to burn karma, an Alchemical process of purification through suffering as in the science of Alchemy the materia is subjected to fire in the crucible to get rid of the dross.  And speaking of Karma, Earth civilizations are not evolving naturally in a geometrical pattern to the Light, instead they are caught up in a cycle of growth and destruction, so the final result is an average low.  So with individuals, they are caught up, too, in this vicious cycle of repeating past mistakes in new lives as if running in circles on deep ruts.

1.9. As you read my autobiography you will notice that I have never held any high ranking professional position or just any management position where I had direct authority over others, or had upper social class influence and interaction, and yet, I have lived so far an interesting and intensive life.  You do not have to be a President, a corporate CEO, a high ranking government official, a leading scientist or a member of world's power elite to live a life that makes you grow.  To me practical know-how, as in some common jobs and services, have great value in society too, if not, imagine a world without them.  The hope of humanity is in its grass-root people, not in duplicitous and arrogant politicians and corporate moguls of the bureaucratic power structures, who have so much to risk to take any questionable stance in favor of a change in the status quo.  My life, on the contrary, has an unconventional and common theme.

1.10. Sometimes is in ordinary lives where you actually are able to polish your rough spots.  How come you may do that when you sleep on velvet cushions, and seep good wine while being pampered by maidens and waitresses?  Do not reject your life, it is better at this Change of Ages to have a life that teaches us more and helps us in our spiritual growth, than a life full of compromises, influence, prestige, recognition, keeping appearances and officialism.  Because the corrupted power elite who did not act right when supposed to will be severely punished, they pleased the Beast and have its mark.  And you do not want to be on the Heavenly Father's left side in line with the Ignoble Liars.  "The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes." [Benjamin Disraeli: Coningsby, 1844].  But not all high class people fall into this category, it is all related to inner intention, not only to external factors or appearances.  Some of these high-class, high-status fine individuals are White Knights working for NESARA.  However, enlightened rich are extremely rare, it is easier that a camel pass through a needle's eye than a rich man enter the Kingdom of Heaven, as Master Jesus taught.

1.11. Each one of you have a deep-seated encoded or encrypted secret of who you are, if you find that secret you become really powerful or realize how much power resides in you waiting to be well used.  Our mission is to find that unique secret and use it to the best to serve others.  God created us to manifest that secret and find its place within the great puzzle of creation.  Should each of us not be unique, there would have been no reason to make us, since we were redundant, a copy of somebody else.  All my meandering in life has been to unravel that secret to myself and become a co-creator with God as is also your mission.  You see, I tell you the story of my life or describe the path that is taking me to my Truth, but I cannot reveal to you this Truth, likewise, you have to find yours, and when you do, you cannot reveal it to others.  That Truth will be your secret to keep and where all the answers you were looking for reside.  And our unique Truth is our perfection, who we really are, our fixed-design, an absolute.  Do not look for power in others, look for the power within yourself.  The process of unraveling one's mystery secret will lead one to a personal relationship with God and will reveal a personal interpretation or definition of who or what God is.  I said, it's a process, not an end.

1.12. This effort is not an ego trip, it was intended to help heal trauma in others who have undergone similar circumstances, because by them seeing pieces of their lives reflected here, their fears and conflicts get acknowledged and healed too as they were seen and acknowledged by me.  My life acts as a medium, your stories are not the same as mine and yet they both have a commonality.  Even a Chinese person of Mainland China, for instance, can related to these stories and associate places and circumstances here to similar ones in his or her beloved motherland, because we are all humans and, beyond physical appearances, driven by same basic motivations and emotional urges.  This work has the blessing from Above.

1.13. This is my story born of a past gone forever.  People, facts, places, circumstances, even the same feelings in this saga, no longer exist today, like a strange dream that have never really happened, but that you only have a blurry memory of it as if artificially imprinted in your brain by a strange machine.  You have to believe me or fake believe me because rationally you cannot fully verify if I am telling you the truth, or I made it up.  You may verify few things, but that's all.  If you interview the protagonists they may not recall, or know, and they are now different people, with different ideals, as if they were not really the people described here.  Even if you visit the same places, you will discover they are changed.  Eventually all players are gone.  And yet, this is the experience that has contributed to make the man I am today through personal growth.  (I said contributed because this has not been my only life on this planet nor in the galaxy).  If you bypass the rational mind and its complex verifications, and are willing to listen to your heart, it will tell you this story is true.

1.14. Similarly it happens with your life, what seems so important to you now will be just a foggy black and white memory, a simple dream, that no longer affects you because it has lost its grip on you, its energy —drawn from the players— is exhausted through living, and is turned into a fantasy in the mind.

1.15. And yet I think this story, with all its anecdotes and drama, is still worthy of a Hollywood movie.  You will be the judge.  One thing I know for sure: You will never get bored reading my story, I guarantee it!  Without any further perambulation, let's go back in time and enjoy the show.
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Chapter 2. The Birth

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2.1.1. I was born in Colombia, South America, in the province of Santander, in a little town called Mogotes (072W58'00", 06N30'00") on April 5, 1951, around 9:00PM under the sign of Aries (Sun in Aries, Sun conjunct with Moon and Sun opposed to Neptune and triune with Pluto.  Moon square with Uranus and opposing Neptune.)  Having Neptune in Libra is an indication that I am not bound by tradition or personal ties of a domestic nature and open to others and the accounts that follow will testify of it.

2.1.2. Many things can be said about these zodiacal positions, nevertheless, I let them to astrologers.  I can only say that having the Moon triune with Pluto has given me the natural psychological ability to work with the public and to handle emotional and personal issues of others "where angels fear to tread."  Angels may touch these issues with a long stick, I do not need a stick, I approach people I have never known before, shake their hands and in some cases, if the situation is appropriate, I tell them what they need to hear.  That is why I have talked on many issues covered in this Website without feeling afraid of ridicule, they have laughed a lot at me in the past, so one more time does not make a difference, I don't care about it anyway.  Whatever!  Sometimes my family sees me talking to someone in a shopping center, for instance, they think this is a friend I have known for years for the way I address them and of what I am talking about, not knowing I just met the person a few minutes ago and some minutes later I may not see them again.

2.1.3. Mogotes is a colonial town in the mountains of the Santander state (called in Colombia, Departamento de Santander).  It is located on the Oriental Cordillera (Colombia has three major mountain ranges: The Oriental, the Central and the Occidental, all forming part of the Pacific Rim natural accident of the tectonic plate of the Pacific Basin pushing up the Continental Plate.  The weather is similar to the weather of Bogotá City, the capital city of Colombia, or better called, Santa Fe de Bogotá, (53-63 deg F, 70-80% humidity).  Life in that town has been peaceful because is not over the main road that connect Santander with Santa Fe de Bogotá.

2.1.4. I was born during one of the worst and most dangerous political periods of that nation's history after its Independence, what was called "The Violence" (La Violencia).  It started with the assassination in Bogotá of a Colombian popular leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, on April 9^th, 1948.  This event was known as the Bogotazo.  Violence spread as a reaction throughout the nation converting it into a battlefield, with political persecution and strife between members of the two official political parties, Liberals and Conservatives.  While the people were killing each other in the name of their parties, the political leaders of both parties were celebrating together in their private clubs.  Does it sound familiar?

2.1.5. This violence reached Mogotes, with bloodshed and suffering.  My father, who was not too inclined to politics and had friends on both sides, was spared.  Today Mogotes is also suffering from guerrilla activities.
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Chapter 3. Childhood in the Farm

3.1.1. I was named Luis Eduardo Prada Sánchez, Prada from my father and Sánchez from my mother.  Back in Colombia I was often called by this full name which I simply abbreviated as Luis Prada when I came to the United States.  My close family calls me Eduardo instead.

3.1.2. My father's name is Roque Julio Prada-Calderón (born in Mogotes in 1908) and my mother's name, Blanca Sánchez de Prada (born in El Socorro, a nearby town, in 1911), when they met they were both living in the same town, Mogotes.

3.1.3. My mother lulled me in my swinging crib bed with Mexican rancheras sang off pitch.  While cooking she sang loud those songs we heard from a battery-powered transistor radio hanging from a post at the front patio at 5AM while everybody was busy milking cows.  For breakfast I handed an empty glass to a milking lady and she filled it with foamy and lukewarm milk directly from the cow's udder.

3.1.4. In Santander there are many Pradas, I would say in the hundreds, if not in the thousands, you may judge that by looking at the telephone directory.  Most Prada families in the United States came originally from the Santander province in Colombia.

3.2.1. I spent my first 6 years on the farm my father owned in the region known as San José Valley.  The original owner of all these vast fertile lands was my paternal grandfather Aurelio Prada who looked white European of Spaniard descent.  After his first wife passed away, my grandfather Aurelio married the farm's cook, my paternal grandmother Nicanora Calderón, who was of Colombian native Indian stock.  She was a sweet and caring woman who loved my mother.  My mother's family also looked mostly European white, they were of precarious means.  By having American Indian blood I am a mestizo, a genetic that characterizes most Latin American Hispanic people.  And thanks God for that, how ignorant are those of white skin who consider as "inferior" the Native American blood and genetics.  I know better.  Should their self-imposed veils were removed and truth of this mystery revealed to them, they would covet that blood even better than they coveted gold during the Gold Rush in California!

3.2.2. My grandfather was prosperous, "the rich man in town", so to speak, enjoyed drinking and singing and when he grew to an old age his children decided it was time to divide the farm so they would not end up losing their inheritance.  So my grandfather parceled out the land to give it as inheritance to his children and my father had his share which was still very large.

3.2.3. My father became very prosperous there.  He was always busy in new projects and running the farm affairs with lots of peons, some lived in hut houses near the main hacienda.  He was brutal in punishing his children and harsh in his criticism.  He never physically abused me as far as I remember, but did to my brothers.  However, he offended me as a child with his uncaring comments and mental abuse.  I was too small in the farm to work for him and my mother protected me.  My father wanted, for instance, to wake up my sister Gloria Ligia and I early with the rest of the brothers, even if we could not help in anything, but my mother did not allow him to do so.  She shouted: "Let the children sleep!"  By the time I was old enough to help him we were living in the big city.  My mother was the angel sent to me to protect me as a child against the Dark Forces.  Over time my father's temperament mellowed out.

3.2.4. At age 4 I ate super-hot pepper sauce my mother made with eggs, cilantro, tomato, salt and tiny red hot peppers she hand picked from bushes in front of the house.  All these ingredients we had in the farm, chickens were running around the house and we knew where hens laid their eggs. In Colombia hot pepper is called ají [pronounced AH-HÉE], not chile as is called in Mexico.  She made it really hot so people do not eat it fast and it would last longer for everybody.  Jalapeño is not that hot compared to these little devil's peppers my mother squeezed with a spoon on a plate to make hot sauce.

3.3.1. We had seven or eight hunting dogs, really nasty animals with unknown and unwanted visitors.  I went to town for sometime and returned home.  Mogotes was about two walking hours from the farm house and there was no car road.  We had to pass on a creek near town and then go up the hill and down, up again and down to get there.  I used to make that trip sometimes by myself.  So it was at this time.  I had a shining long snake keychain I was playing with, and was proud of having, as I was approaching the house.  I coiled it over the index finger and then unwound it to do it again as I went along.  Suddenly it slipped off my hand and fell in the bushes.  I pass below the barb wired fence and searched for it.  I never found it.  The dogs heard me and came barking to inspect.  I jumped on the road to surprise them and study their reactions, to see if they were to bite me since I was gone for so long —probably two days, I think.  They stopped on their tracks as putting hot brakes on their paws and went silent for a moment and then they jumped on me licking my face and whole body.  I was so happy with them.

3.3.2. I was in contact with nature, the trilling birds, the singing creek, the rushing river which I bade even when swollen and dangerous, I climbed trees and picked up guavas that ate on the spot, I rode horses, even though, I admit, I was not really good at it, sometimes they galloped so fast and jolty that I lost the stirrups and looked like a clumsy bouncing potato sack.  I rode mules, some were very tricky animals, they run for the barb fence to scratch your legs and applied on you a psychology missing in some humans I have known in my life —and people think they are stupid animals, ha!  I rode donkeys which is easy but never on pigs as some of my brothers did.  You jump on them and grab their ears.  These animals ran fast and make such a squealing noise that pierces you ear drums.

3.3.3. I heard the sound of logging or harvesting from one mountain to the next with a long echo.  I watched the cattle grazing on the distance and went with my younger brothers to bring it home for the afternoon sweet licking treat of panela, cane sweet, the one I will mention later, drink water and lick salt as food supplement.  We also milked them then for home consumption.  Some cows were so stubborn and tricky as some humans I know, or worse.  They were in the bottom of the mountain, when we called them up, instead of gently come up the hill, they run under the forest to force one to go all the way down and bring them up.  They know you want to spare the trip.  And when you go down they look at you, turn around and start tamely climbing up.  But, like people, not all are like that, some have understanding.

3.3.4. We rode horses on the mountains while singing Mexican rancheras at loud voice so our voices bounced from mountain to mountain.  On torrential rains we sheltered under trees and big wild plants with huge leaves.  We were not scare of animals or of the anticipation of snakes as the city people are.  How many snakes have bit you or poisoned you in your life?  If none, why are you scare of snakes, just because somebody told you so, or from an anticipation of danger that is only in your mind?

3.3.5. After the rain the next day early in the morning we went to harvest wild mushrooms.  We knew which ones were edible and safe to eat and collected them in a basket.  They are found in clusters and some were as big as 5 inches in diameter.

3.3.6. I mentioned riding horses and also rain.  The worst is the combination of both on the mountains.  Steep-sloped Andean trails are sometimes covered with stone slabs placed there by farmers to prevent erosion and to protect them from wearing or are covered with rocks thrown in there by Nature, which present a perilous challenge to horse and mule.  When you are mounting a horse and trekking on a descending steep slope, you basically lay your body down against the horse' back, "standing" on the stirrups while with your left hand, for instance, holding the reins and with the right hand grab onto the saddle back ridge for stabilization and support, you are being tossed and jarred by the horse' movements.  You only see the horse' ears, his head is near ground, you do not see the road ahead but the trees and the open landscape.  The practical knowledge of the roads in raining conditions qualify these smart animals to make the right choices on how and where to position their hooves to prevent slippery, which sometimes occurs, and the beasts are quick to stoop and correct it.  Here your life depends on an animal's intelligence and its right choices.  My father preferred mules to horses because, for these treacherous paths, mules were stronger, better adapted and less likely to sprain a hand leg.  It is amazing to see the bony legs of these mules who have spent their entire lives doing heavy work:  They are covered with a hard muscle with so much power to carry men and burden, like true transportation machines!

3.3.7. I loved to play with ducklings after they hatched, to me they are the most adorable animals I've ever seen.  I grabbed them and caressed them, same I did with chicken, although I loved ducks better.  Even I grabbed mama duck and seized beak and head and played rough with her while quacking loud, I mean the duck, not me!

3.3.8. I played with ants engaging them in real pitched battles worthy of an epic saga for a movie.  I chose big ants of a different family, like red and black ants who were diligently going about doing their business of collecting leaf cuttings and running on an fallen aging tree trunk.  I started by taking, let's say, a red ant and placing it on the route of the black ants and so I did until they got so annoyed that they went to attack the other ants on their tracks causing spectacular battles that lasted for hours, you see, you don't need a dumb TV tube for entertainment.  Nature provides it and it's free.  Today I do not recommend to play with ants as I did as a peasant kid.  Just observe them and study their behavior.

3.3.9. We ate honey from wild bees, we broke the honeycomb and put chunks of it in our mouths and chewed the wax until the honey was gone.

3.3.10. We had a turkey of bad temper that did not like me.  You see?  Even turkeys have feelings!  I have met in my life human "turkeys" as tricky and insidious as this one as you will see later on, probably he was an anticipation of what I had ahead.  He did not attack Mom but when I was alone he charged me.  He left his females turkey friends and found instead a better entertainment to run down the hill to peck on me.  It was a real nuisance to me.  However, he never caught me because I rushed so fast to shelter behind my Mom's long skirt.  In my life I always like to fly with eagles, however, I have ended walking with turkeys!

3.4.1. In the evening, after dinner, we sat with the peons facing the main patio and near the kitchen and they played Mexican corridos and Colombian Bambucos, the typical Colombian folk songs of the country's interior.

3.4.2. Then storytelling time came.  In the cool night, these humble and ignorant people looked up to the mountain tops and bewitched by their mysterious and luring dark blue silhouettes, still visible before night painted them all with black, spoke of enchanted lakes beyond those tops where swam enchanted ducks, geese and swans.  The spooky stories continued with spectral apparitions, nightly ghosts and creatures, and Las Lloronas (The Crying Ones), they were something weird as you will know.

3.4.3. Las Lloronas were wailing women attracted to bodies of water, where they could be seen at night taking a bath or wading a river or lake and noisily splashing water.  They were also known as men seductresses in long, white gauzy gowns.  These sad women were crying the loss of a lover who went to far away lands to never return, or the loss of a child they aborted to hide their "sin", and the sadness of their experience or the deep guilt made them lose their minds.  This legendary character is present in folklore in Mexico, Central and South America, in countries that were originally poorly connected by roads and communications during the XIX century and early, it probably originated in Spain as most of these myths of the mischievous goblins or elves of Spanish heritage.

3.4.4. The peons talked about the haunting souls or the animas in penitence, and their long midnight processions with candles, carrying on the front, on a stretcher, an ailing and wailing person down the mountain slopes.  Curiously these ghosts and creepy-crawling creatures, fascinated with the night, mysteriously animated into action at midnight as the clock struck twelve.

3.4.5. How about the Mancarita, this most insidious female creature that roamed country roads at night scaring men and horses in her long never-ending pilgrimage.  Was she a demon or beast?  Did she fly?  Was she the mother or grandmother of the Chupacabras?  I don't know and probably never will.

3.4.6. And the nightly spooky lights that were seen going down the trails of mountain slopes.  When you said:  "See that light, there it goes", then the light came to you transformed into a flying skull, but the trick was to say: "See that light, there it comes", then the light fled away from you.  What a trick to know!  You had to know the proper passwords to deal with these things!  But the people from the region knew them, it was part of the popular savvy.

3.4.7. And there was something magical about the Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.  Somebody, for instance, entered a cave opened as a dimensional portal on Good Friday as the Church bell tolled three, announcing the dead of Christ, and found a gold treasure but on Resurrection Sunday, as the church bell tolled again, the cave entrance closed leaving him trapped, since he, greedily busy with the treasure, did not leave on time.  This poor guy had to wait for another year, if still alive.  It was something like that, I do not remember details.

3.4.8. As I said before, these popular legends and stories, full of imagination and superstition, came down from generation to generation and are part of popular beliefs, that, in those days of my childhood, were my beliefs.  I did not know "Little Red Riding Hood" yet, which I learned in elemental school.  After listening to these creepy bedtime stories, we, little children, afraid of the dark, headed for bed lit by a trembling candlelight.

3.5.1. The San José Valley was a paradisiacal vast farm of rich soil with cool weather and rainy seasons.  It had pastures for livestock and we had various brands of cattle mainly for milk. It was basically a dairy farm where we made cottage cheese.  We had yucca, guava, cocoa, cane and coffee plantations, all exploited to sell the farm produce in Mogotes on weekends.  Speaking of Paradise in other places, bah!, but if it is in Mogotes, where else!  Let's not its funny name deter you from reaching there.

3.5.2. During the cane harvest season, there called la molienda (the grinding); cane was cut and grinded with big wooden horizontal drums that were almost touching each other and were moved by man muscle power (mules were also used to provide the power but not in our farm, today all these grinding operations in similar farms are done using electrical-powered machinery.)  The cane sticks were placed between the moving drums that squeezed them extracting the juice and leaving the waste pulp on the other side.  It was a 24-hour operation that lasted several days.  The cane sweet was a frothy, golden colored fluid, we used to drink it from the collecting tank.  Then the sweet juice was cooked and made into panela (rectangular blocks) for storing and selling.  It was a coarse and dark sweet without refinement that was loaded on mules and donkeys and sold in town at lower price than its equivalent, the more-refined and golden-looking cane sweet.

3.5.3. Coffee was hand picked, peeled in grinding machines, washed, and dried on big cement patios, then packed in sacks and sold in town.  Our coffee did not meet the strict requirements for exportation of the Colombian Federation of Coffee Growers, it was sold only locally.  In spite of that, even the worst crappy coffee batch from our farm, as when it did not receive enough sun and was stored humid turning moldy, stilled tasted better than the tasteless one I have drank sometimes in the United Stated, so-called "Colombian" coffee.  I don't drink coffee much today.  Tinto is a word applicable to red wine, but in Colombia that word is also used to designate a concentrated black coffee served in small cups.  You slowly sip tinto while engaged in a family conversation or in a café discussion on how to fix the country's problems.  It's a cheap way to enjoy quality time with friends.

3.5.4 We also had a guava sweet factory in town, in our house, where we produced the guava candy bars and the guava jelly in round package to be distributed to local stores.  My brothers and sisters worked on packaging chores after school hours wrapping candies in dried beige plantain leaves and packing them in wooden boxes.  We had labor workers who cooked and beat the guava juice in big cauldrons.  I was too small to help in the farm or in the candy business, and in the town home I walked barefooted and my soles were always sticky with guava candy.  We became so tired of the smell and taste of guava that it took us about 15 years after we did not have this business any longer to tolerate and even enjoy the taste of guava candy again.

3.5.5. I did not contribute work in the farm nor the candy factory, as mentioned before, but only witnessed their operations.  I mostly played with my little sister Gloria Ligia.  Having an active imagination as a little child I imagined owning a big cattle herd which, in reality, was a bunch of tree twigs that at the base, that connects to the tree, had the shape of a cow head with its horns.

3.5.6. I loved to go to town on weekends with the family and attend church and to stroll around the busy marketplace in Mogotes' plaza, full of busy merchants selling produce on the floor and peasants and farm owners buying rice, sugar and grain in sacks to take them to the farm.  It was, as it is today, a serious business, so I saw it back then.
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Chapter 4. Childhood in the "Big" City, Grammar Years

4.1.1. After selling the San José farm and the house in Mogotes, in early 1956 we translating to Bucaramanga, the state capital city, a city located about six hours from Mogotes through winding roads on the mountains.  Bucaramanga is a city of mild climate and beautiful parks, it is called the City of Parks because it has so many, also the Pretty City because of the general care of its avenues, public places and parks with good city planning.  My father purchased a farm in a very hot, humid and mosquito-infested area, full of malaria, by the railroad line.  Coming from a cool weather in the mountains he could not tolerate the weather of these low lands, he sold it, lost money in the selling, and bought another close to Rionegro, a town about two hours from Bucaramanga and continued his farm business but not as successfully as he was in the past.

4.1.2. The trip to Bucaramanga was something worth narrating with a funny episode.  Family and friends thought we were crazy to venture going to a big city, it was risky, dangerous, uncertain.  But we were determined to leave town.  The packing and truck loading started early in the evening.  It took many hours and we started the trip like a 2 or 3AM.  Only my Mom and my sister Inés went on the front seat with the truck driver, the rest accommodated on our belongings on the truck bed.  I was dressed with clean dark pants and white shirt, for the city, of course!  I cuddled myself between two dogs feeling cozy and went to sleep for the whole trip.

4.1.3. Next day I woke up and heard voices coming from the outside.  The truck was not moving anymore.  I checked between the railing wooden boards and saw a city street and my sister opening the front door of the house.  I felt wet, so I checked my pants and found the dogs had peed on me.  So the moral of the story is:  Don't sleep with dogs or you may get pissed.

4.1.4. We were very hungry from that trip.  We inspected the house and in the back solar patio my mother saw plants she recognized as food we ate sometimes in the farm.  She went and cut them and made a soup for the family.

4.2.1. I was born left handed, the only one in the family, but forced to write with my right hand.  In my first grammar year I thought my left hand was more intelligent than my right one, that was why I could write easier with my left hand and so I told my teacher.  For several years I had a hard time to write with my right hand and that affected my proficiency in grammar school since in those days most of the class was spent in dictation and writing.  Today I am ambidextrous.

4.3.1. This next story I have for you is worth a prize in heaven.  I was then 7 years old and in my first grammar year.  My sisters were attractive and several suitors visited them.  One such was one evening in our living room asking my oldest sister Inés to go out with him.  She was not interested in him and wanted to get rid of him,  She said to him she was not feeling well, he asked if she may go with her brother Hernando as a chaperon.  She lied again saying Hernando was also not feeling well, "he had a cold."  I overheard her arguing and felt upset for those blatant lies, since I knew nobody was sick at home.  So I waited and when she left the room, probably to bring him a drink, I stood at the door threshold and told him clearly:  "Nobody is sick here.  She's just lying on you because she doesn't want to go out with you."  I was aware of the repercussions for my action since even at that age I knew my people well.  At that tender age my world was my home, that was my reference, so going against my oldest sister and a family provider was literally like going against my, back then, known world.

4.3.2. When Inés was coming back to the room she overheard what I had just said and saw the irritated face of the suitor.  She considered that action of me as an invasion of her privacy and minding her own affairs.  Being basically the head of the family, she could not accept that this little boy had any authority whatsoever over her affairs.  She just was paled and speechless.  The man stood up right away and coldly said good by and left.  This was just the beginning because for me turned into a nightmare that followed me for months.  My four older sisters aligned on Inés' side as was expected, fearing I may do the same on them.  For months they called me names, did not talk to me making me really feel rejected.  My youngest sister, Gloria Ligia, the "baby", was too young to know what was going on.  My brothers, as usual, did not take sides and the small ones just were happy they were not the ones in trouble.

4.3.3. How wonderful the mind of a child is to cut through the mess adults create in their minds!  I was right in what I said and for speaking the truth I paid a price, no different as it is today. Did I regret it?  No, I didn't.  Well, everything eventually passes away and people forget the whole thing, they were not going to kill me for that, no big deal.  So the question for you is:  Given similar circumstances, would you do the same?

4.4.1. In the first day of February of 1956 I attended my first year in public elemental school in the school where I later attended some other grammar years.  It was an school introductory day to inform us about school rules and other general information.  Also to check on students.  When the teacher was calling the roll and called my name in the confusion of so many students moving around, the noise coming from the outside, and my little body, I said: "Sí, Señorita", which means, "Yea, Miss."  The teacher did not heard this and continued calling me.  I shouted: "Here I am, Señorita, here I am, Señorita".  Finally she saw me raising my hand.  She called me to the front and asked me for my age, I was not seven yet, shy of little over two months.  She did not allowed me to attend school.  My older sisters paid in a private school to have me attend school that year.

4.4.2  One day when I was in class I could not speak, I was not sick.  I tried to speak but no voice came out of my mouth.  In my desperation I went to the teacher and whispered to her my problem.  She sent me home.  When I was entering home my speech came back.  That day I stayed home.

4.4.3. I was a shy kid in that school and felt quite alienated.

4.4.4. During my grammar years I was of small and skinny body, and freckled and pale face.  Kids laughed at me because of my freckles.

4.4.5. In my second grade I became very sick around April, I could not attend school.  I lost two months laying in bed sometimes with fever.  I remember one time I woke up around 3:00PM and had the sensation of  the room's door constantly moving away from me, in reality it was not moving, I was in delirium.  I went out and stepped on the patio in front of the kitchen and asked my mother why all the faucets and the shower were fully opened.  I heard loud sounds of running water.  My mother told me that no valve was open.  Later I recovered from this illness and was able to return to school.  It took me several months to come up to speed with the rest of the class.  The teacher, so kind, was taking notes in my notebooks for me while I was at home in bed.

4.4.6. During those days there was an American program "Caritas" that distributed powdered milk, yellow cheese and flour to developing countries (called underdeveloped countries back then.)  At school teachers diluted the milk and gave us milk (they asked us to bring a glass from home.)  They also gave us cheese.  The program did not last for more than 5 years.  Unfortunately, corrupted politicians sold the flour instead which as intended to be donated to poor people.  My mother liked this flour, but we had to buy it in the marketplace.

4.5.1. Another interesting incident of my life happened when I was in my second year of elemental school.  I was initially selected to play Saint Peter during a holy week school play "because of my look", but rejected later because my shoes were so torn down that they showed my toes and I did not have a replacement pair.

4.5.2. But I obtained scholarships and loans through proper qualifications and passing the required examinations and was able with these monies to study and buy my own clothes (and shoes) during Junior High all the way to the university.

4.5.3. As a child I was poor because of lack of economical support from my father, even though he had means.  My father slowly turned into a poor family provider,  brought less and less produce and milk from the farm and grew embittered and disappointed with his children, always complaining that yet with such a large family nobody wanted to help him in the farm, and instead, they all wanted to study to become "doctors", and that my mother was not living with him but was living with his children in Bucaramanga.  She had to, to support the family, cook and attend our needs while we studied.  He felt left alone and he grew estranged to his children and wife.  He chose the farm's cook lady, Eva, as his permanent partner with whom he lived to an old age.  This lady was a widow loaded with children of her own and poor, my father's money started disappearing over the years.  He ended up having a small convenience store, two cheap houses and eventually, in his old age, nothing.  He never bought a house for his family —which he always considered a bad investment— and we had to go renting from place to place, with no stable residence.

4.5.4. My mother grew tired of my father's infidelities, his drinking habits and the physical abuses she suffered from him —she was a battered woman throughout her marriage, who never admitted it publicly to maintain my father's good image.

4.5.5. On one occasion, when I was 8 years old, I asked my mother for money to buy a pencil and a notebook to replace the existing ones.  My mother knew my father was reading the newspaper in the dining room.  She asked me to ask my father for money for that.  So I went to him.  I asked him once, he faked not to hear me, then I repeated it, he turned to me and said: "I don't want my children to become doctors."  And continued reading the newspaper.  My father never supported my education, but later in life when I had succeeded as an electrical engineer and was married and had a baby, a house and a car after five years of work, during a visit he felt very proud of me, took the baby in his arms and treated him the way he supposed to have treated me at that age.  He never took me in his arms as far a I remember and was very harsh in his remarks and teaching when he asked me to help him with something.  Yet, when I lived in Colombia I regularly visited him and later on, in his old age, I was there to give him money and support when I went back to Colombia and visited him.

4.6.1. As a child I always carried pencil and paper and was making drawing perfecting my craft as an amateur artist.  I did many black and white drawings that over the years I gave away or lost.  I wanted at that time to become a professional artist.

4.6.2. I sang ballads, Mexican rancheras and corridos in grammar school and loved poetry.  I was able to memorize very long poems and recite them for all the students during especial celebrations and to entertain guests at home.

4.6.3. One poem I learned to perform well when I was 8 was "El Brindis del Bohemio" ("The Bohemian's Toast") which I enacted as I recited it.  I also recited "El Gato Bandido" (The Bandit Cat) and "El Renacuajo Paseador" (The Walking Tadpole), two famous Colombian poems for children written by Rafael Pombo (1883-1912), a Colombian poet who loved to write funny poems mainly for kids.  The first poem describes the life adventures and moral lessons of a mischievous cat who wanted to turn into a bandit and after his failed ambushes he returns home, sick and contrite, and asked Mom:  "Mama, you'll see, never more will I be bad, Oh Mommy!, hit me with a stick, but give me something to eat!"  The second one describes the adventures of a disobedient tadpole who went on a spree and ends up in the belly of a gluttonous duck.  Any parallel with some people is pure coincidence!

4.6.4. There is a Pombo's poem I also knew that is worth bringing here at this end times (2003).  It is called "El Gato Guardián" (The Guardian Cat).  Here it goes:

4.6.5. As far as I know the Colombian governments have been so corrupted because of too good a resources cheese and too many a greedy cat!  I understand better now what Pombo meant, I did not as a child when I recited this poem.

4.6.6. I still sing Mexican rancheras, which I love, and may even challenge a Mexican-born person to a ranchera-singing duel.  ¡Sí, Señor!

4.7.1. To the city of Bucaramanga came a couple of roaming psychic stage performers who did acts of levitation, hypnotism, clairvoyance, telepathy and mind control.  The main mentalist was probably in his early forties and the young one in his mid twenties.  They had presentations of their skills in a public theater.  Their levitation seemed real because they did it with the young mentalist in trance flying among the audience at about three to five feet from the floor, with no strings attached.  I saw black and white enlarged photographs of this levitation demonstration where people were startled look down at the person levitating face up in horizontal position, but I never personally witnessed this act.  They also visited schools and made demonstrations of psychic powers.  This most intriguing couple came to my school in second grade.

4.7.2. Teachers asked us to leave our rooms and make a circle at the formation patio and the mentalists went to the center of it.  They did their favorite act which was to hypnotize the receptive or receiver man, the young man.  He was then blindfold with a black thick fabric, and then the transmitter, with closed eyes, gave him mental commands to go and do things around the school, like bring something or to place the tip of a knife on the center of a cross the main mentalist had drawn on a wall as the other was blindfolded, or to do something else.  The hypnotized one walked as an automaton and never missed a step or tumbled.  Next the main mentalist asked the audience for personal things and the hypnotized gave the name of each owner.

4.7.3. Finally the telepath looked at me and asked me if he could borrow my notebook.  On the first page this notebook had the school name, the subject name and my name underneath.  It had a protective colored-plastic cover over its opaque thick-paper cover.  My name was not on the cover. Since I was next to him I checked all his movements for any trick or sleight of hands.  He did not open it, placed it in front f him on the palm of one hand and placed the other palm over it.  Then he closed his eyes, concentrated and transmitted mentally my full name to the receiver who still blindfolded and in trance was about ten feet away.  The receiver pronounced my full name, first, middle and the two last names.  It was something really surprising to me.  Other kids probably thought I was in agreement with the telepath and did not get so impressed, but for me that was a personal message, to know that there are other unseeing forces beyond perception.  When the act was over, the blindfolding was removed, the receiver was brought back to full consciousness.  I remember that his eyes were red as congested by the mental concentration.

4.7.4. Later, when I was in my fifth grade in the other school I will talk about later, these mentalists came to that school and performed similar psychic feats, except that this time the placing of the knife tip on the cross center was more challenging and impressive:  Since this school was bigger and the formation patio was large, without cement, the receiver had to climb down the stairs, and then walking the open patio until finally find the cross which was drawn at a far wall next to the corner.  We all held our breath and were anxious to see if he was able to do it.  He climbed down the stairs, walked on the patio and, as he walked, he was being directed or mind controlled, because he hesitated, stopped and made direction corrections until he was able to do it and with perfect accuracy.  Everybody was smiling and happy for him.  I never saw these persons anymore, but with their acts they started to unfold in me curiosity and interest in the unseen world.

4.8.1. I was asked to repeat my third year of elemental school because I flunked Math.  My elder sisters did not allow me to present a rehabilitation exam, since they considered this subject so important that I should take it again.  Should I not repeat that year I were not able to meet my friends later on and my life would had been different.  And what a friends I had, you will see that later on.

4.9.1. From second to fourth grade I studied in the República del Perú School, (Peruvian Republic School).  I don't have any clue why this school was named after another country.  In the same school my sister Elisa taught second grade.  At school I had friends and foes.  A classmate who really hated me but who followed me obsessively was a child whose last name was Muñiz.  He was an insidious, cunning, crafty individual, typical representative of those people psychically controlled by Dark Forces, as zombies.  I complained in various occasions to Elisa but she said I should learn to solve my own problems without involving her, in that way I would grow more "macho."  So she, having authority in the school, refused to use it to help me.  My school recesses became nightmarish since I knew Muñiz.

4.9.2. Nevertheless, my brothers Alcides, Alvaro and Abdel were in the same school.  Abdel, my next older brother, did not care for me, he never did.  Alcides was in his fifth year when I was in my second year, for him the last one on that school.  Alcides was and is a gentle, quiet, little-shy individual, of practical thinking, not inclined to theoretical studies and was not that social or had few friends.  He stammered when speaking and used few direct words, just what's necessary.  He was tall —the tallest of the family—, handsome, of dark complexion, and very strong.  He followed Mosaic Law, "you don't mess with me or I punch you face", plain and simple.  Classmates knew and respected him, he was left alone.  However, when I had these disturbing people around me I looked for Alcides.  He heard my complains, believed me, got offended too, and asked me to show him the troublemaker, he then went to him and punished him on the spot or scolded him for the first time, the second time was the real penitence.  And who wanted to fight with this hulk?  I had this guardian angel on my side and I was safe.

4.9.3. I remember that Alcides walked with long strides, so fast, for lunch than we could not cope with his swift and long steps, when we arrived home he was already at the table, we feared he would eat our food share.  He ate a lot!

4.9.4. But Alcides left school and I was left on my own for the next years.  My foes knew it and knew I had no support from my sister.  When trouble started on my third year I went to Alvaro, he was an astute and mental man, unlike Alcides, and commanded a different authority, and yet, he supported me.  He stirred me, instead, into fight.  And so in one occasion I fought Muñiz.  We got engaged in a tremendous box fighting that drew all students to the center patio.  We were supplying free entertainment for them so they shouted encouraging us to continue and pushed us as if we were fighting cocks.  The teachers came out to see what was going on and, to their surprise, saw me, the teacher's quiet brother doing it.  I was not just the teacher's brother, but known since I provided entertainment for the school as singer and poetry reciter.  My sister was notified and everything was cooled down with some scolds because of my sister status at school.

4.10.1. I became so upset with Elisa for her lack of support at school that on one occasion I complained to her for her behavior, rebelled and fought her, she was too tall for me, so I was punching her on her legs.  Elisa got very offended, being as she was, a family authority, a sensitive pretty girl who was a poetess, well loved by her brothers and sisters, and a teacher at my school.  She told everybody what happened and my four older sisters again, as in a previous incident, got equally offended and did not want to talk to me for months.  They didn't care about my version.  Some of my brothers seemed neutral about it, others didn't care, whatever!  My younger brothers just saw that this time they were not the ones in trouble but me.  In big families there are internal strife, politics, alliances, favoritism and so on, the same as in a country.

4.10.2. Some years later Elisa moved to a rural town, Suaita, to work as a teacher.  There she was elected Beauty Queen for the town festivities.  In that town she found the love of her life —a wealthy owner of an hacienda, Gerardo Santamaría— and married him in December of 1962.   They loved each other dearly.  She died in a bus accident in April of 1963, when all four people by the bus widow died from the bus impact with a truck.  She was coming to spend the holy week with the family.  She had only two months of marriage and was pregnant.  When her corpse was retrieved and placed on our living room floor, I sat by her dead body and prayed to her forgiveness for what had happened some years back.  I feared then that she, now free of her body, may haunt me at night, in revenge.

4.11.1. At young age I was pretty much inclined to spiritual and religion.  At age seven decided to attend church Mass every day before going to school, partake of daily communion and have confession on Saturdays.  I also decided on my own to add a prayer every night for each wish I wanted to have fulfilled.  Over time the prayers accumulated to near eighty.  I knelt down on my bed by one-of-my-brother's side, since I shared the same bed with him, and mentally prayed.  By the time I was in my forty prayer or so, I was so sleepy that I started to cut corners, so to speak, on each prayer, I started it and then cut the center part and finished it fine, and so I did with the next one, finally the last ones were actually prayed at the borderline state between sleep and awake with my head almost touching the pillow.

4.12.1. My father sometimes visited the family in Bucaramanga bringing milk and some farm produce.  When he was near to leave for the farm on Sunday afternoon, he wanted one of his young sons would go with him to the farm missing some days of school.  He barely gave us money for the trip back in the train when he had the farm by the railroad or for the bus when he had the Rionegro farm.  I refused to make that trip, so I left home and returned late when I knew he had already left.  My sisters told me that my father was upset looking for me all over the place and waited for me until he had to leave.  And so the story repeated itself again for the next visit.

4.12.2. Finally my parents separated in 1963 when I was 12 years old.  They never divorced.  I grew up with no paternal influence and with a mother that only had two years of grammar school.  That gave me the opportunity to be on my own and to choose my own belief system independent of other's opinion.  I'm glad for that, that's why I am not fundamentalist.  Oh no, fundamentalism is not just in religion, I have found it in so-called mystery and occult schools, too, and in other philosophies.  It is a cocky way of thinking, "We are the Only Ones who know the Truth and we do not accept any other thinking but what we teach."

4.13.1. Mother worked very hard to support such a large family mostly on her own.  She offered room and board for university students since we lived near the university.  She cooked big pots of meals for so many people and made tamales to sell them in local convenience stores.  She made also curd, cottage cheese, and fine cheese to sell from home to home and for home consumption.  At times she baked her own bread.  She was very astute when buying groceries and managed to buy second rate fruits and tomatoes for cheaper price to stretch the family's meager budget.

4.13.2. Because we sub rented some rooms of the rented house, several brothers and sisters had to sleep in the same room and to share the same bed.  I, being the smallest lad, slept with another brother until finally the older ones started to move out of the home to pursue their own interests and to start their own families and the remainder had more room.

4.13.3. When living in Bucaramanga we were also economically supported by our oldest sister, Inés and, later on, in the late sixties and early seventies, by my brother Hernando, who was working as a mechanical engineer in Venezuela, he sent us bolivars when that currency was stronger than the Colombian pesos.

4.14.1. At near age 10 my oldest sister Inés decided that I was being brought up with too much pampering since I was the "baby" for the rest of brethren and a child of great sensibility —which was not really true, I had a rough relationship with my brothers and some fights, they were different than me, that's why I had my own friends I hanged around with.  She also said I should study with male teachers in a place where we had more discipline, not with those female teachers in our nearby grammar school in the San Francisco neighborhood —which, again, was not true either, I also had fights with classmates during recess time and some teachers were tough, all carried a disciplinary ruler and were ready to spank you with it at the least provocation.  She registered me in a disciplinary school (Escuela Camacho Carreño) which was about six to seven miles away from home.  I had to walk since there was no money to pay for public transportation.  I was the only child who attended that school, so far away, the other younger brothers and sisters studied grammar school near home —with exception of the elder brothers and sisters who studied grammar and part of secondary school in Mogotes and other places away from home.  I complained to no avail.

4.14.2. In those days teachers and parents thought that to learn you need physical punishment.  It was done on them, so you should have it too.  There was a saying in Spanish they always reminded you: "La letra con sangre entra", which means: "The letters enter in you with blood."  That was the cultural paradigm of the time.  Another one was that schools —except universities— were segregated by gender.   In one occasion we have a "distinguished" visitor from the infamous Escuela Camacho Carreño.  His first name was Secundino.  He was visiting our school and probably brainwashing our female teachers to become even nastier with students because he was know as a disciplinarian of the worst.  And it happened that that day one student stole something from other who complained to his teacher.

4.14.3. He asked all students to leave the classrooms and to form in the patio, and then he spanked us with his ruler which he always carried with him.  It was a custom design with two flexible thin rulers fastened to each other but still independent with drilled holes on it so the air would not cushion it as it swung down on your extended hand.  Because of this design when it hit you it does it with double momentum.  When he slammed it on one's hand he requested the other to do the same.  The hands turned swollen and red immediately and children cried which only served to stir in him more aggression.

4.14.4. We were all punished several times until the witnesses or the one who did it confessed.  It was typical of schools to unjustly punish everybody for the sins of few.  The worst part of the story is that Secundino was working in the school I was later to join.  I received physical punishment when I did not have my homework done or did not give the right answer in class.

4.15.1. A Poster Boy for Malnutrition.  I have been of slender complexion all my life, independent of how much I eat, I do not gain any weight.  But as a child I was skinny.  I remember I saw a picture of a starving boy in shorts, with no shirt, at the marketplace: He looked as a Biafra's starving child.  When I went home, I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror in underwear.  To me, I just looked like the poster's child.  This poster was a commercial for a flour with vitamins and supplements.  I asked my mother to buy it, and she started doing it.  I continued being skinny, the soup did not do the miracle.  My face, on the contrary, had fatty cheeks.  The lady of a convenience store near home saw me over the counter and called me "gordito", which means, "little fatty boy."  She did not see the whole picture.  Those cheeks were gone long ago.

4.15.2. At home my sisters were in charge of house cleaning and floor mopping.  I had my home chores, too.  My first home chore was to go with Mom to the marketplace and help her with the carrying of food baskets and guard them when full in some place to spare the effort of carrying them around while shopping.  My mother always "paid" me for helping her by taken me at the end to a treat of a fruit and milk juice, which was prepared at the juice shop in the center of the market.  This public market (Plaza de San Francisco), as well as others around the city, had a variety of merchants, grouped by specialty, that paid taxes to the city that owns the public marketplace, and displayed produce on the floor or in their own display counters.

4.15.3. I did that activity with Mom since I was 7.  I remember as a child seeing a "blind" beggar at the marketplace.  One day while guarding our food baskets next to the so-called beggar, when nobody was around but him and me, he removed his dark glasses and started to dance before me.  What a liar!

4.15.4. I also made the juice at home.  My mother bought second-rate fruits, I had to wash them thoroughly and then remove the bad parts.  I did the juice in the blender with milk.  The foamy juice had always good friends and rarely a complain, they did not see how it came to be, neither did I reveal the secret.  And if a sister ever complained that "today's juice tastes a little bitter", my mother retorted:  "Lo que la amargan son sus culpas", which means, "What embitters you are your faults."  And with this sharp remark the case was closed.  When you have a big family to feed —and that is expensive—, and your job all day long is cooking, you do not have time for fussing.

4.15.5. I also grinded corn in our grinding machine, manually operated by a crank.  We used this flour for the corn soup —a corn soup with a weird and funny name, "mazamorra"— and for the thick tortillas —about half an inch thick— called in Colombia and Venezuela, arepas, arepa is the singular.  My mother amassed the dough with grinded fried pig's skins (that we called chicharrones, chicharrón is the singular.)  Then she added other ingredients like butter.  In some parts of Colombia, as is in Venezuela, the arepa is white, of peeled corn, and of about 4" in diameter.  The arepas done at home were of unpeeled corn and about 10" in diameter that we cut in pieces like a pie.  My mother always liked to good season the meals and stretched her budget to buy species.  She was a good and creative cook that could make a meal with almost any edible thing she had at hand.

4.15.6. Grinding was not just helping mama with her cooking, but was an opportunity to exercise and to get muscle strength, sometimes I grinded for 1 or 2 hours, I rather did all the corn grinding at one time on Saturday and stored the flour than to do it every day.  Like the mind power, the body muscle development should be done at an early age, then the rest of your life you just maintain that foundation.  When all my younger brothers lived at home, others helped.  Later in life, I did this by myself.  Older brothers did not do this, they considered themselves of higher status, you know, "big brother."

4.15.7. My father brought cans of milk from the farm, my mother made cheese for home consumption and made extras to give some financial help to my older brothers.  Some of this cheese was distributed between my brothers Hernando and Roque.  They were self-conscious and did not like to go soliciting or peddling from home to home, but they did want the money, so they asked the younger brothers to do this selling business for them. I do not remember getting any money from them for this.  We had to do it after school.  I remember going from home to home, knocking at the door and calling in loud, "Buy cheese?"  I had a problem, though.  I knew the concept and the words sell and buy but had a hard time to distinguish which word is used for what.  I had to think twice.  In one occasion I made a mistake, I said, "Sell cheese?"  The people of the home came out and saw me holding a tray full of fatty home-made cheese.  They gave me a lesson.  One said, "You should say, 'Buy cheese', not, 'sell cheese.'  That day I made a good deal, anyway.  My brother Roque was following me and he laughed at my confusion.  My brothers sent me to the store near our home to buy things for them as a courier.  It was not fair that my older brothers took advantage of their younger brothers.

4.15.8. That's why the government has been called the Big Brother because most politicians after being elected or when they self-elect themselves, feel they are of higher status and look down on We The People, forgetting the people they suppose to represent and break their oaths, do what they want, get their noses in your private affairs, seat there and get somebody else do the dirty work, this last statement in similar way as my Big Brothers did.  That's why the whole planet is in shambles (2003).  Here is the prophesy:  Before the year 2012 all corrupted politicians on planet Earth will be removed from power and judged.  It will start in the United States and Canada and then spread throughout the rest of the countries.  All unconstitutional laws will be banned from the planet for the establishment of Universal Law.

4.15.9. Things changed in the relationship with our older bothers as we grew older, but that will be explained later on, stay tuned.

4.15.10. There are other Big Brothers that are our elder Galactic Races and the Ascended Masters.  This term in reference to them is used by the Native American.

4.16.1. So I attended the Camacho Carreño School.  I took a breakfast, the "mazamorra" corn soup, with butter, and coffee with milk accompanied with integral bread or the thick corn tortilla mentioned above, and headed for school.  I took the Avenida Libertador (Liberator Avenue, after Simón Bolívar, who passed through Bucaramanga using this road) and then the Carrera 15 (15 Street), finally I took the Calle 35 (35 Street) and went directly to school, sometimes I did route variations.  I made four trips since I came back for lunch and right away headed back to school, I guess in those days kids did not carry lunch boxes, I should have made one out of wood!  What a bomber!  Well, too late for lamenting now!

4.16.2. When going to school sometimes I found company  in other student who was enduring the same treatment.  I traveled through residential areas and through the busy commercial district of the Carrera 15, I took sometimes shortcuts behind homes and the Salesian Technical School, through unknown passages and dirty roads where the homeless and the forgotten lived.

4.16.3. At that school, on fifth grade and at eleven years old, I attended theater classes and memorized all the scripts of the cast since we had to repeat these rehearsals so many times.  My teacher left me go early knowing I had to walk that far and come back for the afternoon session.  I just knew well my lines and how to act naturally.

4.16.4. In the infamous school —may not be today, times have changed— you have to be exact at 8AM at the door.  If you were late you were punished for at least half an hour jumping in squats up and down the stairs facing the open formation patio.  Then, you all sweaty were asked to go to your classroom.  Needless to say, I endured this punishment several times because of my tardiness.

4.16.5. But not all was suffering, I had my ideal teacher, a writer of the local newspaper, a critic and intelligent renegade from the school establishment who taught us to think, which I don't think previous teachers really did.  He started every day his classes with the reading and analysis of his column in the newspaper.  The school required us to attend Catholic Mass on Saturday, but this dilettante teacher did not agreed with it, among other things, because he was sleeping late his Friday night drunkenness.  We had to go to his home and bang on the door to awake him up, so this rule was loosely enforced, and not followed by all classmates.  However, this teacher was worthwhile the long trip I did.

4.16.6. The next year I expected to join Junior High and to be released of that long journey, nevertheless, to my disappointment, the city authorities decided to break the Colegio de Santander in a series of small schools to end its long history of student strikes and revolts —that plan did not work out well and was dropped due to the high operating expenses it demanded.  So they decided to start the plan with the sixth grade and moved it to a location of an old school that happened to be located just near the school where I was just finishing my fifth grammar year.  Again another year of long walk.  But nothing I could do about it.

4.16.7. I had sometimes to walk and run under heavy rain without a jacket or umbrella since could not afford them.  Since modern pen were not invented yet we used fountain pen and pencil in those days, my notebooks, even though I protected them inside my shirt, were still full of running ink because of the rain.

4.16.8. Having to walk those many long miles every day taught me discipline, endurance, made my leg muscles stronger and improved my health, how important that is now that I spend so many hours at the computer.

4.16.9. Because of those long trips I was exposed first hand to human nature.  At eleven I saw the whorehouses, the drunk, the beggars, the street tricksters and peddlers, the snake man selling the latest potion to cure all —and promising for hours to take out the snake from that box—, the metal polisher selling tarnish cleaning products, the man selling "gold" chains, medals and crosses for a very cheap price.  I enjoyed the band retreat at the park and could study the physiognomy of each seasoned musician altered differently through so many long years of playing the instrument.  I saw human suffering and in the afternoon I lingered longer with no supervision or pressure to get home.  I felt free and grew up stronger, more mature from the experience, that happened to be what I needed, even though at that time I did not see it that way.  That was certainly an agreement with my sister Inés before incarnation and a hard trial in my life.

4.16.10. When I got home I went to the kitchen and I loved to tell stories of my adventures to my mother and she enjoyed them and laughed with me while cooking a meal.  In the center of the kitchen, as a stage, I imitated and described the faces of those musician playing the horn and flute.  Mama always liked my stories and always believed in me and in my potential.  I could have written books on those stories, full of practical psychology and street savvy.

4.16.11. When my sister Blanca overheard my storytelling, she complained and made harsh remarks.  I continued telling Mom new ones, but was cautious to do it when my sisters were not around.  Sometimes you learn to be discreet and to keep your mouth shut.  Some people can't take it when you're having fun.  Today, Blanca is quite different and listens to all my stories with real fascination, in fact, Blanca is one of my best listeners.

4.17.1. At the end of my fifth grammar year, I had to decide which school to attend in junior-high/high school.  I chose the Santander School in Bucaramanga —located on 9th Street between 25 and 26 Streets (Calle 9, Carreras 25 and 26)— because my older brothers studied there and I have a sentimental attachment to it.  My classmate objected my decision saying that that liberal school was revolutionary, had strikes and that I should attend a technical school instead as the Superior Institute Dámaso Zapata or the Salesian Technical Institute, both regimental and run by priests.  Technical education and mathematics were superior in those schools but they missed a full integrated education, which was what I was looking for.  So they were not my favorite choice.  I wanted to study philosophy and humanities, so I went to Santander School.

4.18.1. Being originally from farm