The place where I was very happy

The streets where I spent my childhood are no longer the same. There are no longer children playing on the sidewalks or in the streets, nor adults standing on the corners watching us, talking among themselves about politics and the economy—even though they weren’t economists—or gossiping about people, even if it was all just rumors. The front porches are empty: people stay inside, sheltered, protected. The streets are dangerous.

Chilongo’s store—that fat man who used to give us candy—no longer exists. Chilongo isn’t around either; he had a heart attack while swimming in the river. That store near my house sold everything, from a needle to kerosene by the liter. We kids who ran errands knew that if we asked Chilongo for a little something extra, he’d pull candies out of a big jar on the counter. I liked the candies that were shaped like rings because after I finished eating the candy, I’d be left with a ring as a gift. Sometimes I’d fill my fingers with my plastic trinkets.

The house of “Old Mamía,” the one that used to be full of beautiful rosebushes—which she made sure we didn't break while we played—no longer has a garden. The new owners turned it into a workshop, and now there are only car wrecks. That house, once full of all kinds of plants and guarded by that old woman whom no one liked—because we said she was a witch who ate children—is now filled with junk, and the ground is black from all the oil and gasoline they pour in and out.

The street corners—the ones we used to gather at to talk, to play in the afternoons, where someone once asked me to be his girlfriend—are full of rubble and trash. People started taking useless things out of their homes, and they were left in those forgotten areas. So now on the street corners there’s a tree stump, a piece of an old washing machine, a black bag, or a bunch of dogs and cats rummaging through the trash.

The field where we used to play ball or fly kites, where we’d fall and scrape our knees, where we’d sit on the concrete benches at night talking about ghosts and the dead, where time stood still—they’ve taken it over. Crowds of people have made that place their refuge. Now, rather than an open field, there are little houses made of cardboard, wood, and zinc sheets, stacked one on top of the other.

The children—those of us who used to go out to play or run along the sidewalks or streets, who would shout as we left the nearby school—grew up and left: they left the neighborhood, the country, or died. Now, that street from my childhood is full of old people and abandoned houses—or perhaps old houses and abandoned people. At Christmas, the time of year I enjoyed most as a child, now few people put up a tree or turn on the colored lights, and few children wait for Santa. In short, that place from my childhood, where I was happy, no longer exists.

The main image was created in Canva, and the others are from Pixabay. The text was translated using Deepl.

Thank you for your support, for reading, and for your comments. Until next time, my friend.