My Only Weapon Was Love

“This is crazy! Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” my brothers asked when they realized I was determined to move deep into the mountains of Colombia with my children.

“I’m not crazy,” I replied.

“Okay. We will see; but we are sure you’ll regret this decision and soon return,” they said, turning their backs to me.

As I watched my three children playing in the yard of our mountain home, that conversation haunted me. I remembered the news headlines I used to see back in the city: “The guerrillas killed 11 soldiers in the midst of a truce,” and so on. Vivid images of dead policemen, collapsed houses, and kidnapped mothers and sons crying for help played like old photos through my mind. The conflict was a result of revolutionary forces that the Colombian government had not been able to control since the 1960s. In the