When a little over four months ago I contacted Expedita Santana Guerra's sister to find out about her, after a despicable recording came into my hands, I was frozen. The first thing she told me ...
When a little over four months ago I contacted Expedita Santana Guerra's sister to find out about her, after a despicable recording came into my hands, I was frozen. The first thing she told me is that every time she saw a call on her phone that could be from Lanzarote, she feared that the news would be that Expedita had been found dead, in the worst of circumstances. The omen has come true four months later, but not even the most twisted would have imagined that it would be this way.
The degraded image of Expedita through the streets of Arrecife has been for years the photo of our own decadence, of our apathy, of our hand washing, of our indifference. I know it wasn't you or me, but we have lived for years with those who shouted at her, pushed her and mistreated her, with those who recorded her and distributed it and with those who threw her for a couple of euros...and we looked the other way. We live in the same city as the judge and the coroner who did not disqualify her in time, as the family requested, and with those who should have put in place the mechanisms so that this announced tragedy did not occur, but they also abstained. And now we live with the murderers, but that, at this point, even seems the least of it to me.
And it is logical, and even laudable, that now the forums of the island's media are filled with condolences towards the girl who had been living dead for years. And it is understandable that many demand justice and that the misborn who ended her end up where they should. But all the verbiage, including this article, is now only used to continue washing our consciences, as when we give a couple of euros to the "poor little black people". The reality has been our collective failure, because we did not know how to save even the most unprotected of this small and comprehensive society called Arrecife de Lanzarote. Now they can demonstrate in front of the Old Cabildo or even put up a statue like Lolita Pluma. But what has been done, or rather what we did not do, remains there.
Personally, what they do from today matters little to me. I only have one wish. Agnostic bordering on atheist as I am, and believing that after this life there is nothing more, I wish there is a heaven for Expedita. I don't care about the others. Myself: when I die, may only remains remain. Because life has treated me well, I am fortunate and it would be selfish to ask for another. But she, who fell into that deadly trap when she was still a minor, deserves a better place. Those who, like her, have spent most of their lives dead do deserve another chance. For the first time in a long time I want to believe in something. I hope you started living the day before yesterday, my girl.
