It all began one morning in Colombia—in my home country, in my hometown called Cicuco. Due to various troubles, my family and I were forced to leave the country. We set out on June 10, 2024, at 2:00 in the morning. We traveled from my hometown to a region of Colombia called Montería; from there, we stopped and spent 10 days held captive in Acandí. Afterward, we spent one day at the edge of the jungle; then, at 5:00 in the morning, we entered what is known as the Darién Gap. That is where the true odyssey of migration began; it took us two days to make it out. We emerged from the jungle and arrived at Bajo Chiquito. We spent a day there, arriving as if we felt no fatigue at all. We ate—we didn't even know what we were eating, but we ate it nonetheless. We went to bathe in the nearby river; our feet were covered in sores, and we were utterly exhaus ...