Lesly Jacobo Bonbaire she has become the heroine of the story. At just 13 years old, she has been in charge of caring for the other three children with whom she has survived a plane crash and 40 days helpless in the Colombian jungle: Solecni Ranoque Mucutuy9 years old; Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy4, and Cristin Neryman Ranoque Mucutuyof 1.
“She always took care of them when their mother worked. She gave them fariñita, casabito (flour and cassava bread), any fruit in the bush,” Fátima Valencia, the mother of Magdalena Mucutuy, told AFP, who died when the plane hit the who was traveling with his children collapsed on May 1 in the thicket of the Colombian Amazon.
indigenous women”we are very warlike“emphasizes Valencia, who is waiting in a hotel in the city of Villavicencio (downtown) for the moment to see her grandchildren.
The children were found this Friday in the middle of the jungle and transported by helicopter to San José del Guaviare, the nearest municipality. Around midnight an ambulance plane from the Air Force was taking them to Bogotá.
“I just want to see them, touch them,” adds Fidencio Valencia, the children’s grandfather, also in Villavicencio.
Ability to move through the thicket
Like little Lesly, Soleiny (9) and Tien Noriel (4) “they are very boars (skilled) to walk” through the jungle, the 47-year-old Huitoto indigenous man explained in another interview to AFP. Little Cristin also survived, who turned one year old during the amazing journey of the minors.
“We don’t let our guard down with our grandfather, with my brother, we pray every night,” says Fátima. They entrusted the fate of the minors to the “spirits of tobacco and mambe”, a coca leaf-based preparation used by the natives in their rituals. Faithful to the beliefs of the people huitotoThey suspected that some supernatural force was preventing the rescue.
After the discovery, the grandparents thanked the hundreds of military and indigenous people who worked shoulder to shoulder in the search. “Also to mother earth who released them,” Fatima added.
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Fatima and Fidencio asked to be the first to attend to them: “We have to blow on their bodies so that they gain strength and there we hand them over so that the western part can look at them,” says the grandmother, referring to the health personnel.
From now on, she hopes to have “custody” of the minors, after the death of her mother: “I can give them an education, I can still (…) That will be my pride. My daughter is watching and she will give me spiritual encouragement , strength,” he said.