by Regina Gonzalez
This is my story, about a snake that grew up on a hill surrounded by forest, rivers, fog and in the horizon two mountains full of life. I am very old and because of that I have seen many things. I am a snake that crawls on the wet ground. I hope you are not scared of me, it is curious because the people who used to live here many years ago actually loved me. They recognize my hard work of making the flowers flourish, give life to the soil and bring the sun so the plants could grow.
However, one day, some weird men from a very distant world, very different from the people who lived here, came to stay. They brought a plant that is called coffee, with its fruits the men make a magical drink that gives them energy and good humor, and I had to hide, because those new humans did not understand my importance any more. Now I was seen as a bad creature, I was related to temptation and danger, so I kept working in the soil, just now hiden.
I did not care that humans did not like me any more as long as they took care of the forest and so they did for a long time. The coffee they brought was planted in the core of the forest, who received it as an old friend. The forest and the coffee shared the water and the nutrients from the grown. The forest clothed the coffee with its shadow which made the coffee grow stronger and to have good fruits.
The humans enjoyed the coffee a lot because they could drink its power but also because they could sell it and with that earn some money for buying material stuff. The forest and the coffee created something called “la finca”. I helped in la finca, I sended the sun when it was needed and removed the soil so the roots of the trees and the coffee could stretch freely.
But the years went by and those men had children, and their children had more children. Over time the habitants were embraced by a feeling of greed. They wanted more money so they could buy more stuff and also now they found it boring to play in the river and watch la finca. They realized that if they built houses and mall centers they would earn more money, and so they did.
Little by little they killed la finca in order to build concrete cities. Me along with other animals and plants lost our homes, but what humans did not know is that they were also losing.
They lost their favorite drink that gave them energy because there were no more coffee plants, they lost the water from the rivers of the forest, other kinds of delicious foods that were found in la finca and they lost the fresh and foggy weather. Now only concret was left, heat, a lot of heat and bad humor. When humans realized the atrocity they made it was already too late.
Now I am wandering in other lands. I had to run away from the high temperatures and from the concrete, but I hope that eventually, maybe, I could see those fincas and feel the fresh and wet fog again.