Day Eleven: Mission Last Day

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Libinton the brave little one with the heart of a Warrier.

Libinton doble surgy was preformat by Dr Jorge Cardona Surgeon MD (Colombia)

Dr Jorge Ivan Cardona Stomatologist, oral and maxillofacial surgeon at the University of Antioquia with fellowship in Orthognathic surgery and cleft lip and palate in CHU Nates, France, private practice sense 1995 and work as a surgeon at the Santa Monica Hospital in Dosquebradas Risaralda Colombia since 2013. Founder of the “SONRIE FOUNDATION” for cleft lip and palate management in the city of Pereira.

The story of the brave Libinton, an indigenous child from the Embera Dobida community

Name : Emberá Dobidá “Men of Rio” – Mokaná, macaná, Dóvida

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION

They are located in the Atrato area (Municipalities of Lloró, Quibdó, Bojayá and Riosucio); the coastal tributaries of the Pacific (Municipalities of Juradó, Bahía Solano and Nuquí) and in the Baudó area (Municipalities of Alto Baudó and Bajo Baudó). To a lesser extent, they occur in Urabá Chocoano (Municipality of Acandí) with two communities and in Condoto with the same number of settlements.

POPULATION

The Embera people are also known as eperä pedea, emperä, bedéa, eberä, cholo. According to the 2005 DANE census, a total of 37,327 people self-identify as Embera indigenous people in the country, of which 18,353 are women and 18,974 are men. According to the census, its population is concentrated in the department of Chocó with 63.20%, followed by the departments of Risaralda and Caldas, concentrating 88.68% (33,100 people) of the total of this ethnic group

TONGUE

The Embera Dodiba preserve their native language, which belongs to the Chocó linguistic family, which is related to the Arawak, Karib and Chibcha families, and is related to the Waunan, however it does not belong to any of these. The Caro y Cuervo Institute points out that the communication that is most facilitated is between the speakers of the different Embera dialects of Bajo Baudó and Antioquia/Córdoba.

This is the story of the brave Livinton a 4-year-old boy and his heroic father Bernardino, a man from the Embera indigenous community who has lived since their ancestral origins on the banks of the Bebarama River in the Remolino sector, a majestic place located in the jungles of the Bajo Atrato in the department of Choco.

It is a very difficult-to-access site, with a tropical climate, a place where the only means of sustenance are hunting, fishing, and banana farming; a place where the tranquility and harmony of indigenous customs are interrupted by the armed conflict raging in this region of the country.

It all starts one day when they have to attend an early childhood check-up appointment at the Remolino  health center and while checking the little one’s health, the doctor lets Bernardino know about the 100 smiles day, which Livinton could do to change his quality of life since he was born with a cleft palate and cleft lip. She invites him to enroll the child in this program and without hesitation he accepts and immediately enrolls.

They begin to prepare for several weeks to undertake this long journey. Starting their day at sunrise, taking their work tools and heading towards the crops to sow, clean the plants and harvest the fruits. And in the afternoon, they return home with some fish and their bunches of bananas.

On the way he sees Livington playing in the pipe where he is having fun with his little brothers.

Then he goes to where the merchants are to be able to sell his products and thus obtain the resources to begin his long journey and also leave sustenance for his wife and his other 2 children.

On July 5th this odyssey begins Bernardino and Livington wake up with the sunrise, take his backpack, put on some clothes which are not used in his culture, a shirt, some pants, he quotes a prayer in his beliefs and says goodbye to his family; they embark on his colt and begin to navigate down the river with many fears but with a mission in his heart despite being 45 years old he had the same thoughts as his little son because he had never gone beyond the Atrato.

After just 2 hours of navigation, fear grows because on the riverbank some armed men claiming to belong to FARC (armed group outside the law) threaten and inquire about their destination, unless it is common for terrorists to see them dressed in clothes and with their backpacks, they suspect that they are informants for the military or other groups that want to control the region. Bernardino had to say that he was only going to a medical appointment at the Quibdó hospital to have Livington’s condition checked for the first time, with such good fortune that the armed men let them continue their journey. a sigh but the calm only lasted until reaching the mouth of the Atrato because there they were making an illegal checkpoint at the port the illegal armed group of the gulf clan made them disembark, searched them and began to inquire about their origin and where they were going, they responded that they were going to Quibdo for a medical appointment, they searched their backpack because they thought they were carrying cocaine paste or money from drug trafficking, perhaps a weapon but they found nothing but the clothes he came with. Which made these armed men angry, and they began to accuse that the man might be a member of some other armed group. They threatened to kill them and tied him with ropes to a tree.

For a couple of hours they were in that situation the crying of his little one made him panic but at the same time he had faith that everything was going to pass and at one point a boat approaches and an armed man gets off and when he disembarks he gives orders to the other guys to free Bernardino and his child because he urgently says that they are coming to attack them and that they are going to enter into combat, The guys without hesitation free him and with his nerves on edge thinking about the danger they were in he boards his colt hugs his child and begins to sail, he advances towards Quibdo thinking about those 3 long hours of travel left to get out of that great danger and indeed after a few minutes he begins to hear the bursts and explosions of a combat that those armed groups uploaded, With fear and thinking the worst he took courage and accelerated hugging the little one and little by little that sound of death stopped being heard and mile by mile they moved away from danger.