The kids went with me to the plaza to say goodbye. They brought me sweets and cookies, which I packed together with the cheese and the steamed corn rolls they had prepared for me at the house to take back to Malambo. My bag and I could barely fit on my uncle’s motorcycle on the way to the road where I caught the bus.

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My headphones were lost somewhere among the clothes, so I could not listen to music. But I did not need to. I watched the landscape through the window until sunset, and then it became night outside and I could not see anything. I fell asleep at some point, I think, and dreamed of the water in the creek.

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