Gracias por todo.

by Ilaria Fulvio (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Colombia

I arrived in Cartagena on the final two weeks of filming. There were only ten days left to wrap and until I would fly back to the UK. Finding myself at sea level, hot but with no insects in sight, was a relief. Working at high altitudes – as we had done four weeks earlier in Bogotá – had proved to be tricky; I never got used to mountain sickness. Before that, fighting off mosquito bites for five weeks in the jungle of a military base in Girardot had turned out to be a relentless task. A crew of nearly two-hundred people had been gathered for this eleven-week long job for a TV production, half Colombian, half international. A kaleidoscope of people spread across the many hotels of the Bocagrande Harbour. Due to some last-minute changes to the filming schedule, the crew had the following day off: it was a rare occurrence. Plans for the evening started to float on whatsapp and we all headed out in autonomous groups. I was to have dinner in some fish restaurant in the 16th century Old Town. After a quick taxi ride and some tasty seafood, the friends I was with called it a night: they had underestimated how tired they all really were. I was tired myself (the filming hours were gruelling), but I had to explore what I had only seen from the taxi. I started walking through the city. It was a swarm of colours: I had never seen anything so vivid, yet it felt oddly familiar: it was as if Macondo had met Rome! I then joined other colleagues on the rooftops of a dance club. We danced until dawn, despite the exhaustion that everyone was feeling. Surrounded by the romantic view of the city and of the ocean at night, a bittersweet feeling sunk in: it'd been an incredible and crazy adventure. I would have missed the many friends I had made and spectacular Colombia. But I was missing London, too. I had come to London from Italy ten years earlier, in 2008, to pursue a career in films, behind the scenes. Aged 27 when I moved, most of my conscious life had taken place in my home country. Striving to belong somewhere different hadn't been easy, but it had been rewarding: I had work, friends, I had a life. Yet, I couldn't help feeling a subdued but constant homesickness: my mind knew where I was; my heart, despite my best efforts, didn't. After Brexit and the subsequent shock, the feeling of having never truly belonged heightened. Which was also the reason why I had accepted that job. I often travelled for work, but never for that long: I now wanted to experience life in a new place, be in the company of people from walks of life different from mine, have the space to reflect on whether I should move back, or elsewhere. Be as far away as possible. The longer, the better. I was grateful for the intensity of the whole experience and enjoying every minute of the good and of the bad days. Nevertheless, I eventually started longing for London. I even surprised myself missing the dull British weather whilst trying not to faint in the humidity of the jungle. It was my London I was describing when asked where I was from and where I was inviting my new friends to come and visit me. My heart was finally catching up with my head. The two weeks passed. We all flew back to Bogotá, where we hugged each other in emotional goodbyes, aware of the uniqueness of the journey that we had shared. Who knows when and if we would see each other again. The Colombian crew made their way home from there; me and the others dispersed to catch our respective connecting flights. Queueing at the gate, I struck up a conversation with an Italian tourist: she was making her way to Milan though London. Whilst disembarking at Heathrow, I bumped into her again. She wondered if we were to be flying back to Italy together. I told her that I was already where I wanted to be. I was home.