The Journalist Who Presses Juices

by Laura Field (Colombia)

Making a local connection Colombia

I walk each morning, first tackling the steep incline that challenges my quad muscles more than I’d like, all the while appreciating the soft morning sunlight that catches the city’s greenery and the not-yet-problematic heat of midday. I then reach the larger, bustling street of Avenida Poblado, which is where a sizeable swathe of Medellín’s commuters can be found. The relative silence of the smaller residential streets dissipates into the revs of motorbike engines, the braking and accelerating of the often overly polluting buses and the general sense of morning routine and purpose. While my pace is equally as purposeful as the surrounding commuters, I try to keep it to a reasonable level to prolong that sense of recently showered freshness and keep perspiration to an absolute minimum; there’ll be enough heat later in the day for that challenge to resurface. As I stride, I pass women in elegant dresses and carefully coordinated heels, men in crisp shirts, people of all ages in sportswear often with a pooch on a lead trotting alongside. I then wait strategically for a gap in the traffic, since traffic lights aren’t as generously dispersed as I’d like, and weave between cars and motorbikes pulling into and out of car parks and office spaces off the main road. But the most pleasant part of my journey doesn’t arrive until about fifteen minutes in when, on the edge of a luscious park with a soothing river running through, I stop to enjoy the simple delight of an orange juice that is freshly pressed before my eyes. The ritual is not only pleasant because of the succulent juice I’m offered in the process, but because of the enchantment of the man who presses it. Bandana-adorned some days, ornately bespectacled on others, this man is a character. Initially it was just his appearance that intrigued me: his quirky accessories, his piercing blue eyes and his leathered skin telling of a life that has certainly been lived. I then found myself wondering more, what was his name? Where exactly was he from? What made him decide to set up a humble stall pressing orange juice every morning? I decided these questions needed answering and as someone who’d enjoyed his juices more than once, it was only courteous that I learn more about him. I’d seen him one day in his usual spot but without his juice-making paraphernalia; he was stretching and watching passers-by. I asked him why and he told me that he’d hurt his back. He explained that he lugs his sack of oranges, and equipment, every morning onto the metro and then walks uphill to set up. On this day it’d taken its toll, so he hadn’t brought his equipment but still came to his beloved spot to watch the world go by. I introduced myself formally and learned that he was a native of Caracas, Venezuela. He’d formerly been a journalist and photographer and loved his work. But he’d witnessed assassinations in his home city, and being a journalist meant that he had a voice; one that he wasn’t afraid to use and one that others would listen to. It soon became apparent that for his own safety, he needed to leave his cherished home and so, like many of his compatriots, he came to Colombia where it’s possible to acquire a working permit. And so here he is, day in day out, watching others going about their commutes and strolls, artistically preparing juices for those who stop to ask for them, all the while mourning his former, beloved profession and the life that belonged to him just across the border. He’s a person who isn’t a native of the country where he resides, but who tells the story of so many like him who are currently living in Colombia but who want to be able to return home.