Potential, Innocent Killers

"I wish I could," I say, making an effort to hide my fear. Colombia still petrifies me. I see a potential killer in everyone's gaze. As I look at this man, I feel the same sinking in the pit of my stomach that I felt as a child at dinnertime." (Pg. 48)

Silvana Paternostro states this after a "beggar" has come toward her when she first comes to Barranquilla. How is this fair? The man is not even a beggar, he is a man searching for a job opportunity because he has been stripped of his lands by the guerilla. This innocent man shares his whole experience to Silvana Paternostro in detail, describing how he had to witness the killing of his own family and then had to defend himself with their body's.

Silvana Paternostro has not been in Colombia for many years and complains that she is judged for being Colombian, yet, how many times has she not judged her own people? To her, every Colombian is a potential killer, even if they have been victims of the armed conflict. After having experienced your family being killed you are already left with a terrible trauma and don't need people "judging" or "profiling" you for it.

Paternostro compares her encounter with this man to her dinnertimes as a child when she was forced to eat her vegetables. What is she saying? That she looks at this man with disgust? Again, Silvana Paternostro manages to make herself seem like a complete airhead. As I am reading the book I can only wonder, what are others thinking of what Paternostro says?

Silvana Paternostro mainly maintains neutral tones even though in this part of the book she has more of a paranoid and disgusted tone. Every aspect of Colombia that she's seen since her arrival in Barranquilla has disturbed her and she is definitely not afraid to admit it.