EXTRANGE ANECDOTES BY SANTIAGO SALDARRIAGA

Throughout the history of humanity there have always been a lot of strange beings, facts and places that have frightened people of all cultures and nationalities; demons, mythical creatures, witches, the Bermudas triangle among others.

I´ve heard about some curious anecdotes that I would like to share and discuss. I remember my grandmother telling us the story of one friend of her, a lady who lived in the same town. People used to say she was a witch and no one liked her or even cared about her, however, my grandma preferred to know people personally and then make her own opinion about them. She allowed the lady to live in the ground floor of her house, rented of course, she discovered a nice gentle lady and they became friends; the ´´witch´´ always said to her that she would help and protect her when needed. Once, my grandfather was very ill and my grandmother had to go from the farm they were to the town in order to get some medicines, however, it was a rainy night and in the way she had to cross a very dangerous rocky mountain by horse. She started her journey, alone and scared because of the danger but when she started crossing the mountain, her friend, the witch, appeared and told her to be calmed because she would accompany and protect her during her travel.

In my opinion, it´s very difficult to believe that witches had ever existed but according to the time of the story and the cultural beliefs it would be very hard to find the truth. As the saying says, witches don’t exist, but there are some. I´d rather prefer to think that there are people who have special gifts and, according to the way they use them and to the fear the society feels about their abilities, they will always be judged as different and receive social marks or nick-names like, in this case, witches.

Also, one of my closer cousins experimented a situation that created a lot of doubts. Her family used to go visiting an uncle´s girlfriend´s family, a lot of people joined together on Saturdays to talk and have a mid-afternoon meal. At a moment, a man started to talk to her, they became friends and some time later he asked her to be his girlfriend. She didn’t like him as a partner so she made him apart, however he kept insisting for a lot of time, finally, things got cold and they stopped talking and seeing each other for a while. Two months later things started to went wrong for her, anything happened the way she wanted or needed and problems started to be an usual part of her life: relationships, job, business, etc. She and her family began to be worried and started looking for someone who was able to give them an explanation. They found someone who explained that she had been bewitched and that there must be an object which was affecting her energy and her life so they had to find it to destroy it and turn the situation over, they started to search but didn’t find anything. Some time after that, she remembered that the man had given her a pair of earrings and a necklace so she looked for them and destroyed them, it turned out that the man, in revenge for her denial, had bewitched her.

I don’t think that it really happened, but my cousin insisted that it was truth. From my point of view, you have to believe to get affected, I mean, if you accept the fact of being part of the situation you will get involved and eventually suffer the consequences. I don’t think a particular object can affect your life such as in a strong way but if you let the other´s comments, attitudes and feelings to be part of your life then you will begin to be affected, in the other hand, if you don’t pay attention and keep going, you will achieve your objectives no matter what.