Nov 26 2013 Today should be in Central African Republic

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  Excuse this time not describe anything. Who wants to read it ...

Today should be in Central African Republic. Should have arrived yesterday after passing 12 hours in Addis Ababa and a four-hour layover at Douala airport, in Cameroon. Today I should wake up in Bangui, after a night in which I should have slept little in the shared apartment where I stay due to the concerns of strange places. Bed, light, the indecipherable noises, the fear of fucking the sleep of others if I go to the bathroom and turn on the light or flush the toilet. Those little things that always bother arriving.

"For Javier, to, that you still have 12 days ", he would say to me in a low voice

Today I should get up and start trying to understand the chaos. In a hurry, would be in a hurry, that in the beginning of good stories the anxiety to understand them always appears despite the fact that the years taught you something to tame yourself . I would remember that phrase of Napoleon that says "dress me slowly because I'm in a hurry". Afternoon, as always, I would remember it late, without paying any attention to its meaning until for the umpteenth time life proved to me again that it is true. "For Javier, to, that you still have 12 days ", he would say to me in a low voice. I imagine it would happen to me, how it happened to me so many times, with my camera still stored in the middle of a place where I still understand little and everything is still indecipherable to me.

Would then, right at that moment, in which my great inner debate would begin: the images. I take pictures, I need good images. And then the doubts would begin due to the respect not to invade and the inevitable desire to capture that moment. That did calm him down a bit over the years. Photography I learned that it is not to shoot much, is knowing when to shoot a lot. Would wait, the time would come when my goal of 300 millimeters would allow me to capture a natural sequence, sin poses, what are my favorite photos. "Fuck, I got it", I would say happy as I look at my Canon screen again and again to confirm that it is good, that the image speaks. At other times, however, I would walk past any situation that I know I should have photographed. I would not do it, I would continue walking without stopping so as not to arouse misgivings or I would see everything from my car window with a "stop" that I never said burning my throat. "Pussy Javier, that was fucking good, stop the bullshit and take out the camera ", he would tell me with a certain anger.

Photography I learned that it is not to shoot much, is knowing when to shoot a lot

Then the words would begin. The key. Without them as a storyteller you are nothing. I don't believe in those who only watch, I don't believe in their stories, not anymore. Looking only there are perceptions there are no certainties. I came here to try to tell something as close to a possible truth, if that was possible, if there is one. "Look for it Javier, look for it ". Then it would happen to me that I would begin to understand that there are many, too many. All are worth. How can this not be the case in a place where people kill each other by the hundreds and crowd under the sole protection of missionaries or doctors?? They have fear, panic to die, to keep even less of your miserable nothing.

Death was always a story, with love probably the two most universal. To put it in perspective from the second term, from love, I should be watching a prolonged orgy of naked men and women having sex in the middle of the woods right now. Loving and loving each other, without rules, everyone, one over the other, in love even with their shadows, with treachery, hurting each thrust, fleeing its consequences, of his punishment. I should be seeing that, probably, I do not know, from the other side, the other topic, death. A bacchanal of hate, of no perpetual reason, of abuses that debase ... and I am in the middle, there, watching, tried to understand, tried to explain.

All, one over the other, in love even with their shadows, with treachery, hurting each attack

Today I should be in the Central African Republic waiting for doubts, the fears of being wrong. The best people I met in this profession also taught me years ago that only bad journalists do not hesitate at the keyboard. Emotionless, Without a doubt, it is likely that I will not get to tell any story that did not already come on the plane with me. For the first time in these almost four years I would travel to Africa with a commission from a very specific media., specific. My job will be to take it apart if reality doesn't hold it. I would not write it if what I see does not say that it is already agreed. It seems possible that it is true, the previous one invites you to think that it is possible, but now I have to check if reality supports it.

It does, tell me, while the days go by among that chaos, while sending some little story, what I came to do I am doing: tell a good story that no one is telling. That pushed me to come here, oblivion. I liked, maybe because of ego, maybe because of my passion for traveling and discovering new places on this continent, maybe out of nonconformity, maybe for lending a hand and denouncing so much bastard forgetfulness, maybe for everything at once ... I liked. Today should be in Central African Republic.

And there come the topics because death and hatred have already been told many times, if it's counting

Are just 12 days to tell a chaos, a conflict. I would try to avoid clichés until I reread a text three times that is worth nothing without evidence. And there come the topics because death and hatred have already been told many times, if it's counting. It wouldn't depend on me, I would keep looking, talking, asking, until I found that story that journalists like so much and that explains everything from a foreshortening. The search for the original, of the different. "You have to measure Javier, you have to measure ", He would tell me while I review the notes and try to contain the journalist who knows that that original story I stumbled upon is worth gold and does not count at all. Balance, debate, I do not know what I would do, I am very far from knowing it without feeling it.

Today should be in Central African Republic. Accepting the aberration of paying money out of my pocket to do my work. That would burn me, took me already burned, but the sting would pass every day where that story played and the brutal tickling of the journalist who knows he has something good to tell would enter me. “Let them, Xavier, that they give them, these are no longer times for this job ", He would also say to me at some time of a low mood perhaps indirectly caused by that environment. Then I would re-list in my head all the plans I have to quit, my disorganized trips, my books, my pictures, Viajesalpasado… I disrespect myself when I agree to work under these conditions… And then the story appears in my brain, what I see and would look out the window of the mission in which I sleep and contemplate the 30.000 refugees there lying with plastic on the ground ... That's my pay, my salary, see it far above telling it ... And again that eternal debate in my head between what is rational and what is felt would begin.

I disrespect myself when I agree to work under these conditions ...

Today should be in Central African Republic. Almost against everyone's opinion. Few were interested in this story, at least when I asked if someone helped pay the expenses (better speak clearly, without euphemisms). Then they answer you to an email that you send full of enthusiasm telling you that "there is no money", that "the subject is not interested". Certain, there is not for these stories, at all. And still you pay the 1500 dollar bill. And then another stupid problem arises because everything is so weak that it breaks in gestures, in the Times, in the guarantees and misgivings that those who help you demand, in unclear words, in your silly commitments, in the tones of others that become unbearable in the midst of so much that you accept without understanding. And your trip is suspended because at some point in this madness you decide to put some minimal pride.

And you get up that morning and write something from Zimbabwe or Malawi. And you remember, to overcome, that you have another great story that talks about child trafficking. You have it, it's there, you can touch that too. And you do calculations because you need to do in your car 300 miles and maybe spend a night in a seedy pension in the interior of Mozambique or South Africa, and eat, and you crave even that stupid idea of ​​eating the next day with what they pay you for your good story from yesterday. But no one will give you a penny to go there, There is no money, they answer a question that you don't even ask anymore, and then you have to decide again if you denigrate yourself as a professional and pay yourself again to do your job.

There is no money, they answer a question that you don't even ask anymore

And I can probably tell you the story because you want to see it, because you want to count it and calculating are just others 50 euros that you will lose. Why be a journalist in Africa if you are not going to tell those stories? And when you get back in the car for a moment the doubts will return, the book projects, Photo, to disorganize trips with which to earn a living. And you will remember that project in the Central African Republic and you will think again in the sense that everything you do with the mixture in the stomach of the good story you bring and whatever you find professionally has, and about the only thing you know and like to do..

Today should be in Central African Republic, That says the bill that I have next to me and that I have not used.

PD. That ticket, losing 120 EUR, I managed to change it for one to Ethiopia, a Addis Abeba, city ​​where he landed 4 December. I am going to celebrate my birthday. Sure there is something to tell.