1
00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:12,799
Speaker 1: You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures

2
00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:14,360
Speaker 1: and iHeart Podcasts.

3
00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:17,200
Speaker 2: My name is Manuel Va jo Chizerb.

4
00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:21,840
Speaker 3: In June twenty twenty, I was kidnapped by a drunker

5
00:00:21,960 --> 00:00:27,159
Speaker 3: telling the outskirts of Mexico City. I was tortured and

6
00:00:27,560 --> 00:00:32,400
Speaker 3: held for ransom along with my partner, and we came

7
00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:38,760
Speaker 3: out alive. Ever since I was released, I began documenting

8
00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:43,320
Speaker 3: the lives of the many families of the people who

9
00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:45,239
Speaker 3: were also kidnapped and didn't returned.

10
00:00:47,080 --> 00:00:49,560
Speaker 2: This is my story and the story.

11
00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:54,040
Speaker 3: Of how violence has corrupted a country, families and thousands

12
00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:54,800
Speaker 3: of lives.

13
00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:59,960
Speaker 1: Welcome to Alive Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous account

14
00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:03,560
Speaker 1: of human fragility and resilience from people his lives were

15
00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:08,600
Speaker 1: forever altered after having almost died. These are first hand

16
00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:12,480
Speaker 1: accounts of near death experiences and more broadly, brushes with death.

17
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:16,680
Speaker 1: Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share these stories

18
00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:19,600
Speaker 1: to remind us all of our shared human condition. Please

19
00:01:19,640 --> 00:01:21,920
Speaker 1: keep in mind these stories are true and maybe triggering

20
00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:24,240
Speaker 1: for some listener. Discretion is advised.

21
00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:38,160
Speaker 3: I'm a documentary's photographer. I don't thought of myself as

22
00:01:38,240 --> 00:01:41,679
Speaker 3: much as a journalist because I collaborate very closely with

23
00:01:41,800 --> 00:01:44,600
Speaker 3: the people that I work with, so that's very problematic

24
00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:49,680
Speaker 3: for journalism. I try to use art and photography and

25
00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:54,360
Speaker 3: filmmaking has a way of raising awareness of the horrible

26
00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:57,920
Speaker 3: situation that we are living in Mexico. Since the last

27
00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:02,200
Speaker 3: sixty years, I focus mainly on violence and state terrorism

28
00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:07,080
Speaker 3: and the consequences of both crimes of state and crimes

29
00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:13,080
Speaker 3: made by particulars but sponsored by a criminal state. I

30
00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:17,040
Speaker 3: grew up in Mexico City. I come from a middle

31
00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:21,840
Speaker 3: class family. We ended up with not much left after

32
00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:23,840
Speaker 3: a lot of financial trouble.

33
00:02:23,919 --> 00:02:25,359
Speaker 2: When I was eight nine.

34
00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:29,120
Speaker 3: Years old, I started living in some of the poor's

35
00:02:29,160 --> 00:02:34,560
Speaker 3: neighborhoods here, knowing some of the most marginalized people here

36
00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:38,640
Speaker 3: in Mexico City. But thanks to my dad, I managed

37
00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:42,720
Speaker 3: to break through to go to college. I was studying

38
00:02:42,960 --> 00:02:46,679
Speaker 3: cinema in a very fine public school, but I had

39
00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:50,119
Speaker 3: to drop out after what happened to me. The thought

40
00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:54,000
Speaker 3: of doing films fiction films in a student environment didn't

41
00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:57,440
Speaker 3: fit with what I was doing anymore. It didn't make

42
00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:01,880
Speaker 3: sense after my experience with bioleness to stay. So I

43
00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:05,960
Speaker 3: went out and started looking for answers and for the

44
00:03:06,040 --> 00:03:12,560
Speaker 3: meaning of what happened to me. Violence here started approximately

45
00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:16,639
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty five, when some farmers and rural teachers

46
00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:20,200
Speaker 3: attacked a military barrack in the northern part of the country.

47
00:03:20,480 --> 00:03:24,720
Speaker 3: But the thing with violence before twenty fourteen is that

48
00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:29,560
Speaker 3: it was suppressed from the general public mind. After twenty fourteen,

49
00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:35,600
Speaker 3: the Ajotinapa Masket nappings happened where the army, in coalition

50
00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:39,680
Speaker 3: with Drocker Tales and the local police of Guerrero, took

51
00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:45,360
Speaker 3: forty three students from a rural teacher school. That made

52
00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:52,640
Speaker 3: everyone aware of the situation of Mexico. I used to

53
00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:56,360
Speaker 3: live in the Berry center of Mexico City, very close

54
00:03:56,440 --> 00:03:59,000
Speaker 3: to the Anchle Thella Independency, which is like a national

55
00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:03,760
Speaker 3: monument and at the place where all the protests start. Like,

56
00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:07,120
Speaker 3: if you're protesting here in Mexico City, your protest, most

57
00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:10,560
Speaker 3: problemly starts in that monument. So I lived like a

58
00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:12,560
Speaker 3: few blocks away from there, and that was like my

59
00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:18,040
Speaker 3: first experience with social justice and with protesting here, which

60
00:04:18,279 --> 00:04:22,320
Speaker 3: used to be very very dangerous. Now everything is dangerous,

61
00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:26,839
Speaker 3: and protesting is just like as dangerous as doing anything else.

62
00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:30,800
Speaker 3: But I joined those protests as most of my friends

63
00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:34,400
Speaker 3: has most of younk people. I would say they were

64
00:04:34,480 --> 00:04:39,240
Speaker 3: a massive protests. The funny thing is that I was

65
00:04:39,440 --> 00:04:44,240
Speaker 3: starting to felt the need to document. I didn't know what,

66
00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:47,479
Speaker 3: but I felt the need to document. And I also

67
00:04:47,560 --> 00:04:52,400
Speaker 3: felt very intimidated by Mexico. I was trying to get

68
00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:56,280
Speaker 3: a way to approach Mexico in a less appassive way,

69
00:04:56,839 --> 00:05:03,679
Speaker 3: like not so directly. So I decided to leave.

70
00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:04,560
Speaker 2: Mexico for a year.

71
00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:08,960
Speaker 3: My plan was going to the United States and working

72
00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:14,599
Speaker 3: with Mexican American immigrants. I thought that it might be

73
00:05:14,680 --> 00:05:19,640
Speaker 3: easier for a twenty one year old version of me

74
00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:24,479
Speaker 3: to work with Mexico away from Mexico than working with

75
00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:31,200
Speaker 3: Mexico in Mexico. I was supposed to live on March

76
00:05:31,279 --> 00:05:33,000
Speaker 3: twenty one, twenty twenty.

77
00:05:33,200 --> 00:05:34,240
Speaker 2: I have my ticket.

78
00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:39,040
Speaker 3: I have a lot of people all over America that

79
00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:41,800
Speaker 3: were going to receive me where they were going to

80
00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:44,599
Speaker 3: let me stay in their homes, to take me to

81
00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:47,159
Speaker 3: the people that I needed to work with. But of

82
00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:55,360
Speaker 3: course COVID happened. That just didn't happen. It was very

83
00:05:55,440 --> 00:05:58,760
Speaker 3: sad for at the same time, I think it's the

84
00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:00,359
Speaker 3: best thing that ever happened to me.

85
00:06:01,480 --> 00:06:09,080
Speaker 2: Because what happened next. I mean, I don't know if

86
00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:10,960
Speaker 2: I was naive. It's just that.

87
00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:15,039
Speaker 3: There's levels of knowing, at least from my point of view.

88
00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:18,159
Speaker 3: There's the level, the intellectual level of knowing that you're

89
00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:22,440
Speaker 3: living a dangerous place, and then there's the bodily level

90
00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:27,000
Speaker 3: of knowing. Yet that day I acquire the bodily level

91
00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:31,120
Speaker 3: of knowledge. That's what happens here a lot, like people

92
00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:34,240
Speaker 3: know what they don't know. I knew in my head,

93
00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:38,080
Speaker 3: but I didn't know my body. Again, after twenty fourteen,

94
00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:41,560
Speaker 3: we all know that this is a very dangerous place

95
00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:45,159
Speaker 3: to be, even here in Mexico City, where people feel

96
00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:49,800
Speaker 3: that Mexico is much safer than it actually is, because

97
00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:52,839
Speaker 3: the government has really made an effort to make this

98
00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:57,080
Speaker 3: place as peaceful as possible, because the people here are

99
00:06:57,120 --> 00:07:00,520
Speaker 3: the only people that have a real way of testing,

100
00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:04,520
Speaker 3: because their political opinions are much more built because of

101
00:07:04,640 --> 00:07:09,280
Speaker 3: economic possibilities, because of we have a lot of colleges here,

102
00:07:09,400 --> 00:07:13,320
Speaker 3: a lot of university, is a lot of education, and

103
00:07:13,480 --> 00:07:15,840
Speaker 3: most other places in Mexico don't have them.

104
00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:18,480
Speaker 2: So in Mexico City.

105
00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:21,480
Speaker 3: People feel that this is a much safer place than

106
00:07:21,520 --> 00:07:25,880
Speaker 3: it actually is. My ex partner and I. She was

107
00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:29,720
Speaker 3: doing an experimental film and we were trying to film

108
00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:34,200
Speaker 3: the sky. She needed to have some shots of the sky,

109
00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:37,840
Speaker 3: so I told her, let's go to the outskirts of

110
00:07:37,880 --> 00:07:42,800
Speaker 3: the city, to the highway that connects Mexico City with Guernavaca,

111
00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:46,880
Speaker 3: which is a nearby city like a summer city, and

112
00:07:46,920 --> 00:07:50,480
Speaker 3: with a Capulco with Guerero, with the places where the

113
00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:51,920
Speaker 3: maskt nappings happened.

114
00:07:53,880 --> 00:07:56,640
Speaker 2: When we started to leave the city, I told.

115
00:07:56,440 --> 00:08:01,280
Speaker 3: Her, let's be very careful these places, like this part

116
00:08:01,320 --> 00:08:06,160
Speaker 3: of Mexico City is known for its violence. That part

117
00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:10,360
Speaker 3: of Mexico City is actually controlled by a cartel called

118
00:08:10,400 --> 00:08:11,880
Speaker 3: the Cartel Lawac.

119
00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:12,720
Speaker 2: I don't know.

120
00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:16,760
Speaker 3: It's still very weird to think about me telling her that,

121
00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:20,920
Speaker 3: but I told her, let's be careful. This place is dangerous.

122
00:08:20,960 --> 00:08:23,360
Speaker 3: Women get raped here constantly.

123
00:08:23,320 --> 00:08:24,440
Speaker 2: People get killed.

124
00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:27,200
Speaker 3: A lot of people have been taken from here.

125
00:08:27,280 --> 00:08:31,600
Speaker 2: Let's be careful. We stopped in front.

126
00:08:31,360 --> 00:08:36,240
Speaker 3: Of a construction side company. Those places, those guys have

127
00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:39,600
Speaker 3: there like millions of dollars of machinery. I don't think

128
00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:42,160
Speaker 3: that nothing is going to happens here. In front of

129
00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:45,560
Speaker 3: the construction site, there was the highway and she took

130
00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:50,640
Speaker 3: out a triple a camera and I took out my

131
00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:53,040
Speaker 3: phone and she started to do her saying like just

132
00:08:53,120 --> 00:08:57,960
Speaker 3: stood there. And at the ten twelve minute mark, I

133
00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:02,120
Speaker 3: thought we should really leave this place, like we should

134
00:09:02,400 --> 00:09:05,040
Speaker 3: like I turned around and I saw like no one,

135
00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:09,560
Speaker 3: just like the Mexican countryside, and I felt like we

136
00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:13,200
Speaker 3: should maybe leave this place at this very moment, like

137
00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:17,400
Speaker 3: this was enough. I thought, like, you're just being paranoid.

138
00:09:18,520 --> 00:09:21,400
Speaker 3: Nothing is going to happen. It's okay. And that's also

139
00:09:21,440 --> 00:09:24,199
Speaker 3: what the families of them missing always say, like you

140
00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:27,720
Speaker 3: always think this is going to happen to someone else.

141
00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,200
Speaker 3: You never think it's going to happen to yourself. I was,

142
00:09:31,640 --> 00:09:34,439
Speaker 3: I think filming my fit with my sound like just

143
00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:37,840
Speaker 3: wasting time. I turned to the right and I saw

144
00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:43,160
Speaker 3: five guys with submachine guns running towards us, and I.

145
00:09:43,160 --> 00:09:44,400
Speaker 2: Felt like shed.

146
00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:51,199
Speaker 3: They came forward to us. I raised my hands. She

147
00:09:51,240 --> 00:09:54,760
Speaker 3: saw me with my hands up. She turned to the right,

148
00:09:55,040 --> 00:09:59,400
Speaker 3: she saw the guys. She put up her hands and

149
00:09:59,679 --> 00:10:01,480
Speaker 3: one of the guys came to me and told me

150
00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:05,000
Speaker 3: give me the cartains. I thought that they were going

151
00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:10,000
Speaker 3: to take the car. I just handed him the car

152
00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:14,959
Speaker 3: keys and they told us get in. And when they

153
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:19,360
Speaker 3: said get in, I had like this moment of my

154
00:10:19,400 --> 00:10:21,120
Speaker 3: life is about to change.

155
00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:25,199
Speaker 2: They had obviously their faces covered.

156
00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:28,360
Speaker 3: They sat here in the middle of two of them,

157
00:10:29,120 --> 00:10:33,720
Speaker 3: and I was facing the floor of the car with

158
00:10:33,880 --> 00:10:38,080
Speaker 3: my face on the ground. I started to ask questions

159
00:10:38,120 --> 00:10:41,640
Speaker 3: and to tell them that that we were well with

160
00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:44,559
Speaker 3: him Christians, and that we didn't have money, and that

161
00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:47,720
Speaker 3: we were that we were from one of the small

162
00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:55,240
Speaker 3: towns nearby. That that backfire soon after I tried to

163
00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:57,120
Speaker 3: raise my head and I got kid.

164
00:10:58,240 --> 00:10:59,760
Speaker 2: They told me don't look at her face.

165
00:11:00,600 --> 00:11:04,440
Speaker 3: So I'm facing the floor of the back of the car.

166
00:11:04,880 --> 00:11:07,400
Speaker 3: I could feel that we were on the on the highway.

167
00:11:07,679 --> 00:11:10,920
Speaker 3: They started driving at like one hundred and fifty kilometers

168
00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:15,200
Speaker 3: an hour, and at some point I can feel the

169
00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:19,160
Speaker 3: road changing or more like gravel. So at the point

170
00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:22,120
Speaker 3: that they entered the road, I knew that it was

171
00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:29,720
Speaker 3: pretty fucking serious. They drove for like ten more minutes

172
00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:34,640
Speaker 3: in absolute silence. At that point, they told us they're

173
00:11:34,679 --> 00:11:38,040
Speaker 3: going to need that two hundred thousand pieces fifteen hundred

174
00:11:38,120 --> 00:11:42,360
Speaker 3: dollars to release us, which doesn't seem like much in America,

175
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:44,800
Speaker 3: but it's a lot here. I tell them like, there's

176
00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:47,120
Speaker 3: no way that we can give you that, Like, our

177
00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:50,319
Speaker 3: families are not rich. And of course they didn't believe

178
00:11:50,360 --> 00:11:53,720
Speaker 3: that we had a camera, like a very expensive camera

179
00:11:53,800 --> 00:11:56,720
Speaker 3: that was owned by your school.

180
00:11:57,280 --> 00:11:58,960
Speaker 2: Also because of our.

181
00:11:58,920 --> 00:12:02,560
Speaker 3: Skin tone, which is fairly light, they thought that we

182
00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:06,240
Speaker 3: have more money, which is a common misconception.

183
00:12:06,800 --> 00:12:08,719
Speaker 2: So when they asked that, I knew that we were

184
00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:09,840
Speaker 2: in real, real trouble.

185
00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:13,480
Speaker 3: They stop in the middle of the countryside and they

186
00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:17,400
Speaker 3: tell me get out of the car. They take me

187
00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:19,080
Speaker 3: in front of the car and they tell me, like,

188
00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:19,880
Speaker 3: kneel down.

189
00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:22,920
Speaker 2: I thought that these guys are going to shoot me.

190
00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:24,200
Speaker 2: I kneel down.

191
00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:27,040
Speaker 3: They bade me up horribly. At that point, I take

192
00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:29,640
Speaker 3: both of my arms to my face. I think that's

193
00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:34,560
Speaker 3: like natural instinct, and they start kicking me horribly. TA

194
00:12:34,600 --> 00:12:37,760
Speaker 3: could film two of my ribs cracked. They tell me

195
00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:40,640
Speaker 3: that's for Lyon for telling us that you were from

196
00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:41,640
Speaker 3: one of these towns.

197
00:12:41,720 --> 00:12:42,480
Speaker 2: We know you're not.

198
00:12:42,920 --> 00:12:45,439
Speaker 3: Because they are from there. Of course those guys were

199
00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:51,160
Speaker 3: from there, So I fucked up. So I'm completely bat up,

200
00:12:51,160 --> 00:12:54,199
Speaker 3: and they tell me get up. I raise my face

201
00:12:54,240 --> 00:12:57,800
Speaker 3: and I can see like a mountain, a lone tree

202
00:12:58,240 --> 00:13:03,520
Speaker 3: and a corn, and they take out my ex partner

203
00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:07,960
Speaker 3: and they told us to start walking.

204
00:13:10,840 --> 00:13:13,439
Speaker 2: We started to go up into the mountain.

205
00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:18,320
Speaker 3: Which is a very common thing for the cartels to do.

206
00:13:18,720 --> 00:13:23,560
Speaker 3: Most of the clandestine graves are found in the countryside.

207
00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:28,000
Speaker 2: So I started to think about that.

208
00:13:28,160 --> 00:13:32,040
Speaker 3: Some was setting I could still see very clearly, and

209
00:13:33,240 --> 00:13:36,080
Speaker 3: I was just very worried about her. I was in

210
00:13:36,160 --> 00:13:39,600
Speaker 3: front of the group and they were walking with her.

211
00:13:41,679 --> 00:13:44,559
Speaker 3: They took us to these cliffs that they told us

212
00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:49,760
Speaker 3: to call our families. So I was given my phone.

213
00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:55,760
Speaker 3: I called my father and I told him these guys

214
00:13:55,920 --> 00:13:59,000
Speaker 3: came with guns and they need this much money.

215
00:14:00,600 --> 00:14:03,240
Speaker 2: He started freaking out and I told him, like, calm down,

216
00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:06,120
Speaker 2: you have to be like very very calm.

217
00:14:06,280 --> 00:14:08,319
Speaker 3: And they took the phone away from me and they

218
00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:13,240
Speaker 3: started to chalk with him, which we were told to

219
00:14:13,320 --> 00:14:15,600
Speaker 3: lay on the dirt and taste it. There were hands

220
00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:20,680
Speaker 3: still covering or foreheads. At first, they were doing nothing,

221
00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:24,760
Speaker 3: making phone calls to our families and making us speak

222
00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:32,000
Speaker 3: with them. That was about two hours then, I mean

223
00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:35,400
Speaker 3: the song was set. It was dark and they started

224
00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:36,280
Speaker 3: to to.

225
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:39,120
Speaker 2: They started to torturous.

226
00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:46,880
Speaker 3: They called our families and there's this common practice here.

227
00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:50,760
Speaker 2: In Mexico called tablada, which is like.

228
00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:56,840
Speaker 3: Planking, grabbing a plank, a plank of wood and beating someone.

229
00:14:57,320 --> 00:15:01,480
Speaker 3: So they started planking me. Then I really thought like

230
00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:05,880
Speaker 3: I might have like a broken something after this, if.

231
00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:06,960
Speaker 2: There is an after this.

232
00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:10,120
Speaker 3: And that's the point where I started to think like

233
00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:15,720
Speaker 3: there might not be an after this. They started to

234
00:15:15,760 --> 00:15:19,880
Speaker 3: beat me up with a plan to kick me. One

235
00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:22,800
Speaker 3: of them he had like his feet on top of

236
00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:26,800
Speaker 3: my head and then he stood up in my head.

237
00:15:27,280 --> 00:15:30,120
Speaker 3: I just remember like pushing with my hands to the

238
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:33,320
Speaker 3: floor in order for my head not to touch the floor,

239
00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:36,680
Speaker 3: hoping for it to relieve some of the pressure because

240
00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:41,400
Speaker 3: I felt that my head was going to explode. They

241
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:44,520
Speaker 3: really started to push me in order for me to

242
00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:50,720
Speaker 3: scream and beg when my family was listening. Begging for

243
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:56,000
Speaker 3: your life is the most degrading human thing that you.

244
00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,040
Speaker 2: Can do to another human being.

245
00:15:58,200 --> 00:16:03,800
Speaker 3: It's not the physical pain, is the psychological pain. I

246
00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:09,280
Speaker 3: feel that torture really changes you, like being in at

247
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:14,280
Speaker 3: the complete mercy of someone. It really changes your mindset,

248
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:17,440
Speaker 3: It really changes It really changes how you buried your

249
00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:23,080
Speaker 3: own dignity and your own sense of self. And it

250
00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:26,880
Speaker 3: never leaves you. I think that's the that's the most

251
00:16:26,880 --> 00:16:32,400
Speaker 3: horrible thing. It makes you feel dirty for life again,

252
00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:40,440
Speaker 3: losing to your technity. And I was very worried for

253
00:16:40,480 --> 00:16:44,560
Speaker 3: her too, like they were beating her up that much locally.

254
00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:50,880
Speaker 3: But she was being really fucking strong, like very calm.

255
00:16:51,160 --> 00:16:54,280
Speaker 3: She was telling them, we want to cooperate, we want

256
00:16:54,320 --> 00:16:55,520
Speaker 3: to get out of this alive.

257
00:16:56,080 --> 00:16:57,120
Speaker 2: Please don't hurt.

258
00:16:56,920 --> 00:17:00,040
Speaker 3: Him, like she was really.

259
00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:02,960
Speaker 2: She was really strong.

260
00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:10,520
Speaker 3: Things got like much worse. They grab the nice again.

261
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:13,960
Speaker 3: Going back to that racial thing, we're speaking about a

262
00:17:14,040 --> 00:17:18,360
Speaker 3: country where racism is a real issue as much as

263
00:17:18,359 --> 00:17:19,040
Speaker 3: in America.

264
00:17:19,280 --> 00:17:24,040
Speaker 2: For me, it's much more worrying because it's invisible.

265
00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:28,680
Speaker 3: People here, like round, people here have been oppressed during

266
00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:32,400
Speaker 3: the last five hundred years, and they have been completely

267
00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:39,159
Speaker 3: eradicated from most top positions, from economic positions, from political

268
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:41,000
Speaker 3: positions until like the.

269
00:17:41,160 --> 00:17:42,120
Speaker 2: Last three years.

270
00:17:42,320 --> 00:17:47,520
Speaker 3: So there's a real racial resentment that is very valid.

271
00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:52,440
Speaker 3: And they saw my very curly European looking hair and

272
00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:55,840
Speaker 3: they told me like, oh, we hate your curls, which

273
00:17:55,880 --> 00:18:00,159
Speaker 3: again is very much understandable. And then they started to

274
00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:02,679
Speaker 3: to cut it with a knife and they took a

275
00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:05,920
Speaker 3: bunch of skin from the back of my head.

276
00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:07,879
Speaker 2: I could feel the worms or.

277
00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:10,960
Speaker 3: Blood like covering my face and.

278
00:18:11,480 --> 00:18:12,520
Speaker 2: Mixing with dirt.

279
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:15,879
Speaker 3: I could feel like the dirt in my lungs, and

280
00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:18,720
Speaker 3: I could feel the dirt in my throat and my mouth.

281
00:18:19,119 --> 00:18:25,040
Speaker 3: I kept spinning a mixture of blood, saliva and and dirt,

282
00:18:25,119 --> 00:18:28,639
Speaker 3: like my saliva was coming out of me like in bulks.

283
00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:31,480
Speaker 3: They started hitting me with the gun in my head,

284
00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:35,080
Speaker 3: and I could just hear like if I was inside

285
00:18:35,119 --> 00:18:39,960
Speaker 3: of a fat Greek pottery thing, like if you hit

286
00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:44,359
Speaker 3: it with your finger, how it sounds like like almost musical.

287
00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:47,919
Speaker 3: I could hear that inside of my head after the

288
00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:51,199
Speaker 3: first four or five and it went on like I

289
00:18:51,359 --> 00:18:53,679
Speaker 3: felt that they were going.

290
00:18:53,560 --> 00:18:55,040
Speaker 2: To blow my head off.

291
00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:02,359
Speaker 3: They kept torturing those for eight or nine hours, and

292
00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:06,399
Speaker 3: I could hear my father during that whole time, like

293
00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:11,160
Speaker 3: how she was trying to negotiate and to lower the money.

294
00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:11,800
Speaker 2: That had to be.

295
00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:17,440
Speaker 3: That had to be delivered, while I was like enduring it.

296
00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:22,960
Speaker 3: I didn't feel any disassociation. I couldn't disassociate because I

297
00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:25,880
Speaker 3: would be disassociating from what happened to her.

298
00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:29,680
Speaker 2: So I was very much afraid of what happened to her.

299
00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:37,080
Speaker 3: At some point they did like sexual torture.

300
00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:44,560
Speaker 4: I I don't want to talk about it, not so

301
00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:50,119
Speaker 4: much because of me, but because of her. Yeah, And

302
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:54,440
Speaker 4: that also never leaves you like again, that loss of dignity,

303
00:19:54,640 --> 00:19:55,840
Speaker 4: like in front of people.

304
00:19:57,680 --> 00:19:58,679
Speaker 2: It's really fucked up.

305
00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:06,840
Speaker 3: It was very very cold, and she had like a

306
00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:13,800
Speaker 3: skirt and a little blouse, and I was wearing.

307
00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:15,520
Speaker 2: A leather jacket.

308
00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:20,680
Speaker 3: And at one point when they had stopped because people came,

309
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:24,560
Speaker 3: and when they were about like ten people, one of them,

310
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:27,960
Speaker 3: when there was just one of two of them, he

311
00:20:28,119 --> 00:20:32,639
Speaker 3: told me, rise and called your girlfriend, because it's very cold.

312
00:20:34,080 --> 00:20:36,639
Speaker 3: So I stood up facing the ground in order not

313
00:20:36,680 --> 00:20:40,720
Speaker 3: to see their faces. I kneeled and I hogged her

314
00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:44,359
Speaker 3: with the leather jacket and I.

315
00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:47,000
Speaker 2: Told her I love you. She told me I love you.

316
00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:51,879
Speaker 3: And I was covering my face from the ground, and

317
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:55,639
Speaker 3: I could see the moon leaking like to my fingers,

318
00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:00,080
Speaker 3: and I could feel like the warmth and really that

319
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:02,679
Speaker 3: that was a really peaceful moment. I could hear like

320
00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:10,879
Speaker 3: the wind blowing through the through the trees, and and

321
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:15,520
Speaker 3: I think that was like the happiest moment of my life.

322
00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:22,159
Speaker 3: I felt at that point that if they killed me,

323
00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:27,320
Speaker 3: it was okay, and at the end everything reduces to

324
00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:31,359
Speaker 3: its minimum expression, which is like this search of of

325
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:36,600
Speaker 3: of meaning true through finding other people that loved you.

326
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:43,480
Speaker 3: And I had that because I had someone with me

327
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:45,439
Speaker 3: and we were not alone.

328
00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:47,520
Speaker 2: And I think that's what life is about.

329
00:21:56,480 --> 00:22:02,399
Speaker 3: After a bunch more torture, like nine hours into it,

330
00:22:03,080 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 3: they told us to go back to where we came from.

331
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 3: We started walking. They gave me the tripod, which is

332
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:13,399
Speaker 3: which was a very big tripod, and they told me

333
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 3: like carryings. I carried the tripod and I could see

334
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:20,119
Speaker 3: like the whole countryside. I could see no highway, but

335
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:23,240
Speaker 3: I could see like the little hills, and the sky

336
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:26,359
Speaker 3: was purple. I have no explanation for that, but the

337
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 3: sky was.

338
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 2: Really, really really purple.

339
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 3: I've never seen a night like that in my life.

340
00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:35,360
Speaker 2: And the moon was so.

341
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:39,960
Speaker 3: Bright I could see like perfectly every single detail. Was

342
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:44,159
Speaker 3: that very strange part of Mexico, which is the place

343
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 3: where rural areas.

344
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 2: And ccenies join.

345
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:54,200
Speaker 3: The car we were in, which was a white folkswagon,

346
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 3: came in and they parked in front of the of

347
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:04,360
Speaker 3: the lawn tree and they told me give me the trypod.

348
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 2: I gave them the tripod.

349
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:07,679
Speaker 3: They told me, kneel down, we're going to kill you.

350
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:15,000
Speaker 3: I kneel down. They put the gun in my head,

351
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 3: and there was like this moment of silence. I just

352
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 3: like stood there completely silent, and they just stood there,

353
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 3: completely silent for what felt like hours, and one of

354
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 3: them said like, no, get them in the car. That's

355
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:45,639
Speaker 3: where physical pain really started to go up. They weren't

356
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 3: torturing us anymore, but I could feel my cracked rips,

357
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 3: I could feel a cracked backbone, and I was completely speed.

358
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,880
Speaker 2: Up facing the floor of the car.

359
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:02,120
Speaker 3: I had like a all of bloods alive.

360
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:03,399
Speaker 2: And dirt in front of me.

361
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:07,680
Speaker 3: I was just like my lungs were expelling all these

362
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 3: dirt that had that I had like swallowed during the

363
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 3: during the torture. And then there comes the part where.

364
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 2: We built a relationship.

365
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:26,720
Speaker 3: Fifteen sixteen, seventeen years old.

366
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:27,880
Speaker 2: Of course, these.

367
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 3: Guys don't control the operation, but these are the guys

368
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 3: who who are in charge.

369
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 2: Of doing the dirty work.

370
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 3: They started speaking like between them, and then they started

371
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 3: to talk to us, and one of them in this

372
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:50,119
Speaker 3: very strange moment of.

373
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:57,399
Speaker 5: Clarity that I now feel that is the best field

374
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:02,919
Speaker 5: work that I will ever do in my life because

375
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 5: of the level of sincerity that I felt coming from them.

376
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:13,400
Speaker 2: They told us, like, we do this so they don't

377
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:14,440
Speaker 2: do this to us.

378
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 3: They they started talking about other things that they have done,

379
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 3: talking about people that they have killed, and that.

380
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 2: They were very afraid of the of.

381
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 3: The guys making like paying them to do this so

382
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,120
Speaker 3: so that this was their way of keeping their families

383
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 3: safe too. We have told them that we were pillow students.

384
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 3: And then one of them told us, like, you should

385
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 3: do a movie about this, and we told them, like

386
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 3: you think that's a good idea and told us yeah,

387
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:02,120
Speaker 3: and please in by us if you if you do it,

388
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:06,640
Speaker 3: please do in bide us. Uh please bring it here

389
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 3: uh to the to the to the town's nearby so

390
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 3: we can go.

391
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 2: And honestly, I will do it. I'm going to do it.

392
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 3: Uh, I'm going to do it.

393
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 2: I have to.

394
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 3: These guys were again they weren't like this uh military

395
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 3: guy in one time aimal torturing like the case, were

396
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:37,400
Speaker 3: like children and I could feel that they were as

397
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 3: afraid as has us. That's what I mean when I

398
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 3: say that that those guys are victims, like those are

399
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 3: so young and have so like so so few opportunities,

400
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:56,919
Speaker 3: that it's a real tragedy that they are doing this

401
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 3: and that they are losing their humanity. That's such a

402
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 3: young age. One person goes missing each hour, and ninety

403
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 3: four people gets killed every day. That's during the last

404
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 3: during this last administration, which is the most violent that

405
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 3: we have ever got. Again, when I see when I

406
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:25,680
Speaker 3: hear these guys telling us to do a movie and

407
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:30,400
Speaker 3: to invite them after torturing and abusing us, like if they.

408
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 2: Were like.

409
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 3: Some children excited to know, like some random filmmakers, it's

410
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 3: really like the personification of the social problems in Mexico,

411
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,919
Speaker 3: of all the things of racial issues, of class issues,

412
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 3: of extreme poverty, of everything, it's concentrated in those people

413
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 3: that were speaking to us on that day, on the

414
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 3: true big time of this thing. We are also victims,

415
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 3: but again we kept our humanity intact. We came out

416
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 3: of that better people. Those guys came out of that

417
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 3: without their humanity. Again, in that sense, those guyes are

418
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 3: the ones who are really suffering the consequences of this

419
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 3: terrible violence. From my point of view. Later I found

420
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 3: out that my father had a friend in the part

421
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 3: of the police that takes care of kidnappings if I

422
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 3: get away completely honest, I don't have the certainty for this,

423
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,880
Speaker 3: but there's no other explanation because.

424
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 2: They didn't got the money. They didn't get the money.

425
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 2: So what I.

426
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 3: Really think is that someone in the police asked them

427
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 3: to let us go. The cartels, which are also the

428
00:28:57,760 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 3: people who kidnap.

429
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 2: Most of the time.

430
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 3: They are controlled by the police, and they work very

431
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 3: very closely with the police. Like law enforcement and criminals here,

432
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 3: they're the same. There's no other way for them to

433
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 3: let us go after asking for so much money and

434
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 3: letting us go for one tenth of what was asked

435
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 3: or doesn't make sense. I felt the gravel road, then

436
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 3: I felt the highway, and they told us we're going

437
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 3: to let you go. Here, we're going to be following you.

438
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 3: You're going to drive until until you get home.

439
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 2: Don't stop.

440
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 3: They opened the doors, they went out, they went to

441
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 3: the back. There was this moment of thirty seconds of silence.

442
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 3: They told us to wait ten minutes. After thirty seconds,

443
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 3: I told her, get into the driver, turned on the vehicle,

444
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 3: and let's fucking go. She started driving. She uses glasses

445
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 3: and she didn't have her glasses. It was like five

446
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 3: thirty in the morning. Still there wasn't light. It was

447
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 3: so misty, and I just started laughing. I said, like,

448
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 3: there's no way that we came out of this shit alive.

449
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 3: And we drove until our house completely covered in dirteen

450
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 3: blood and got into her house and we were free.

451
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 2: The first thing I did.

452
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 3: Is I told someone, my camera is on my closet,

453
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 3: grab it. Take a picture of Boss right now. And

454
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 3: I feel that that's where it started. I knew that

455
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 3: I had to take a picture of Boss, of the

456
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 3: state that we had returned in, but I know that

457
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 3: it started there, like five minutes after we got home,

458
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,239
Speaker 3: and it's this picture of the two of us and

459
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 3: were like completely covered in drivel, and that my first

460
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 3: tempulse was to capture that moment. I went to the hospital.

461
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 3: They told me I had like a collapsed long that

462
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 3: the lung had leaked air between the lungs and my heart.

463
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 3: If it didn't go away in two days, they would

464
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 3: have to open me and do something about it. Luckily,

465
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 3: it went away, but I couldn't breathe fairly well for

466
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 3: a couple of months. I had some broken ribs, and

467
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 3: of course I was completely bit up. So for like

468
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 3: ten days I couldn't move, and then I was back.

469
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 3: I was back, but changed and in peace, very strange

470
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 3: way that I just knew that something had changed one day.

471
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 3: I don't know where it came from. What I remember

472
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 3: in college they had told us about this guy who

473
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 3: was missing, who was kidnapped, who was from Guerreroro, and

474
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 3: that something had happened with the International Criminal Court of

475
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 3: Human Rights with his case. I started googling around and

476
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 3: then I found the case, the case of this man

477
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 3: cross and Radilla, who he was kidnapped because he was

478
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 3: part of the Rea of Guerrero and he was taken

479
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 3: by the army.

480
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 2: Because he wrote songs.

481
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 3: He wrote revolutionary songs, and he was taken, never to

482
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 3: missing again.

483
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy four.

484
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 3: So I saw that and his daughter had won a

485
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 3: case in the Inter American Court of Human Rights making

486
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 3: the government admit that they had taken his father. So

487
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 3: I wrote to Pittsburgh Hilt International, and I told them like, Hey,

488
00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get to this woman. This happened to

489
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 3: me like ten days ago.

490
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 2: I need to speak with her. I don't know why.

491
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 3: I have no idea why, and they took me to her.

492
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 3: On my way there, I had like my camera and

493
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 3: a bag of clothing, and I was shaking. I was

494
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 3: with this guy from Mexico City that works with them,

495
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 3: and he saw me. I was shaking horribly. She told me, like,

496
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 3: calm down, We're just.

497
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 2: In a bus. Really, calm down.

498
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 3: One month and ten days, I was in Guerrero, the

499
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 3: most dangerous part of this country, in the thera, in

500
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 3: the house of this woman that I have never met

501
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 3: in my life. And I didn't know why I was there.

502
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 3: I knew I was going into the mouth of the wolf.

503
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 2: As we say here, into.

504
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 3: The center of the problem, try to make a sense

505
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 3: of what had happened to me, Try to find that genealogy.

506
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 2: Of of all.

507
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 3: These crimes, to put myself into a into a social context,

508
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 3: and not just an isolated crime, but like a series

509
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 3: of state sponsored crimes and situations that have led to

510
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 3: the situation that we're currently living in Mexico. I was

511
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 3: looking for the source of violence, and I was looking

512
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 3: for the for the meaning of it, and the meaning

513
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 3: of the conversations that I had with the kidnappers.

514
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 2: That's the thing to.

515
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:42,879
Speaker 3: Make sense of my pain and their pain. I had

516
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:46,879
Speaker 3: to understand where where it had originated from. It's like

517
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 3: a river. It comes from a rock somewhere in the mountains.

518
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:53,959
Speaker 3: If you really follow or really you're going to find

519
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 3: a rock that throws water away. That's the same. I

520
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 3: try to follow the water that I I came out

521
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 3: of to find out who was pouring that river of

522
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 3: blood on my country.

523
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:11,240
Speaker 2: And I found it.

524
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm struct I found it, but I'm still

525
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 3: trying to make sense out of it because it's very

526
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:21,759
Speaker 3: confusing and it's very complex. But I know that I've

527
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 3: seen it a number of times. The source both in

528
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 3: the eyes of the guys who kidnapped those and in

529
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 3: the eyes of me and my ex girlfriend, and in

530
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 3: the eyes of the other subvibors and the families of

531
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 3: the missing. And that's that's the source of all pain, conflict,

532
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:50,800
Speaker 3: and resistance, the history of violence here in Mexico.

533
00:35:56,120 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 2: I mean, one loses everything with especially with torture, both

534
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 2: sexual physical torture. One loses absolutely everything. Each time I

535
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 2: see a movie, especially.

536
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 3: An American movie, where one person is being tortured, I

537
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 3: always think, like, these people do.

538
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:24,720
Speaker 2: Not understand what they are speaking about.

539
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 3: One loses absolutely everything but I think I've also gained

540
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:31,360
Speaker 3: a number of things.

541
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 2: First of all, I've gained that family.

542
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 3: These people, the families of the missing, really changed my

543
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 3: life forever in the same way that these kidnappers changed

544
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 3: my life. These people that I've known really changed my life.

545
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 2: They have really endured. Hell.

546
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 3: What happens with these people is that they have been

547
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 3: trying to find their missing loved ones for fifty years.

548
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,439
Speaker 3: And not only the people of this downboard, all over

549
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 3: the country and in different that time periods they have

550
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 3: been trying to find their children. So I what I

551
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 3: did is.

552
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 2: Go with them and.

553
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:22,239
Speaker 3: Try to to give back to their struggle through my

554
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,240
Speaker 3: pictures and through my presence, to give back to their pictures,

555
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 3: to build memory, to build like an archive that can

556
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 3: be this caused and can be consulted in the future.

557
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 3: There's a lot of journalism. Don't about this, but journalism

558
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 3: is very brief and very volatile. It just comes and

559
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 3: burns like a piece of paper. You have to have

560
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 3: a different product for it to last. You have to

561
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 3: really sit in front of people and listen to them

562
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:00,839
Speaker 3: and understand them and understand the issue that you are

563
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 3: dealing with. In order to make a product that is everlasting.

564
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:06,240
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that my pictures.

565
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 3: Are everlasting, but that's what I aim to to make

566
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 3: a thing that is artistically valuable, that is journalistically valuable,

567
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 3: and that has this level of research that makes it

568
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 3: different from just stating the fact in a newspaper.

569
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 2: And I have no idea how to do it.

570
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 3: I have no idea how to do it, but I

571
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 3: keep trying to find ways to do it, either to

572
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:39,759
Speaker 3: making films or to making photography books that are going

573
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 3: to come out someday at some point. But that was

574
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 3: my next step trying to build it. And it was

575
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 3: just me, a bus ticket and my camera, and I

576
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,359
Speaker 3: knew at that point that I that's what I had

577
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 3: to do. I had to I had to document the

578
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 3: history of Mexico through the voices of these people, because

579
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,360
Speaker 3: they had the real history, which is the history of

580
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:15,879
Speaker 3: resistance and the history of not forgetting, and their struggles

581
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 3: and their lives and their happinesses and sadness and everything

582
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 3: they live is the history of my country. The history

583
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 3: of my country is the hist of the people we

584
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 3: don't have, of the lives we've lost.

585
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 6: Welcome back to a live again joining me for a

586
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,439
Speaker 6: conversation about today's story are my other Alive Again story

587
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 6: producers Nicholas Dakowski and Brent Dye, and I'm your host

588
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:09,240
Speaker 6: Dan Bush. I heard the story in the New York Times,

589
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 6: and I thought, you know, this is an amazing story.

590
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 6: What I did not anticipate was several things, one of

591
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 6: which was his insane story about the drive back, like

592
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 6: after he had been abducted and he and his girlfriend

593
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:33,359
Speaker 6: were tortured and relentlessly for you know, hours and hours

594
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,319
Speaker 6: and hours, and then on the drive back, while he's

595
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 6: coughing up blood in the back seat in the floorboard

596
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 6: of the car, he starts to get to know his kidnappers,

597
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 6: and they don't they're not apologetic, but they're basically explaining

598
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:46,799
Speaker 6: to him, we're the muscle we have to do this.

599
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 6: If we don't do this, then we become Then they'll

600
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 6: hurt our families. And in that moment, he has this

601
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 6: epiphany and he realizes that these people are victims. He

602
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 6: had the foresight to go, Okay, yes, victim, but I'm

603
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 6: not the only victim here. Yeah. His story and his

604
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 6: identity and his sense of purpose that he gleaned after

605
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:12,439
Speaker 6: this experience are all bound to that of his country.

606
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 6: It's a much bigger issue. And he goes, sure, I

607
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 6: lost my dignity and I will never get that back.

608
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 6: Like when you've been violated like that, when you've been tortured,

609
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 6: you lose your dignity, You lose a sense of yourself

610
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,439
Speaker 6: and a sense of safety that you will never ever

611
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 6: get back. The PTSD of that will be with you.

612
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:34,919
Speaker 6: But his captors lost something greater, They lost their sense

613
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 6: of humanity. He doesn't look at it as an isolated incident.

614
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 6: He sees what happened to him as part of a

615
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 6: series of state sponsored crimes and an epidemic in his

616
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:48,320
Speaker 6: country and his country's history and his country's legacy and

617
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 6: a point in time and history for his country and

618
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 6: his people that he was a part of. And so

619
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 6: he's compelled to go do something about it. And it's

620
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 6: just so fascinating because I thought about, you know, some

621
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 6: other stories. We've talked to Kathy Preston, right, and she

622
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 6: basically had she walked away, I believe, saying, you know,

623
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 6: I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. And he walked

624
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 6: away similarly, but he was like, I am a victim.

625
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 6: You know, I did survive. But I am a victim,

626
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 6: but I'm not the only vite.

627
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 7: I mean, that's the thing that frightened me the most

628
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:23,720
Speaker 7: about his story was when he said, it's the personification

629
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 7: of the social problems of Mexico, of the racial issues,

630
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 7: the class issues, the extreme poverty, you know. And I

631
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,839
Speaker 7: think when you see the division we're experiencing in our

632
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 7: own country, when people feel like they don't have a

633
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 7: stake in society, I think it can lead people to

634
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 7: a really extreme place. And I kind of viewed his

635
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 7: story as as a warning we have a society that

636
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 7: doesn't take care of its basic social needs. This is

637
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 7: the obvious place it leads to. I think, you know,

638
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 7: people are going to do what they have to do

639
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 7: to survive. They can easily be manipulated, They can do

640
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,399
Speaker 7: horrible things to other people, very.

641
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:05,279
Speaker 8: Reminiscent of I mean, Jean Valjean in Les Miserab. You know,

642
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:10,440
Speaker 8: it's he steals bread to feed his family, gets thrown

643
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 8: in jail and tortured by this state, and he comes

644
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 8: back out and he's this absolutely desperate man who ends

645
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 8: up having to do whatever he can to survive for

646
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:24,240
Speaker 8: a while, and he ends up becoming this incredible case

647
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 8: of like his situation has made him incredibly empathetic, and

648
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 8: so he's becomes this like decent, loving man who is

649
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 8: incredibly empathetic to the plight of the people around him,

650
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 8: sometimes to his detrict.

651
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 7: And I think Manuel is in a position where he

652
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 7: can be empathetic because he's from a much more secure

653
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 7: economic class. But his tormenters, you know, like he's saying,

654
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 7: you know, they lost they're losing their humanity in this situation.

655
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,280
Speaker 6: There's a parallel that's happening across a bunch of these stories.

656
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 6: It's in one form of that thing is to do

657
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 6: good as a form of resistance. In another form, it's

658
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 6: the only way to move on and to survive is

659
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 6: to get is to get yourself out of the out

660
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:13,920
Speaker 6: of the equation. And so Manuel quickly realize this is

661
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 6: not about him, right, It's not an isolated story. It's

662
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,279
Speaker 6: not about his ego, It's not about what happened to him,

663
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 6: It's about what's happening to his whole entire country.

664
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:22,959
Speaker 8: I agree with you, Dan, that there's this through line

665
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 8: through a lot of these especially people who have I

666
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:31,360
Speaker 8: guess been done to, like who have had shit like

667
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 8: people act badly on them. You know, a lot of

668
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 8: these stories are sort of finding like zest in your

669
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:42,920
Speaker 8: life again, or finding meaning in your life. But I

670
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 8: think that a lot of these stories are also about

671
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:49,880
Speaker 8: like really finding the core of your humanity and choosing

672
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 8: your humanity when you've experienced something that could take that

673
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 8: away from you. You know, Manuel could have come out

674
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:06,239
Speaker 8: of this just embittered and angry, and that attitude could

675
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 8: have perpetuated bad things in his own life. But instead

676
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:14,839
Speaker 8: he has a moment where he just is suddenly connected

677
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 8: more deeply to his humanity.

678
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 7: He was interesting that he was saying, you know that

679
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 7: he had plans to come to the United States, he

680
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 7: had people were going to sponsor in him in his

681
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 7: quest to become a filmmaker. And he said, then COVID happened,

682
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:28,960
Speaker 7: And he said it was sad, but I think it

683
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 7: was the best thing that happened to me because of

684
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:33,280
Speaker 7: what happened next. And what happened next was this incident.

685
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,319
Speaker 7: And you know, you think of like in literary turns,

686
00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 7: it's the inciting incident that sends the protagonist on the

687
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 7: hero's journey, and he's so thankful for the growth. But

688
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 7: I don't think I'd want to go through something like

689
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:51,560
Speaker 7: this even to have the kind of growth that he expected,

690
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 7: he said, He said so, and this is you know,

691
00:45:54,560 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 7: this is echoing throughout the show.

692
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 6: I don't think we've met anybody yet who says that

693
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 6: they would take back what happened to them. Maybe one,

694
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 6: but the overwhelming majority of people who have had these

695
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 6: brushures with death to the point of severe bodily harm,

696
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:14,720
Speaker 6: and having reconstructive surgeries and having to rehabilitate and relearn

697
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 6: how to walk, and all of these things horrific car

698
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:21,839
Speaker 6: accidents that forever changed them, and they all come back

699
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:23,400
Speaker 6: with the same thing of like, I wouldn't change a thing.

700
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 6: I wouldn't I wouldn't change any of these experiences because

701
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 6: of who I am now and what it has taught me.

702
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 6: Some other things happened that would not have happened to

703
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 6: him had he not experienced this. Manuel, for instance, he

704
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 6: talks about these moments of beauty that happened amidst this

705
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:44,959
Speaker 6: extreme stress and pain and torture. You know, he talks

706
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 6: about the colors of the sky and how taking his

707
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 6: coat and crawling over to his girlfriend and his captors

708
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 6: let him sort of keep her warm for they said,

709
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 6: it's cold, you need to keep her warm. So he walked,

710
00:46:57,480 --> 00:46:59,399
Speaker 6: he kind of crawled over there, and he put his

711
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 6: coat around her, and he had this moment of intense, incredible,

712
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,320
Speaker 6: a feeling of love like he had never felt, a

713
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 6: feeling of compassion for another human being like he had

714
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:08,840
Speaker 6: never felt.

715
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:11,760
Speaker 2: And this yin yang of.

716
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 6: The beauty only exists relative to the suffering, you know.

717
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 6: And that's a philosophical conceit that echoes throughout a lot

718
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 6: of different spiritual practices and so forth. But you know,

719
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 6: I think that that's we have to maybe we have

720
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 6: to go through and experience some adversity to whatever degree,

721
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 6: to however extreme, that is the impetus for us to

722
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 6: transform and see the beauty on the other side. Like

723
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 6: we can't see the beauty unless we also experience.

724
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 8: But I mean that's also that's also how empathy is

725
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 8: created in people. But I think a lot of people

726
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 8: can extrapolate from their own experiences how they might feel.

727
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 8: But I do think that like going through something like that,

728
00:47:56,760 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 8: even on the smallest scale, a kid falling down and

729
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 8: hitting their head or getting pushed on the playground, they

730
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 8: now know what it's like to have something bad happen

731
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 8: to them, and that is the birth of empathy right there.

732
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 8: And I think that, you know, there's some people who

733
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 8: are extraordinarily good at it. And I don't know if

734
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 8: these people are born with in innate ability to feel empathy,

735
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 8: or if empathy is sort of thrust upon them.

736
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 7: Well, like Manuel said, they were as afraid as us.

737
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 7: They were afraid of the people that were forcing them

738
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:34,239
Speaker 7: to do these things. And it reminded me. I don't

739
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 7: know if you remember, in two thousand and eight, there

740
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 7: was a massacre at the taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai,

741
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 7: and I remember watching like a Frontline or some episode

742
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 7: about this, and they talked about how they recruited very

743
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 7: young kids to go do this terrorist attack, and as

744
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:53,359
Speaker 7: they had them on the video cameras just walking through

745
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:56,400
Speaker 7: the hallways of this beautiful hotel, just marveling at the

746
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 7: beauty of it. They'd never seen anything like.

747
00:48:59,040 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 6: That, you know, and.

748
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 7: They were just terrified. You know, they were forced to

749
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 7: go commit these atrocities, you know, because there was no

750
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 7: other option for them. But but I think, you know,

751
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,840
Speaker 7: like his his empathy for them. You know, of course,

752
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:18,759
Speaker 7: there's this racial history here in Mexico and of course

753
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 7: they're going to be offended by my curly European hair,

754
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 7: you know, of course they're going. Like his understanding of

755
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:27,320
Speaker 7: his own privilege, I think is what gave him that empathy.

756
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 7: You know, like he understood that that he's in a

757
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:35,400
Speaker 7: and he's just he's just in a much more stable,

758
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:39,319
Speaker 7: secure situation than they are, you know, And you know,

759
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 7: I think it gave him the sense that he's not

760
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:47,720
Speaker 7: forced into this degrading, inhumane situation that they've been put into.

761
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:49,880
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean that, I mean for me, that that

762
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 8: just goes back to like, was he just by circumstance

763
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:59,360
Speaker 8: or or by birth, like able to see the humanity

764
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 8: and them just like that? Because you listen to you

765
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:05,799
Speaker 8: can listen to a lot of shit from people who

766
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:08,799
Speaker 8: have never gone through this stuff, talking about like who

767
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:13,839
Speaker 8: paint everybody who does you know, who commits any sort

768
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:16,799
Speaker 8: of crime, or even as has the audacity to just

769
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:22,760
Speaker 8: be poor, like they're incapable of looking at that and

770
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 8: understanding that they're but for the grace of God go

771
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 8: I you know, whereas whereas Manuel already knows, you know,

772
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 8: that he's privileged when he walks into this thing.

773
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 6: Mm and just to come out of these with the

774
00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:41,480
Speaker 6: idea that compassion is that is the connective tissue of life.

775
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:44,919
Speaker 6: And you know, and we talked about this before too

776
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 6: where where you know, I think Nick, you you were like,

777
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 6: you know, I don't. You can't expect and there's no expectation.

778
00:50:51,520 --> 00:50:54,319
Speaker 6: But you can't expect somebody who's been victimized to be

779
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:57,240
Speaker 6: forgiving of the of the person who's got a boot

780
00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:59,800
Speaker 6: on their neck. And I totally understand that that you

781
00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 6: can you know, that's not But I do wonder if

782
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 6: the only pathway towards any healing is if not forgiveness,

783
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 6: some compassion for the person who whose soul has been

784
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:15,600
Speaker 6: damaged because their humanity. You know, when you act against

785
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:18,720
Speaker 6: another living being, or you act against another human, doesn't

786
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 6: it damage your soul to some degree? And I think

787
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 6: that's what was striking at a Love Manual's perspective. He said,

788
00:51:23,680 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 6: these guys lost their humanity. I lost my dignity, They

789
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:28,280
Speaker 6: lost their humanity.

790
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 7: And I think he understood that because he was one

791
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:35,800
Speaker 7: class maybe higher with one with a very small margin

792
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:41,319
Speaker 7: of benefit of a privilege that these kids didn't have. Well,

793
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 7: but that he might have realized that he's part of

794
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:46,200
Speaker 7: the boot that's on their neck, you know, like it's

795
00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 7: all he understood where that frustration was coming from. I

796
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:51,760
Speaker 7: love when he said, there's an intellectual level of knowing

797
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 7: you live in a dangerous place. Then there's the bodily

798
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 7: you know, like he he you can intellectualize all these

799
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 7: social problems, and until you face to face with what

800
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 7: it's like to have to sleep in the street or

801
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:05,080
Speaker 7: what it's like to have a knife held up out

802
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:08,759
Speaker 7: your throat, you don't realize that we're all living right

803
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:12,359
Speaker 7: on the cusp of an unstable society unless we take

804
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:16,439
Speaker 7: care of these problems that drive people to these desperate situations.

805
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 7: And by privilege, I mean he was marginally marginally like

806
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 7: he had. The only privilege I think he really had

807
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 7: was you know that he wasn't as exposed to these situations.

808
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 7: But his family didn't have any money. They were not

809
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 7: by any means wealthy. He had a few more opportunities,

810
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:38,680
Speaker 7: but probably because of the way that he was raised

811
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:42,200
Speaker 7: in the family's concern. But it's not like there is yeah,

812
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 7: I mean, like I said, it was a marginal difference,

813
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 7: But I mean he seemed very aware of what social

814
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 7: division does to society. And the fact that he's going

815
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:54,279
Speaker 7: to take this experience and put himself right back in

816
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 7: that line of fire and go right back into these

817
00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 7: dangerous situations to document it is astounding to me.

818
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 6: Within a month of his of his incident, he was

819
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 6: on a bus heading into the same neighborhood where it

820
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:07,360
Speaker 6: had happened. I mean, I can't believe. And he was

821
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 6: shaking like a leaf, and you know, I can't imagine it.

822
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 6: It's just so intense. But he had to. He was

823
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:15,759
Speaker 6: compelled to. And the other thing I wanted that took

824
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:18,319
Speaker 6: away from his story was he he was clear. He said,

825
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 6: I don't think journalism is the best product. For a

826
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:24,840
Speaker 6: message to last or to be received, it has to

827
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:27,480
Speaker 6: be nuanced, it has to be artistically valuable, and it

828
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:29,760
Speaker 6: has to have a level of personal story and research.

829
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:33,719
Speaker 7: He is an incredible photographer. People should definitely go check

830
00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:36,239
Speaker 7: out his website and his way with words, you know,

831
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 7: like the way he described things. You know, I found

832
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:42,360
Speaker 7: myself in that strange place where the rural area and

833
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 7: the cities join. I mean, his his speaking was almost

834
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,360
Speaker 7: like Hemingway, very simple, but very so much poetry and

835
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:52,000
Speaker 7: everything he was saying, and that's what made it really

836
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,040
Speaker 7: hard for me to listen to the parts where he

837
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:56,040
Speaker 7: did have his face in the dirt when he was

838
00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:58,879
Speaker 7: being beaten by a plank of wood, you know, where

839
00:53:58,920 --> 00:54:03,520
Speaker 7: his he could see his girlfriend being tortured for nine hours.

840
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:07,880
Speaker 7: Like the pacing of this story, the way he was

841
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:10,080
Speaker 7: able to bring in those moments of beauty, they really

842
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:16,040
Speaker 7: hit when you were experiencing viscerally what he had gone through.

843
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:18,880
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was open to all senses and he was

844
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:22,440
Speaker 6: open to all experiences. He had been freed of any

845
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 6: preconceived notions about what was coming next, and he was

846
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:28,760
Speaker 6: pretty sure he was going to die. And in that moment,

847
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 6: knowing that you're going to die with some certainty that

848
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:33,840
Speaker 6: you're not going to make it out of the situation,

849
00:54:34,160 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 6: that allowed him to see beyond the veil and to

850
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 6: see the beauty of the moment he was in in

851
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:40,759
Speaker 6: a way that you know, it's that that's a really

852
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:42,839
Speaker 6: strange and interesting phenomenon.

853
00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:53,560
Speaker 1: Next time on Alive Again, we meet Annalise Cochrane, who

854
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:57,319
Speaker 1: survived the devastating Hina fires in Hawaii. Her story is

855
00:54:57,360 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 1: one of insight and rugged survival amidst unimaginable destruction.

856
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:04,719
Speaker 9: You always hear the question what would you do if

857
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 9: you had twenty minutes left to live? I found out twice.

858
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 9: It was a beautiful day. The skies were clear and blue,

859
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 9: the water was.

860
00:55:14,120 --> 00:55:31,520
Speaker 10: Calm, and we were all about to die.

861
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:35,320
Speaker 1: Our story producers are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent Die,

862
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:40,160
Speaker 1: Nicholas Dakaski, and Lauren Vogelba Music by Ben Lovett, additional

863
00:55:40,239 --> 00:55:44,280
Speaker 1: music by Alexander Rodriguez. Our executive producers are Matthew Frederick

864
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:47,560
Speaker 1: and Trevor Young. Special thanks to Alexander Williams for additional

865
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:51,560
Speaker 1: production support. Our studio engineers are Rima El Kali and

866
00:55:51,680 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 1: Names Griffin. Our editors are Dan Bush, Gerhartslovitchka, Brent Die

867
00:55:56,600 --> 00:56:00,440
Speaker 1: and Alexander Rodriguez. Mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander h Riaz.

868
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 1: I'm your host Dan Bush. For more about Manuel and

869
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:06,760
Speaker 1: to see his amazing photography and to hear more about

870
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 1: his projects, go to Manuelbeo.

871
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 2: Guspert dot com.

872
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 1: That's m A n U E l B A y

873
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:18,239
Speaker 1: O g I s B e r T dot com.

874
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 1: Alive Again is a production of iHeart Radio and Psychopia Pictures.

875
00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 1: If you have a transformative near death experience, to share.

876
00:56:25,120 --> 00:56:28,400
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear your story. Please email us at

877
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 1: Alive Again Project at gmail dot com. That's a l

878
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:35,920
Speaker 1: I v e A g A I N p R

879
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 1: O j e c T at gmail dot com