Colombia demands the world's attention

Two days after the Colombian army rescued the 15 kidnapped by the FARC (the Revolutionary Army Forces of Colombia) leftist guerrilla, I went for a walk in downtown Medellin, the city where I was born.

A women with a ragged shirt, no shoes, dirty and her hair all messed approached me. I figured she wanted to ask me for money so I kept on walking away. As she got closer I could smell the smell of beggars: a mixture of weeks without showering, old, rotten trash, and misery. She started talking and gave me a phrase that changed the way I see Colombia and the world over all.

"Hey boy, I don't need you to give me money. All I want is for people to stop ignoring me," she said.

I looked in her eyes and nodded my head as a sign for her to keep on talking.

The lady's name was Marta, she was from the coast of Colombia and and was HIV positive. She wanted people to help her survive with a job.

This is one of the thousands of stories you hear on the streets of Colombia; people without jobs, children dying of hunger on the streets, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. At the end I did give her some money for a piece of candy she was selling.

It was that phrase however, that was worth more than the few pesos I gave her.

As I watch CNN and the news of the rescued hostages I can't help but think that in a few weeks this will be old news. In a few weeks there will be another headline about Iran and its nuclear weapons, the presidential race, or some celebrity showing her genitals to the cameras. Colombia will be long forgotten, because let's put it this way, you don't really care.

To elaborate on the beggar's phrase, "Colombia is not asking for money, it is asking that people stop ignoring it." I bet you didn't know there are at least 700 more kidnapped in the jungles of Colombia, or that more than 50 percent of the population lives BELOW the poverty line. Here, having no food is a reality for millions of people.

Americans is to raise awareness similar to Darfur. Realize that there is a country, not too far away from America that suffers and struggles every day.

I also ask the International Club at SLCC-Meramec to support this July 20 protest in favor of peace in Colombia. If you can, also wear a white shirt and tell people about Colombia and its people on that day, tell them to google us up, and know more about our everyday fight against drugs and violence.

For more information about Colombia and the conflict against the guerrilla go to http://www.colombianjournal.org or join the Facebook group "a million voices against FARC."