I think you hear what you want to hear. The sentence “You’re suspended, come back in September” can easily be interpreted as “You’re admitted, don’t need to study in the summer”. It’s easy to change a few words in the sentence “I’m not going out to dinner with you, I’ve told you that a thousand times” and rewrite it with “I’m happy to go with you, you finally asked me”. transform”. Psychologists have extensively studied a phenomenon of mixing desire and reality in the subconscious, and I assume this has been the case. It happens to me often.
I had just arrived in the Ukraine from Mexico, where I regularly report on current events in Mexico and Central America in the EL PAÍS editorial team, when a call from the bosses at almost nine o’clock in the morning caused the phone to ring. Generally no phone call from the bosses bodes well, but in a newspaper these hours are loaded with the devil. That was not the case. Lucía Abellán, the head of Internacional, excitedly told me that she had passed the cut and was among the three shortlisted for the Cirilo Rodríguez Prize, which is awarded each year to a Spanish correspondent or special edition by a grand jury of journalists from different media becomes ambassador abroad. Regardless of the outcome, I already felt like a winner, but I never imagined that 20 days later I would emerge from a war to find myself in a blushing conflict on a stage in Segovia.
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The organization of the prize is not to blame. Actually nobody is to blame but me. It had been clearly explained to me before the action began. It’s true that the breaks don’t help and that Cirilo Rodríguez isn’t the Oscar or the Champions League, but for me it’s more than both together and when the moderator of the event says: “The jury wanted to recognize this year as the first finalist … .’ because you only hear ‘first’, then the name; then no more blood flows, my mother applauds and the mess is mounted.
I intended to release my speech to either the civilian or the military. In the parador room or at the bar with your elbow on the bar. Not leaving the Mikolaiv front line in southern Ukraine, I take a 36-hour caning that includes two cars, two planes and two trains to keep calm and to thank the city of Segovia. From the moment I left the hotel, I knew that I wanted to dedicate the award to the courageous journalists from Mexico and Central America who are experiencing the worst wave of press repression in recent decades, to the editorial staff of this newspaper in America and also to my parents, who for the first time were not asked by the authorities to look for a new school. Already feeling like a winner, I now strove for immortality: I wanted to enter my mother’s friends’ chat room and their conversations in the tobacconist.
Because that’s why Armstrong came to the moon, so his mother would find out. I’ve never been more frustrated than when I was working at the Associated Press agency in Colombia, and after a report on the FARC guerrillas, a Kentucky senator called me for my opinion on a millionaire payout for a pending development plan in the house. “Give him the millions,” I thought, “what’s your business,” unable to deliver a more elaborate speech than I actually wanted my mom to call me to say, “I didn’t like him.” Article” or “this topic is that it hurts a bit”. I knew then that my approach had been wrong, even though Kentucky insisted on asking my opinion.
But I was nervous and the format didn’t help either. I would never have thought that at a journalism award, first the second, then the third and finally the winner would be announced. My inexperience showed because I didn’t know anything and in fact I let my speech go while ignoring the gestures they made to me from the floor.
Until I came off this stage that turned into scaffolding, I didn’t realize anything was wrong. I remember with a goofy face Ramón Lobo’s hand touching my shoulder to tell me “You didn’t win but I’m sure you will in another year” which was something like “He didn’t touch you, keep playing”, by Yoghurts. But I thought you were joking. It wasn’t until I saw Griselda Pastor accepting her award that I understood the dynamic and I grew smaller and smaller as I mentally reviewed each sentence to know how many of them I had fooled. No subject was missing: this prize is also yours, I hadn’t prepared anything, this time it was my turn… Like Gregorio Samsa, I went from journalist to cockroach in a few minutes without needing 100 pages of a book. Of course, when the winner, Placid Garcia-Planas, accepted the award, I applauded like no other because I had rehearsed it. Apparently his Crystal Balls, the winner’s trophy, made by the Royal Crystal Factory of Segovia, were much larger than mine, although at this point in time of the judgment I can doubt even that. I’ve never been congratulated so much on a loss since then. It was like Chanel but without the glitter and with candido suckling pig.
Like I said, Cirilo Rodríguez isn’t an Oscar, but for a correspondent, it’s like being one. Walking out of there I felt like that Colombian model who named Steve Harvey Miss Universe, only to correct it three minutes later and announce that the crown was indeed for the Philippines. Yes, it’s true, my brother told me later. But there, Jacobo, the fault was the organization, here the shit was all yours. In order not to disappoint him, I understood that he had won and should go celebrate. It happens to me often.
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