Rina escaped, Rina escaped! shouted the farmhands. I saw my uncles running, taking off their shirts, heading toward the workers who were yelling that the macaw had gotten away. My grandfather had bought Rina a few years earlier. When he brought her to live on the farm where he lived with my grandmother and uncles, she caused a sensation. Not only was she a splendid animal, with colors more vivid and bright than any flag you could imagine, but Rina could talk! Parrots often talk, but it’s not as common for macaws. They prepared a beautiful and spacious cage for the talkative animal, with wire mesh and a zinc roof, placed outside in a corner of the front yard, close to the main house.
In the first few days, Rina called out for Julia and Pachito (two names unfamiliar to our family). The adults concluded that they must have been her previous owners. Rina would call out to them and ask for bread, laugh, and chat in her brand-new cage, and she seemed to particularly enjoy the rain, making a fuss, singing, and laughing. Little by little, she stopped calling for Julia and Pachito and learned the names of my grandmother and grandfather, thanks to my grandmother’s dedication. She pampered her with cookies and fruit daily and spent hours talking to the parrot, until Rina could recognize each member of our large family.
Every time we arrived at the farm for vacation, Rina would recognize us and call each of us by name. The children in the family had a great time chatting with her. She was a true marvel of intelligence and beauty. When we returned from vacation, our home was filled with vases decorated with the colorful and shiny feathers my grandmother collected every time Rina molted, both to decorate the farm and to give to the grandchildren. During those years, there were always macaw feathers in our house, and it felt completely normal. Rina was as loved as Pecas and Carola, the farm’s pet dogs—except Pecas and Carola never called anyone by name; Rina did.
Many years passed, and the macaw was like a member of the family, always in her wire cage. “They live up to 80 years,” I once heard someone say; I never knew if that was actually true. But Pecas and Carola lived and died, and then came Pitufina, a small, skinny mixed-breed dog; she lived and died too, and Rina was still there, in her cage.
One random day during a vacation, I was playing with my siblings on a hill near the farm entrance when we heard the commotion: Rina had escaped. From the top of the hill, we could see my uncles running, waving their shirts in the air, and the farmhands chasing behind, in a hilarious scene, while above them we saw the magnificent animal flying with her long tail and outstretched wings. It truly was a magnificent sight, as we were above her in elevation, and I remember thinking it was a different macaw, not Rina, because I had always seen her in her cage since I was a little boy—standing still, sometimes with her wings spread, but never flying. It would have been a beautiful moment if it weren’t for the fact that we loved her as a pet, and thinking she had escaped filled me with anxiety and confusion. She kept flying until she disappeared into the woods beyond the farm’s borders.
For hours, the search for Rina was unsuccessful, and back home my grandmother lit candles to her saints, praying for her return. After so many years in captivity, the fear was that poor Rina wouldn’t survive in the wild. Near dusk, as my grandmother and the grandchildren prayed the rosary—partly because it was tradition to do so at six every evening, and partly to pray for Rina’s safe return—my uncles came back victorious. I finally understood why they had taken off their shirts—Uncle Rafa carried the macaw carefully wrapped in his. Rina didn’t seem injured or scared, but she had large claws and a strong beak; it was better to have her wrapped, both for her own safety and my uncle’s, in case she tried to bite. My grandfather always said she could snap a finger off with a single bite if one wasn’t careful. The macaw was quickly returned to her cage, still anxiously calling for “Mama Ketty” while repeating verses from the rosary, which she had also memorized.
When my grandfather had an accident in the farm’s coffee field and needed surgery on his arm to get a metal plate installed, the family decided it was best for his recovery to sell the farm and move back to the city. That’s how Rina came to live in Medellín. In the family home, there was a large patio where they built her a cage just as big and spacious as the one on the farm. But unlike that one, which offered views of the surrounding forest and nature on all sides, this one stretched from wall to wall and only faced the front of the patio and the interior window of my grandparents’ room. No more trees, no more garden flowers, no more wild birds, no more clouds or woods for Rina.
Years passed like this, and Rina lived in the patio, just as chatty and mischievous—she loved to laugh and sing—and she still recognized everyone in the house, calling them by name. When we got home from school, Rina would greet each of us by name, and we’d go say hello. We brought her mangoes and papaya and laughed when she scolded my uncles, perfectly imitating my grandmother’s voice, from whom she had learned not only to pray but also to nag.
That’s why it was so strange when, one day, my grandfather asked me, the eldest grandson (since my uncles had already moved out), to help him with something. He handed me an old blanket and asked me to help him take Rina out. Confused, I asked why, and he told me he was going to give her to the zoo. My grandmother, my mom, and my aunts all started yelling and protesting, saying he’d gone crazy, that how could he do such a thing after all these years? But nothing could change my grandfather’s mind. I obeyed more out of fear of being punished than because I understood his reasoning. The complaints and shouting turned to tears and pleas, but as we took the macaw out of her cage, my grandfather kept repeating that the poor animal was too confined, that it wasn’t right for her to live like that, that she’d be better off in a zoo… None of that erased the feeling of confusion and helplessness. How could my grandfather do that to a pet we had loved for so many years?
With great fear, I helped wrap poor Rina in the towel. She was mostly docile, though she would occasionally resist and snap, but surprisingly, on the car ride to the zoo, she was very calm and even let me gently stroke the feathers on her head. I tried to hold back my tears because, according to my grandfather, men don’t cry, but the truth was, it felt like a final goodbye. I was very fond of that macaw, and I couldn’t imagine life at home without her: no more morning squawking that woke us better than any alarm clock, no more prayers at six in the evening, no more joy when it rained; but I did remember the frightened shrieks she made when thunder rolled: “Blessed Saint Barbara, protect us from all harm!” she used to say every time lightning struck.
When we arrived at the zoo, my grandfather walked ahead and I carefully carried the precious bundle, feeling deeply upset. My grandfather spoke to someone at the entrance, and we were taken to an office where a man kindly received us. Upon hearing my grandfather’s offer to donate the macaw, he asked why, and I handed over the wrapped bird. The man examined her closely; he was clearly skilled with animals. He held her firmly but gently, spread her wings, and checked her thoroughly while my grandfather explained that she lived in a cramped cage and barely got any sun. I nearly laughed in relief (but held it in) when the veterinarian told my grandfather that’s why her feathers were so pretty and shiny—because the sun fades their color. I thought, “That’s it, this man won’t take her,” and I felt a glimmer of hope—one that didn’t last long. At my grandfather’s insistence, the vet said he would take her, but that he couldn’t place her with the other macaws (who, by the way, weren’t caged at the zoo but lived freely among the trees around a small artificial lake) because she was unfamiliar, and suddenly introducing her could lead the others to reject and even attack her, possibly killing her. At thirteen, I asked the vet worriedly if Rina would really be better off there than at home with her family. He said yes, that she would be with others of her species, but first she needed to go through quarantine—she couldn’t just be released like the others who were already used to freedom. Curious, I kept asking, still remembering the day Rina escaped at the farm: how did they keep the macaws at the zoo from flying away if they weren’t caged? He explained that they recognized their territory, that they even flew around the city and returned to the zoo because it was their home; that Rina would be caged for a while and gradually introduced to the others until she could be released. I told the vet that Rina talked, recognized everyone at home, even prayed… He didn’t seem surprised. He said macaws were very intelligent, that while it wasn’t common for them to talk, it wasn’t impossible either. But what saddened me most was when he said that once Rina was integrated with the others, she would soon forget how to speak. With a broken heart and a secret grudge against my grandfather for making such a sudden decision, we returned home. In the car, I noticed my grandfather was sad—something extremely rare for a man who never showed emotion or affection in public. “It’s for her own good; she’ll be fine here,” he said, and that was all he said the entire ride.
When I was 23, my Drawing I professor at the University of Antioquia’s School of Arts told us we’d be taking a field trip to the zoo to learn to draw animals in their environment. I hadn’t been back to that place since the day we took Rina. At that moment, I didn’t even think of her—just about the drawing exam and how on earth we were supposed to draw animals that don’t sit still for artists.
When we got to the zoo, the students split up, and I stayed with a couple of friends, looking for the stillest animals to draw, even though our professor insisted we look for active ones to capture their “gesture,” as he called it. When we finished drawing (by the way, I drew an ocelot that never stood still), my friends and I wandered around the zoo. When we reached the small lake surrounded by trees, I saw a flock of macaws—beautiful, free, adapted to their oasis in the middle of the city. Suddenly, a voice identical to my grandmother’s started shouting: “Andresito’s here, Andresito’s here!” My eyes filled with tears as I recognized my grandmother’s voice in the call of a macaw… I tried to figure out which one it was, hoping to recognize my dear Rina, but it was impossible, because quickly the lone voice shouting “Andresito’s here” turned into a chorus of macaws yelling my name. I knew Rina was there, even though I couldn’t identify her—she had recognized me after all those years. She not only hadn’t forgotten how to talk, she had taught the other macaws how to speak too.
When I got home, I told my mom and grandmother what had happened: that Rina had recognized me and called out to me, that a chorus of macaws had shouted my name, and that half the zoo had witnessed this macaw choir marvel. With sadness, I let slip a reproach toward my grandfather for his decision to give Rina away that day. That’s when my grandmother told me that he had given her away because he knew he was going to die soon and felt remorse about keeping the macaw caged; that it was something he wanted to do before dying so he could be at peace.
When I was thirteen, I suffered two great losses: we gave Rina to the zoo, and that same year, my grandfather died of pancreatic cancer.