Rebeca

Rebeca is the story I have thought about most before writing it; I wanted to find the right moment to tell everything that she or he (we never knew the sex) meant to us. Rebeca arrived on a sunny Sunday, one of those Sundays when you think the biggest event of the day will be a wonderful breakfast with your family. It was around 11 in the morning when my brother called me, anxious, because a charming parrot had appeared at his door, walking around. He had been with her on a stick for over an hour, waiting to see if someone came looking for her, but nothing happened. The little parrot was starting to get impatient and he no longer knew what to do with her. He called me then and gave me an ultimatum: either I took the parrot and we figured out what to do with her, or he would give her to a stranger who wanted her. At the time, little was known about the rescue program run by DAGMA, where they take in wild animals of all kinds to give them a dignified outcome and, in many cases, return them to freedom. One of my sons shouted with joy: "Yes! Tell him to bring her!" — and that is how, half an hour later, Rebeca was in the house. She arrived in an improvised cardboard box to make the trip safe for her and for my brother. Rebeca let herself be placed on the stick to be put in the box, so no one would take any risks. Rebeca? Why Rebeca? Because that is how she introduced herself to us — like someone stepping before an audience and saying "Rebeca." It was an image that was tender and majestic at the same time. She had a few feathers in poor condition and was a little underweight, but she looked fine overall. We knew right away, from a bird book, that she was a yellow-crowned amazon (Amazona ochrocephala), a very sociable and lively species. Knowing nothing about caring for parrots, we immediately started reading so we could look after Rebeca as well as possible. At first, Rebeca became very attached to me. She liked to perch on my shoulder, and when anyone came close to me, she would get upset. This possessive streak in Rebeca would cause us problems in the future. That same day, after a couple of hours, Rebeca showed me just how strong her beak was: my husband walked toward me, and since Rebeca did not like that, she bit me on the shoulder — perhaps thinking she was biting him. In any case, Rebeca was here and it was our responsibility to care for her and protect her as best we could. That same day we bought her seeds, fruit, and more. Before long we built her a special "tree" in the garden: a vertical trunk of treated pine with guava branches, a perch for water and food, and a shade umbrella on top. Living in a country house meant Rebeca could spend her days free on the property. She liked to fly and climb an avocado tree, a chiminango, and especially a guásimo, whose fragrant seeds she would eat. Rebeca remained very friendly with me and with a very special woman who worked with us. She regarded everyone else with suspicion. The two of us were the ones who carried Rebeca to her tree outside each morning so she could spend the day there, and in the afternoon brought her back in and put her safely in the large cage we had bought for her, so she could sleep away from owls, cats, foxes, and other predators. My son Tomás, who has always loved animals, began — patiently and without any fear, even though he already knew how hard a bite from Rebeca could be — to earn her affection. One day Tomás appeared with Rebeca on his shoulder, perfectly at ease. From that day on, one of the best friendships I have ever seen was born: Rebeca and Tomás became the best of friends, partners, companions. Tomás and Rebeca had breakfast together. She would use her beak to pull his cup of hot chocolate toward her so she could taste it; she ate from his egg, stole pieces of bread — carrying them off in her beak — and perched on the back of an empty chair to eat them. When Tomás came home from school, Rebeca would get very excited and start calling out with joy, celebrating their reunion. Tomás was the only one in the house who had managed to hold Rebeca like a baby, feet up, and she loved it. When Tomás was still asleep late in the morning, Rebeca would walk all the way to his room and scrape the wood of the door with her beak until he opened it. When Tomás — a very good musician — played guitar or piano, Rebeca would join him singing "AAA AEO AEO," and she would not stop until the practice was over. Once I tried to have Rebeca accompany me while I played the piano, but nothing happened. Rebeca stayed silent, completely indifferent to my playing. The bond between Rebeca and Tomás was something more than special: she did everything for him, missed him every moment he was away, and whenever Rebeca climbed high into a tree, Tomás's voice was the only thing that could bring her back to the house. Once, Tomás went abroad for a few months on a student exchange. For several days, Rebeca would climb onto his bed and let out a lament — a sad, melancholy song. She was grieving. It was painful to watch her suffer because they were not together. After several days she finally resigned herself to not seeing him. Her love for him had taken over everything: Rebeca only wanted to be with him. I still remember how her tone of voice would change every time Tomás arrived — like a girl in love. Around that time, Rebeca developed a hostility toward my husband for no apparent reason, even though he was always attentive to when she needed to come inside, her food, making sure she had enough water. The hostility grew to the point that when he came home from work, Rebeca would be waiting for him — not to greet him, but to give him a hard bite. It was genuinely stressful. Sometimes Rebeca would fly after him to bite him. That is how she ruined many of his shirts and, sadly, ended up biting him on his body. In these encounters he always came away badly hurt, because he was incapable of hurting Rebeca and would not defend himself at all — his only option was to run. At first this was comical: Rebeca, with her sharp hearing, would detect the car several minutes before it arrived and get ready to "receive" him. Over time, those receptions grew more and more hostile. After several months Tomás came back, and you could say their reunion was like that of a mother who has not seen her child in a long time, or of two people in love meeting again. When Rebeca saw him, she started screaming with happiness, making a tremendous noise — as if she were shouting "welcome, I missed you, I am so glad you are here." That day we recorded a video and shared it with the family. It was genuinely extraordinary; to this day I have never seen an animal act that way. Several years passed, and our interest in birds kept growing. We were going out birdwatching regularly and becoming more and more aware of what an ideal life for a wild animal really looks like. We took Rebeca several times to visit other parrots to see how she would react. Most of the time she was very happy in the company of her own kind. On one of those occasions, even with Tomás calling her, Rebeca did not want to leave her parrot gathering — she was very much at home. But we noticed that Rebeca did not know how to "speak parrot": she made sounds imitating humans, but she did not make the sounds wild parrots make, like the blue-headed parrots that would occasionally come to visit her and share a tree on the property. This began to make us think about what was really best for Rebeca. We had also always been against keeping wild animals in cages or in any form of captivity. Animals deserve to be in their habitat — free and at peace. Rebeca was free to fly and was never locked up, but she was not in her habitat. After roughly five years, we made the decision to take Rebeca to DAGMA so she could enter a reintroduction process back to the wild — as they explained to us there — which, we understood, could take several years, but would give her the chance to fly free again, among her own kind, to have a family and help perpetuate her species. The decision was very hard for everyone. Rebeca was part of our world. She brightened our days with her spirit — she would say "aló, buenas" when the phone rang, liven up family gatherings, eat with us always, move through the house, frighten the dogs, peck at avocados in the trees, bathe in the rain, call out, laugh. But deep down we knew this was not what parrots — or any living being — were meant for, and that she could be happier somewhere else. She had already shown us how much she liked being among parrots. The day Rebeca left, Tomás spent several hours with her: walking with her, talking to her, tending to her with so much love that it brought us to tears. Tomás was still a child, but that day he showed how much he loved Rebeca by being the one most in agreement with giving her the chance to truly be a parrot. That was an immense act of love: letting go of what you love because it is the right thing to do. We took Rebeca to DAGMA together. They drew up a handover record, and the vets and zoologists assured us we were making the best decision. Rebeca was still very young — she had many years ahead of her and a real opportunity to be reintroduced to the wild. We would never be able to see Rebeca again. If she heard a familiar voice or had any contact with us, it would be a setback in her process. After a few days, Rebeca would have no human contact at all until, one day, she was ready for her life as an Amazona ochrocephala — the life she had always had the right to live but that a human being, out of greed or need, had taken from her. Wherever Rebeca is, we hope she is well and that we made the right decision. Having a wild animal — in this case a parrot — is not easy. A parrot can cause serious harm with its beak to people and objects in the house; its behavior is unpredictable, and just as it can be tender and gentle with one member of the family, it can be aggressive with others. A parrot often makes very loud sounds that disturb its owners and neighbors. Birds belong to the skies, the trees, the forests, the seas, and the mountains: that is where they must be, and from where they should never be taken.