Henao Llanos María Del Mar, The Endless Battle

THE ENDLESS BATTLE

Written by María Del Mar Henao Llanos

It was late February when I started my third phase training to become a policewoman in a specialized gym designed to help people train to become public officials. I was feeling elated since I was preparing myself to be what I wanted to be, a police officer.

Every day I was going to train with my coach at night, who prepared me for a tough test that would define my career as a police officer. I had every bit of talent to thank my coach for. My coach Cristina was a very different woman from others. She was a woman with lots of qualities and capacities that make her unique. Cristina was known for being very strong, brave, and because of her knowledge and experience in life.

She was a tall, muscular woman with short hair, dark eyes, and dark skin, she had a complex personality, she was a fighting woman, a charismatic woman, and above all, she had always treated me kindly. We have always clicked, and she was a beacon of hope and empowerment for women like myself.

One day, on a Saturday at 8:30 pm as the practice continued for my test. I found myself head-on with two large, blundering men, with buzzed hair and thick, showing veins. One of the men had tattoos all over his chest and arms, most were melodramatic drawings, but one was a phrase that said; “women belong in the kitchen.”

The reason why someone would tattoo that on their body was beyond my understanding, and when we saw it in the middle of my training, my coach and I were speechless. Many things came to mind, and undoubtedly these two men thought that women were inferior to them and that we had no other purpose in life other than to serve in the kitchen. Being in an unsafe environment, surrounded by people who thought like that, made me feel queasy.

They began to practice kickboxing in the same area, and they kept a steady eye on me. When I tried to land a spinning

frontal kick and landed on my behind, they laughed at me mockingly for attempting to accomplish my goals. It made me feel unappreciated; after all, I was only practicing like they were, and I was just trying to make my place in the world as a qualified policewoman.

I felt discriminated against by my gender, even though they weren’t directly attacking me, they started talking about me, just loud enough so I could hear, One man of the men said. “What is a girl doing here? She doesn’t want to become a policewoman, does she?”

The other one laughed and responded, “God, I hope not, we’d all have to babysit her” They both erupted into laughter.

My coach looked up at me and shook her head “Don’t you dare listen to them” I nodded and wiped at my eyes that had become teary. I kept practicing the spinner frontal kick, and as I did, I thought about how I wouldn’t let those men bring me down. I took them in, evaluated them, and decided that they were saying all these terrible things because they were intimidated. I was strong and capable, and I could do anything I put my mind to, and these men weren’t in the right mindset to tell me what I could or couldn’t do.

Belatedly after, I decided to stay focused on the test. It was the test I had to take to become a policewoman and finally achieve my final goal, though I had been training for the last five months, I still had work to do. I had two months to prepare, and I felt like this was the perfect chance to show everyone who I was, to reestablish the fact that I was worthy and good at what I do. I loved this, and I loved the rush of fighting, the pressure of punching and hitting, and making myself known. I trained five hours a day. I would go home, changed my clothes, and put on my protective gloves: cardio, basic training, punching, and kicking because I had yet much to learn.

I was still skinnier and scrawnier than all the men. I kept

training, building towards my goals, eating more, making more body mass so I could get more strength, and Cristina was there with me every step of the way to help me get stronger. Finally, the day was getting closer, and I would spend long nights with Cristina, she would punch my stomach so that when I took the test, it wouldn’t hurt as much. I was so grateful for her for all the times she had stood up for me. I always saw her as my second mother. The day before the test, she gave me her blessings and took me into what they called the “Pain Room,” where they tested and trained the policemen and policewomen of my city.

I went in scared, nervous, and wondering if I had done enough over the last months. But I knew I had, deep in my heart. The test was hard, they hadn’t lied, and I felt that I was being pushed to my limits, but I completed every stage as well as I could, and after 50 excruciating physical tests, burning questions and extended sequences of foolproof tests, I was done. I left the room, completely soaked in sweat, and I fainted down as I stepped outside of the room, Cristina came to my side, biting her nails from the excitement.

“How did it go? How did it go?” She helped me get up.

“I completed every stage, but I’ll get the results in a minute,” I responded between deep, fast breaths. I was gulping for air in a chair next to Cristina for the next five minutes until one of the evaluators came out. I stood up immediately.

“Well done, you passed the test, officer” I burst into tears and hugged Cristina. I had done it, and I was now an official police officer.

After I got my uniform, my badge, and moved into the office, the next few months passed in a blur. I was completely engaged in my job, doing mostly backup jobs and simple patrol jobs, because I was a beginner. The men in my section, the other police officers, rarely talked to me. I ate my lunch

alone and did paperwork by myself, and I knew it was because of my gender. I was the only woman in the section, and there was only one other woman in the entire department. I wished it could be different, but I always reminded myself that I, myself, was going to make that difference and that me being there was already a step into a brighter future.

One hot, lazy day, I got assigned to do some standard patrol for a central bank. I was doing my duties, as I always had, and everything in the bank was quite alright, but I felt as if something was off. I didn’t know what, and I decided to ignore the feeling, but as the clock inched closer to the afternoon, I felt my stomach drop more and more. Suddenly, I heard it. A gunshot. And the immediate public response, shouts, yells, and gasps. I quickly looked up and grabbed my gun from my holster. I took my radio and pressed the intercom button.

“Unit 54 requesting immediate backup”, I said into the police radio. I held my gun up as the gunmen entered the building swiftly. There were around ten or twelve men. I yelled,

“Stop right where you are and lower your weapon immediately!” I grabbed my radio and once again requested for backup, to no avail.

Little did I know that the policemen in the section had heard every word, but were busy laughing about the fact that they thought I was requesting backup for something silly and refused to send reinforcement. A gunman saw me holding up my gun and clenching my radio, and he yelled something over his shoulder, what happened after that was a blur. I remember hearing the next few gunshots, and then looking down at my chest, bleeding and torn. I fell to the ground and saw everything go horizontal in slow motion. I felt everything go dark almost instantly, and I could hear screams, more gunshots that slowly faded into the pool of dark. Later that day, I woke up in a hospital bed. I was in shock, couldn’t bear to talk

with an excruciating pain I was feeling at the moment. When I turned around, I noticed my mother laying down on the bed beside mine, and I couldn’t understand what was going on. The nurse in charge approached me and told me; “You, my dear, have had been lucky! You..” before she could continue, I interrupted the conversation and immediately asked what had happened to my mother, and she told me that my mother had had a panic attack that she was in severe health conditions since she saw me in a very tough situation, all bloodied and she couldn’t control herself, so she entered in an anxiety crisis, passed out and fell to the ground. My eyes filled with tears, and I wanted to see her so bad, but they couldn’t let me because of my condition.

Days passed by, but my mother didn’t get better, the doctors said, she had an aneurysm and a heart attack. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking and blaming myself, saying that, “Maybe if I wouldn’t have joined the academy, my mother would still be okay by now” Just when I thought that I had reached the pot of happiness, that’s when everything turned upside down. I convinced myself to fight to get better and healthier to be able to help her.

Unfortunately, the day of my birthday arrived, and it brought the worst news that anyone could ever wish for; the doctors had announced that my mother had passed away. I felt an enormous emptiness in my heart, and crying was no longer a sense of comfort as I wished I would have been the one to die instead of her. Nevertheless, As time went by, I knew that this situation would make me grow as a person, and I would try harder to be the best at my job and honor the death of my mom.