Dear Editor,

I read with much interest the first part of a true saga from the book “Lost at Sea,” published in Amandala’s Nov. 15th issue. This story again proves man’s endurance and capacity to survive!

This story also took me back to Nobel Prize-winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book , “Relato de un Naufrago” (Story of a castaway).

In 1955 a Colombian navy vessel was returning from Mobile, Alabama after undergoing repairs. The vessel’s deck was overloaded with all types of appliances (contraband) being brought back by the crew to Colombia.  Still hours away from home, the vessel listed and eight men and all the cargo were thrown into the Caribbean Sea. All but one of the eight crew perished. That one sailor survived in a raft and washed up on the shores of Colombia.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a young man working as a reporter at the newspaper “El Expectador” de Bogota, when the lone survivor showed up and offered to sell his story to the newspaper. Garcia was given the job to interview the sailor, and the daily newspaper published the story over a two week span. Gabriel remembers that the newspaper’s circulation quadrupled!

It is with much anticipation that I await the next issue of Amandala!

Respectfully,

Alfonso C. Ramirez

P. S.: Kudos to Neri Briceño for the meaningful and respectful letter to the P.M. Never stop voicing your thoughts. VOX POPULI, VOX DEI