A woman now in her mid-70s says she spent years of her childhood living among monkeys in a South American rainforest. Her story is unusual not only for the survival itself, but for the moment she saw her own face and realised she was not one of them.
Marina was just four years old when, by her account, trafficking gangs snatched her from outside her home in Colombia. She remembers playing with peapods before someone grabbed her from behind and covered her face. Her captors later left her alone in the forest.
Waking up in the jungle
The next morning she woke to find herself surrounded by trees and wildlife. A monkey approached, and others followed. "I was quite upset and one of them came and start to pop my ears and they start to touch me," she recalled.
The black-and-white capuchins soon lost interest, but they kept coming back to check on her. Over time, they began climbing onto her shoulders and playing with her hair.
She says this brought her real comfort after what felt like months of isolation. All the while she was waiting for someone to come for her, and nobody did.
Life with the troop
Marina believes she survived for as long as seven years in the wild. She drank plenty of water, ate seeds and picked over scraps the monkeys left behind. Their sounds became her way of communicating: a whistle meant food, and a screech warned of danger. She thinks she may have forgotten her own language.
Then she found a piece of mirror. "It was a shock of my life because I didn’t realize my face," she said. She had never seen herself before, and the sight made her think she was not like a monkey after all. She kept hold of the mirror as a reminder of the difference.
On another occasion she became ill after eating the wrong seeds. An older monkey pulled her into a shallow puddle. She swallowed a lot of water, but when she looked into his eyes she sensed he did not mean her harm. Her stomach settled afterwards.
Back among people
Marina says leaving the jungle is her biggest regret. She came out after meeting a group of hunters, drawn forward by a woman’s smile, but a man seized her. She was taken to Cucuta, escaped, and then lived on the streets, often sleeping in parks.
Eventually she met a couple from Bradford who took her in. Her birth family could not be traced, so they raised her in the UK.
Becoming human again was "very painful", she said. At first she could not open doors, eat properly or use cutlery. "I was completely useless," she admitted. Learning to trust people was the hardest part.
How things stand now
Many people assumed she would never live a normal life. Marina proved them wrong. She is now married with two daughters and two grandchildren, something she says she never imagined.
She has no formal education and says she simply tried to survive and be as good a human as she could. "I’m so grateful," she said, thanking her daughter, her family and her grandchildren.
Image credit: Blink Films/Toby Trackman
Source: The Mirror US
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