Soon I’m out on the street again. There’s a lot of activity outside, and the pilot calls out to me: ‘Are you going downtown?’ I smile this time. He asks if I’d like a lift; sure, I say, if it’s no trouble. I get in front and see two other men peer out curiously from the living room of the house. The man, an officer, says he’s stopping by the Air Force base near the airport; I thank him and say that wherever he can drop me off is fine. He makes conversation; he’s been observing me. We all do that.

‘You haven’t been here long, have you? I hadn’t seen you around before,’ he says, his voice loud but kind.

‘Yeah, I hadn’t seen you guys either,’ I say.

‘Oh, we’re always in rotation. This is my second time on San Andrés. The last time I came that house was empty, I think. Where are you from?’ His curiosity makes me turn for a better look at him. He’s clean-shaven, with straight hair parted to the side; his arms and chest are gym-sculpted. No ring. Maybe he still thinks white people are always from somewhere else.

I tell him wearily that I was born here, on the very same street where his officers are staying now, making a racket over videogames and football. ‘What about you all, how often do you come?’ Usually once a year or less; they finish some mission and then they’re dispatched to another base. I tell him that a childhood friend of mine once lived in that house, so I know it well. ‘It’s interesting having soldiers on the block!’ I say, when what I really mean is that it’s awful.

‘It must be,’ he responds gamely. ‘We’re here to patrol the eighty-second meridian, the ocean Nicaragua wants to take from us.’

The ocean Colombia lost: a loss that will never be acknowledged. ‘That’s the mission,’ he says proudly, ‘to protect the blue part of the flag.’ It’s not a colour on a flag, it’s the most important thing to… to me. Island people don’t believe that the ocean is just the gap between gold and blood, yellow and red. That’s the mainland view. From the perspective of territorial loss, though, ‘It’s important to take care of the Colombians’ archipelago, the one that belongs to all of us,’ as the pilot says. We’re passing the end of the runway and I know I’ll have to get out soon, but he insists on taking me all the way to 20 de Julio; it’s just a couple of blocks, he says.

‘I suppose that whole patrolling business is because of the Nicaraguan military presence in the grey area.’