2023-11-02 16:24:10
Darío Buchenicow Caballero Chiquillo is a 46-year-old man who was born in Sabana de Torres, the White Pearl of Magdalena Medio. Last Sunday he was elected mayor of this municipality with 7,660 votes. However, behind the name of the elected mayor there is a story of setbacks, faith and overcoming.
He shared his first years of life with his mother, Edilma de Jesús Chiquillo, and his brothers Andrea and Fredy. During a period of crisis, in the early 90s, Mrs. Edilma decided to seek better luck in Bucaramanga. She and her three children arrived in the Zapamanga neighborhood of Floridablanca when Darío was about 15 years old.
Since there were few resources to eat, the young boy went out to find his livelihood and took a job as a car washer. He knew money, but also bad friendships. Although he was one of the best car washers, what he earned he spent on drinks. Along that path he also immersed himself in the world of drugs.
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He consumed marijuana and parakeet and made them part of his daily life. He did not return to his house and slept in the cars that he washed, then the streets became his habitation. He “washed cars at night, but since it was so cold, he wore boxers to work more calmly. When the day was over he slept on the benches of a park in the La Concordia neighborhood. There was a clock that marked the temperature and sometimes it read up to 10 degrees Celsius,” Buchenicow recalled.
Between 1992 and 1995, Darío consumed alcohol, drugs and was a homeless person. He had long hair, wore baggy pants, learned street language and became passionate about cumbias, the latter the only ‘vice’ that he still maintains.
Darío felt that he ‘hit rock bottom’ when he tried the ‘bazuco’, his broken shoes had water seeping underneath them and his underwear was limited to some torn boxers. However, a man he met while washing cars became his ‘savior’.
“To a man I used to wash his motorcycle, named Jorge Eliécer Guevara, he extended his hand to me, made me cut my hair, change my way of speaking, taught me to know about God and took me to work in a company that sold protective screens for television,” said Darío Buchenicow.
At that moment, life smiled on the Sabanero again. “They hired me at Gamavisión and I started touring towns. I was a door-to-door salesman in the provinces of Comunera, Guanentá, Vélez, Yariguíes and in the departments of Boyacá, Meta, Casanare. I was the best salesperson and they promoted me to supervisor, collector, portfolio manager and zone manager,” he said.
Around the year 2000, the company he worked for went into crisis and Darío returned to Sabana de Torres with a ticket paid for by his mother. Since he was not part of any union he could not work with the oil industry. He worked hard and took a waiter’s course that helped him work in some companies and then to be a purina and chicken seller.
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The man became independent and started his first business, ice cream. “I was a Viking salesman. He came out on a tricycle shouting Bon Ice, Bon Ice, delicious, nutritious and refreshing, suck it for only 200 pesos. At the same time I sold raffles, bets and ‘livestock’. I also placed a sale of cell phone minutes.”
Already an entrepreneur, Darío Buchenicow confesses that he planned to be mayor of his municipality. “One day there were four people to whom I was opening Bon Ice and I told them that one day I would be mayor of Sabana. Everyone scoffed. Those who did it believed in me for a long time,” he stated.
23 years ago he made a home with the love of his life, also from Sabana, Deysi Lucía Rueda. From this union Darío Macgliony and Deisy Lorena were born, who joined María Fernanda and Anderson Stiven, children from a previous relationship. As a family, Buchenicow founded the first motorcycle taxi company in Sabana de Torres, which currently benefits nearly 400 families in the municipality.
The Sabanero was ‘bitten by the political bug’, he nominated his name for the Municipal Council and was elected. He ran for Mayor and got burned, he re-presented his name and lacked 74 votes to achieve it.
Darío was not satisfied and decided to prepare himself academically. At 36 years old he finished his high school degree and is currently studying the fourth semester of Public Administration. The change in Darío’s life has been such that he went from living on the street to establishing a technology distribution company with 50 points of sale in four departments.
Last Sunday, after a new attempt, the Sabaneros elected him as their mayor. Buchenicow said that due to the hunger and humiliations that he had to experience, his time had come “to help the street vendor, the waiter, the pickers, the recyclers, and I am going to legalize as many settlements as he can.”
When he takes a look at the past, through tears, Darío Buchenicow Caballero Chiquillo assures that “I am another, I am definitely another. “I got up and today I achieved what I dreamed of.”
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