Part of my roots are the Barí (also Motilon-barí) – an indigenous people from the Catatumbo rainforests of present-day Colombia and Venezuela. They once ranged from the Perijá Mountains to the vast and magical Lake Maracaibo. Although the Spaniards failed to conquer them, it was diseases and later industrialisation, mainly mineral extraction, that quickly destroyed a significant part of their people and culture. Many have mixed with other peoples and settled elsewhere. In their own language, Barí means ‘Son of the Forest’ and Catatumbo ‘Land of Storm and Thunder’, because on most nights the sky above their land is lit up by an endless dance of lightning. This is particularly visible from Lake Maracaibo.