Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona «2024»

“Push,” she said.

So Juliana did the only thing she knew: she improvised. She tore the hem of her linen shirt—a stupidly expensive thing from a Yorkville boutique—and wrapped the hose. She borrowed a woman’s hairspray to seal a leak. She convinced a teenage boy to sacrifice his bicycle’s inner tube for a belt. And when the battery whimpered its last, she ordered everyone out.

“A la izquierda, el pasado. A la derecha, la gloria.”

She hadn’t understood then. Now, bouncing between a man playing a ragged accordion and a woman balancing a tray of natilla and bunuelos , she began to. Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona

Don Pepe crossed himself. “La patrona,” he whispered, looking at Juliana. “She has returned.”

“Merry Christmas!” Juliana yelled, and the crowd yelled back, “ Juliana! Juliana Navidad! ”

But this year, the chiva was dying. Don Pepe’s son had moved to Bogotá. The younger generation wanted sleek buses with Wi-Fi, not a 1970s relic that smelled of diesel and damp wool. The town council had declared the chiva “unsafe.” Juliana’s own cousin, Carlos, had sent her a mocking voice note: “Vení a ver el entierro de la tradición, gringa de mierda.” “Push,” she said

“Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona”

At the first stop—a shack on a misty hillside—an old woman named Doña Clara hobbled out with a basket of empanadas . “Ay, Juliana,” she whispered, kissing her cheek. “You came back. But the chiva… she has no guasca . No fire.”

That’s why she was here. Not for the novena . For the fight. She borrowed a woman’s hairspray to seal a leak

Juliana laughed. Not a nervous laugh. A real one. It had been four years since she’d laughed like that. Four years since she’d left Medellín for a sterile apartment in Toronto, chasing a promotion that left her with carpal tunnel and a curated loneliness. Her abuela’s final words echoed in her head: “Mija, la navidad no se vive en un celular. Se vive en la chiva culiona.”

Juliana looked at the engine. It was a Frankenstein of wire, tape, and Don Pepe’s prayers. A hose was cracked. The radiator was leaking a sad green tear onto the dirt.