Not all castaways have the fortune of Colombian sailor Luis Alejandro Velasco, who in 1955, after falling from a destroyer, spent ten days adrift until he reached land with his raft and Gabriel García Márquez made him immortal thanks to his report fictionalized.
Seven other colleagues, who went into the water like him, did not make it out alive.
The founder of Macondo starred in Velasco's second rescue, that of memory, in his Relato de un náufrago.
It is clear that Elvis Francois does not have a García Márquez to write his adventures for him. There is only one and he broke the mold. But you can't complain either.
His case is already known as that of the sailor saved by ketchup.
This other Elvis, originally from the island of Dominica, also has a story, easily adaptable to the screen.
It happened at the end of December. Francois, 47, was repairing his boat near the island of Saint Martin in the Netherlands Antilles, where he resides, when currents swept his boat into the Caribbean Sea.
Although he was carrying his mobile phone and tried to call for help, there was no signal. His efforts were in vain. He was lost for 24 days with his sailboat, waiting for his rescue. Which finally happened. The Colombian Navy found it.
Once with his feet on the ground, he explained that he resisted for almost a month drinking rainwater and with a menu made up of garlic powder, Maggi pills and, above all, eating ketchup. The only thing she had.
“At some point I lost hope and thought about my family, but I have to express my gratitude to the coast guard. If it hadn't been for them, I wouldn't be able to tell what happened to me." This is how he explained it in a video recorded and broadcast by the Colombian army, the same one to which Velasco belonged.
Although he fell out of favor after his confessions to the young journalist García Márquez (the story was published in installments in El Espectador de Bogotá and in book format in 1971) and revealed the truth that the military ship was engaged in smuggling, Francois in this is luckier. He is a hero to be rewarded.
His ketchup statement led the Heinz food company to decide to give him a new boat. Although he did not specify any brand name, Heinz considered there was a good chance that it was one of his packaged ketchups given its dominant status in the market. However, despite technology and the internet, the company discovered how surprisingly difficult it was to find the protagonist of this odyssey.
Francois had been lost again, there was no trace, so they launched an international campaign to locate him.
When the investigation initially proved fruitless, the food brand began sharing its plea with the label
"We are leaving this message adrift in the sea of the Internet because if anyone can help us find it, it is you," reads one of the posts. But after sharing the search online, it still didn't show up, so they enlisted the cooperation of other brands, online sleuths, and various government agencies.
This week it was announced that Elvis Francois had finally been found in his home country. Heinz stressed that they were already finalizing the details to give him his new, state-of-the-art boat. The company gave full credit to reporters from the Dominica news outlet EmoNews for their assistance in contacting the seafarer.
The new boat will have a good cargo of ketchup, Heinz stressed, just in case it goes through another emergency situation again. Perhaps it can happen as with Luis Alejando Velasco, who ended up working as an office worker in a bus company.
