TITLE: Half Dinosaur, Half Ballerina

I have rarely felt, in my life, that I was standing before something that should not exist. For years, I had dreamed of venturing deep into the Mabamba Swamp in Uganda to find him: the shoebill. A creature so improbable it seems to have stepped out of a book of prehistoric beings or out of an evolutionary joke.

This year, I finally made it there. And I saw him. Tall, motionless, almost solemn—an animal that seemed not to belong entirely to our time. But then something happened that I could never have imagined: he suddenly plunged into the water right before my eyes. I had never seen - nor even come across - a photograph of a shoebill swimming, yet here he was, gliding through the water with a movement that was both strange and unexpectedly graceful.

And the most astonishing moment was still to come. He emerged from the swamp, spread his enormous wings, and - in an instant I still struggle to believe - landed directly on our small boat. A once-in-a-lifetime encounter, as unexpected as it was unforgettable. A meeting with a creature that feels as though it comes from the distant past, yet whose future depends entirely on the choices we make today.

AUTHOR: Alexandra Surkova (Spain)