Enrique Medina was a simple farmer - until a tragic event in Colombia's bloody civil war changed his life forever.
From that moment onwards, he decided to devote his life to protecting the Nasa, his community of indigenous Colombian people who suffer a grave threat to their very existence.
And now Enrique - poor and from a forgotten people, stands up to great dangers with a determined shrug.
Colombia's conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced three million civilians. Among the worst hit are the country's 100 indigenous groups.
To look at Enrique, you might not realise what he has endured. He has the muscular frame of one who has toiled in the field and an open, kind face sunburnt by a life spent in the equatorial highland outdoors.
As we sit talking in the Alta Mira village square, nowhere could seem more peaceful. An elderly peasant spreads out coffee beans to dry in the high altitude sunshine; youths on their ponies ride by as school children scamper off to lessons in the Roman Catholic church.
Above the village are steep-sloped hills where clouds part to reveal distant volcanoes and the bright green foothills of the Andes.
Enrique speaks quietly and plainly as he tells me the story of how he became the village governor of Alta Mira.
On 12 April, 2001, he was called from his smallholding in the lush, mountains of Cauca, in western Colombia.
Together with other villagers of his indigenous Nasa community, Enrique rushed to the neighbouring hamlet of Alta Naya.
Hours before, right-wing paramilitaries had entered Alta Naya and lined up Nasa men, women and children.
The attackers accused villagers of collaboration with Marxist FARC guerrillas fighting Colombia's government.
First the paramilitaries slashed at the villagers with machetes as they interrogated and taunted them. Next they used chainsaws to dismember their victims.
By the time Enrique and his friends arrived, 120 people were dead.
Enrique took part in the efforts to retrieve and bury the bodies. Later, he began the job of resettling the Alta Naya families.
He decided to devote his time to helping his people, but paramilitary threats quickly forced him to flee to the capital, Bogota.
In his three years as a city refugee, he learned more about the threats against many of Colombia's indigenous peoples.
When he returned to his home of Alta Mira, the villagers elected him as their governor.
And despite the dangers, human rights workers say people like Enrique have made a positive difference.
They say the Nasa are better organised than most indigenous peoples - and that as a result, and despite their ordeals, they are better protected.
Most days, Enrique says, he judges legal cases determined in traditional Nasa courts.
'It's no joke, this job,' Enrique says. 'There's a lot of responsibility on your shoulders - and if you're not careful you can make enemies.'
And in his role of Nasa village governor, he says he also makes enemies of those who would drive the Nasa off their most valuable resource - their land.
The hills around Alta Mira are rich in the resource that brought the first colonial Spanish to what they saw as El Dorado 500 years ago - gold.
Today, both local and international mining companies are attempting to move into the district.
Bogota's government calls it foreign investment. But Enrique sees it as the latest attempt by outsiders to evict indigenous people from their territory.
It's not that Enrique and the Nasa are bargaining with the gold miners.
He says the hills of Alta Mira are just not for sale.
'When the gold mining companies come in, what good has it ever done the local communities?' Enrique asks. 'None.'
One mining company offered him a bribe of $50,000 to win his support, he alleges.
But he says that when he rejected the money a campaign of intimidation against him began in the form of death threats sent by fax, sms texts on his mobile - even graffiti sprayed across local houses.
Enrique notes that the people sending him the threats align themselves with a paramilitary group - the same on that perpetrated the chainsaw massacre of 2001.
As we talked, I asked Enrique if he was afraid about being so vocal in his defence of the Nasa. He shrugged again.
In my 20 years of reporting wars I have met many courageous people - but rarely one quite like Enrique Medina.
