Nerea, Diana, Cinthia, Érica, María Teresa, Carla, Romina and Natalin are only eight of “Los Fénix de Mandinga” . Product of a domestic accident or for having been victims of gender violence, all had burn marks .

The fire not only left deep scars on their skin, but completely transformed their lives. It caused them a lot of suffering, sadness, in some cases depression and a lot of insecurity. Some even wanted to die.

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When they believed that there was no way to recover the life they had lost, they were encouraged to change. The meeting with Diego Starópoli, from Mandinga Tattoo , helped them rise from the ashes.

In dialogue with TN, they tell how they let the ink transform the burns into art.

Nerea: "They reconstructed my skin with grafts"

Nerea Zuk was six years old when her body completely caught fire. She was playing with some friends from the neighborhood and a perfume bottle exploded. “It was February 14, I remember that we had the pelopincho armed. At the time I saw everything black. I did not realize that I was burning, "Nerea told TN .

As she could, she ran home, hoping that her mother would not challenge her, because she was convinced that it was a prank: “I didn't realize what was happening to me, the least I thought was that I was dying . I had a deep third degree burn, I was hospitalized for three months in the Hospital del Quemado. Half my body was burned and they reconstructed my skin with grafts”.

Diana: "I burned 30% of my body and from that day on, everything changed"

Diana Cuccarese is 58 years old and one morning in 2012 she was burned as a result of a fire caused by a short circuit in a stove in her house: “I burned 30 percent of my body. From then on, everything changed, not only in the body with the marks but also the suffering and the loss of what until that day was my normality ”.

According to her account, she felt that she was in a good moment. She was in love, she had been in a relationship for a very short time, watching her four children grow up, with her house, her job, and overnight she was a different person: “I was not what I wanted to be, I wasn't. accepted. In addition, the family, the home, was disarmed for a long time until I was able to return home.”

Cinthia: "I had goals and many dreams that I recovered with tattoos"

Something similar felt Cinthia Aguirre who today is 41 years old when at 33 she set fire to the kitchen of her house: “I was taking a nap and when I woke up everything was on fire. Trying to get out, I burned 30% of my body. What affected me the most was my neck, my back, my breasts.”

She remembers that the one who helped her turn off was her husband who took her to a health center: "I don't remember anything else, I spent 10 days in intensive care and three months in hospital."

It was a long recovery time because they were very serious burns: “I went through many surgeries, a lot of pain. While I was hospitalized I did not realize what awaited me once I got out of the hospital. I thought everything was going to be the same as it was before, but nothing was the same .”

“I couldn't work. I suffered a very big depression and they fired me. I avoided going out, I didn't want to go anywhere, not together, or birthdays or anything. I had goals and many dreams that I recovered with the tattoos because I began to have more security , ”she recalls.

Erika's horror movie

Érika Altamiranda was also burned in a domestic accident, one of those that sometimes we think will not happen, and it does happen: “It was in 2018, I had come out of the bathroom, I put on a lot of perfume and deodorant and went to the kitchen. I lit a burner and a dish towel burned. I shook it and the flame came to my shirt impregnated with perfume and my body was set on fire. It was completely on fire , like a horror movie."

When Erika tells it, she remembers it as a nightmare . They were second in that she could not even take off her clothes: “I was in shock. My partner who was coming out of the bathroom came with a towel and we managed to put out the flame.”

The memories of that moment are confusing for Erica: “From what she tells me, she saw me and yelled at me to take off her clothes. I see the bra on fire, I take it off and after that, the next thing I remember is being in my brother-in-law's truck-because the firemen and ambulances never came-"

“When I arrive at the hospital, I have images of five or six doctors pulling my skin with tweezers as if it were melted. I was very afraid of dying."

María Teresa Rodríguez: "The tattoo changed me even my way of being, now I decide everything"

María Teresa Rodríguez is 77 years old and 10 years ago she stepped on a truck. She had a crushed right arm and leg. She is a nurse and since she never faded, she directed her transfer to the health center: “I decided the place they had to transfer me to according to my ART. At the clinic I was conscious when they took me to therapy.”

“When I entered the clinic I saw nurses and doctors, they took me to therapy to cut off my arm and leg. A doctor said 'we're going to give it another 24 hours'. I was in therapy with morphine, continuously with cures. Three times a week I went to surgery and once the doctor asked me if he wanted to see how my arm turned out. It had a little bone, it wasn't an arm ."

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Two years ago, María Teresa saw an advertisement on television. “I asked my daughter to call to find out because I couldn't even think on my own. Seeing my arm now as I had it, is something else. It changed me even my way of being, now I decide everything."

Carla, from not being able to do anything to having to continue for her daughters

Carla Pastor is 33 years old and in an accident in 2013 she set fire to 33 percent of her body: “I completely burned my chest, face and neck. That's where my life began to change . I also burned my hands so there was absolutely nothing I could do.”

When she had the accident, Carla was pregnant with her last child: “She had two more daughters whom she couldn't help at all. I was full of girdles and a mask for a while. That caused her to be locked up for a year . I couldn't take it to the square because I felt uncomfortable, I went out at night to walk around the block when no one was there”.

Romina suffered discrimination and was able to resurface because of the tattoos

Romina Daiana López, who is 27 years old today, remembers the moment when at 8, she set fire to the hotel where she lived with her family. She was the only one left inside: “I couldn't wake up, at one point I get up I don't know how and I get out of the flames. She was melted, screaming and asking for help. I don't know how I got out ."

She had been burned to the bone: “I have 89 percent of my body burned, they were about to amputate a leg and an arm. I went through three surgeries a week and in treatment for three years.”

Romina felt that she was living in the same hell as the fire: “Later I suffered a lot of verbal violence and discrimination . They told me terrible things, I didn't want to live anymore. She thought she had the will to get out of that fire, but she was in another nightmare."

“I had lost hope, I always dreamed that I would get up and not have the scars. They called me la quemada or Freddy. It was very painful."

Natalin: "We are no longer the burned ones, but the tattooed ones"

On January 27, 2005, Natalin López suffered gender violence. She spent a year and a half in the Burn Institute: "There are two men who marked my life: the doctor who treated me and Diego who changed the lights of the operating room for those of a Mandinga Tattoo cubicle."

She maintains that she got ahead because of her daughter, who was three years old at the time. “She was all bandaged up and she heard my voice and hugged me. It was all for her."

Natalin acknowledges that she never thought she would be at this point in her life all tattooed: “It's the first time I've spoken. Ever since I got the tattoos, everything has changed. The look on myself and my family. Before when I got on a bondi, people ran. People try to hurt you and everything hurts you even more.”

“When I met Diego, I only asked him to tattoo my arms because she had been covered for 15 summers: He told us all that he was going to change our lives and it was like that. They no longer look at us like the burned ones, but rather we are the tattooed ones”, explains Natalin.

Diego and Mandinga's healing tattoos

They all came to the Lugano location encouraged by friends or relatives who heard about the healing tattoos that Diego Starópoli, from Mandinga Tattoo, did.

“I didn't know they existed. One day I was attending and Diego came with his wife and his children to the restaurant where he worked, "says Diana.

As she explains, she brought him a drink and Diego asked what had happened to him. “I told him and he gave me his card. He told me that he could change it, make it look different and change my life without charging me a peso, because he was going to do it for me for free , ”she recalls.

Like Diana, the rest of the Fénixes (Los Fénixes de Mandinga) remember the hug with which they were received at the premises, not only by Diego but also by the rest of the tattoo artists. They also remember the first feeling they had when they saw the drawings for the first time on the skin.

“I couldn't believe it, the scars had been erased. It was shuffling and starting over, ”they all agree.

The phrase that Diego said to them at first is repeated to give dimension to what it implied: “I can change your life completely if you allow me. I transform your scars into a work of art .” They all say that it was.

stop feeling like a monster

Cinthia believed that the most affected thing she had was her neck. She “I saw him deformed and he always used handkerchiefs. I had three reconstructive surgeries and the results were not what I expected and I suffered a lot because I felt like a monster.

She says that it was her husband who saw on Instagram that they were doing tattoos: “My first session on my chest was tremendous. It was as if another skin had been put on me. I'm another person. The tattoos made me feel more confident .”

The impact of the initiative

“ What tattoo artists do with us is one hundred percent love . They do not take dimension of the impact they have. How do they change our lives? Belonging to this group is beautiful. It is very gratifying to feel that I have a purpose in life by telling my story and we know that we can transform something that was extremely painful into hope”, reflects Nerea.

Diego Starópoli is almost 50 years old, he has been tattooing for 30 years and for 8 years he began to tattoo the areolas of women who had breast cancer: “To date we have tattooed 1,750 women, of whom I personally tattooed 1,600. The other 150, my brother who has survived cancer.”

According to TN : “For some reason, we began to tattoo a boy who had almost 80 percent of his body burned. Actually, he asked us if we dared to tattoo him. It was unthinkable at the time that we could tattoo such severely burned skin, but we did."

“Two years ago a girl fell - who is not part of this group - who had her back burned and we tattooed her. We uploaded the images to the social networks and this group 'Los fenix de Mandinga' began to be put together”, recalls Diego.

Regarding healing tattoos, Staropoli warns that they are all very different: “There are girls who have skin that rejects colors. I do not choose simple cases, when evaluating a person to tattoo for free, in the first instance I confirm that the case is so serious that another tattoo artist does not dare to do it and on the other hand, that person does not have the possibility cheap to get tattooed They are jobs that take months, they are part of my family ”.

Before finishing, Diego wants to clarify, in front of the testimonies of the eight phoenixes: “They changed my life, sometimes what I receive is more than what I give”.

Production and interviews: Yanina Salvador

Camera and direction : Juan Pablo Chávez

Video Editing: Nadina Barello