Bogota, Sep 8 (EFE).- Meeting former President Alvaro Uribe, acting with Jackie Chan and being a soccer goalie are some of the dreams of Colombian Edward Niño Hernandez, who - at 70 centimeters (27.5 inches) - has been acknowledged as the world's shortest man, according to the Guinness Book of Records.
"I'm Edward and I'm just this small," said Hernandez decisively upon introducing himself during an interview with Efe in the living room of his home in Bogota's unassuming Bosa neighborhood.
The death in March of Chinese citizen He Pingping, who had held the title of world's smallest man, caused worldwide attention shift to the 24-year-old Colombian.
The news of his confirmation as the shortest man in the world reached Hernandez while he was making his debut as an actor in the film "El cartel de los sapos," in which he plays an assassin who is sent to the home of a drug trafficker in a box wrapped as a present and when he tries to shoot the gangster, the man's bodyguards wind up killing him.
Not only has he begun an acting career, but also on the weekends he is a reggaeton dancer at several local nightspots, where he earns the income with which he supports his family.
He is a young man who is always smiling when he tells his stories, but his life has not exactly been an easy one.
"The school principal didn't want me to continue because I had a lot of problems. (The other kids) hit me in the face with the ball, and once I was taken to the hospital because they knocked me out," Edward recalled.
His mother Noemi also has not forgotten the problems her son has had gaining acceptance.
"We were motivated to have psychologists treat him. We wanted him to be a person who developed in an average way, who was useful, who felt that he certainly could face society, but there are many obstacles," she said.
She still recalls how Edward had to be placed in an incubator after birth since he measured just 38 centimeters (15 inches) long, and the anxiety she felt when she realized that he was not growing and the doctors could not determine why.
"They tell you not to get your hopes up ... They hardly gave us any hope for living. It was a real time of anxiety for us, of hopelessness," she confessed.
Thanks to the Guinness designation, however, Edward hopes to be able to meet President Juan Manuel Santos and his predecessor, Uribe, of whom he "would ask many things, like that they help me, support me."
Asked if fame will transform her son, Noemi says: "I don't think he'll change. He's a person with a humble heart, very innocent of having fame go to his head."
"He's a man with a small body, but with the heart of a child, and I wish everyone thought or felt like him, with that peace and calmness that he transmits, without anxiousness or anxieties," Edward's mother said.
