First Post From Colombia

I arrived over a week ago and spent a few days in the capital of Bogotá before winding through the mountains and valleys of the Colombia landscape on a ten hour ride to Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city. Bogotá is a city of 7 million atop the Andes at an elevation of about 8000 feet. The temperate climate combined with the high altitude and dense exhaust fumes make for a pleasant if not lung damaging experience. FOR has an team in Bogotá in which two people politically and physically accompanying Colombia social change groups including: The Red Juvenil de Medellín (The Youth Network of Medellín), the ACA (Antioquia Small Farmer’s Association), and AMOR (Women’s Association of Eastern Antioquia). I’ll go into more detail on those groups some point soon. The Bogotá team also does much of the political accompaniment work for the Peace Community as they are in the same city as government offices and embassies. Additionally they know great artists, anarchists and places to eat and be merry. I had a rockin’, if not tiring, couple of days there.

I was in Medellín for less than twelve hours. Paul, the team member who has been in the community for a year met me and we slept the night at the apartment of one of the members of the Red Juvenil and got up at 4:30 to catch a bus to Apartadó. Before we slept we managed to see a bit of Medellín and meet many people involved in non-violent resistance movements there. We were present for the end of a meeting of the artists’ collective of the Red in which they planned their next demonstration against the incarceration of one of their members. This group is truly radical, the direct actions they plan are carried out in a heavily militarized state that doesn’t recognize such familiar concepts as consciences objection. Later that evening we shared an Aguila with one of the leaders of the ACA. He gives presentations all over the region, organizing displaced farmers and working with them to transfer their skills from the countryside to the city.

One of the more recent small world moments happened when a friend of Paul’s from back home met up with us as he was traveling from Peru and stopping in Medellín on his way to Caracas before heading home for the holidays. Paul is from Huntingdon, PA, a town very like and not so far away from my hometown, Somerset. And so there we were, three kids from western Pennsylvania sharing a drink together in Colombia. Yinz wouldn’t have believed it.

Paul and I headed back to our friend’s house to catch a couple hours of sleep before leaving for Apartadó. It was another long and winding bus ride, lasting about 9 hours. We stopped for breakfast around 7 and had arepa (The Colombian, thicker version of the tortilla) cheese, plantains, juevos aliñados (scrambled eggs with tomato and onion), yucca and more food that there wasn’t time to eat. It cost the equivalent of about two dollars. We arrived in Apartadó where it is sticky and hot, a city of about 100,000. After running a few errands we left on a chiva, a jeep-like mode of transportation, not a goat, for all you hispanoparlantes out there. After years of petioning, the government finally fixed the only road up to San Jose and so what had been a terribly bumpy and long hour-plus ride is now about 35 minutes. The absence of the usual military checkpoints also made the trip much faster.

We get off the chiva in San Josecito, the displacement settlement about a ten-minute walk from the small town of San José. The peace community members residing in San José displaced down the road after he installment of a permanent police post in the town center. One of the tenets of the Peace Community is to have no contact with any of the armed actors. A police post is also a threat to any civilian population in guerrilla-controlled territories as it serves as a literal bulls eye for guerrilla operations. All over rural Colombia, the state has installed similar posts in the middle of the civilian population, using civilians as shields and almost daring the guerrilla to take aim.

San Josecito looks less like a displacement camp and more like a small, permanent village. When the community first moved there, they had no proper sanitation, no electricity, no school and shared the few houses they had built. Malaria spread throughout the community and people were at risk for other illness. Now there are many more houses, lights, sanitation, a community garden, a school and a healthy community.

Paul and I tried to hurry in San Josecito as it was 5:30 at that point and the two hour hike up the mountain to our home in the settlement of La Unión is best not done in the dark. We finally got the horse loaded up with my things and the supplies we bought in town and we started up the mountain, me on the horse and Paul on foot. Night falls quickly here and soon we were going up in the dark, crossing the river three times, walking through mud and over rocks, finally arriving about two hours later. Our other teammate, Mirielle was waiting for us with a delicious dinner and a big hug. I can’t really say enough about how great Mirielle and Paul are. I am very lucky to be surrounded by such dedicated, intelligent and loving people. They had a welcome ceremony of sorts ready for me, including the absolutely useful and super cool gift of a good hat, which has already helped to block out the sun and keep the rain out of my eyes. The next morning the welcome continued with a treasure hunt of sorts. They hid notes and surprises around the community in the houses of some of the community members who we most rely upon for treats, chats and motherly care. I found such useful things as a machete, a rain poncho, and a flashlight. More importantly, I was introduced to the women who had already begun to care for me before I even began my year here.

In this circuitous and exceptional way, I arrived. Much has happened in the days since my arrival, but I’ll save that for another post.