how `bout something a little less bleak

It looks like this month is going to be one with limited blogging. Since I last posted my boss and two teammates from the Bogota office arrived, and in the middle of that week and a half of meetings three old friends came up to visit. Plus a friend of mine in the International Red Cross threw a co-party for our August birthdays. This is a lot of excitement for one girl in the campo. So, I offer minimal commentary and lots of pictures. Plus, I realize I need to put up something that doesn´t have too much to do with Colombia right now as it seems that I´ve been worrying some of you. So - worry no more! Look at these pictures in which I am smiling and surrounded by friends and cake!


Old, old friend and savvy sailor/world traveler Morgan was the first friend to make it up the mountain. He brought tidings from Ma and Pa Jack along with peanut butter various other things and the newest Harry Potter. He told me that he had a flight out of Philly and was driving across the state the night it came out so his dad, my old HS Economics teacher, found places near the PA Turnpike that would be open for Potter Release Madness. And Morgo, like the superstar he is brought me down a copy. Then, as it shows in this picture, he took on the somewhat monumental task of trying to figure out the electrical wiring in our house. After cobbling together the correct voltage of batteries and investigating the premises so thoroughly that it lead one of our neighbors to ask if we had hired him, he fixed some wiring and taught us how to use our back up power source. It seems like chances are good that from here on, an electrical fire won´t bring down the old casa. Always a good thing.

Soon after Morgan arrived, another old friend and his wife came to town, Steve and Constanza somehow managed to squeeze in a few days in the precious little time they had in Constanza´s native Colombia. It was so overwhelming and wonderful to suddenly be surrounded by three important and loving people in my now comfortable campo context. Steve told tales of his recent time with the UN Mission in the Congo and then in Nepal while Constanza shared about her work in a Congolese hospital - serious world travelers and multi-language people themselves, it was wonderful to share our adventures and here more about the world outside of the Peace Community of San Josè de Apartadò. Friendships like these are indeed a blessing! My three friends had a bit of a non-traditional experience of my everyday life as we left for Apartadò on Saturday to attend the joint birthday party for me and friend Vincent of the Red Cross. This party was awash with NGO folks and full of sweaty dancing. This is the second time I have gone to a NGO party out of the community and man, do I miss that kind of socializing. It was so fun to be the birthday girl too - I had promised to bake the cake that my mom always makes from scratch for our birthdays, but lack of ingredients and time meant we bought one. Bogota based teammate Camila is lighting the candles in this picture.

As soon as Vincent and I blew out the candles, the cake was of course shoved into our faces. And this lasted long enough that I´m not sure if any cake was actually left to eat but I did have a lovely eau de dairy for the rest of the night. I can`t stress how wonderful it is to be shoving messy cake in someone´s face after a complicated last month of combat and murders.
We obviously decided to get our friends in on the cake-on-face action. Did you read that? I said FRIENDS! As in multiple people who live in the region who are peers and share at least some kind of similar context as internationals working in the region. Even if the Europeans all speak English better than me, plus 46 other languages. We really need to fix US schools. So, here, me with friends: Hans from PBI (the other accompaniment org that is with the Peace Community), me, Vincent, Diego (also of the Red Cross) and my teammate Mayra.

The party was indeed a success and I am still full of love and appreciation to have been surrounded by old friends and teammates-turned-new-very-dear-friends. On Sunday Morg left and on Monday it was "nos vemos" to Steve and Cons as I rushed to get back up to San Josecito for a meeting of six embassy representatives with the Peace Community. This was a very important meeting for the Community and while it was shorter than had been planned due to a late arrival by the embassy representatives and a packed schedule, Community leaders did an excellent job of presenting their concerns and needs to an important representation of the international community. The Defensoria Nacional (the Human Rights Ombudsman´s office of the Colombian State) was present as was the MAPP-OAE (Organization of American States, Mission to Support the Peace Process. This kind of meeting could really move things for the community and is especially important given recent events - international backing has been key to their survival and continues to be important to their resistance. The organization of this meeting was a joint project between our Bogotà team members and Community leaders - an example of the important political work that our team in the big city in involved in.

After the meeting, we as FOR kept meeting. Susana, our boss from San Francisco and our entire in country team have an amazing capacity for reflection and dialogue. We are also quite deft at taking dignified pictures.

All in all, it has been a very busy couple of weeks. Somewhere amidst all of this I decided to extend my time down here. I will only be here three extra months but I am excited to be able to experience more of this complicated and beautiful country and as I closed out my ninth month it became clear that I actually wasn´t ready to leave. But I´ll get Christmas at home and then some time in our Bogota office. I look forward to exploring life in the Colombian capital and working towards a deeper understanding of our partner organizations. But, until the end of November I will continue to enjoy the daily joys and wonders of life in La Uniòn.

Next up - more news on what is going on in the Community and in Colombia, just as soon as I get back into the normal swing of things here.