stone for a pillow

We got back from another hike to La Esperanza and Mulatos. This time it was a two for one deal: La Esperanza on the first day and then a quick four-hour cut over the mountain to Mulatos the following day. We went with community leaders who were once again gathering folks in the area together to discuss crops, civilian safety, and the possibility of re-establishing education for the kids in the area. The meeting in La Esperanza was held in a run down but still used Pentecostal church and began at dusk. When Camila and I were asked to join them at the end of the meeting in order to introduce FOR and ourselves, we were welcomed into a meeting space lit by a single gas-flamed candle hanging precariously from the ceiling beams and throwing a soft and promising light over the sun-worn faces looking tired but earnest. After the meeting a small group of us headed out to the family farm of one of the community leaders from La Unión. The moon was low and bright as it skimmed the horizon and made flashlights unnecessary. We walked in a single file through fields, criss-crossing the river, and finding our way between gigantic corn stalks until we reached the house. Camila and I and our new favorite person Juan (a guy from Bogotá who is researching his dissertation for his anthropology PhD and is simply amazing) headed down to the river for a bath and were overwhelmed with the celestial dazzle of the vivid moon as it reflected in the clear and cold stream. We bathed, basked is more like it, in the moon’s rays, appreciating the cold water, the warm night and the illusory reality that brought us to that place, that time.

The next morning’s hike to Mulatos stretched into the afternoon and took us up, up, up on a rather closed off, jungly path. After a few moments in which our friends seemed to perhaps have been lost on the infrequently used path, we finally came out at the river that leads to the house where the group is staying. I was so excited to see those folks again. And the house was so much more lived in and improved upon than when we left. We exchanged hugs and drank some tinto and then, as the meeting there got started, Camila, Juan and I headed down to once again wash up in the river. The sun was still doing its thing, so there was no awe-inspiring soak this time around.

We had to leave the next morning, so we reluctantly packed up our things, said our goodbyes and prepared for the muddy walk back without the luxury of mules. We were with the leader I have spent the most time with this year, I even began calling him “Tio” a while back. He is one of the few natural leaders still alive in the community, having taken up a leadership role at its birth. This isn’t meant as a criticism of leadership here, the sad fact is that the FARC, Colombian Army and Paramilitary Forces have killed most of the original community leaders. This means that most of the leadership now consists of quieter men and women, all who have learned leadership, have worked at becoming a respected and trusted voice. This form of intentional leadership is incredibly impressive, especially when you consider that it arose out of the deaths of leaders. But Tio is one of the originals, someone who stepped effortlessly into his responsibilities and balances a laid back attitude with the gravitas of a seasoned leader. Going anywhere with him is guaranteed to be full of laughter and good-natured joking as his charisma spills out over anyone in his path. The journey back was no different, as this time Juan and Camila were the targets of Tio’s laughter as they stuck and un-stuck their way through the mud, both unfamiliar with these paths having just recently arrived. Tio kept bragging about how I was spotless and not even breathing hard as we ascended the thick-with-mud path. This new pressure to walk without incident meant that the few times I did get hopelessly stuck in the mud, I took advantage of the fact that I was bringing up the rear and put all my effort into pulling my boot out by myself so my proud Tio wouldn’t know that his gringa niece was as clumsy as ever.

When we were through the worst of it, we stopped to wait for some folks who were going the other direction so the leaders could discuss some urgent matters with them. We sat down in front of the school in Buenos Aires and appreciated the view of the rolling mountains and green valleys below as well as the, uh, good air. I stretched out and gazed up at the clear blue sky fringed by the coconut palm tree edging into my view. Tio, exhausted, pulled up a piece of earth and took a nap, using a stone for a pillow. I’m not sure if he had any Jacob-like dreams of biblical prophesy, but he gave me the chance to take what will now be one of my favorite pictures from this year.

one of those days

Yesterday was one of those days that just couldn´t seem to shake off the grumpies. I woke up at 5:30 and by 6:00 was ready to meet the community leader I was to accompany down to town. It was pouring outside and cold and my bed had been so warm and not rainy. I decided to wait until he came to get me, thinking that we would probably wait until the rain stopped. About an hour and a half later the rain still hadn´t stopped and he sent his daughter over to tell me that we should get going anyway. On my way over to his house I almost stepped on a baby chicken and Mama Chicken actually attacked me. I had never been attacked by a chicken before, it was a very effective jump and peck to the leg. We soon started down the mountain with his cargo of lulo, a fruit that I had never encountered until Colombia and don´t know what name it goes by back home. I do know that it is super delicious and I might be addicted to it. The rain finally let up about half way down, giving me a charming damp-sweaty steam for the rest of the walk.

When the chivero finally came we began our descent into town and soon found out from our fellow travelers that another civilian had been killed the night before. The young man, father of five young children, had been shot in broad daylight around 1pm while playing pool right next to the bus terminal, one of the busiest spots in Apartadó. As folks were recounting what they knew of his death the chivero stopped and the man´s wife, children and father got on in order to go claim his body and make funeral arrangements. Just the look on their faces was enough to break my heart. As far as anyone can tell, this man was a decent, hard-working campesino with no obvious reasons to be targeted by paramilitary gunmen. And his kids were all so young, the oldest about 9. My heart kept breaking as I listened to all the other folks in the chivero explain in detail where they needed to go, who they needed to talk to, how the Red Cross would help with an affordable funeral, etc... This has all happened before and everyone seems to be able to give advice. It definitely put my grumpy and damp morning into perspective.

Later that day the leader I was accompanying talked about how he hadn´t been able to stop thinking about what his family would go through if something happened to him. Clearly, this thought is always in the background of his daily at-risk life, but seeing the fresh pain of the mourning family brings it rushing to the fore. And so the war is always unfolding and effecting lives in ways that reveal themselves in a sudden and harsh realizations. For me, a moment of heart-breaking awareness hit while sitting knee to knee with a young woman who had just lost her husband and the father of their children to a violence unafraid to widow a woman, orphan a child, or make people experts in the details of death.

muddy is what you make it

We just got back from a muddy, sweaty, rainy, beautiful trip to Mulatos, a far flung vereda which made its first and only appearance in this blog back in February as the site of a yearly pilgrimage to remember those killed in the Feb 2005 massacre. This time we went, not to remember the past but to look towards the future. We accompanied a small group of community members in order to plant fields and prepare for what hopefully will eventually be a return to the area as the community looks to expand neutral space for civilians who have long been displaced from the fertile and more remote areas of the zone. It only took us 7 hours to get to the house and land of one of the men in our group. The walk was up, up, up and incredibly muddy, rainy and at the top of the mountains we were climbing, actually cold. I realize now that I am in much better hiking-in-rubber-boots-through-mud-and-mountains shape than I was during the first trip to Mulatos 7 months ago. The muddy path sucked my boot off only three times, granting me the squishy mud feeling both inside and out of my boot. One of the times I managed to achieve such stickiness that it took a muscular fellow both hands and a couple of strong tugs to free the boot. Much to his chagrin, about two minutes later, I was knee deep and once again only in control of my muddy, stocking-foot. If nothing else, I am always good for a comedic set up.

We arrived at the house, now covered in vines and mountain life, with about an hour until dusk fell. The group immediately got out machetes and started the process of reclaiming the house from the vegetation. In about an hours time they had cleared the area, strung up hammocks and started a wood fire to make dinner. It took me that same hour to clean all the mud off my body, supporting once again my decision to set low expectations for myself this year. Now 28, our friend and his family displaced from this house due to killings, disappearances and threats when he was 8 years old. Amazingly the house is still standing, despite armed groups setting fire to the wooden roof beams and using it for grenade practice. A grenade hole actually came in handy as we wrapped rope through it and the nearby window in order to hang the hammocks which we slept in. The house was also covered in graffiti from every imaginable armed group. This photo shows the ¨BCG 33¨ tag - the Counter Guerrilla battalion of the 17th Brigade - and cradled in the first ¨3¨you´ll find evidence of the FARCs presence. We shined flashlights over the walls and realized that we were just one in a long line of groups that had been using the partially-roofed housed for shelter from the chilly and wet nights.

The next three days were spent building a kitchen, settling in and clearing land. Camila and I hung out with the group, listening to their stories and chatting it up, while pretending to work on our personal statements for our law school applications. (Dear Law School, I´m in the northern jungles of Colombia, staring through a grenade hole thinking about torts and hoping you´ll let me study them next fall.) The kitchen was made by cutting wood to construct a frame and then using the traditional palm leaves to make a roof. These roofs totally hold up, too - everyone in the community has the same kind of kitchen, all you need is some wood, some twine, some palm leaves and a group of campesinos to make it happen.
The nights were freezing with blowing rain and not much shelter from the storm. It was even raining inside the house, what with the roof having been partially burned. And Camila and I had hammocks inside, meaning walls offering some kind of protection as opposed to the guys who were sleeping mostly outside, hammocks huddled together under little bits of roof overhang. The younger boys kept waking up at 3:30 in the morning, singing vallenato because they couldn´t stand the cold anymore. We were a quick community. I was easily comfortable and content and genuinely sad when we had to leave four days later. But we will be back soon. The group is planning on being there until the fields are planted and we have committed to accompanying them as much as possible.

The journey back was much shorter and full of sun and an even muddier path due to the constant rain of the prior days. I stayed on a mule the whole way. I was not thrown off this time, instead executing a couple rather spectacular feats of balance and poise as the mule teetered and sunk into sometimes unpredictable mud. The leader we were with, agreed with me that I was now a professional mule rider, and I don´t think he was mocking me. Oh, the things I am learning this year. The view from the field atop the main rise was spectacular, lit by the eye-blue sky and marshmallow clouds. As does the hike to La Esperanza, this spot also offers a view of the ocean, this time it lays more to our east, but its perfect crescent of blue seems deceivingly close. And there is a better view of the big city below, even if Aparatadó seems strange and out of place rising up out of the fertile green valleys, flush with banana trees.

We got home to, of course, no water due to the heavy rains the night before. So, dirty and sweaty we waited. As we waited Camila cleaned a corner of the house that I had never seen free of some form of junk and found a snake. She yelled for me - I was busy burning our used toilet paper in the back yard - and this time, instead of calling out for man-help, I grabbed the machete and quite calmly, if clumsily, chopped its head off. A bit later, one of the men stopped by the house and Camila told him that I had just killed a snake. His observation? "Well, she will never get a boyfriend is she keeps that up." This of course sums up my life in a succinct and honest, if a little chauvinistic, way.


And what of happenings in the rest of this big, beautiful and complicated country? Well, in a somewhat surprising turn of events, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has been tapped to negotiate humanitarian exchange of kidnap victims with the FARC. One of the major paramilitary leaders has been kicked out of the "Justice and Peace Law" benefits by President Uribe. "Macaco" was found to be, surprise!, still controlling paramilitary groups from his jail cell. So, he is now eligible to be actually tried for his many crimes as well as be extradited to the US. Hope glimmers. Back home, the Senate passed the foreign aid package, which was akin to the more humanitarian focused House bill, if less balanced. This means, that pending a joint committee to work out the differences, it seems that the more balanced ratio of military to humanitarian aid has succeeded. There is, of course, much more happening, but having spent most of this month out in the mud, I am not as up to date as I would like to be. And I´m overwhelmed with how fast my time is slipping by. Less than two months to go in the campo and then come mid-November it is off to the big capital city. Bogotá, get ready, I know how to ride a mule.