one lonely post for november

Hello to anyone still out there. I just got back to Bogotá after my final month in the community. I expected to be there a bit longer, but I'll discuss that at a later time. We had internet problems all month long so I just never got around to blogging. But a lot has been happening, especially in this last week. I'll write all that up this weekend and get December off to a good blogging start. The one year in Colombia mark has come and gone and I forgot, among other things, my little brother's birthday, thanksgiving, and the fact that it is winter back home. Seasons, even the slight ones I came to appreciate in Austin, are very helpful reminders of the passage of time. In the Urabá region it could be July or December and it would be hard for this gringa to note the difference if someone wasn't keeping track.

Any way, the big news is the straight up war of words between Venezuela's Chavez and Colombia's Uribe, springing from Uribe's decision to pull the plug on the hostage negotiations that Chavez and Liberal Senator Piedad Cordoba were coordinating with the FARC. And then today, groggily sitting in the Apartado airport at 5:30 AM I realized that the full room had gone quiet and all eyes were trained on the television. The morning news programs were showing the videos obtained from the capture of FARC soldiers showing proof of life of some of the more prominent hostages, including former Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and the three US contractors that were taken hostage after their plane went down four and a half years ago. Plus last week the brutal February 2005 massacre in the Peace Community was finally conclusively attributed to collaboration between state and illegal paramilitary forces. More details on all of this by the start of next week.

Now for the big November sign off....pictures of my first trip up Monserrate back in October. Bogotá sits in a plateau in the Andes mountains, at a nice nose-in-the-clouds height of 8661 feet. Monserrate is one of the peaks overlooking the city at its perch of 10.341, so climbing up it is no small task. I climbed up with Mayra and the big FOR boss who was here for his first visit, Mark Johnson.

For many folks this is a Sunday ritual - a pilgrimage to the top where the 17th Century church houses the statue of The Fallen Lord, to which many miracles have been contributed.

For some people it is a two hour walk up, affording an ever-inspiring view of the city below and the chance to pig out up top. Here a man pulls taffy.

And here is a shot of the endless stalls of food found at the top.

And a shot of sweat-a-saurus me and FOR Executive Director Mark Johnson.

And the view from the top, without us in the way.

We took the gondola-like cable car down. But there is also a rail car - or as we western-PA faithful would say, an incline plane. It only took about 5 minutes to descend what had taken a little over 2 hours to climb up.

Ok, check back soon, I'll have more up on the important news from the last week.