Back in Bogotá

After a wonderful three weeks back home with my family and in various cities with dear friends, I flew back to Bogotá last Monday. I had really unplugged while I was home, skimming news from Colombia, talking to my teammates in La Unión once and a while, but mostly I simply enjoyed being back amongst family and friends and broadcasts of the Steelers. (Thanks to everyone who hosted me, fed me, flew me places and helped me realize how much there is waiting for me back home). My plane landed in Bogotá mid day and as no one was currently in our Bogotá office, no one was waiting for me. And it all felt so very normal. None of the excitement and anticipation I felt while waiting in the immigration line back when I first arrived in November ’06. I wasn’t nervously rehearsing what I would say to the immigration agent in Spanish, I wasn’t catching my breath on the thought of living in a rural community for a year. I was calmly going through the motions and soon found myself back in our apartment/office. It was comforting to feel so normal about arriving back here in Colombia but I almost missed the excitement of the unknown.

I was back at the airport two days later, waiting for Danny, an ex-FORista who is coming back to help us out for a couple months so we can have a full strength team. His flight was late arriving and the long immigration lines meant that I was waiting for over an hour. I loved watching the constant stream of people coming from the international gate as their friends and family waited for that first glimpse. Ever the sentimentalist, I had teary eyes watching the joyous reunions. It was obvious that some of the visitors had been gone for years and watching the touching embraces was incredibly heartwarming.

The next day I was tearing up over another, more dramatic reunion. While I was waiting to pay our water bill the release of Clara Rojas and Consuelo González de Perdomo, former Vice-Presidential Candidate and Former Congresswoman was being broadcast on the television in the waiting area. Both women have been in FARC captivity for years, Rojas was kidnapped alongside Ingrid Betancourt in 2002 and González in 2001. The past couple of weeks have been full of starts and stops in the process to release them, brokered by President Chavez of Venezuela. And finally, on Thursday, the long-awaited reunion.

I was just watching the footage again online. Even if you don’t speak Spanish, watching this clip of the women getting off the plane in Venezuela and being embraced by their families is incredibly moving. The reporter herself had difficulty controlling the catch in her voice. Of course, the release of two FARC hostages still pales in comparison to the estimated 750 hostages still in captivity in the jungles of Colombia. But the images of the reunion and the hope this release brings for continued negotiation and release is the most encouraging turn of events in this wrenching human drama.

Up in the community things remain tense and worrisome. The presence of paramilitaries continues and seems to continually grow. A woman from the zone, Margarita Giraldo Usuga, was killed by Colombian soldiers on December 23rd as she gathered yucca from the fields near her house. She is, of course, being referred to as a member of the FARC by the military – a common practice of killing civilians and then claiming a victory against the insurgency by claiming to have killed an insurgent. My teammates have been incredibly busy in these last weeks and I am anxious to get caught up to speed on all that has happened. Being here in Bogotá I feel very removed from the daily happenings of the place I came to feel so at home in. But it does give me the chance to have a better sense of what is happening in the rest of Colombia and the world.