Bogotá: Back In

The sleeping city girl is awakening

After an approximately ten hour bus ride with the AC on full blast that successfully managed to overpower any attempt my body made to comfortably and warmly sleep, my teammate Janice and I arrived at the bus station in Bogotá around 8:00am. We got on a taxi straight to the place that I will now be calling my new home. I unloaded my backpacks full of everything I own including dirty clothes, books, hand-made lamp, pictures, letters, and sandals.

Now, I sit here in front of a monitor in the office/apartment, in la capital de Colombia where approximately 12,000 NGO’s are registered and where over 600,000 displaced people have settled in after fleeing conditions of violence in their native home. I have a grim on my face and my eyes are holding back tears caused by the nostalgia that I am trying hard to ignore. I spent almost six months in the community and did not anticipate how much a rural setting can change your senses and your thresholds. I am feeling a mix of emotions having just arrived into a new space where I will spend the second half of my contract with FOR. More so, there is combination of sadness and feelings of attachments my mind and heart have to slowly let go of while attempting to successfully transfer into a new mode of operation. Mostly because I left a place that is so different from Bogotá and my mind is having a hard time letting go of the smells, the voices, the animal sounds and those faces that stayed in the Peace Community. And I decide to feed my emotions even more by playing a CD that has a few recordings that a young girl from the Peace Community made for me as my “good-bye” present, or as she liked to put it, “Para que no se olvide de mi, tenga esto como mi regalo de despedida” (so you won’t forget me, here is a present). Track 1 is has Chayanne’s most cheesy song and Track 2 is Enrique Iglesias on the background and her 17 year old voice perfectly out of tune overpowering the melody of the Spanish artist. I listened to it, holding back my laughter as I imagine her dancing and holding a fake microphone pretending she is on national T.V. singing to a large audience. The best part of the CD is the second to last track where she decided to improvise and sing about me living in La Unión and how I had to leave but that we will always remember each other. It was so cute and funny that I honestly don’t understand how I can feel so much joy and sadness at the same time.

Cold walls and privacy
I also started rearranging the room that was recently Camila’s(FOR teammate) and Juju’s (her baby boy) nest for the past few months. It felt strange to actually have so much space available for my body and few belongings. It seemed too empty so I did the usual move-in routine and placed some pictures on the wall, decided that a plant would keep me company and burned some sage and incense to fill the space between the walls with a familiar aroma. Not to having AJ’s room next to me and not being able to hear every single sound that penetrated the wooden walls back in La Union felt awkwardly silent. I was going to be able to get a sense of privacy again…and that felt sort of strange combined with a sharp dash of loneliness.

I was putting my clothes away thinking about the fact that they will soon lose the moldy smell they picked up in el campo. After staring at the closet, I realized that my faded jeans, stained green yoga pants, and worn out FOR shirts were not going to cut it for the kind of engagements I would be taking part in. I could no longer get away with wearing any pair of torn up blue jeans, the faded drawstring peach colored pants that go back to two or three past FOR volunteers, or my ripped-between-the-crotch brown cargo shorts that go way back to South Africa. The realization that I had few clothes made me automatically think about urban life and consumerism. All of a sudden I am living in a big city and have the necessity to go shopping. I now need to look presentable and somewhat formal-at least for the formal meetings at the U.S. embassy or with representatives of the Vice-President’s office on Human Rights. Right???? Norms…and norms… and the battle of having the autonomy to represent yourself as best identifies your perception on life vs. the obligation of having to express those qualities that gain you respect in a world that judges by superficial measures.

Whether I want to purchase new garments or not, I do need to get a hold of a thick sweatshirt or long sleeve warm shirts if I plan to keep my bones warm. Bogotá is actually colder than what I remember it being back when I was here in November and my body is certainly having a hard time adjusting after living in Urabá’s humidity where I was sweating every other day. The weather in Bogotá sort of reminds me of Santa Cruz with the cloudy days and the cool wind that all of a sudden changes into a clear sky with a sunny afternoon. However, it is not so much of a cold breeze from the ocean and is more like the coldness trapped in a museum with an incredible mountain view.

Although the window in the living room in our apartment sometimes gets some warm rays of sun, it is not enough to warm up the wooden floors and space around my desk. It makes me miss the back porch in La Unión where I often times laid on the hammock and enjoyed the view of the big white puffy clouds that reflected sunlight across the green hills. There were some amazing days when I would also catch a rainbow in the sky or two, and it would all of a sudden rain while the sun was burning hot. I wonder if I will still be called La Negrita (the dark skinned one) from FOR when I go back to visit the community. While I adjust to the lack of heat, I will continue spending the days in the office typing away with cold fingers and sipping on hot tea and coffee. I will once again fall asleep listening to the wailing police sirens echoing a large city, that like the piano and Beethoven’s "Quasi una fantasia", they are inseparable from the realm where they can express themselves deceivingly effortlessly.

A voice from Promisión

“We already lost everything”

Looking Back: In 1997 and 1998, 38 families were forced to leave the vereda (settlement) of Promisión, which is a three to four hour walk from the municipality of Angelópolis in the southeast part of Antioquia Province. These families share an experience with the millions of Colombians who have been forced to displace due to the violence carried out by illegal armed groups across the country. In this case, the armed entities are said to have been paramilitaries, who were systematically causing fear in the population, depopulating the region and gaining control of what was believed to have been guerrilla territory. The civilian population faced death threats and were ordered to evacuate their homes with no hope of ever returning. Without any form of protection from the State or any means to safely demand their right to live in peace, the 38 families painfully left behind their property and the majority of their belongings. What had been their home for years - the place they had invested so much work in order to have profitable coffee trees, sugarcane crops, and fish tanks – suddenly was snatched from them.
The families faced much hardship after they fled. They had to start from scratch and did not have any resources or government support to facilitate the process of finding new homes and lives. They describe finding a place to settle with their bare minimum belongings as a living nightmare. The majority of the families displaced to Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city and a three-hour bus-ride away. Those who had relatives in other places were forced to seek support with their families whose living situations were also limited in space and resources. Those who settled in Medellin found themselves living in barrios populares (shantytowns) where they faced other forms of violence and risks associated with poverty, as well as high levels of desperation due to unsafe and dangerous conditions. After being displaced and misplaced, suffering became inevitable. Those families with small children explain the awful ordeal of coping with illness, especially given that the adults were unemployed and there was no way to make ends meet or to obtain appropriate medication. “When Alejandro* was sick I had to stay in the hospital all day with him without food or water, then return home in the evenings and repeat the process for weeks until he was released. I couldn’t work and I had no money,” explained Ana Maria*. The harsh living situations they encountered exacerbated by new urban violence left little room for joy and tranquility. These conditions, along with the stress of having to adapt to a lifestyle that was foreign to the campesino way of life made a situation of desperation into a crisis with no hint of a solution.
These families were both physically and psychologically far from a place they could even begin to call “home”. As Mrs. Valdes* described, “The thought of returning back to our fincas was the only thing that offered me any kind of solace.” In 1999, some families decided that they could not continue to live under such conditions and that they would return to their beloved Promisión. With the support of the ACA (Peasant Association of Antioquia) and the International Red Cross, these families returned to their homes for the first time since they had left. Nonetheless, they were forced to displace again after only two months because of the assassination by paramilitaries of four campesinos.

Returning home: Eight years later, during the second half of 2006, 15 out of 38 families that fled decided that returning to Promisión was long overdue. They wanted to return with the support of the local government officials, including the Mayor of Angelópolis, Jaime Gomez, and in a way that would guarantee their rights as displaced people. The ACA has been supporting this process and making sure that Colombian legal requirements are implemented and respected. Thus far, the community has met several times with what is known as a Local Attention Committee for the Displaced Population (CLAIPD). Some of the relevant bodies that take part in these meetings include: Acción Social (provides state-funded food, supplies, and transportation), Mayor Gomez, Representatives of the National Police and IV Army Brigade, along with other government entities. These meetings are meant to provide a space where they can collectively assess and reach consensus about what is needed and required in order for displaced communities to return to their lands. This, of course, results in a complicated and bureaucratic process that takes a lot of time, patience, and will. Given the fact that the families were forced to leave their homes almost ten years ago and have since endured hardship, the process has reached a boiling point for many.

On September 7, FOR accompanied the ACA and 17 adults with their children to visit Promisión. For the vast majority of these adults, it was the first time since they displaced about ten years ago. They had been planning and organizing this visit since early this year, lining up food, supplies, and appropriate security measures. Finally on Friday morning, packed and ready to head towards their longed for fincas, the families arrived at the ACA eager to begin the day’s journey. Their goal was to be able to personally observe and assess the current condition of their houses and fields, and scope out the work that will need to be invested to improve those conditions. They also wanted to analyze the security situation and speak to residents in Angelópolis who could offer them information about risks associated with returning to Promisión.

We arrived in Angelópolis on Friday afternoon and every face glowed with the joy and excitement of finally finding themselves so close to their homes. The adults were eager and somewhat anxious to get on the next vehicle that could take them to the top of the mountain, only an hour and half walk from their fincas. However, they first had to speak to Mayor Goméz to ensure that he was aware of their presence and to officially let him know that they were going to visit their homes, despite the fact that they received an ominous letter from him the previous evening stating that the “The municipal administration did not commit itself to offering the minimal security measures” for them, and discouraging the return visit. The Mayor was nowhere to be found. So instead they went to the National Police station to officially introduce themselves and explain the reason for their visit. The commander in charge told the community that he found no reason why they couldn’t visit their homes, as there was no knowledge of any illegal armed groups in the region. With that said, the community got on the next vehicle wearing smiles that stretched from ear to ear.

After a long hike that combined up and downhills, mud, banana trees, and streams, we arrived at the finca where we would stay for the next six days. The house had two and a half bedrooms that were decorated with cobwebs, bats, old rusty tools, broken pieces of plastic, and lots and lots of dust. It was one of the few houses in a good enough condition for us to sleep and cook in. Everyone was so excited to be there that it did not matter that everyone would sleep on the floor with 12 blankets for 21 adults and eight children, that there was no electricity, that there were very limited amounts of rice and beans, and that there were many hungry mosquitoes ready have a feast.

That evening an important conversation took place. They all shared their joy and then moved on to another topic. They had previously been informed that there were some families who had settled on their property during the time the community was displaced. Colombia’s displaced populations are found all over the place, and while some flee to the barrios populares, others settle in vacant rural areas with hopes of starting again with the fertile land’s natural resources. This is exactly what some of these returning families found to be the case with their property: the home and land they left behind years ago was now inhabited by another family who had been cultivating crops there and now depended on it for a living. These new settlers, however, are also poor peasants who were forced to flee their own communities some years back by the same mechanisms of violence.

This added to the complexity of their situation. They not only have to worry about getting back to their lands legally and with the necessary support from the state, but they also feel the families who settled in their property need to be acknowledged and not forced to displace as it would only perpetuate the cycle of internal displacement of peasant communities in Colombia.

Beyond today: There are many questions circulating among community members. How long will it be before all the paperwork and funding gets processed? When will they be able to finally return home? Although in the last CLAID meeting on September 14 Acción Social committed itself to providing food for the returning families and funds for the reconstruction of their homes, there is still a long list of pending bureaucratic demands.

There is also the worry that the community might face threats or violence upon their return. But as Mrs. Goméz* said, “I already lost it all once and now there is nothing to be afraid of. We deserve to be back in our home and work our land. Fear is not something that is going to stop me”.