Left my Heart in Popayan

Three years ago when I was traveling by land from Bolivia to San Diego, one of the main cities I knew I had missed out on was Popayan. Known as the "White City" for its old colonial architecture with mandatory white walls, it serves as an indigenous center for Colombia. Popayan seems to have suffered more than other Colombian cities, almost completely destroyed by a huge earthquake on Holy Friday in 1983 during which the cupola of the main cathedral collapsed on the congregation praying all afternoon, then absorbed in guerrilla violence given that it is located along one of the main drug transportation routes, and now recently experiencing a bout of theft and local disruption after the fall of the pyramid schemes. Despite these deterrents, I have been determined to visit Popayan since arriving in Colombia, especially since the Club Rotario Popayan just so happens to be part of my host District 4280.

So Thursday morning I flew to Bogota, then boarded a small propeller plane landing early afternoon at the tiny airport in Popayan and waited for my host mother (for the weekend) to pick me up. Using my contacts with Rotarians in Cali, I had organized a home stay with the family of an Interact student who had recently gone to Dover, Delaware to study English. (Rubi and Gloria, his mom and aunt, were extremely hospitable for the four days I stayed with them. They would start cooking me a huge breakfast of juice, eggs, meat, an arepa, and hot chocolate as soon as they heard me get into the shower, bring me water and piece of bread in the afternoon, and trusted me with a set of keys while I romped about the city. Their incredible hospitality almost made me wish that I had chosen to live with a family the entire year.)

During the afternoon I got the whole historical, religious, architectural, cultural, etc.al tour of the city with the Global Study Exchange group. GSE is a Rotary program where two districts in different countries exchange 4 professionals and a Rotarian "team leader" for a month. The team travels around the district staying in the homes of Rotarians, learning about the different projects in which all the clubs are involved, and receiving an all-around royal/rockstar treatment. When they return to their host country and district, they present a project related to their area of work about what they learned during their trip. Guadalupe (owner of an imported shoe store), Angella (director of communications and media for a hotel chain), Thomas (accountant), and Joe (construction broker) are from various parts of New Mexico, and a superbly fun group serving as great "professional ambassadors." I enjoyed the time I spent with them because in the short days they had been in Colombia they were already starting to fall in love with the country just as I have.

After wandering through some of the 20+ churches in the city, visiting the museum of religious art, and the house of Colombian poet and father of one of 13 presidents to come from Cauca, Guillermo Valencia, with two Rotarians who served as our tour guides, we headed out to a Tepanyaki dinner with the rest of the Club Rotario Popayan. As much as I have enjoyed visiting the clubs in and around Medellin, I found something special in the Popayan Rotarians. They are mostly young, around 30-35, several are bona fied anthropologists, and many work with social health issues as their primary job. Which means that I had more in common with them that we could discuss in a weekend, and they were essential in opening up my eyes to the public health problems in the south of the country.

Now, most of you are aware that I have 'partied' with Rotarians before at cocktail parties and other such social events, but the Rotarians of Popayan know how to get down and boogie. They took us to one of the very few clubs in the city, teaching the GSE group how to salsa dance and buying us bottle after bottle of aguardiente caucana--the local drink which they insisted was part of the cultural experience. I was somewhat embarrassed arriving home at 2 in the morning without getting to know or spend time with my hosts, but what could I do, it was Rotary's fault!!

Friday we all met up, somewhat hung-over, at the Federation of Coffee Growers of Cauca, a committee of which all small and large coffee producers are a part and ensures their protection in the form of fair prices, education about coffee growing, and provides social projects for the community. Listening to the director speak about the creation of the Federation in 1939 and its growth over the years depending on the international competition, how they created the personality of Juan Valdez, and hearing the testimonies of the coffee growers themselves in a short promotional video, I was very impressed by how well the Federation has served the people. We went down into the new laboratory where Rotary has provided all of the latest technological equipment to test the quality of the coffee they are exporting, and learned about every step involved from testing the size of the bean to "tasting" coffee to see how it roasts and reacts in water. They taught us how to distinguish different kinds of coffee flavors depending on the land and region in which they were grown, smell the aroma of roasted beans verses the fragrance of the coffee once water is added, and slurp up small teaspoons of steeped coffee to engage all of the taste buds in our mouths. I never realized what a scientific and complicated process coffee production is, and now have a new appreciation for the fields of coffee I see growing all over the country and the bags of Juan Valdez coffee I see in the grocery stores. (Starbucks just so happens to buy large quantities of coffee from these exact growers).

From the laboratory we went to a beautiful lunch in an old hotel in the center, then to the Universidad de Cauca to learn about some of the HIV/TB research the Rotary club also supports through donating scientific equipment. The region of Cauca has the highest incidence of both diseases, and it was interesting to see the medical approach to curing the epidemic. Afterward, we went to the Red Cross of Colombia's Cuaca site, where we were greeted by a parade of cargo-less trucks harmonizing their horns as they advertised the gas strike enacted until Uribe lowers the gas prices more. Supposedly in Cauca the gas prices are highest in the country and so they have good reason to stop transporting goods until they can receive more profit for their services. At the Red Cross we talked with the leaders of a project supporting families affecting by the many land mines in the area, used to protect fields of illicit crops and transportation corridors of the paramilitary and guerrillas. The Rotarian working for the organization showed us a slide show of the community health projects carried out throughout the region, and I was impressed by their long-term vision of changes they know will require 3-5 years to take hold.

Later on that evening, with our heads spinning from everything we had seen throughout the day, we attended the Rotary meeting for the week. The formality of the Rotary protocol and suits was a strange juxtaposition to the casualness of our previous interactions, but it was interesting to hear in context all of the activities in which the club is involved. Both the GSE and myself presented our slide shows, which captivated the club and served their purpose of opening up the cultural exchange for them to see from where we come and our perspectives on the world.
The next day I was on my own with Rotarians and my host brother, Julian, who had arrived from Cali after finishing his law midterms. We headed out to the town of Silvia with the Rotarian who works for the Red Cross, driving about an hour along roads that 2 years ago would have been far too dangerous to travel along. The town was nothing special, a large plaza and big church with broken stained glass windows, but the real attraction was that Julian has a friend from the university who is a guambiano indian. Liliana and her husband, Jeremias, took us into the guambiano territory to fish for trout, hike through the gorgeous landscape, and tell us about the Colombian violation of indigenous rights. Training to be a lawyer, she travels all over the world presenting international projects on constitutional reform to protect indigenous cultures residing within nationalized political systems, and was impressively critical of her own background while firmly defending it. Jeremias is a journalist and has worked in Mexico, Oklahoma, Bolivia, and Peru with his "original brothers" on solidarity movements publishing articles and even running his own indigenous-focused radio show. They were truly inspirational, and opened up a whole new perspective on Colombian culture than to what I have previously been exposed. Despite indigenous groups being the focus of most of my undergraduate Latin American studies career, I have not had much opportunity to interact with indigenous communities in Colombia. After exchanging emails, I hope to go back and spend more time with the guambianos to understand their contemporary situation.

Saturday night and Sunday morning found me hanging out at a Rotaract conference coinciding with my visit in Popayan, and so I was able to meet, party with, and present to over 50 Rotaract members from the Southwest of the district. This was a great opportunity to hear about the projects in which they are invovled and establish more contacts with these young Rotarian aspirants.
After so many days (and nights) of straight activities I was exhausted by the time I arrived at the finca of my host family, and needed a day to relax on the patio enjoying the beautiful views. I know that I have talked about finca culture before, but I really think that it is one of the most healthy and enjoyable parts of Colombian lifestyle (for those who can afford it of course). Sitting around eating fruit from your personal orchard, conversing with family, reading, and hiking through countryside is to me the perfect way to spend the weekend.

Revived from fresh air, sun, and a type of granadillas that only grow in Cauca, I woke up early Monday morning to visit displaced communities to the south of Popayan with volunteers from the Colombian Red Cross. We visited the house of a community leader running the equivalent of a Boys and Girls Club, talking about how involving the youth in neighborhood decisions has decreased violence and better overall education. They told me how a river clean-up project organized by the Red Cross has greatly improved the health of the settlement, and by teaching people the benefits of pride in their living spaces has made the area a much happier environment for all. By walking around looking at people's gardens, clean drinking water projects, and knowledge of how to use a Red Cross-provided first aid kit, I saw the huge impact of long-term community health projects in action. People had assimilated what they had been taught and taken huge initiative to find ways to live more dignified lives in destitute poverty. It was so invigorating to see enacted many of my beliefs on the importance of implementing cultural sensitivity and adaptable education confirmed in real public health work, making me want to find some way to become more involved in the Colombian Red Cross.

When I again boarded the propeller plane home that afternoon, I felt overwhelmed with the inspiring people and projects I visited in Popayan, determined to return.

Rotary Info

For those interested in more information about the Rotary clubs in which I am involved, here are the sites for my

Sponsor club, Claremont Sunrise Rotary, District 5300: http://www.claremontsunriserotary.org/
(you can find me here)

Host club, Club Rotario Medellin, District 4280: http://rotaryclubmedellin.org/ and http://rotary4280.com/
Check out the projects in which they are involved and their members.

Thank you to all!

America's Demands for a Drug War

The world is watching as Mexico battles a horrendous drug war on the south side of the US border. Colombians shake their heads whenever the problems in Mexico flash across the news, all too familiar with the daily violence and killings. They wonder why another country in Latin America could suffer their same fate without applying the lessons Colombia has already learned. As the Obama administration formulates their position on Mexico, I see them taking a huge step forward just by acknowledging the part that the US plays in terms of demand, as is addressed in some recent articles from the NYT:

Since taking office, Mr. Obama and his aides have been working assiduously to carve out a Mexico policy that talks of “shared responsibility” in combating the drug problem. The president is likely to use his visit here to acknowledge that illicit drug consumption by Americans plays a role — an admission that experts predict will go a long way toward building goodwill on this side of the border.

“For the last 30 years the United States has come down with the big sticks of eradication and helicopters, and the elephant in the room of our own consumption, and the tough proliferation of arms, were just never addressed,” said Julia Sweig, director of the Latin America program at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I think just beginning to talk about those things is going to buy him a lot of space down there.”

...

Obama lamented the bloodshed, saying it's been "sowing chaos in our communities and robbing so many of a future both here in Mexico and in the United States."

But he said America must do its part to help stop it.

"A demand for drugs in the United States is what is helping to keep these cartels in business," he said.

In Colombia the distinction between drug production and drug consumption is obvious: the majority of Colombians are not involved in drug use and thus the demand is generated externally. They look toward their allies up north in the US, UK, and Europe, watching young adults consume their most profitable crop at parties without thinking of the consequences their "fun" is having on innocent people elsewhere. It is this lack of consciousness that propagates the problems in countries such as Mexico and Colombia. If people snorting coke were to read articles like "Wider Drug War Threatens Colombian Indians," perhaps there would not be as much demand for illicit crops, dropping the price of the product, thus lowering production and alleviating some of the violence. I am glad that Obama acknowledges the US's involvement in the chain, and hope that the actions he takes will help avoid Mexico's demise into the same history as Colombia in 20 years.

Drawing the way to their future

The article "Postcard from Medellin" that came out on the TIME website on April 23 gives (what I think is) an accurate insight into the way that the armed conflict in Colombia is irreversibly affecting the country's youth. One of the most important points the author touches on is noting the reasons children join the guerrilla or paramilitary forces. Along with forced inscription including kidnapping, the desire to seek vengeance against the group who has killed their family is, from my experience, the most powerful force driving civilian involvement in the conflict. When a young child watches their parents and siblings being tortured to death, not only are they left with no fragment of their former life but also with the mentality that they have nothing to lose--why not fight for revenge? This has created a culture of violence so entrenched in rural Colombian society that I see no way of it changing unless the conflict ends and people are given generations to breed out the hatred as integral to their blood composition as hemoglobin.

Although I am not working with former child soldiers, the art projects that I conduct at the shelter yield equally as powerful results. When asked to draw a self-portrait, very few of them portray themselves smiling, and many draw incomplete family portraits because they don't know where their father or older brothers are after watching them be kidnapped and taken from the family home. The part of the story that the reporter leaves out in the article is what happens to the boy's mother who appears on the guerrilla hit-list. This is a common war tactic, where every week or month the armed forces post a list of names on a public building warning people who will be the next targets of violence. They then either choose to stay and risk murder, or they flee to a nearby municipality or settlement, thus becoming displaced. Anyone who collaborates by advising a neighbor that their name is on the list or giving them a few pesos for the bus fare becomes an enemy of the armed forces and the cycle persists. Where will it end?

The Hunt

While I was not raised with religion, Easter Sunday has always meant a big family meal to celebrate the arrival of Spring. Of course as youngsters my brother and I chased after the home-made colored eggs hiding around the house and gorged on chocolate bunnies. always enjoyed the creative activities my mom the artist made up for us to decorate the house.

So you can imagine how lonely I was anticipating Easter to be in a Catholic country where the main event of Holy Week is praying all day Thursday and Friday. Most of my friends were still out of town or catching up on homework, and despite my offer to cook a grand lamb meal nobody seemed interested in learning about my Easter customs. I thus decided to create an Easter celebration for people who I knew would not refuse: the kids at the shelter for displaced families at which I have been volunteering and conducting research.

Taking advantage of a short trip home for grad school visits and interviews, I brought back a duffel bag filled with bright plastic eggs and special Easter candy I knew I couldn't find in Colombia (pastel colors are not really that popular no matter what time of year). Saturday night found me sitting on the couch, watching a movie, and stuffing almost 200 eggs while resisting the urge to sneak handfuls of peanut M&Ms (I swear the Easter colors taste better).

On Sunday morning I headed over to the albergue, rounded up the children and explained the hunt rules after handing out plastic bags to each one, then headed over to a nearby park with several adults to hide eggs. The joggers and old people sitting on park benches didn't quite know what to make of the four of us walking around leaving orange and pink eggs in the tree branches, under leaves, and in the crevices of statues. When we finished I watched a chain of over 20 children holding hands walking excitedly up the street, huge smiles on their faces rapt with anticipation.

I lined everyone up from oldest to youngest, and the children 7 and under got a 2-minute head start while the rest of the group shouted suggestions of where to look. As soon as I opened my mouth to allow the older kids to go, they shot off in all directions with speedy youthfulness, elbows out for offensive tactics and blanketing the park with super keen eyes zeroing in on all the eggs. For their first egg hunt, they immediately adopted the necessary skills for maximum egg collection that it took me years to learn!

By the end most of the little kids were sitting down opening their eggs and eating the candy inside while the older children continued to find any and all remaining eggs. The people exercising in the park or just passing through had all stopped to watch the kids scampering around, and several children from surrounding houses had even come out to participate--making the hunt much more of a community event than I had ever anticipated. Before we joined hands again and walked away in a chain laden with heavy Easter egg-filled bags, the children individually came up and thanked me for the activity. One little boy even insisted that I kneel down so he could give me a sticky kiss on the cheek.

Instead of feeling homesick on Easter, I was overwhelmed with the satisfaction of having been able to share a longstanding tradition of mine with Colombian families who quite literally own nothing, getting people who are usually too afraid to leave the shelter outside on a beautiful day. It was the first time in a long while that the children had received something they could keep and did not have to share, and although in retrospect I should have brought toothbrushes to counteract their sugar consumption, the hunt created a sense of community I had never previously felt among this group of people. In the most unexpected way I noticed that I had become an integral part of the displaced family, and could not have imagined a better way to spend an Easter Sunday in Colombia.

A Street-Side Addition

After writing the last post about "Street Culture," I have found a new category to add to the list of street inhabitants: Street Animals.

While walking through the Centro on a Saturday, I noticed that the newfangled item for sale are dyed chicks (as in baby chickens, not human females). Fuchsia, turquoise, and orange are the most popular colors. Kids love them, young ladies think they are just adorable, and if Colombians celebrated a commercialized Easter they would be found sitting plumply among chocolate eggs wrapped in pastel foil and bunny stuffed animals in children's Easter baskets. I was walking with my friend Marcela, from LA but with paisa parents: culturally American but Colombian by blood, and she stopped and gaped at the peeping, fuzzy mass on the sidewalk. Her reaction was not out of marvel for their cuteness, but rather out of shock at the awful mistreatment of such helpless animals. She started to rudely ask the vendor about what kind of dye he uses, how long it lasts, and if it is harmful to the chicklets, only stopping once he appeared to feel sufficiently guilty about his wares. The next man we saw selling chicks out of a box hung around his neck didn't even look at us after he heard the suprised *gasp* at there being more colored chicks less than a block away. I went up to him and asked if I could take a picture, saying that I was from a local newspaper and writing an article on cruel animal treatment in the street. The woman standing there buying a purple chick just smiled at me sadly, continuing with her purchase. An interesting contrast was that a man several feet away was selling fake, real-colored chicks, with what seemed little luck since his box was still completely full. What can I say, color sells.
The next animal surprise was a man selling matching visor and jacket combos for dogs. He had even brought with him a puppy stuffed animal being sniffed by a live terrier. An interested customer could take their pick from the Nacional green and white (local soccer team), fatigue, an array of pinks, and the rival red of the Medellin soccer team. They only cost $10.000 pesos.

But by far my favorite of the day was a man selling different colored bra straps, some even with rhinestones, in one hand, and a tiny quarter-sized turtle crawling around the other hand. He was rather good-natured about my attempts to take the perfect picture despite my focusing issues, and seemed like he just wanted to get rid of the poor fellow. I actually considered taking this one home, until I remembered how the girls who used to live down the hall in my freshman dorm kept two turtles for a semester and being able to smell them through the walls. I doubt my current roommate would appreciate having a stinky turtle in our apartment, no matter how small.