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.