Updates

“You can be the most beautiful person in the world and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you, but if you yourself don't know it, all of that doesn't even matter. Every second that you spend on doubting your worth, every moment that you use to criticize yourself; is a second of your life wasted, is a moment of your life thrown away. It's not like you have forever, so don't waste any of your seconds, don't throw even one of your moments away.” -C. JoyBell C

1. Kevin and the other pigeon are still alive! I have kicked them out of the house now because it was getting gross cleaning up after them, but they have become used to staying around in the back yard. Even though lots of other animals come around, no one has eaten them yet! And they have learned to eat by themselves so I don’t need to worry about them when I travel. 

   

   Kevin and her friend

2. The cockroaches are dying! I broke down and bought a cockroach killing spray. It’s been great to wake up without cockroaches falling out of my hair.



Dead cockroaches


3. The elections were two Sundays ago and it was definitely an interesting experience. Everyone was out and about voting and, afterwards, celebrating. The celebrations were intense- almost as big as Christmas! The politicians that my family was supporting won (they are doing a recount of the votes, but the results won’t change because they won by a landslide) so things are looking up in the house. For this family it means a better opportunity for finding work. There was a chance that my host mom was going to have to leave to find work in another part of Colombia if things didn’t work out. So I’m definitely happy that she’s staying!
4. I have gotten much better at stoop sitting… I still don’t last very long, but at least now I understand better what people are saying, I have a better concept of the context and who people are, and I have more to add to the conversation. I usually end up running off with some kids or grabbing a book to read, but I have improved immensely!
5. As far as cooking lessons, pretty much everyone here is sure that I can’t cook worth beans. Instead of trying to prove myself, I have decided to take advantage of the great cooking of my host mom (who lives next door) and eat with the family fried fish, coconut rice, yucca, chicharron, squash soup, and other delicious things. Now I just bake- bread, brownies, pumpkin bars, banana bread, carrot cake… I don’t like arriving at people’s homes to visit empty handed! My host mom jokes that I only eat bread and cake. I do love to bake and I am so happy I have my oven!

Playing with kiddos instead of stoop sitting

A Little Bit About the Havana Peace Talks

"If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." -Nelson Mandela

Since October 2013 the government of Colombia and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) have been in conversations in Havana, Cuba discussing the possibility of signing agreements that would bring peace to the country.

The agreements are made up of six parts:

1) Land Reform

2) Political Participation

3) Disarmament

4) Illicit Drugs

5) Rights of the Victims

6) Peace Deal Implimentation

The two parties have already agreed on the first two parts, but it is necessary that they agree on all six in order for the agreements to be officially signed and put into place.

This is not the first time that peace talks have taken place; there have been several other occasions in which dialogue happened between the government and groups outside the margin of the law, but they have always failed due to neither side being able to actually listen to the other and having not being interested in negotiating.

This time there are a variety of opinions around the talks: some people are more hopeful. This is the first time that the FARC has recognized that there exist victims as a result of their actions. There is also a change in vocabulary used; for example instead of asking the group to “turn in” their weapons, they are asking them to “leave” their weapons. This change leaves a lot of questions around what will happen to all of the arms that are in the hands of these groups, but it also makes it more likely that the group will agree to the terms.

Some people are not convinced of the likelihood that anything will change if the agreements are signed. One friend told me that the talks are just an excuse for the president to look good and even if they are signed nothing will change here in the communities where it actually matters.

And he has a good point: signing the agreements is one thing, putting them into action will be the hard part. How will the agreements be implemented? Who will make sure that they are implemented? The possibility of the implementation of these accords is the reason why this political season was so intense: whoever is in power now will determine how the agreements are interpreted and how they are implemented. Unfortunately, the political system depends more on the money the politicians can give their constituents to be elected than what they can actually do to fight for their rights and best interests in the government. Ideally, the agreements should be interpreted by the people that they directly affect: the people of the countryside, the people who lived in fear of members of armed groups coming into their towns, their homes- the people of Colombia.

And there are people who don’t want the agreements to be implemented, who do not want peace in Colombia. War is great business; there are groups of people making money off of the conflict. From this point of view, peace would mean less money and less power, and therefore not something that they are interested in.

However, as a wise academic told our group in Bogota, there will always be conflict and there will always be the transformation of one set of conflicts into other conflicts, but this does not mean that resolution should not be the goal.

And right now it seems like resolution of these 50+ years of conflict, at least on paper, is close. But Colombia is known to have beautifully written laws (check out the constitution which names peace as a right) and not a good track record of implementation. Here’s to hoping that this time Colombia can find a way to bring what is decided in Havana to Libertad.

Information thanks to the wise and knowledgeable people in Bogota, Sincelejo, and Libertad who took the time to explain the process and their ideas about the peace talks.

Check out more information at www.mesadeconversaciones.com.co

Things here are different…

"All the windows of my heart I open to the day." -John Greenleaf Whittier

Whenever one is in a new place, one sees new things. I have definitely seen some interesting things here.

For example, I had no idea that chickens slept in trees:

Or that motorcycles were kept in living rooms:

And I never tire of seeing the teenage guys ride by on their donkey on the way to work on the farm, listening to their mp3 players. The juxtaposition of it makes me smile every time. Who says you can’t commute on a donkey with good music? I sure wish I had a picture of this!

I also have no idea how I get so much dirt in my house every day! I clean every morning and every morning I sweep this amount of dirt or more out of my door! (Notice the dead cockroaches. Getting rid of them little by little!)

When my friend in Mampujan found some peanut butter in her house she was excited to make me a sandwich… I definitely did not expect a ham, cheese, and peanut butter sandwich!

Lastly, I never expected to eat yucca (a staple food here, pretty much eaten with every meal) with mac and cheese (yes, I found mac and cheese at the big super market in the city and decided to eat a bit of comfort food), but here is proof of my dinner the other night: