April was a difficult first month. I was happy to flip the calendar to May.
The heat here in La Union this month can only be described as oppressive. Sweaty, humid, scorching and oppressive.
Jon: Where is Sean?
Emily: He went to get the ice cubes.
Jon: (With a ridiculous amount of hope) Ice cubes?
Gina: Yes, for the Slip ‘n’ Slide.
Emily: And to throw at one another.
(Sad Side Note with an optimistic ending: There is no ice here. Or fridge. One of the best parts of getting down to town and/or travelling is that we can eat and drink cold things.)
There is a bag hanging in the office. It is labeled “when shit hits the fan” (side comment lamentation: If only we had a fan!). In the event of an emergency we are to throw all the sensitive material in it and bail according to our emergency exit plan. Emergency exit plans are important for any family. Our house is pretty easy to get out of, but for the sake of making it interesting, we constructed one. In the case of a house fire (our totally relevant example), I would slide through the hole in the wall separating Emily´s and my bedrooms (we are actually room-mates) and then we would both exit through her window via the fire-escape ladder (approximately two feet long to cover the distance from window-ledge to weeds). House fire the least of your worries in the war zone? Try this conundrum on for size:
Q. How should we deal with aggressive armed actors?
A. Raise your arms high above your head to make yourself as large as possible, then slowly back away silently, averting your eyes from the armed actor in question.
I have travelled so much this month I sometimes forget where I am. We have travelled as close as La Hollandita (1.5 hours walking), as far as Bogota (24 hours of walking, jeeping, flying, bussing) and all sorts of distances in between. My dreams are blurred between hammocks and river crossings, bustling urban centers and hawks flying over abandoned canyons. I wake and my life feels a little the same. Like I am a ball bouncing around inside the pinball machine of the Colombian war zone.
Of all our destinations, we have spent the most time in Apartadó. It is our bustling local town hub with a larger than vereda life population of 200,000. There are things there that most people would associate with city life: people, pavement, transport, restaurants, hotels, schools, hospitals, cold things. We get a nice whirlwind of a reminder about how life goes on in the cities, even while war goes on in the countryside. We go to Apartadó to have meetings with other international NGOs, local NGOs as well as the military. We go there anytime we travel anywhere else. We also go there to find food. And with the internet difficulties this month, we have gone there to send e-mails. Apartadó has become like a second home.
Emily, Jon and I found ourselves in Apartadó one fine weekend eve and decided to go out on the town. Jon took us to the tango mistress’ hole in the wall bar (it also serves as a great place to buy most household items, sort of like how you can buy ice-cream at the photocopy place or buy goldfish at the motorcycle shop- so convenient!) where we drank heavily while listening to crescendoing tango music. The tango mistress tends her bar in high heeled shoes that are too small for her feet. She probably can’t feel the pain since she takes nearly as many shots as her customers. She is badass. Jon said he wanted her to take him under her wing. Our neighbor at the next table (aka, two inches away) was a 50 year old travelling orthodontist (don’t they have teeth where you are from?). He tried to keep us entertained with his frat-boy-esque drinking tricks and, in doing so, broke several shot glasses throughout the night. He also invited us to his BBQ the next day. In Medellin. (7-14 hours away by bus). Silliness pumped with tango. I was happy.
One time in Apartadó we went to the spa for a massage. The woman literally had to brush dirt off of my body before she began. We can only imagine what they said about us afterward… how did they get bites there?!?
The tents on the outskirts of town came up over night. Hundreds of tarps on sticks, mapping out new homesteads for displaced people. An invasion of land. A reclaiming of land. On our way down to town these new neighbors were milling about, numbering tents, and hanging signs declaring their new peaceful presence. On our way up from town the tarps were all burning on piles of sticks. 20 bonfires, being stoked by riot police. Hundreds of people gathered in groups on the road, looking over what would have been their new homes. Colombia has one of the highest populations of internal refugees in the world. The displaced are the survivors. Where are the survivors to go?
During Semana Santa we walked the stations of the cross. Each stop was along the road to the community in the exact spot where a community member had been killed. First the priest talked of the biblical station, and then he talked about the assassination of the community member. Community members carried crosses with the names of the fallen, and each one was nailed to a tree with flowers around the bottom. A procession for peace. The stations took us walking seven hours in the sun, but this is nothing for a community whose cross to bear is the repeated murders of its members. After the stations of the cross a young girl came and tugged at the priest:
-“Father, is there mass tonight?”
-“We had mass for seven hours today. Don’t you remember? I think we better rest tonight.”
Every month we get three days off. This month Emily and I took our three days together and headed to the Caribbean town of Sapzurro. On our way out of town, we passed a military checkpoint where everyone was drinking and dancing about with automatic weapons. I couldn’t help but think, “that’s the war zone I’m talking about!” The journey was a two hour hike, one hour on a jeep, .5 hours in a car and 4 hours on a boat. It was worth it. We boated through bluegreen Caribbean waters past small islands, and then smaller ones, and then past one with only one palm tree. We saw young boys fishing with string and waves crashing against black rock. We hiked over a hill and across a border. We sunbathed in a sleepy honey cove in Panama where there was nobody to be found but one sleepy military man. We slept in a jungle cabin and saw monkeys and frogs and butterflies and sand crabs. We composed yet another family band song called, Ode to the Coconut, which goes (over and over): “crack it open, crack it open, crack it open, crack it open.” We cracked open coconuts and collected shells. We slept, we rested, we rejuvenated, and we somehow resisted the urge to join the travelling hippies on their boat toward Central America. Then, we came back to work.
A neighbor with a radio came over to ask Emily and Jon what our President’s name was…
-“Obama.”
-“Yes. He is dead.”
-“WHAT!”
-“They have killed him. It is on the radio.”
We’ll have to give it to him. The radio doesn’t exactly have clear reception. They were talking about America. They probably mentioned the President. We were happy to find out he had not actually been assassinated.
Five minutes into an evening meeting with community members, the rain started coming down hard. We talked about the recent deaths and threats and combats and upcoming issues. Even when the conversation diverged, it still stayed on the topic of justice. We talked about the recent land invasions. We talked about the potential Free Trade Agreement and the effect it would have on the second “development” phase of the Urra multinational dam. (Note: If the death, destruction and misery caused by multinationals is in our country’s “best interest,” I would definitely suggest we re-prioritize.) The rain was comically loud, causing both Sean and I to nearly sit on the laps of the community members as they screamed into our ears. Here are some thoughts I liked from our shouting match:
-How is it that multinationals can displace so many people and displaced Colombian farmers can’t even find a parcel of land big enough to hang a plastic tarp for shelter? How are either of those situations legal?
-In war, you see, people become dispensable.
-If we don’t change capitalism, the world will drown in blood. So much misery and injustice and suffering. Eventually, you know, that very misery will trump all.
-Why did your countrymen cheer and celebrate when Osama was killed? Why do you cheer at the death of a man? What message does that send to the children of your country about death and destruction and murder and war? I think it is a reflection of a very sick society.
We talked for 6 hours. The conversation ebbed and flowed from current events in the community to world wide war. We talked about the weight of the world while it felt like it was literally falling upon us in the form of a thunderstorm on a tin roof.
Guapa (according to Spanish dictionary): Pretty, handsome, good-looking.
Lies. Guapa does not mean good-looking. It means hard-working. This is why I am only “guapa” when sweating like a pig and throwing a broken hoe in the garden. I am only guapa when trying to grow produce that “doesn’t grow here.” (While looking at the photo on the packaging of Emily´s imported watermelon seeds a neighbor said, “Ah, yes. This is what people eat in Bogota.” Not a good sign.) I am also guapa when sweating and sweeping the floor. Or sweating and taking out the trash. I am not guapa while just sweating, which is what I am doing most of the time.
Our garden is coming along nicely. We have had many donations from neighbors: flowers, trees, tomatoes, tobacco, and labor. We are hoping for the best. Now I just need the carpenter to make me a reclining chair for sunbathing.
Just as we are an interesting experiment for the medical workers at the tropical illness clinic (Fresh blood! No resistance!), the CdP would be an intensely interesting case study for a very brave psychologist. How do people keep on keeping on? How do people not break, even when they are broken? So many things that are so disturbing going on all the time. From where do they pull their strength? With so much death and trauma and displacement, it is hard to believe there is so much life and joy and stability here. Sometimes there will be a glimpse into the weight of the grief, or the sadness or the fear that is collectively felt here. And when those glimpses are given, I can’t help but reflect on them. Picture living on the same street where you saw your brother massacred. Your mother. Your husband. Your children. All of the above.
A widow glides from house to house, silently, without being noticed. She is so very quiet in her suffering. An old woman tells me she is “so tired she can barely get out of bed.” Her sadness is so heavy. Her sadness is beyond familiar.
An animal dies under the house and a child comes by and says:
“Someone is dead. It smells like when my uncle was decomposing.”
But the child doesn’t find this statement disturbing. The child just says it because that is the memory associated with that smell.
Feeling like conversation had been really heavy for way too many hours, during a break I asked a member of the internal council to tell me a happy story from his childhood. He looked up at me as though he had already failed and said, “my life is not very full of happy stories.”
People say things that are so loaded with meaning and history and social identity and psychological weight and little by little their actions and their conversations paint the canvass of their past. Little by little they let you know just how real the war is.
The crazy woman talks to herself at me, and for some reason has become attached to my room. She throws rocks out of the second story of her house, which is completely open to the elements, because she herself has teared it down over the years. She steals all of my pens. She steals our precious milk. She carries around a machete and periodically hacks at the ground. She likes to dance when there is music; she bobs about while swinging her machete and looking down. The community as a whole feeds her. They keep her alive and don’t send her away. (Is she better off here?) She didn’t displace with the community and nobody is sure what happened to her while they were away. The only time I have ever seen her calm is one sunny day when she sat and watched Emily and I in the garden. She had a look of peace on her face. She stopped mumbling for a few moments and just watched. They say she is lucid sometimes, like when she kept her granddaughter from falling off of a ledge. Or when she confronted armed actors and prevented a kidnapping. She is a story in and of herself. She haunts me in my dreams.
The clouds part and I see a starry sky for the first time in La Union. It is pitch black. They are so brightly glitterly beautiful. I stand next to a neighbor who says he knew it was me coming, because he can recognize people in the dark.
There are lush flowers and vines growing over an abandon building in San Jose where the community used to have their co-op (before displacing (again)). I went inside because I like abandon things. I think it was the first abandon building I’d ever been in and known the history of. It is so newly abandoned. It is so beautiful. And it is so haunting.Habitat for Humanity would have a heyday with the homes in the community. I can’t help but look around and think about the home improvements that would improve health. It’s hard to not think about ways to aid the community. I drive myself crazy thinking about how many “development” projects come before human rights in the world, when it should be the other way around. I drive myself crazy thinking about how development workers allow that to happen.
Jon left us for the Bogota team. We made arroz con leche. We made arroz con coco. We made him a book of colored pictures and letters from the community. We had a dance. We miss Jon. The dance was in the community hall and the music was vallenato, volume maximum. The crazy woman waved her machete at me (or was she chicken dancing?) and I couldn´t help but tango to the other side of the room with Jon. The kids were there. They danced around like lunatics and they danced around in proper vallenato style. The deaf girl impressively keeps the beat by watching those around her. She was the most enthusiastic of us all. My favorite boy asked me to dance and when we were bored of vallenato, we waltzed to the same rhythm.
Niguas are fun burrowing bugs. The children remove their own. Sean had four removed from one foot the other week. I had one and allowed several people to dig into my toe with clippers, needles and pluckers before it was decided that it wasn’t a nigua after all but rather a false alarm. You can imagine how impressed I was post “removal.” Now there is a hole in my toe, so they should have better luck getting in this time around.
Sapa is pregnant. She did not listen when we told her to make good choices. She is also the inspiration for another family band song entitled: Sapa, get your ass off the table.
There was a pretty little tree frog on the wall in the kitchen. I looked at it closely and decided we should be pals. When he jumped to the next wall, he fell to the ground. In the spilt second between hitting the floor and taking off, Sapa pounced on him. She then ate him. All of him. I no longer make friends with frogs. Sapa continues to be a badass hunter, although as her stomach grows she is getting more and more awkward. She nearly rolled off of Sean’s stomach the other day by accident.
A young mother about to give birth walks down to town to have her baby in the hospital. I can not even begin to imagine doing that walk nine months pregnant.
We had climbed all the way to the gates of La Union before we heard the water. How was the river rushing so hard now when we just crossed it so effortlessly down in the valley? Where is the waterfall that is that close? It took us a second to realize we were hearing the rain. It was pouring across the canyon, and headed right for us. We could see it coming, we could hear it coming. It was so unreal. We ended up running, soaking wet, singing at the top of our lungs and barely hearing or seeing anything over the rain itself. We sang about home.
An old man returning from the community adult education classes tells me it is difficult for him to remember all of the letters.
I left Guatemala one year ago this month. That anniversary gave me closure somehow.
My life in La Union is so sensory; I can’t begin to share it all.
My life here is a pastel sunset after a rainless day
a young hawk awkwardly learning to hunt in the canyon
a teenager schooling me in warzone weaponry (model, make, country of origin) from the sounds behind the hill or photos in a magazine
the screams of a pig being castrated
a jumping red and yellow lizard in the garden
little girls making crowns of flowers on the sidelines of a soccer match
a young mother and her newborn baby carried home from town in a hammock
falling down in a rushing river, flashfloods and walking up waterfalls
Emily crocheting new pot-holders from old volunteer FOR shirts
smokey wood stoked stoves over breakfast coffee
a neighbor strumming his guitar and smoking a cigarette
hummingbirds in the house
moonlight cradling me like a hammock in the kitchen doorway
a horse shaking the house by scratching itself against it
tobacco dipped in panela
a boy so high up in a lime tree he looks like a squirrel
bombs exploding and helicopters hovering
the sun scorching my skin
abandon buildings and flourishing gardens
babies being born and men being beheaded
chomping on sugarcane
a jeep struggling to get through the mud without falling off of the crumbling road
looking at home from across the canyon under a thatch roofed kiosk and catching myself in the thought: it looks so peaceful
It’s hard to adjust to living in a combat zone. So much death. So much defeat. So much misery. So much grief. So much pain. So much suffering. Even on the ground I think... will there ever be change? Will I ever raise my head and open my eyes to a world that is just?
And then I see that there is so much beauty. Beauty growing around and out of that death, grief, misery, pain and suffering.
And then I see that there is so much fear. Fear growing around and out of every living being.
I am looking for the grace to conquer that fear.
