End of the trip

When we got to Mina Gallo (about 7 hours walk from Mina Piojo, but stopping off on the way), we met up with the three folk we'd started our journey with. They'd been off doing workshops in various villages, and this time I got to observe them.

There was a bloke from Cartegena who owned a consultancy company that had got government funding for this work. The three of them did a workshop each.

I watched the presentation on the environmental and health effects of gold mining, and what simple measures people could take. What I think I understood, is that rather than evaporating off the mercury from the gold, when so much of it escapes and pollutes, they should add 1 litre of water and 10g of salt, attach to a 12v battery, and separate by electrolysis.

Only about 10 people had turned up (which led to a fair bit of moaning from the Cartegena bloke before they started), but those that did were 100% engaged in the topic and asked loads of questions. At one point someone said that miners there had a particular method there they took the ground-up rock/gold/mercury mixture in their hand and spat on it and rubbed it for the gold to came out. Given the toxic qualities of mercury that had just been explained (using a case study I remembered from biology A level, plus a congenital defect example from a nearby village where a baby had been born with no arms), should they be using gloves?

They all had a bit of a laugh about how difficult it would be to get people to change their habits and start wearing gloves. Apparently the response would be "And are you going to live forever?" I felt totally stunned by the concept that anyone rubs mercury into their skin on a regular basis.

The afternoon's presentation was about environmental law and was lots less engaging. I missed the planning workshop the next day, but it sounded brilliant. Apparently the lecture about attendance had worked and everyone did bring at least one other person. The part where they analysed what the problems of the community were, and what could be done about it went particularly well. Sometimes groups focus on how everything is the responsibility of the state, but this group was much more empowered and hatched lots of plans.

That night, I had a bigger interview panel for a "tell us all about your country" session. They said their impression from films was that everything was totally perfect. They wanted to know in particular about how the issues that most affected them compared: the strength of trade unions, suicide rates, drug and lottery addictions, poverty, hunger and racism. What seemed to concern the two men in their 50s the most was pensions, given that they were looking at a near future with no income.

The next day we walked 4 1/2 hours back to La Punta, and got the jeep to Santa Rosa. From the countryside with its one-channel reception unifying everyone's television experiences, I was back in a hostel watching a Prison Break marathon. However I had to be called away to go get dinner before it got dark, as apparently a couple of months ago there was quite an outbreak in violence between demobilised paramilitaries and drug traffickers, resulting in a few deaths a night for a while. Up til that point it had seemed like a quiet, quite dull, small country town. But the bloke from the NGO said he'd not like to travel through it on his own cos of all the ex-paramilitaries floating about. The town had obviously recovered though, and there was plenty of life on the streets after dark.

During my time in the countryside, the thought occurred to me "Will I see fireflies?" Which I didn't, until the night bus back to Bogotá, where I got a proper light show for the bit when I wasn't sleepy.