The cows here have lovely ears

A death threat brings it home

Yesterday, in the office where I'm writing this, my friend turned up with the bit of paper we had known about for days. Such is communication in these parts, the death threat emailed to various recipients on April 4th, had only come to the attention of us in Regidor on the 9th, and we only had it in our hands on the 11th. It turns out the death threat does not list my friend by name, but it is very clearly him referred to as "Leader of Regidor, obstacle to a good municipal government". Drawing on a particular turn of phrase often used by the local mayor.

The threat is addressed to four people (one by name, two by profession and my friend specifically referred to) and various organisations, with the subject "Get out of the Magdalena region".

As it got passed round those who had arrived to read it, I got to witness a scene that must be frequently played out throughout Colombia.

Since hearing about the threat to his life, my friend who previously always seemed so cock-sure and relaxed, now fidgets constantly. As people read the details, they realised that the group as a whole was also included, and the fear spread round the room.

They discussed the fact that the threat was very serious. The consequences that my friend leaving would have on their work. Who would want to get involved now, and risk becoming the next target? Would the micro-credit scheme have to fold? What would that mean to the lives of those with loans? If he left, would the work continue? If he didn't, what were the risks for him? Can a community response be organised to increase everyone's safety?

I listened with a sense of detached and objective interest. I felt pretty sure that their weighing up of risks would be a wise one and that he would leave before anything bad happened to him. So it interested me to watch the effect that words sent in an email a week before could have on a community. The potential for a positive response that would strengthen the community, like what happened after Alejandro Uribe's death. The possibility that this threat-as-opportunity attitude would not win out.

In a way it made me angry and frustrated that it can be so easy to spread such fear. Someone somewhere creates an email account, sends out a threat, and communities are crippled, organisations fall apart.

But I understood too, that this email works because it is not just an empty threat. People know how close the nearest paramilitary base is. People know who in their community have been killed in recent years. And when we heard that for the last two days two paramilitaries have been seen talking on the phone in the alleyway by my friend's house, I started to feel a lot less detached.

Postscript: I wrote all that a few days ago, but thought I'd wait until we'd left Regidor before posting it, so's not to overly worry my Dad. Not that he should worry anyway. My international status makes me pretty safe.

It turned out that the 'threat-as-opportunity' mentality has won out impressively well. My friend was pretty pleased with the way the community has rallied round him, and we went to a fair few meetings to discuss the community's response before we left.

Given that the death threat also named some catholic priests and the EU-funded Program for Peace and Development, there has been political power on our side, and the threat has made national news. It is the first time I've seen a death threat reported in the media since I got here. (And I know there have been more.)

The press release my organisation sent out has been translated into English. Mysteriously, when it asks you to write to people in the Colombian government to complain, it misses out most of their emails. Here they are for your convenience: auribe@presidencia.gov.co, fsantos@presidencia.gov.co, siden@mindefensa.gov.co, infprotocol@mindefensa.gov.co, mdn@cable.net.co, ministro@minjusticia.gov.co, contacto@fiscalia.gov.co, denuncie@fiscalia.gov.co, defensoria@defensoria.org.co, secretaria_privada@hotmail.com, anticorrupción@presidencia.gov.co, reygon@procuraduría.gov.co, cefranco@presidencia.gov.co, fibarra@presidencia.gov.co

Don't worry that it's been a few days since the threat. It's still incredibly helpful for the government to know that people abroad are noticing these things. Colombia's international reputation is important to them, especially as their human rights record is part of the debate currently thwarting their hopes for a free trade agreement with the US.

And don't worry about writing in English. You can always copy in the demands in Spanish (the four points after 'Solicitudes').

Feeling comfy

Sorry to have lost sight of the blogging mission lately. I'm still living in Regidor and we had Semana Santa (holiday week) where things all slowed down and I did more swimming in the river (very annoying little biting fish take away some of the fun, but it's incredibly warm and delicious) and even a little tea-drinking and gossiping with my landlady. And since then I haven't quite got back into it. But I intend to be much more on the case this week and will hopefully post something every day.

I've had a really strong sense of blissful contentment here. It comes from how quickly I feel I've made proper friendships and connections with people here.

When Colombians ask what I think of their country, I normally say something about how I friendly and open I find the people. It seems like a platitude, but it's utterly sincere.

The openness doesn't just manifest in how people are welcoming and helpful and want to find out all about me and my life. It means that although I am in a culture which is radically different from my own in many ways, I feel I am accepted. In the past when I've been in other countries, I've found it a strain that I've not been comfortable being myself. I've known that many of my opinions and much of my behaviour would shock people, so I have kept quiet and adapted.

Here, I've been able to talk to people I've only just met about why I never want to get married, or about my non-monogamous relationship back home. Without knowing first how religious they are, or what their opinions might be. Because of a sense of however strongly they might feel about a subject, they would still be non-judgemental and interested in how I'm different. Not quite everyone, obviously. But this has been my experience so far.

Poverty Headache

My friend Kenis has a headache. A serious headache. An inflamed nerve which has meant a three-day stay in hospital. When I saw her back at home last night, she looked just like someone who had been in serious pain for days.

The pills she has been prescribed are not available in this small town. They might not be available in the nearest bigger town either. So her husband is intending to go straight to the nearest city. They have been told the 2-week course of medicine will come to around 130 000 pesos (35 quid). That really does not seem like much when I write it in pounds. But for people here who can only just cover the costs of their everyday lives. Where a monthly electricity bill of 5000 pesos (1.40 pounds) seems like a lot, such an additional expense is, like the headache, crippling.

I'm loving living in this town. I love many of the things that seem to come with a lack of wealth in a place: The strong sense of community, the friendliness of people, the huge amounts of mutual aid and solidarity constantly going on, and the delightfully low-impact lives people have with their lack of opportunity for consumerism. Easy to romanticise how the close & helpful community leads to happier, less isolated lives than many lead in British cities.

But Kenis' headache reminds me how it's not actually that fun to live with no safety margin so you can barely cope with the cost of a health problem or a failed harvest.

Journey to a meeting

My favourite meeting of those I've attended so far in Colombia, was held in the tiny gold mining village of Mina Piojo in the region of Southern Bolivar.

To get there, I got a taxi to the bus station in Bogotá, a 12 hour overnight bus to Aguachica, a 20 minute taxi to Gamarra, a two hour boat ride upstream on the river Magdalena to Cerro Burgos and a 30 minute taxi to Santa Rosa. In Santa Rosa we had breakfast and waited for the jeep which proclaimed itself to be 'Servicing the mining community'. Then, a tortuous two hour drive over the worst roads I'd ever been on in a vehicle. Incredible foot-deep tyre-wide ruts that took much concentration on the driver's part. At the moment it's summer and the ground was solid, but in rainy winter those bits would be impassible.

I was squashed between one of my travelling companions and a nurse travelling to service the tiny health centre up there. The nurse was all friendly and chatty, along those "tell me all about your country" lines. He asked me that question "What does your country export?" that I remember from when I was last in Latin America 12 years ago. I remember being stuck by my own ignorance when asked before, and I remember resolving to research the matter when I got home. Though I don't remember doing so. All the ideas he came up with (cars? computers?) I thought had probably moved elsewhere. I forgot that the arms trade was something we do excel at, and my mind was totally blank. Which I'm sure was strange to someone in a country where the evidence of the natural resources being exploited for the national economy is all around you. Even before I got here, I could list loads of Colombia's exports (flowers, palm oil, oil, gold, soap operas and cocaine). With the exception of soap operas, I can tell you environmental, social and human rights problems associated with each one. But other than weapons and what goes with them, and maybe some cars, I'm still not so sure what the UK does export.

At the time I glibly gave this answer, which I welcome you to critique as pitilessly as you see fit (go Nigel): "With our history of colonialism, given that we've robbed the natural resources of lots of other places, now we have the money which makes more money." Opinion or analysis welcome - post them below.

Then we arrived in La Punta: entry point to the gold mines in the mountains. Mules were hired that were in a far worse state than those we'd had on our mountain walking holiday. Life is clearly harsher here.

Then a four hour walk/mule ride along an up & down mud path that apparently is a nightmare in the winter (evidenced by the odd lost wellington boot sticking up out of the ground) and takes hours longer.

We stayed the night in Mina Vieja and set off again the next day. No mules to take our stuff this time, and a three hour walk. Pretty much all downhill, at times steep and tricky. Great views, going through woods stuffed with cool plants and fantastic butterflies, but also with the knowledge that the next day the return journey would be lots more work.

Then we arrived and I got some understanding of what life is like seven hours from a road.

We were told that we'd been expected yesterday. When the only communication is via people being given messages as they pass through other villages, misunderstandings are pretty easy. So a new meeting was fixed for 6.30pm. We watched an electric light being installed in someone's porch specially for the meeting. At 6pm we were called for dinner in the house which included a tiny shop and seemed to function as the village social centre. We'd all had a shower there, and plenty of other people seemed to use the bathroom facilities (small shed with a toilet and hose) too.

For dinner I was sat at a table in front of a tele and my first proper telenovela experience. I discussed with someone from my group how staggeringly, incredibly, bad it was. Only later to get up and notice most of the village sitting just behind me, avidly taking it in. Ooops. (Since then I've not only discovered that they are actually incredibly entertaining, but it's also been explained that the over-acting is a deliberate parody. If true, I guess that makes it okay.)

I liked the meeting because although it mostly consisted of all the men from the village, it was a very sorted woman that ran it. She started by reading out an agenda. And I was happy that a remote gold mining community, where probably pretty much no one had been to a secondary school, could still have a good meeting process. I also liked how a little way into the meeting, she was presented with her screaming child to breastfeed, and how effortlessly she multi-tasked.

I was there with a bloke from a national NGO which does capacity building work, and with three guys from the Federation of Farmers and Miners in South Bolivar. The meeting was for those agencies to encourage community development. I was a bit taken aback when one of the men from the Federation launched into a long rant about the environmental effects of gold mining and what the community should be doing about it, but it seemed to be well received. Everyone was in agreement around the importance of environmental protection. And I felt a bit choked when an old man from the community started his own rant about why you should plant fruit trees even if you're not going to be alive to benefit from them (ie because someone else will).

I also thought it seemed pretty blunt when the community were told that they should plan ahead because at the moment they can choose either that their children only receive a primary education, or that they send them off to secondary (only really possible if they have relatives near a school) in which case they rarely come back. When I mentioned later how harsh this had seemed to me, I was told that the NGO and the Federation are working on a proposal for a secondary school nearer by, and the point was the community needed to get involved in this.

The main other point was to encourage the miners to get more into growing their own food. The news that bananas cost 15p each in a nearby mining village (rather than 5p normally) caused a bit of a stir. By the time we left there was a committed and organised bunch of people with the beginnings of an allotment plan. That felt really positive.

Near the end of the meeting, the Federation bloke who'd been talking for ages, suddenly goes, "and now it's our international friend's turn to speak and to give us some thoughts on her visit here." I would have really appreciated some time to form some thoughts, but I had to make do with bland pleasantries. Something about differences, how we generally all had roads going right up to our houses and how I was learning a lot about what life was like for them. This was followed by some loud demands that I stay for a whole week to learn more. I find the thought really tempting. It was an incredibly friendly and comfortable place to be, with a brilliantly strong sense of community. I'd just worry about getting there by myself.

Later, I did have the time to form some more opinions. I thought about how my previous impression of gold miners was of colonialists causing environmental damage and problems for indigenous people. No indigenous people round here, although, okay, until the clean-mining equipment comes soon to the area, there probably is too much mercury and cyanide being released. But with their houses made only from local wood and plastic sheeting, with all goods being carried in by person or by mule, and with not a car driver or air traveller amongst them, it's the lowest-impact, most sustainable village I've ever visited.

Arrival

There's no immigration at the container port where the boat came in, so the Port Agent came on the boat to explain to us the process. He had booked us a taxi to take us to a hotel where we were very strictly instructed that we must stay until the taxi came back for us to take us to immigration when it opened at 5. When the taxi did come back for us, we were taken via some random office in town where the taxi driver popped in, saying he had to pick up some papers for us. The French couple with me (whose freight boat journey from Martinique to Cartegena was the cheapest option for them) were very sceptical, and were shocked when he came out with papers including copies of our passports. I never doubted the randomness of South American bureacracy.

Things I've had an emotional reponse to since I've arrived:

- people with no shoes. The jolt of remembering what it feels like to be surrounded by poverty.
- hearing words I used to hear in Ecuador.
- the sense of familiarity and affection I have for this bit of the world.
- the sense of being an outsider
- the politics of agreeing prices for stuff. Being torn between outrage at getting ripped off, knowing how enormously unimportant 50p is to me, having respect for people trying their luck, worrying about the effect that tourist money can have on a society, wondering if the previous emotion is merely self-justification for being tight, knowledge that my money comes from my family's capitalist history and my cushy job and not from any hard work on my part, and that others have pretty much the same right to it as me. A gauntlet. I'm sure to harden up soon though.

Off to Bogota later today.