A new record

Posting two times in one week–what the heck is the matter with me!?  But seriously, this is just a quick and dirty post to mention two things I think are worth reading this week reading Colombia.

#1 The Los Angeles Times published an article this week referring to the alarming number of extrajudicial killings that occured in Colombia over the past year.  For me, this type of coverage of Colombia in the US press is far overdue.  The US media’s incessant focus on narco-politics does not accurately reflect the reality of the conflict nor does it acknowledge the millions of victims of military, paramilitary, and guerrilla violence that have to live with the consequences of shortsighted policies such as the War on Drugs.  Earlier this year FOR and Amnesty International produced a report that documents extrajudicial killings committed by Colombian military brigades that receive US funding.  It’s very good but very detailed, so if you are new to the whole US aid to Colombia topic, I recommend reading the executive summary and the recommendations to US policy makers at the end.

#2 The Spanish language version of PBI Colombia’s quarterly publication ColomPBIa is now available for free download on our website.  The English version should be ready in another week or so, but in the meantime you can check out the other issues in English here.  ColomPBIa provides the latest news about the human rights situation in Colombia, featuring interviews with human rights defenders that we accompany, and first hand reports from PBI’s volunteers working in the field.

Well that’s it.  Told you it would be short.  Have a great weekend.  Happy reading!

Into the jungle we go

Greetings from Barranacabermeja, my new home for the next two months.  The team here is low on volunteers right now and so I’ve come to help out and use it as an opportunity to familiarize myself with the organizations we accompany in the Magdalena Medio region.  The rhythm of work here isn’t as frenetic as Bogotá, so hopefully that will translate into some more consistent posting.  For now, I’d like to share my first task upon joining the PBI Barranca team: a 10-day accompaniment trip up into the lush mountains of the Cimitarra river valley. 

I arrived in Barranca Sunday night (August 3), tired and nauseas after the winding 10-hour bus ride from Bogotá.  The change in scenery as we dropped down from the Andes into the valley of the Magdalena Medio was truly spectacular, and I tried my best to get some good shots as our bus tore around corners and attempted to pass the lumbering oil tankers that clog the highway three at a time.  Arriving at the PBI house was a bit of a shock at first—it was so quiet!  Even when everyone is asleep in the house in Bogotá, you’re constantly bombarded by traffic, car alarms, and music from the street below.  The house in Barranca is nestled in a quiet, residential neighborhood free of bus lines.  Apart from the occasional party in one of the neighbors’ houses down the street, it’s pretty tame around these parts. I have yet to take a tour of the entire city, and look forward to seeing what my colleagues have assured me is a much more accurate portrait of life in Barranca.

Melanie and Me

After a day of preparation, my colleague Melanie (member of the Barranca PBI team) and I set off on a 10-day accompaniment trip with the Cimitarra River Valley Farmer Association (Asociación Campesina del Valle del Río Cimitarra—ACVC) to some of their more remote farming projects in Cimitarra valley in northeastern Antioquia department.  A little over 41,000 people live in the Cimitarra valley, with 65% living in the region’s rural areas.  With such a high percentage of the rural inhabitants, it’s no wonder that over 22,000 residents of Cimitarra valley (more than half) claim affiliation with the ACVC.  

yes, it is that pretty in real life

 

The work of the ACVC is multifaceted and internationally recognized for the important role it plays in the preservation of land rights for Colombia’s farming classes.  In addition to coordinating projects to help fortify the social and economic independence of farming families in the Magdalena Medio region, the ACVC also organizes campaigns of peaceful resistance to the exploitation and consolidation of their lands by multinational corporations.  The ACVC, like many rural communities struggling for self-preservation here in Colombia, maintain a strong discourse against ALL armed actors in the country. As is almost always the case with organizations seeking to maintain their independence in the conflict and protect their communities and their lands from economic exploitation, the ACVC faces constant persecution from illegal armed actors as well as the Colombian military and judicial system.  More on this in upcoming posts.

And so with all this in mind, I began my first rural accompaniment trip with the ACVC.  Leaving Barranca in the afternoon we traveled by taxi, Land Cruiser, and motor canoe to the Puerto Nuevo Ité Cooperative, essentially the commercial center for smaller communities of the Cimitarra valley.  Last hitching post for at least half a day’s ride, and last place to get cold beer in the municipality before heading into the more remote regions where the ACVC work.  In case I haven’t mentioned this already, it’s pretty hot and sticky down here in the Magdalena Medio.  Even though it gets well into the 90s during the day, it almost always rains at night (we are in winter down here, after all) making for one ripe breeding ground for mosquitos, ants, cochroaches, and mean little flies that like to bite.

choking back the tears

It was in these conditions that we set out on our first day of the real part of the journey—two full days of travel by mule to a 500-hectare farm called La Cristalina, deep in the jungle hills of the valley.  Due to a shortage of mules at the beginning of the trip, we spent the first three hours hiking through shin deep mud in knee-high rubber boots under the soul-crushing heat mentioned above.  I was so happy to see my mule at our first rest stop that I ran over and gave her a hug.  She promptly bit my shoulder.  Some other things I learned about traveling by mule: they’re not too affectionate; they like their space; they like to let you think that you are in control, and then take off down a ravine at full tilt; they fart while the walk; a lot. 

After another night in our beloved hammocks and another full day of travel, we arrived at La Cristalina and were instantly blown away by the raw beauty of the place.  La Cristalina sits in a shallow basin in the hilly jungles of northeastern Antioquia.  The modest farmhouse sits on a little knoll right in the middle, dividing the property into two: one side for the buffalo, one side for the cattle and mules. 

 

farmhouse and the buffalo range

La Cristalina is home to the ACVC’s cattle-sharing program.  Families in the Cimitarra valley that are members of the ACVC can borrow 15 head of cattle (14 cows and 1 bull) for a term of 3 years to start up their own herd.  After the term is up, the cattle are returned to La Cristalina to be rotated out to another family.  In addition to this program ACVC run a buffalo-sharing program, organize workshops on sustainable farming methods, and hold basic health trainings to help build self-sufficiency within the communities in the valley.

We spent the next three days hanging out, exploring the surrounding hills, and helping with work around the farm where we could.  La Cristalina is almost completely self-sufficient; all the food we ate during these days was grown and harvested on the land, and the water we bathed in and drank (with water purification tablets, of course; still haven’t built up that tolerance to giardia) came from the river that snakes around the property.  They had just harvested their bean plots, so it was rice, beans, and buffalo cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  We slept outside every night in our hammocks under the covered porch that wrapped around the house.   

my hammock and me before the storm

A covered porch is a really nice idea, but it doesn’t really do too much good when the nightly rainstorms come with high winds that change direction every time.  Most nights we picked the right side of the house to sleep on.  But we got a little too confident, and our last night we paid for it when our side of the porch got blasted by a big old fashioned torrential downpour.  It wouldn’t have been so bad without the wind blowing the rain nearly vertical, strait into our mosquito nets.  We ended up sitting up half the night in a relatively dry patch of porch, hoping the rain would just pass on by like the other storms.  Eventually we just threw down the less wet hammock and slept on floor. Needless to say, we got a lot of ribbing from our accompañados the next morning.  I do my best to maintain a certain amount of professional impartiality with this work, but I have to say I was thoroughly impressed by the members of the ACVC that we accompanied on this trip.  Their ability to maintain focus and a sense of cohesiveness in the face of constant persecution is truly inspiring.  They are amazing organizers, have clearly defined goals, and are unceasing in their pursuit of them.  On a more personal level I found these folks to be accomodating, warm, patient, and with a biting wit to boot.

The journey back to Puerto Nuevo Ité was uneventful in terms of protective accompaniment, but fascinating in terms of flora and fauna.  Colombia continues to blow my mind the more that I explore its various regions.  In this trip we saw three different tree monkeys, wild tortoises, miniature sloth engaged in by far the slowest mating ritual I’d ever seen, and more bird species than I could count.  We even saw leopard footprints near the farm, and had to put up with jokes all week about how leopards prefer the meat of blonde foreigners.

making our presence known

From Puerto Nuevo Ité we followed the same route back to Barranca, arriving home to a refrigerator full of fruit and MEAT.  I never thought I would go through meat withdrawals, but I was feeling pretty anemic as we limped back into the house.  At any rate it was a fantastic trip, and a great first rural accompaniment for a relatively new volunteer.  I had the chance to talk a lot with the members of the ACVC that we accompanied on this trip, and you can be sure there will be another post soon about their continuing struggle for self-preservation and respect from the Colombian state.  

 

 

Reflection and hope

Well a lot more time has passed and of course there is more to write about than I can fit in one single entry. I had a goal to get one more post in before the end of the month but I missed it by a few days. So it goes. In terms of current events, I would advise you to visit on of the links on the right side of this page as I spent basically the entire accompanying in various departments around the country. Even though I have been in Colombia for over two and a half months, it could very well be two and a half weeks. The hours fly by and before I even have time to complain about how it’s Monday, I’m sitting in our weekly Friday afternoon meeting trying to reach consensus on a myriad of internal and external issues. Sometimes it scares me a little, this ridiculously rapid passage of time. That and the UNENDING amount of information with which we are constantly presented. It’s not that NGOs in Colombia are overenthusiastic or longwinded in their reporting of the human rights situation here; it’s just that something is ALWAYS happening.

The intensity level has definitely increased since my arrival, both in terms of workload and complexity of the issues we try to address under our policies of non-interference and non-violence. We are constantly debating what this means within the context of Colombia. As PBI operates under a non-hierarchical structure (that is to say, we answer to each other and not to a chain of command) in which decisions are made by consensus, this means that everyone gets to have a say on nearly every issue. With 35 volunteers doing accompaniment work in four different regions and an additional support team of 15 based in Bogotá, 4 in Brussels, and 2 in the US, this makes for some long debates. Sometimes I wonder if we really can operate as a non-hierarchical organization with the inevitable specialization that occurs when people repeat, work as accompaniment volunteers and later as support volunteers, or enter into the project with a specialized set of skills (like communications or psychology). We currently have a working group within the project that intends to look at our organization and try to assess where we are meeting our goals in terms of decision-making and communication, and where we could stand to improve in our attempts to operate an international organization with no formal chain of command. It’s going to be interesting to see what they come up with and I’m sure it will provoke, of course, more debate.

When I say above that the complexity of issues has increased, I should clarify that it’s not that things have gotten more complicated since I arrived; I just understand a little better now. Working as enlace CCAJAR was a substantial help in my orientation as they represent victims in a number of cases around the country. Each accompaniment with them provides not only a powerful example of the violence and oppression that millions of people have lived through in this country, but also the strength and persistence required to ensure some measure of justice in the Colombian courts.

There is a wonderful masseuse/psychologist/Chinese Medicine practitioner named Sonia that I go to see on a fairly regular basis and together we try to work out the maze of knots my back has become from crouching over my laptop. According to her the knots in my back and neck are very, very old—ancient, even. So I was stressed out in my past lives as well. Not surprising. But given the context in which we work, and the inevitable tendency to become emotionally involved, Sonia has been an amazing source of support for me. Each time I remind myself to relax my shoulders from their usual position of hovering around my ears, I remember what Sonia tells me nearly every time we meet: Let go of these things that you have carried with you for so long and leave them here in Colombia. That’s a pretty high order. Not only can I not obsess about things that happen in my personal life, but now I have to apply that to work as well? It’s a challenge, for sure, and I doubt I’ll ever reach that perfect spiritual balance that will release all the tension in my lower back and shoulders. But it’s something to be at least conscious of my role here; conscious of where and how I can be supportive; conscious of the limits I need to set for myself, and the time I deserve to process and reflect on my experiences in Colombia.

I’d love to write more to all of you, but I’m taking off in 15 minutes on a 10-day trip to the Cimitarra River Valley in Antioquia department. For the next two months I will be working with our team in Barrancabermeja in the Magdalena Medio region comprised of four departments (Antioquia, Bolivar, Santander and Cesar) through which pass the formidable Magdalena River. Here I have a whole new group of organizations to acquaint myself with, and a whole new group of issues as well. I’ll be back in Barranca in a little over a week, and look forward to sharing more with you when I get back.

Cheers!

Motorcycle taxis, human rights lawyers, and chess

Well it sure is nice to be writing in my blog again, and it looks like I’m not going to be as faithful with updating as I originally promised. What can I say—between our unending computer woes and the fact that I’ve been traveling at least one or two days of the past three weeks, it’s tough to keep up.

You have probably realized by now that there have been some pretty incredible happenings in the past month. Here are some of them:

The Colombian military pulled a fast one on the Farc (Operation ‘Jacque’ as in Check, as in Check Mate) and rescued Ingrid Betancourt, 11 members of the Colombian police and military, and three US defense contractors. Click here for a more sophisticated analysis.

And of course the US had something to do with it.

Colombia and Venezuela are back on speaking terms.

And to wrap it up, President Uribe admitted this week that the Colombian military used the Red Cross emblem during Operation Jacque. The Red Cross had this to say about it.

Seeing as I have decided to link to other people’s analysis instead of giving my own (all in good time people, all in good time), I have more time to talk about what I’ve been doing.

As you have learned from my blog, most of my work and accompaniment has focused around CCAJAR, a collective of human rights lawyers based here in Bogotá.  Not much has changed on that front, since most of my accompaniments have been with them.  Although they are based here in the city, the lawyers of CCAJAR represent people and cases all over the country. 

For my first trip outside of Bogotá we (my co-worker Annemarie and I) accompanied CCAJAR to Sincelejo, the capital city of Sucre department on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Sincelejo was a welcome respite from rainy, polluted Bogotá, full of color and with a pace not quite as hectic as that of the capital, but that I would still qualify as ‘bustling.’ Nearly everyone in Sincelejo (as far as I can tell) has a motorcycle. This lead to my discovery of one of my new favorite things in Colombia—mototaxis! Given that the weather is usually nice and hot, it’s far more economical on everyone’s part to use motorcycles as taxis instead of cars. Sincelejo also is home to champagne mangoes and one of the most delicious shrimp cocktail concoctions I’ve ever tasted. Shrimp mixed with mayonnaise, ketchup, onions, spices, and hot sauce and served in a plastic cup with a side of saltine crackers. This plus a cheap Colombian pilsner (the most prevalent variety of domestically produced beer) and you’ve got yourself one delicious meal. But back to the real reason we were in Sincelejo.

CCAJAR is representing the civil side of one of the dozen criminal cases currently open against Rodrigo Mercado Pelufo, alias ‘Cadena,’ former leader of the now demobilized paramilitary group ‘Heroes of Montes de Maria’ (in future postings I promise to explain the horrible irony of that title). Beginning in 1997 and lasting nearly 10 years, Cadena exercised de facto control over the city of San Onofre (also in Sucre Department) with a campaign of terror, corruption, and forced displacement. Basically, this guy ran a concentration camp out of a dairy farm that he stole (ironically named ‘God Saves’) and used as a makeshift cemetery for what officials believe (according to testimony of demobilized members of the paramilitary block) are over 500 corpses of disappeared persons from the region.

This case in particular concerns the collusion between Cadena and Nelson Stamp Berrío, notary of San Onofre, and his secretary in the falsification of land titles of executed citizens, stating that they had received money from Cadena for the lands that he obtained through forced displacement or assassination of these citizens. Although CCAJAR represents the civil side in these cases, the Colombian penal court system allows for the participation of the civil attorney in cases wherein there are documented victims of the accused. They don’t have the burden of proof in these cases, but are allowed to give evidence, question the accused, and give a closing statement.

In the end the hearing was delayed, as the judge wanted more concrete evidence that forced displacement occurred as part of the ploy to obtain the lands. Although it was a public hearing it was impossible for us to enter the courtroom as it was packed with victims, families of victims, spectators, and press. We sat in the courthouse vestibule during the hearing and alternated between talking and reading our books. Bringing something to read on accompaniments is required, I’ve found. Despite all the planning and preparation that goes into an accompaniment, you can always end up sitting around and waiting for one reason or another. We don’t bring work with us on accompaniment trips for security reasons, so even though I’ve been incredibly busy I’ve still had time to read for pleasure. So far I’ve gotten through one novel and am half way through a book about physics!

But we didn’t spend all our time reading. The nature of this accompaniment allowed us to meet with United Nations Development Program (UNDP) office in Sincelejo. A central part of PBI’s protection strategy is maintaining dialogue with state authorities (military, police, and government) as well as International Non-Governmental Organizations in the regions in which we work. The topics of these meetings vary, but at the very least our goal is to present the work of PBI and if possible discuss current events in the area. Easy with a fellow NGO, a little nerve-racking with state authorities, but usually very interesting.

Hopefully this gives you a better idea of what I’ve been up to down here. The pace is so varied, and I think that will be the most difficult thing to adapt to. One minute you have nothing going on and are looking for things to do and the next your up to your neck in reports to read, write, and edit, meetings to attend, and who knows what else. I hope you find all this as interesting as I do. I know there are still some gaping holes in terms of understanding the whole context from what I’ve written here, but we’re pretty much in the same boat. Every time I learn something new, I end up with a dozen more questions.  As my co-worker so eloquently quoted the self-evaluation of her work: “The more you learn, the more you realize how little you really know.” I could not agree more.

 

Absence makes for a long post

First, I want to thank all of you who left such lovely comments and emails for me about how great this blog is going to be and how nice it was to hear from me. This blog thing is still new and I never imagined how satisfying it would be to get comments. Yay! That being said, I think a big old discúlpame (forgive me, all you wonderful people) for thoroughly slacking off on the blog front for the past two weeks. The workload has been, to say the least, a bit more than I was anticipating. Today is Sunday, and my week just finished a few hours ago. And it’s going to start again in a few more. Technically I’ve got some free time banked up now, which I hope to roll into a three dayish weekend here soon. But I’ve been up to some cool stuff and I’d far rather discuss that. So let’s get to it.

Wow, that Emily sure is well read. Just look at that list of links!
You may have noticed some changes on the right hand side of your screen. I’ve got some (I think) cool stuff linked up there that you should definitely give the once over. They are more or less organized for your reading pleasure. While most concern Colombia or Latin America in general, there are also some fun bits thrown in for good measure. I’d love to know what you think about them! I’m also always on the lookout for new blogs, articles, websites, organizations, and fun/interesting stuff. Drop me a line (or comment). To save space in my entries for more entertaining stories, I have added a tab at the top of this blog called About PBI if you have questions about the organization in general, or if you just need a refresher.

Oh yeah. That whole work thing.
As my thinly veiled whining above suggests, there is a pretty significant need for international accompaniment in Colombia. We are by no means the only organization doing accompaniment work here, but even with a number of well-established organizations, it’s still tough to fill all the accompany requests we receive. But I’m working with a great team of people, who are more than happy to help me make sense of the enormous amount of information we’ve accumulated after nearly 15 years working in Colombia.
To help divide up work between all the organizations we accompany or work with, two team members are assigned to each, with one acting as the main enlace (point person). After a little bit of lobbying, I was assigned to the Lawyers Collective José Alvear Restrepo (CCAJAR). In addition to this, I help coordinate work with the Association of Family Members of Detained and Disappeared Persons (ASFADDES), with our project representative in the US, and with our other sub-team in the city of Barrancabermeja. Given the fairly constant turnover rate in the organization due to the one-year contracts we sign, there is a lot of internal work to maintain. Within the team I help with new volunteer training, house security planning, and computer systems management. A little all over the place, but I’m happy with the work I have right now and look forward to learning more. We rotate enlaces every three months, so hypothetically I have the chance to work closely with every organization we accompany, as well as get to know all the wonderful internal work tasks we have accumulated as an organization.
CCAJAR works tirelessly on behalf of the victims of Colombia’s more than 60-year old conflict. Its members have tried several cases before the Inter-American Tribunal on Human Rights and are known internationally for their work with the victims of Colombia’s conflict. In addition to providing free legal counsel, these lawyers organize workshops for indigenous communities, unions, and grassroots community organizations, covering such topics as International Humanitarian Law, Colombia’s Justice and Peace Law for victims of paramilitary violence, and human rights in general. Needless to say, they are some of the most driven, brilliant, and intelligent people I have met so far in my life. I am one happy camper.

Accompaniment in Bogotá
I’m deep into work here now, which means a lot of reading, a lot more writing, and (my personal favorite) accompaniment! We’ll focus on that last point, as a play-by-play account of how I write reports would be far less interesting.
We all share accompaniment work inside and outside of Bogotá, but it just so happens that most of my accompaniments have been with CCAJAR. Within Bogotá this has meant trips to the civilian penal court system, as well as the Supreme Court. My first solo accompaniment in the city started at the Palace of Justice. For anyone who hasn’t been to Bogotá (probably a lot of people who are reading this) the Palace of Justice makes up one side of the Plaza Bolívar, the main plaza in the center of Bogota. It is an enormous and impressive building, especially when one considers that it was the site of a terribly violent confrontation between the guerrilla group M-19 and the Colombian military in 1985, ending in a fire that completely destroyed the building.
It was an uncharacteristically gorgeous day in Bogotá when I arrived at the back entrance of the Palace of Justice. The CCAJAR lawyer I was accompanying arrived and we entered the building, at which point he informed me that the event we would be attending was the preparatory hearing for Jorge Noguera, ex director of the DAS (principal intelligence agency in the country; roughly, FBI, CIA, and ICE rolled into one), the state agency in charge of providing protection for citizens who have received threats. Noguera is quite a guy. Although I would love to devote several pages to his alleged dealings with drug traffickers and paramilitaries (mainly the fact that he sold the names and information of the people his agency was supposed to be protecting to said drug traffickers and paramilitaries), I will instead refer you to the excellent summary and analysis, done by Adam Isaacson of the Center for International Policy, when the scandal originally broke.
CCAJAR reprents the civil side of the case, that is the victims of Noguera’s alleged indiscretions as acting director of the DAS. They work with the prosecutor but are not responsible for prosecuting Noguera. The preparatory hearing ending up being the only hearing in Noguera’s case, however, as his case was dismissed and he was released from jail on the basis that the person prosecuting him was not sufficiently qualified. The court found that as his crimes were committed during his time in charge of the DAS, it warrented prosecuting by the nation’s Attorney General. Apparently the evidence in his case can still be used against him, so we’ll see what comes of that. This is by far the last time we’ll hear about this guy.
Needless to say, the results were disappointing for those who have been working over the past two years putting together the case against Noguera. There are many family members whose loved ones were harmed or killed as a result of Noguera’s open sale of information of the witnesses, informants, union leaders, and human rights defenders that were under his supposed care. For now it appears that the victims haven’t been forgotten in this context, and it was viewed as favorable that the court went out of its way to make this point at the end of the session. It was quite the experience to have coming “out of the gates” and into the world of human rights lawyers and defenders in Colombia.
My first weeks of work have only produced more work, as there is literally something new everyday for me to read and try to learn on the fly. It’s exciting and interesting, so most of the time I don’t mind. I’ve been on a few trips outside of Bogotá within the past few weeks, and look forward to sharing those experiences with you in my next posting (hopefully within the week). In the meantime, take care and keep the feedback coming!

Well, at least it’s close

Welcome family, friends, and random readers to what is the first of I hope many postings from my time here in Bogotá, Colombia, working as a volunteer with Peace Brigades International (PBI) for the next year. I guess I should start by explaining the title of this blog. One of my all time favorite quotes comes, ironically, from the absurdist Albert Camus: “In the midst of winter I discovered there was within me an invincible summer,” or something around thereabouts. This quote is pretty popular, which I discovered just now after searching for an adequate translation. It turns out I am one of many, many people who enjoy the phrase “invincible summer.” The entire quote itself conjures up a rather optimistic image, one I found fitting given my current country of residence and job title: volunteer accompanier of human rights defenders. Actually I just made that up. My real title doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic. Voluntario->volunteer.

But back to my invincible summer. I did a little investigating and found that Invincible Summer has been a monologue, a book, another book, an excellent zine, and album titles for both k.d. lang and (coming this July) Common. It was also once the title (unfortunately) of someone else’s blog here in wordpress. Even though they’ve since deleted their own blog, the address is forever lost in the internet void. So I fudged a little bit and translated my desired blog title “Invincible Summer” into it’s Spanish equivalent: “Verano Invencible.” Voila.

If you can’t tell already, I’m a pretty optimistic person. Always have been, always will be. That doesn’t mean I can’t be realistic about things at the same time. Dave Chappelle said once in an interview that calling someone crazy is the worst thing you can do, that it’s dismissive and that shows a reluctance to address what’s really going on with that person. I have to admit I feel the same way when people call me an idealist. It alludes to a phase, something “you’ll get over once you realize how the world really works.” I can almost see the nonchalant, dismissive backhand wave as I write these words.

That’s why I love this quote, my Verano Invencible. Most of all because it came from someone whose fascination in life was the juxtaposition of complete opposites, the exultation of the absurd. Yes, there is a winter here in Colombia, and in the US, and everywhere else. But our summer still exists inside us. There is no clearer example of this than the people we accompany in this project. To me this is the true embodiment of idealism, of living through winter after winter and still managing to find the warmth and light within to continue.

This blog is just getting started so I’m not exactly sure what it will look like. Open to suggestions! I plan on reporting on my work as much as possible and hopefully creating a few more Colombia buffs along the way. But I’ll also be putting up stuff about trips I take and random things that catch my interest, so don’t go thinking this is going to be one of those pundit blogs.

Well I think this is enough for the first post. Have I caught your interest? Hungry for more? Impressed that I made reference to Camus AND Dave Chappelle in the post? And this is only the beginning. I’ll leave you with a great view of Bogotá from the east.