So, I spent the first christmas of my life outside the comfort, plenty and deliciousness of my great granparents' house in Lowell, MA. Thanks to the wonders of technology, I talked to my whole family on skype, a free internet program which allows you to talk to people via computer. I spent christmas eve with a group of mainly international human righs folks, and spent the night at the house of two friends, who made me Swedish pancakes the next morning to eat in their backyard garden, and told me that santa had indeed found me! I got a lovely frog mug, and the knife that Carolina, one of my friends, had "robbed" from me during the Yankee swap of the night before.
We then set out on ciclovia on my new bike: Of all the things I imagined myself doing in Colombia, whizzing along major streets on beautifully-paved and clearly demarcated bike paths through the middle of the city wasn’t one of them. Colombia produces some of the best bicyclists in the world, and though thy train mostly in the Andes, there are also bike paths for them and the general population throughout the city, and on holidays and Sundays, the city shuts down most of the main roads so that bicyclists and pedestrians can enjoy the city without fearing the usually-intense traffic and clogged roadways. Over a million people generally come out. On Christmas Day, we ended up in the Central Park of Bogota, Parque Bolivar, where hundreds of families were enjoying the holiday, renting boats to row around the pond, eating corn on the cob, and pitching tents to have picnics in and protect them from the sun. I biked around the city for hours that day, getting to know people and nooks that I never would be able to without a bike.
The holidays are a strange time for us in Bogota, because things are pretty quiet in some ways. Most offices are closed through mid-January, people are not thinking about work, and no meetings can happen. However, it is historically one of the more dangerous times for the peace community we accompany. There is more drinking, more armed groups sad to be away from home and looking for a way to blow off steam, and therefore more danger. It also means that we can't be on vacation with our families now, and that those team members in the community, especially, are on high alert amidst the celebrations. I am actually really looking forward to going to the community - which will happen, if all goes as planned, towards the beginning of the new year. Being in Bogota is amazing in many ways, but it is difficult to the work to support the community without having been there for an extended period of time.
