For a list of NPR stations that broadcast the program with the time that it will be re-broadcast (most stations will have it sometime this evening) go to:
http://www.wbur.org/syndication/?program=On-Point
To download the podcast, or listen to it on-line, go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/rss/podcast.php?id=510053 - Today's program is not uploaded yet, but should be soon!
Janice goes back to school...
Transition times are inherently tough: changes of job, friends, home and language can each be taxing, and all together it feels like I am ripping up some pretty delicate roots right now that I carefully laid this year in Colombia- though returning to the US feels like returning to some old growth forest support as well.
This transition has been particularly strange for me, as I landed and immediately had to throw myself into brushing up on my high school math and learning arcane vocabulary in preparation for the GRE: the graduate school entrance exams. I am applying to PhD programs for next fall in Political Science in order to continue to study NGOs, human rights, and particularly the Colombian road to peace, and to try and answer some of the many questions that I have generated this year.
Unlike my last blog, I will not try to make larger meaning of what my entire experience meant here - perhaps that will come later. But I did want to share some of the images and snapshots of my life from the past couple of months:
Return to Promisión:After being away for an average of ten years, this September about 25 former residents of the small village of Promisión, located several hours drive and a five-hour walk from the city of Medellín, made their first ventures back to the land and homes they had left beinhd. They had been forced to leave when paramilitary violence claimed the lives of several members of their community. It was made clear to them that if they stayed on their land, they too would suffer the same fate. Most of the residents had fled to the outskirts of Medellín, where they encountered violence and poverty. Despite the fact that there is little left of their former houses, almost all of the families that were forced to leave now want to return to their land. One resident explained to me that she had already lost one son to the violence of the displacement slums outside of Medellín, and even if it was still dangerous in La Promisión, it was worth the risk to return.
The local and regional government officials have been cautiously supportive of the return: the land officially belongs to the families, and after much work on the part of the ACA (the Peasant Association of Antioquia) they now have the documentation to prove it. Local government officials have given money for the reconstruction of homes, and there is hope that they will have electricity by January. There have not been reports lately of paramilitary presence in the community, but the community is carefully waiting to see whether it is indeed safe to return. FOR accompanied this first "preparatory visit" to the land, where the residents concentrated on clearing paths to the community and planting some subsistence crops so that when they return, they will have something to eat. It has taken me a while to post these pictures partially because I got very ill after spending this week in houses with no running water, toilets, beds, or mosquito nets. That said, it was a privilege to be with people whose perseverance in finding a better life for their families brought them to this place.
Clothes hang outside one of the houses that the community hopes to return to live in.
A woman in the "city," a five-hour walk from the community, peers out her window at the campesinios walking with all their belongings on their backs to Promisión.Below, a group of Medellín residents protest the lack of public services (electricity, drinking water, plumbing) available in Medellín's poorer neighborhoods where displaced personas are concentrated. This rally, which is conceptualized as a carnival in celebration of resistance, was organized by the "Red Juvenil," or Youth Network, of Medellín, one of the groups FOR accompanies.
Here, the ACA participates in an international tribunal on displacement. At the tribunal, held in Colombia's Senate, international judges condemned the Colombian government's role in causing people to have to leave their land, and asked for the Colombian government, multinational corporations, and the governments of developed nations to cease the actions which have caused displacement. Further, they asked the Colombian state to bring to justice those that have caused the displacement of about four million Colombians - nearly 10% of the population.
Walking for Human Rights
There is a common form of protest which feels distinctively, if not uniquely, Colombian called a caminata, or walk. This October I did my second caminata with the Peace Community of San José de Partadó: we walked from 8am until the late afternoon (about 18 miles) in order to commemorate the community leaders and the friends of the community that had been killed recently, mostly by paramilitary forces. Many residents of the community couldn't come because of the torrential downpours and subsequent rising of the river, but several hundred of us, including a large number of representatives from the neighboring indigenous community crossed the high rivers on horseback, and came together to walk to the small city of Apartadó. We convened at the bus terminal, where two of the four killings occurred: the killings were allegedly carried out in full daylight by paramilitaries while the police turned their back. The marchers then held a memorial service for the victims in the middle of the day in the center of this busy market and terminal, presumably in full view of the same police and paramilitary members that had caused the deaths of their friends.
The picture below is of a community leader attaching flowers to the fence of this bus terminal in memorium of a friend of the community who was killed at the terminal this past July.
On the left, the banner reads "No more killing by the paramilitaries. No more killing by the public forces (police, military). No more killings by the guerrilla." On the right, children from the community pile into one of the buses that accompanied the caminata to get out of the rain and rest their feet.
One of the boys from the Community looks out the window of the bus on the road from the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó on the way to the small city of Apartadó.Fútbol and Beer:
I finally went to a Colombian soccer game. Colombia is turning hea
ds by performing better than almost anyone expected in the preliminary round of the two-year long competition for a spot in the next World Cup. I saw the second half of the Colombia-Venezuela game, which Colombia won 1-0, and learned the only three expressions one needs to intelligently reflect on a Colombian soccer game, none of which I feel comfortable putting into print here. Here, a giant beer tarp is released on top of fans....and this is the Central Plaza in Bogotá at sunset.
What's Next?My future plans are uncertain as of now - I will spend until the end of January based out of Boston, where the generosity of friends and family have given me a place to say and a warm welcome. I plan to finish applying to graduate school, and to do some organizing for the upcoming Colombian Conscientious Objectors' visit to the US, and the American Youth Delegation to Colombia - which hopes to bring American youth involved in Conscientious Objection or resistance to the war to Colombia. I will be sending emails out about these upcoming events.
I hope to be back in Bogotá in late January for a vacation, and to perhaps continue work I have begun in Colombia during April and May. I will be posting to this blog again in the near future. Thanks so much to all of you who have accompanied me on my journey this year. Please do be in touch: janicekgallagher@yahoo.com
