Of all things you might imagine me doing here...this blog update finds me in the middle of the amazingly quaint and historic Colombian town of Villa de Leyva on a Zen Buddhist retreat. Former FOR team member Sarah Weintraub organized a Buddhist delegation together with her mother, who is the former Abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center, and they have been here for the past couple of weeks meditating in the mornings and having a whirlwind of meetings and intensive exposure to the many sides of the Colombian peace movement and conflict for the remaining 12-16 hours a day. Meeting with the different groups, especia
lly the families of victims of the violence, has been, as always, overwhelming, terribly sad, inspiring, confusing and educational all at once.
Buddhists eating at Crepes and Waffles, my favorite restaurant
For me, it has been a wonderful opportunity to learn from Sarah, who was in Colombia for over three years, who founded the Bogotá office almost two years ago, and is an experienced delegation leader. It has also been amazingly positive for me to have the opportunity to meditate and process this experience with the delegation. I have now been here almost six months, and especially in the last month of running around, I feel I almost haven't had time to breather, bathe, and sleep, much less really take time to process, integrate and feel all I am experiencing. For me, meditating has been like going out to coffee with myself many days in a row - I have taken time to really listen to what I am thinking for the first time in a long time.
I also have been missing the Unitarian Church and community, and after an attempt at the Mennonite church (good people! looong service, with an evangelical feel that felt very, umm, foreign to me), being with Buddhists has felt surprisingly like home. Their focus, at lea
st in my eyes, is on being present and mindful, and on doing what you can to make the world a
lly the families of victims of the violence, has been, as always, overwhelming, terribly sad, inspiring, confusing and educational all at once.Buddhists eating at Crepes and Waffles, my favorite restaurant
For me, it has been a wonderful opportunity to learn from Sarah, who was in Colombia for over three years, who founded the Bogotá office almost two years ago, and is an experienced delegation leader. It has also been amazingly positive for me to have the opportunity to meditate and process this experience with the delegation. I have now been here almost six months, and especially in the last month of running around, I feel I almost haven't had time to breather, bathe, and sleep, much less really take time to process, integrate and feel all I am experiencing. For me, meditating has been like going out to coffee with myself many days in a row - I have taken time to really listen to what I am thinking for the first time in a long time.
I also have been missing the Unitarian Church and community, and after an attempt at the Mennonite church (good people! looong service, with an evangelical feel that felt very, umm, foreign to me), being with Buddhists has felt surprisingly like home. Their focus, at lea
st in my eyes, is on being present and mindful, and on doing what you can to make the world aSarah at a restaurant in Bogotá. She
is indeed sitting under a converted
salon hair dryer, now lamp, facing a picture of Jesus
better, more peaceful place without needing to be attached to the results. The Delegation also met up with welcoming and warm Buddhist sanghas, or communities, in Bogota and Medellin, and I plan to stay in touch with these sanghas, and even go once in a while. Having a bastion of peace and serenity seems like a good thing while I'm doing this work.
During this retreat, I have finally had some time to write and reflect. A couple things in particular have stuck with me:
((This picture doesn't really fit here...but I took it while at the top of Montserrate with the delegation. It's Jesus. Holding a cross. On a mountain.))Knowing enough to know you know nothing...
At a visit at the Canadian Embassy, the head of their Political Section told us that when he was training to come to Colombia, he was reading a lot, getting briefed by country experts, and that after about 18 hours of this one day, his superior said to him “you look a bit overwhelmed.” He nodded, and his superior said something like: “Remember this feeling. This is the height of your confidence about your knowledge of Colombia.”
I have found in these past two weeks how much more I knew than I realized I did, and how I know almost absolutely nothing about this conflict and this country. I know now that the big issues are...
*displacement (of over 3 million Colombians, mainly Afro-Colombian, indigenous and rural communities to the cities, and then the multitude of issues that come up around what to do with these millions of people),
*the para-political scandal (ie, the ties between government officials and terrorist “para-military” groups that have come to light recently. Paramilitary groups have brutalized the entire country since the 1980s, but especially human rights activists, community leaders, progressive politicians, and labor union leaders),
* the demobilization process <-- click here for a really interesting Amnesty International cartoon illustrating the basic flaws of this process. (the process of former paramilitaries receiving immunity in return for supposedly disarming and telling the truth, and the questions that have been raised about whether they’re really disarming, really telling the truth, and really going to stop brutalizing the country)
...but I have little grasp of where actual power lies, who is directing the violence, and which side or sides people/organizations and groups can be lumped together in. I don’t understand how the interrelationship between all the various groups and armed actors were formed, and I have no idea if anything is really being done or can be done to break the ties of people who for so long have conspired to spill so much blood. And finally, I don’t really understand how people – who look, feel, act and feel pain like the rest of us – have systematically kept up such staggering levels of violence.
In terms of my actions in respect to what I have learned, my belief that the protective and political accompaniment work FOR does is vital to the situation here has been reaffirmed: I am more convinced that in a situation as complex and historically entangled as the Colombian situation, my role as an American can not be to come here and tell people, in any way, how to fix their situation. However, if there is a way that I can make “space” for groups committed to peace to do their work more safely, and to also let people in the US know about their work, I am also convinced that these are important ingredients to an eventual peace. It feels right, in other words, to act by simply being present – to bear witness to the situation here.
The importance of good friends...again:
So, I have managed to see her almost every weekend during this crazy month, and shared good time in Villavicencio, another beautiful colonial town which sits on the edge of the mountains and the plains, and which is famous for it's rockin' special brand of Colombian music...which is characterized by harp plucking.URIBE: Loved or Hated?
Uribe was
in the US recently, as you may have heard, and he received some serious questions from Democrats about the para-political scandal, an appropriately chilly reception from Nanacy Pelosi, and also particularly received some flac regarding the veracity of his favorable poll numbers. One thing we have been talking about a lot on this delegation is how polling is done: Polling in Colombia is done by telephone, usually within the three biggest cities: Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali, which inherently leaves out a considerable chunk of the rural and non-telephoned city dwellers...all of whom are statistically not as economically well-off, and relatedly not as pro-Uribe, as the telephoned urban residents. Uribe seems stunned that with poll numbers "as high a 75%" (as the US Embassy quoted to us this week) in Colombia, he is getting such a hard time in the US. But since those poll numbers have a flawed base...clinging to his impressive poll numbers as evidence of his success and popularity seems to make a less compelling case for him that it might first appear.My (kinda lack of) fears
Before coming here, I did an exercise with my minister to address my worst fears about being here: I talked about my fear of being physically harmed doing this work and what that would do to my loved ones, I talked about not being able to prevent harm being done to those I worked with, and about seeing atrocities happen in front of me.
After six months here, the delegation I have been helping to lead brainstormed their fears, and I also took time to think about what I was scared about. I said I was scared of not being able to translate well during meetings, of not being able to provide people deep enough insight into the conflict, and scared that I/them would be too sick to be fully present on the delegation. These are, of course, a far cry from the fears I had coming in here.
Why? Most obviously, Bogotá, Medellín and the Peace Community have been, knock on wood, experiencing a relatively safe period, compared with things even a year ago. In my last entry, I talked about there being a logic behind almost all of the violence that happens here, (save common street crime) and according to that logic, I am not a target. I am not living in one of the “hot” zones in the country, and so I have not been near combat, and when I do travel to these zones, all the military (and, it can be guessed, paramilitary leaders) know I am coming as a member of FOR, and I think this makes a difference. When I came I was reluctant to go to the community because of safety concerns, and now I am trying to figure out how to get back there for more time.
The current FOR team...the fabulous female five. Men are allowed...they just didn't make the cut this time!Gabi, one of my dearest friends who I have traveled with and lived with on four continents, warned me about letting my guard down after being here for a while. She emphasized that when you live for long enough in a dangerous context, you can become desensitized to the danger. I think that, unavoidably, this has happened to me to some extent. That despite her warning, I am getting comfortable. I hope I am also becoming better-informed and more able to make decisions that will keep me and my teammates safe. What I know, however, is that I am not walking around scared. I feel aware and alert, especially in new areas or areas I know to be difficult, but I am not spending sleepless nights...even when I am in the community. I hope that this comfort is not numbness. knock on wood.
