marching on...in a crazy life

One of the seeders recently told me that a good blog has about 700 words. I can’t imagine describing the past few days in 700 words, let alone the entire month I have been absent from my blog. So I’ll catch you up to recent past by saying that November was a ridiculous month and I was gone all but 2 days, travelling. Check out the Seed website to see some of what we did as a group and on top of that, I travelled to do our first round of visits to Seeders. (We also had an MCC retreat, of which there are a few pictures) It was a long month of travel that wore me out quite a bit and I came home excited to have the month of December to relax and be home.

...Well, that didn’t happen. December started with a police stop on the side of the road to check papers, to which I kindly complied and handed over my Colombian identification card. The police officer took it, studied it, looked at me and asked me if I had an updated card because this one was expired. Thank goodness he was wrong – it expired in 4 days. This, however, was very bad news because I was supposed to renew my Colombian visa when I was in Bogota during November, but I completely forgot. So for the next few days I ran around like crazy trying to get papers together, travelled to Cartagena because they were not being cooperative in Sincelejo, and I finally got a document that allows me 30 extra days to get my visa renewed, which I will be doing next week in Bogota…

So the month started off crazily, and it has continued further and further in that direction the more the month paces on. On Sunday, December 11, I headed to Mampuján, one of the communities we work with on the coast (many of you may remember this community as the one A Common Place focused on almost two years ago now), to being a long journey of 4 days. Mampuján is the only community in Colombia who has gone through a public hearing about their massive displacement and massacre, and had a sentence given by the Supreme Court defining parameters of reparations. This is a pretty big deal and is making Mampuján currently a very popular community, nationally/politically speaking. More than a year has passed since the sentence was given, however, and there have been no moves from the government to show that progress is or will be made to fulfill the promises made by the Supreme Court. So in meetings with Ricardo Esquivia, the community decided to act. In a symbolic gesture of walking, the same act this community had to do, carrying their homes on their backs the night they were displaced, the community of Mampuján marched 75 kilometers to Cartagena, where the corresponding government resides. We left Mampuján at 4am on Monday morning after a full day of planning and organizing Sunday (and many meetings weeks in advance), walked more than half way the first day, slept at a school overnight, and continued into Cartagena on Tuesday afternoon, stayed the night in another school in Cartagena, and returned to the government plaza until they attended us in a meeting on how to take steps towards the reparations and returned late Wednesday night. These were some of the longest days of my life. It was like having fish fry 24 hours a day for 4 days straight.

There was a small group of us who were in charge of logistics, me specifically doing most of the leadership, and as you can imagine, I was in my prime, giving orders, constantly on the move, I don’t think I ate for three days straight and I slept a max of 3 hours each night. It was a crazy amount of work. Women from Mampuján cooked every meal, which meant carrying firewood, enormous pots and pans, bricks to set the enormous pots and pans on, food, and more in large trucks, loading and unloading every time we had a new place to eat. It meant buying HUGE quantities of food – did I mention there were more than 500 people that participated in the march? – and dividing it up into 10 piles for the 10 cooks three times a day. It meant constantly giving out water to marchers, seeing blisters bigger than I’ve ever seen in my life, giving orders as to how people should sleep, loading and unloading their bags every morning and evening, making announcements about how we would serve food, how people can only have one juice box, how they need to make lines to receive food, how they need to walk in rows, how they need to not pass the yellow tape lines in marching, how they should…..….unbelievable. I lost my voice the first day. On top of this was also managing all the money which NGO’s were giving to support the march, provide the food and water, buses that went slowly down the road with the march, etc, which meant trying to remember how much money I had given who and what receipts they had given back to me and how much change I needed from them and how much money we were short still. My mind was a whirlwind and I went to bed around midnight every night, after making sure the next day was somewhat in line…then at 3am every day I was awoken by Ramon yelling “Jessie! Jessie!! Wake up, the cooks aren’t cooking yet!!!” So I would get out of my hammock and, in pitch dark, give out food to cooks, give announcements about what the meals were, how the day would go, etc. I hardly have words to explain how it all was, but what I will say, too, about the march is that it was an awesome experience. It was incredibly powerful to see a community organized, marching together toward a common purpose, participating in the act of walking, the very act that was required of them to leave their homelands and save their lives. When people were feeling down, others were there to encourage them, we had megaphones and had chants going as we marched, and when we arrived to Cartagena and walked down the main strip, around the old city and to the governing buildings, you would have thought there were no blisters at all – people were screaming, crying, excited and relieved. On Wednesday morning, after a few hours of occupying the plaza and waiting for the government to attend to us, they finally allowed everyone to go up (they refused to do a public, open air meeting, as had been agreed upon…) into a tiny conference room and small steps were taken to set up a working group that will do follow up on the sentence. We made front page news three days in a row and were on every mainstream news channel there is.

When Wednesday was finally done, I was more than exhausted. I couldn’t even make sentences make sense. We headed back to Sincelejo late and around 11am hit a donkey. Donkey was fine, got up and walked away…but we busted the radiator. I had nothing left to give, I fell over if I tried to stand up straight, so I gave up and slept on the pavement right there on the road as Ricardo spent 2 hours calling and trying to get someone to show up and help us get out of there. Finally, at 2:35am we got pulled into the nearest town and slept in a hotel for three hours before we headed home Thursday morning.

The events of this week are hard to put into words. I don’t know how it could be possible to have you understand how I felt and what all I did and what happened during these days. I have hilarious stories and it was an amazing experience. If you’d like a well written play-by-play of the 3 days of march, check out Larisa’s blog (seeder who was also helping) here: http://movingfromitowe.blogspot.com/

So that takes you up till a week ago. I got home, exhausted, and had one day to break before I got on the 4am truck (the only truck that goes) to a Seeder’s community to visit and do evaluation meetings since she is the only seeder who had not been visited since we arrived. We killed a tarantula in her house before falling asleep and Sunday afternoon returned to Sincelejo. Sunday evening, as I was walking home from my house, a motorcycle came up to me and a young guy jumped off the back with a knife ready to attack. I gave him my cell phone and he stepped closer so I gave him my bag, he hopped on the back of the motorcycle and they rode away. We didn’t even exchange words. He only got an old, beat up cell phone and about $25usd out of the deal, but I lost all my documents, contact numbers, and now have to do a whole bunch of running around to get that stuff back, which is frustrating.

…Then Monday morning I woke up and there was ANOTHER tarantula in my room, which came crawling out from under my bed.

Yesterday morning we also found out that my uncle, Michael DeShield, died. So more than any of the ridiculous events of my past weeks, I think of my family, pray that there can be good moments of reflection, and closing, and wish I could be with them. Mike was an amazing man I am lucky to have known and be loved by.

Now it’s finally break and I’ll spend the next few days relaxing and then will head to Bogota to do a back-packing trip with friends in a national park, disconnected from all things that have to do with work, out wandering in the mountains, which I’m very much looking forward to. This, of course, was much longer than 700 words, but I hope it gives you a picture of the past weeks. I’ll put up some pictures, as well – still am no good at taking pictures, but some friends have passed me some of theirs, so thanks to them for these…

Much love to you all, I miss you lots at Christmas time. Hope your holidays are restful and renewing…keep writing!

walking downtown cartagena, arriving at the governing plaza...demanding that they attend us

we were exhausted...

finally in a meeting with the governor...

juana announcing that we will not leave until they attend the entire community

on the march...still smiling! :)

walking around the old city, downtown cartagena...

the incredible cooks - i don't know how they did it.

unloading the truck..

more cooking...

stopping up traffic!!! love it...
who are we? MAMPUJAN!!! what do we want? REPARATIONS!
getting the kids involved - three hours at 330am to sort through bags, i get tired just remembering it all...

reading christmas stories and making ornaments/decorations at retreat...


on a walk with mcc, enjoying the mud...

and then there's the tarantula that was in my bedroom...crazy.

politics

Sunday was election day here in Colombia, which is always an interesting process of buying votes, false promises, and more - corruption at its best, and they don't even try to hide it here! But I read an article that explains I think well some of the stuff going on here which will be affected by newly-elected leaders, take a look if you're interested...

My deepest apologies for such a long absence! Many of you have asked for updates and I figure better late than never, so here it goes…

I moved to Sincelejo the first week of September. After 10 months of not having a home base, I am thrilled to feel settled into one place for a good while. My house is a second floor apartment and is really too big for me – it has three bedrooms and I have nothing to fill them with. It is a really nice house, though. I am renting from a pastor of one of the communities where a Seeder lives, so he’s giving me a really cheap rent price, his children live downstairs which is great for hanging out together and sharing food, and he’s really helpful with things that need to be done or that I’d like to change in the house. I live about a 7-minute’s walk from Sembrandopaz, so its really nice to be so close to work every day, and I’m not far from downtown. The house is really open-air which I love, I haven’t been hot in my house yet, the only problem with so much openness is that when it rains with a lot of wind, the rain enters my house A LOT, so I’m working on that…here are a few pictures of the house:

I am still getting to know Sincelejo, but so far, I really enjoy living here. Honestly, there’s not much to do. Sincelejo is the capital of the department of Sucre, which is the second poorest department in the country. Many say this is because of so much corruption – Sucre is known to be the most corrupt department in Colombia, in fact. Today is actually election day so we’ll see who the new local government is and what they do. Sincelejo is a city of 300 thousand people, but it doesn’t feel that big – there are few restaurants, no coffee shops, hardly any public community spaces or recreational spaces. As I said, the consequence of so much corruption is that there has been very little development done for the city and its citizens. Approximately 90 thousand, almost a third, of Sincelejo’s population are displaced people, moving to the city from the period of violence that dominated the area in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Violence in the region has diminished, although continues in different forms into today. Sincelejo has no formal bus system because motorcycle taxis have taken over the transportation here – if I look out on the road from my office any given day, I’ll see at least 50 motorcycles pass by within 2 minutes. So anytime I need to go somewhere I can’t walk, I’m on a motorcycle. J Vallenato blares from street corners, houses, bars and more at all hours of the day, it feels like your life has a soundtrack (or a broken record that keeps playing over and over). Vallenato is the costal music here in Colombia, if you’d like a taste of it, turn your speakers as loud as possible and play this: vallenato. Sincelejo is also a much milder climate than was Zambrano, because it is not on the river, is close to the ocean (30 min), and is a bit higher. Right now it is rainy season, so weather is cooler anyway, but in general, Sincelejo doesn’t seem so hot and unbearable to me either, which is wonderful.

I am slowly building community, although it is a process. I’m looking for a church community, but haven’t been real drawn to the options I’ve seen so far. On Saturday nights, I participate in a reflection group/bible study at Sembrandopaz that Ricardo leads. It is a small group of us, but I really enjoy it and that has been the church setting most important to me so far, as I think will continue to be. There is a young woman from Sembrandopaz who is becoming a really close friend. We share an office and I really enjoy hanging out with her and working together as we build a friendship. She is also married and we spend quite a bit of time together the three of us going out, having dinner together, etc. My group of friends is very small, though, because I am traveling so much its really hard to build community.

I’m enjoying work a lot, but, as I said, I am traveling a crazy amount. Some weeks I might be at home only two or three days. Tuesday I leave for Bogota and other Seed placements and I’ll be gone for more than three weeks! Mostly, my travels are going a first round of visits to Seeders to make sure all is going well with them. At this point, they all seem to be happy with where they are and content with the work, although it is a bit too slow-moving for a few.

Besides that, I’ve been working on the website a lot, which is also slow moving. I don’t know much about websites and I don’t have access to everything, so it’s a process, but we’re excited about the possibilities. Check it out if you’d like – seed.mcc.org – but if you look in a few weeks it will be better than it is right now! J It is pretty excited to see thing start to take form, like the website. We’re also working on a Seed e-bulletin that will come out bi-monthly, we’re hoping to organize a Seed Learning Tour, and even thinking about making a small promotional video, which would be great. I don’t especially like office work, but I feel passionate about what we’re doing and I travel a lot, so that gets me through long days at the office.

One of the big things with work right now is finding a balance between Seed work and off time that I have to give to Sembrandopaz. I think this will be a constant struggle…my work is technically only Seed program stuff, however since I am working out of the Sembrandopaz office, since I worked here before, and want to support/help out where I can, I try to do so. Sometimes expectations get a bit high, however, and I’m working at drawing clear boundaries in terms of what I do with Sembrandopaz. The big thing I’m working with (as are all the Seeders here) is a project that is trying to help communities, as well as Sembrandopaz, become more sustainable. We’re hoping to create a farmer’s market/coffee place/organic hang out here in Sembrandopaz. It’s all in its beginning stages, but I’m excited for what it might become.

MCC Colombia is also moving offices, just to keep everyone informed. It is basically just around the corner, but it will be a better and larger space for us. For those of you who have once in awhile used the MCC Bogota address, therefore, you should know that this is the new address: CCM Colombia
Calle 28A No. 16-41 Piso 2
Bogotá
Telefono: 245-6570

If you want to send me something, however, it is easier to send it right to Sincelejo where I live, which is the address at the top right of the blog. Just fyi...

Some people don’t like to read long blogs, so I’m going to stop here. I will work at updating more frequently, however. Much love to all…

rides to communities on the moto...great bridges!

the boat to get to the mojana, where leonel (seeder) lives

in the visit to leonel's community, i took a mosquito electrifying raquet because the mosquitos are HORRIBLE and it was the hit of the night!

eating fish!!!

rice fields....crossing the river.....

below are a number of pictures from a weekend i spent in zambrano, a wonderful three day escape from work...







and the house.......

one week till i move to my house in sincelejo. i can hardly wait the 168 hours that stand in front of me. after almost a year in transition - moving from house to house since november - i will finally have a home! living in bogota the past 7 months has been good, i've seen new sides of colombia and my community here has deepened a lot, a gift i am grateful for. but as i think about the sound of vallenato, walking every day in sandals, yucca/ñame/patacones, a warm sun every day, not wondering what the weather will be like or if it will rain on me, people that say hi to you on the streets, being back in sembrandopaz, and re-uniting with wonderful communities and friends i smile and await the arrival to what has become home here. there are things i will greatly miss of bogota - lots to do, my church, and especially some of the deepest friendships i know.
in the past week, all of seed has been going through this transition of preparing for their arrival in communities and saying goodbye to the group space we have had together in the past two months. its been a good two months, but everyone is anxious to get to their placements and start working...
7 days and counting!!!!!

life has been heavy this week. i find myself far from family, who are hearing difficult news and processing what it all means. here in bogota we found out that the daughter of jenny neme (justapaz director) and ricardo pinzón (mencoldes director) has leukemia. on sunday she went into the hospital and they found bleeding in her brain and diagnosed her with leukemia, couldn't stop the bleeding in the brain and juana camila (14 years old) died yesterday. this is after finding out 3 weeks ago that ricardo (father) has a mass growing which is most likely cancerous.
it feels like cancer is all around and i am convinced that it is an environmental disease. our society puts out so many chemicals into the air, we kill the earth and we eat all genetically modified foods, its no wonder there is so much cancer - we, humanity (and especially those of us in the north, i believe...), are killing each other and we're not even changing directions. i pray that godde will teach us how to change, how to work for peace in the way we eat, in the way we travel, in the way we create, in the way we participate in technology, let alone in the way we treat one another in relationship.

in daily news, seed is going well and time is flying. i bought tickets last night for the seeders and myself - 1st of september i will start taking seeders to their locations and will be finally moving into my house in sincelejo - im very much looking forward to that! last week i also moved in with beth miller and neil richer, mccers here in bogota. its been wonderful to live with them - they are great friends and lovely housemates. i hope i never live alone again! its so nice to come home to people with whom i can cook, talk, read, watch movies, do activities, etc.

my thoughts and prayers are with you all, especially with the family. its hard to be far away at times like these. i love you all.

well, its been much too long again and i'm forcing myself to sit down and write something. i think of doing it so often, but life is crazy right now and i'm just so bad about being disciplined with these things.

we have now been in the country with the seeders for a week - time is flying! i can't hardly believe that they are almost half way done with their orientation period...i get to go to the coast in 6 weeks!!! how exciting.

we've had a good few weeks. the group is great - very excited with tons of energy. they all get along really well and seem to be really enjoying what we have planned, although i think the schedule wears on them, especially for those who are speaking in a second language (that they're still learning) most of the day. its a much different group than ours was and its been a bit of an adjustment learning to change what methodology a bit, but i really enjoy getting to know each one and learn more every day.

alejo and i are insanely busy. we're with the group all morning every day and sometimes in the afternoon, then we stay working in the office while they're in spanish class - we still have meetings with communities as well and have to do some travelling, etc. its been pretty crazy, but we enjoy the challenge. i have learned to really value a good work partner. alejo and i are close friends and we often agree, but also hold each other accountable, have each other's back, and challenge each other a lot - i truly can't imagine doing this job alone. i think the only reason i can handle the administrative part of the job is because someone else is in the office with me, whom i can bounce ideas off of and goof around with.

this week with seed we're getting into economy and this morning we heard from an organization who gave us a lot of information about resource extraction and multinational companies here in colombia. it is so maddening to hear and such a huge system to try to fight against. i think the challenge is to constantly be working at the grass-roots level to do what we can. but it is incredible - when they showed us a map of the communities/regions where petroleum and carbon are being exploited, they are THE EXACT SAME communities and regions where there is the most violence in the country. this is not an accident. there is so much that globalization has done that has enriched the world in wonderful ways, but there is also so much damage it has done and the fact that multinational companies have more power in the global system than even the united states (which already has a ridiculous amount) is hard to comprehend on a practical level - and even harder to comprehend what that means for my life, what i do about it all. for now, i am grateful to have the opportunity to continue living here in colombia - to see the world from a different position.

travel...

what a privilege to travel. i, as a middle-class, white, north american have SO MUCH access to travel. its terrible, actually. its terrible that i can buy flights so cheap and use so much petroleum, a resource that we are depleting from the earth, with virtually no accountability or consequence other than that of my own conscious and the realities of a lessening of these natural resources every day for uses such as mine (air travel). its unfair that i can enter all central american countries without being asked for a visa, without being questioned, without problem, while my good friends and co-workers from colombia have to pay hundreds of dollars, go through tedious and extremely long visa processes, and show every document known to human kind before they are welcomed to these same countries. and that's IF they get the visa (if not, they have just lost all that time, money, and emotional energy). i can't stand that my us passport gives me so much privilege to enter other countries freely, while that same us nation won't allow ANY of those countries enter onto our land. its hard to know what to do with the privilege (a privilege which sometimes i hate because of its inequality)...the ability to travel...when so many don't have it, for example my good friends here in colombia!

and yet, its a gift. seeing other parts of the world, different cultures, different people with different thoughts and ways of doing things - it is enriching and i give thanks for the ways travel, amidst all these difficulties/challenges/inequalities, has taught me to see and know a world much bigger than myself. i continue to struggle with privilege. i suppose it will be something i struggle with all my life...seems depressing, although i believe that it should be like that. those of us who sit in positions of privilege better never feel comfortable with it!

travel was on my mind the past month as i visited family in belize and bussed down through central america to arrive in managua, nicaragua for MCC orientation with the Seeders. it was a rich experience to see central america, its rich indigenous roots, its incredible tortillas (just a bit different in each country), mcc's diverse projects and offices in each country, and the lovely countryside viewed during HOURS of bus rides.

being in belize, however, was the most rewarding. after a number of months of plenty of work and planning, it was phenomenal to relax for a week and hang out with family. family is a blessing i miss more and more the more time i am away, and every chance i have to be with them, i am grateful for. here are some pictures from belize...

beautiful beaches...

incredible food! tamales...yum

awesome creole

colorful sights of the streets

and lots of family time...
cousin chris, miriam and omar!

we had good times together

and my birthday cake!!! haha, love it.

we are now back in colombia with the Seeders. it has been an incredibly busy week, but the group is great and i'll write more reflections on that later. much love to all...

ps. here's a clip of an mcc movie that features me and some of what we do with Seed here in colombia, if you're interested: http://blip.tv/play/gdYogr%2BMAQA i hope that works!