Colombia

December 21, 2008
I write to you from San Jose Comunidad de Paz. There were murders not too long ago in San Jose, the village 8 minutes walk up the dirt road. Massacres. Assassinations and persecutions. FARC, the paramilitaries, and the police all competed in death-persuasion to win the villagers to their cause. So some of them walked down the road to where I am now, and said “No weapons, no sides, no commerce, and no talking with any militants.”

There are a few rows of wood-panel houses surrounding a large grassy center, with a straw-thatched kiosk as their central meeting place. I joined the evangelicals for three hours my first night here for lots of “Aleluia! Gloria a Díos!” to accompany their electric keyboard religious trance music. I went to bed around midnight, and the lady who cooked me breakfast told me they kept going until 5 in the morning.

The chickens, pigs, turkeys, horses, and children all walk or gallop freely throughout the village. A downpour has occurred around noon each of the three days I have been here. It is deafening on the metal roofs, as if I didn’t have enough trouble understanding their explanations in Spanish of their lives and history. They don’t seem to mind my broken questions and responses, and will talk with great passion for hours on end about “la lucha,” the struggle.

The majority of the men are clearly “campesinos,” farmers, as seen by their rubber boats, shirtless and ripped upper bodies, and the leather-sheathed machetes hanging from their belts. I joined them for one hard day of work up in the hills, weeding bean crops and picking ears of corn, all of it organic. The work is much the same as it would be in the U.S., only the near-equatorial sun beats more fiercely and the ants are more industrious and have a harder bite. As write this the day after

I have always known that Latin American kids flock to Gringos, and this place is no exception. I jokingly asked one of the young boys if he spoke English, to which he smiled and said no. I asked if he ever studied English in school, but the answer was no. He finished school last year, and now works up in the hills with the other campesinos. With your dad? I asked. No, he was murdered many years ago. I go with my friends, but not tomorrow because tomorrow is Sunday. How much do you earn in a day? 3000 pesos for eight hours. Worth about $1.50.

One of the girls who has been hanging around my quarters took a liking to my harmonica, and asked for it as a gift with which to remember me by. But she stopped playing it when I wouldn’t give her a clear answer and would do nothing other than ask for it, so I decided it wasn’t a good idea to just hand it over. Maybe I’ll ask her to write to me, and then send it to her in the mail.

San Jose up the street is having a festival before Christmas. The music was rockin last night: live salsa, marimba, and reggeton, horns and lots of complex piano that made me drool for wanting to see it being performed. But after several conversations the past few days I learned that they have almost NO relations with the village, especially with the police there. They said it would be very complicated for them if I went up there, and the police learned that I was here as an international “accompanier,” which is what they call me here in the community. I am reminded very strongly of being in Palestine. I sat outside listening last night, unconsciously trying to figure out a logic that would let me walk up there. (What is peace without music? Without healthy dialogue?) But because I lack clear understanding of this place, I went to bed.

This year, my writing is my gift to you.
Merry Christmas, everybody, y mucho amor!