Here n There

My friend Gavin just left after an awesome 2 week visit and now I have 3 days to myself before my family comes (yay!). Medellin is literally glowing with pre-Christmas decorations, neon bulbs wrapped around palm trees, candle lit homes and flashing Jesus adornment. The main river is illuminated with lights, and I must say, though this type of extreme decoration isn’t really my thing, it’s beautiful to walk along the water at night.

I turned in my last paper of the semester on Friday (an analysis of international political economy, structural adjustment strategies and Colombian management challenges.... a head ache to begin with, but writing about all this in spanish really makes the brain hurt) and that afternoon Gavin and I took the bus, along with some Colombian, French and Spanish friends, to a steamy little town called Santa Fe de Antioquia for the annual International Film Festival. Even though the town is in the mountains, its about 20 degrees hotter than Medellin and has a distinct coastal feel to it; humid and sunny with a delicious breeze. The streets were bubbling with people, many students celebrating the end of finals, and lots of vendors selling fruits, sugarcane and fresh popcorn. This year’s festival was featuring French films w/ Spanish subtitles... an unfortunate combination for Gavin. We watched a couple movies and everyone tried to help translate, but ultimately me, Gavin and our friend Roger from Spain decided to spend the day exploring the town, walking along the river, lounging in hammocks, and hiking to some nearby waterfalls.


Two weeks ago I got back from a magical trip to el Chocó... the pacific coastal region of Colombia. My friend Andrea works for an NGO that delivers technology and computer classes to isolated communities and she invited me and Andres to come along for a week as volunteers. El Chocó is often referred to as the forgotten part of Colombia... its the country's poorest region (though extremely rich in culture and biodiversity) and is comprised of mostly African slave descendants with pockets of indigenous communities. Chocó is one of the wettest areas on earth... there seems to be a perpetual drizzle of water, which is hardly bothersome considering the intense heat and humidity. There is almost no infrastructure and the only way to get from town to town is via boat. The vast, thick jungle practically kisses the ocean, with occasional stretches of clear land where remote villages have sprouted. Even though by land it takes over 15 hours to get to Chocó given the next to non-existent road systems, our flight from Medellin was about 35 minutes. We flew over miles and miles of dense greenery and arrived at Bahia Solano, a little town on the beach. Next to the ‘airport’ (a 2 room shack) we found a woman cooking over a wooden fire and ate what might have been one of my most delicious meals in Colombia yet: fresh fish with lime juice, fried plantains, coconut rice and ice cold beer.


We stayed 2 nights in Bahia Solano and met with community members, played with kids, gave computer classes and explored the town. On the third day we all piled into a rickety motor boat, in the rain, and took a 3 hour backbreaking ride up the coast to another, even smaller and more remote community called Jurado. I looooved this town. It was so special with a really warm vibe and a very relaxed lifestyle.. not a single car in the whole village. Andrea met with a group of women to plan community building strategies and Andres and I moseyed around town with a local guy we befriended, ate fresh fish empanadas and swam in the ocean. From there we climbed into a little wooden canoe and rode 3 hours up a windy jungle river, until we reached a completely isolated indigenous community near the border of Panama. The town resembled something out of a movie; everyone was speaking their indigenous language (which is almost extinct), some women and men wore tribal face paint, and the only food is fish from the river and plantains from the trees. We actually happened to be there during a rare community feast when they were slaughtering a pig for celebration. People live in simple huts, they walk around barefoot, there are no toilets or running water and very little electricity. Andres and I played some games with the children, taught them basic English and learned the equivalent phrases in their local language using Spanish as a point of reference. It's hard to believe intact cultures like this still exist and thrive in such a globalized world dominated by international competition, cultural and physical exploitation, consumerism and facebook. It was fascinating to see a way of life so radically different from the one I know. As you may imagine, giving classes on the importance of technology somehow felt totally irrelevant.
I had night class the day we flew back to Medellin. My professor lectured on things like int’l trade regulations and discursive power of transnational corporations... topics that the communities we visited in Chocó (not to mention most people in the world, including those w. education) don’t understand .... yet these powerful, theoretical concepts have real consequences that shape the world and directly affect all of us. Sitting in the classroom with Colombia’s elite, listening to my professor deliver his powerpoint presentation and watching fellow students browse the internet and chat on their blackberries all felt quite confusing after such a poignant experience.

In fact, it all sort of feels like a dream now. It's hard to believe that Medellin and the river community we visited are part of the same country, and even harder to believe that this community and bustling New York City are part of the same world.