Tentatively

There is a mythology of the expat aid worker, it’s sort of an inverted nationalism or perhaps a metaphor for marriage, in which you leave home and fall in love with another land. Once you’re as jaded as I am you come to realize that this is by no means the norm, but it somehow becomes a kind of holy calling, an ideal, a moral high ground – as long as you stay just short of actually “going native” this love for an adopted country is often worn as a badge of honor.

That hasn’t happened for us here in Colombia, and I’ve always felt terribly guilty about that. I don’t think this is the worst place on earth, but neither is it paradise. It’s just a place that I have failed to form any strong sense of attachment or connection to. And for this reason I have lost count of the times I've wondered whether coming here wasn't the hugest mistake. 

Last night though I was thinking about that emotional burden that I’ve placed on myself and began to consider alternative ways to look at the situation. For most of our time here I’ve believed that my lack of love for this place or its people has lowered the quality of my work, and that has been a source of shame for me. But then I began to wonder, what just is my motivation, if it isn’t love – and why am I ashamed? Maybe it’s actually more admirable, in a way, to do the work and strive to do it well even without love. They say that in marriage love is a choice you make; I think there is a parallel here because we’re talking about commitment. We made a commitment to living and working here because of something we believe in – service in the name of Christ, if you will (that’s our organization’s tagline) – and we’ve stuck it out. And I think that, overall, we’ve done a pretty good job of it.

I know I have grown tremendously, personally and professionally - and that we achieved what we came here for in the first place: living closer to family, our children learning Spanish. It hasn't been without a cost, but I'm beginning to feel that it might be possible that it has been, perhaps, worth it (have I added enough qualifiers there???)

We’ve begun the process of leaving, spending some time at the team retreat last weekend beginning to say our goodbyes. For the first time, it feels possible to actually leave well.

This post is political

I don't normally do this, but only an ogre turned to stone by the morning light could fail to feel something after Sunday's plebiscite vote to reject the peace accords. 

A few weeks ago, we went as a family to a musical event organized by our kids' school. The second part of the show was organized by the school's music teacher, Oscar, whom my kids adore. Terry and I were rapt - the collection of songs were an incisive, clever, and heartfelt commentary on Colombia, in that particular intersection of politics and culture that we both find so fascinating. It was so good. 

The video embedded below is a small sample, a song about militarization that ends with a vision of the hopes and dreams of all people for a decent life. 

On Sunday, I watched people going to Corferias (a large expo center across the street) to vote all day long, even running in at the last minute before polls closed at 4. I was shocked ten minutes later, watching a live feed of the vote counting, to see how narrowly the Yes vote was leading. Every ten minutes a new update showed the gap closing, until 5:00 in the afternoon when it became clear that the No vote had pulled ahead. Honestly, I was stunned, and my eyes were not dry.

It seems like this turn of events was completely unexpected, by everyone; even the opposition had no plan to put forward on Monday when the president asked for a meeting and sent his negotiators back to Havana.

Here is a sample of analysis that I've been reading (as of right now there is still no news on today's meetings between the president and opposition):

Ginny Bouvier, from the U.S. Institute for Peace: Why Did Colombia's Plebiscite for Peace Fail?

Something I'm still trying to get a bead on - how significant was the No vote from churches (Catholic and Protestant)? An article from BBC in Spanish: El Rol de las Iglesias Evangélicas en la Victoria del No.

From a peace church perspective, Michael Joseph gives a synopsis of the ins and outs of what happened and what lies ahead.

There are many more op-eds coming out these days, here's one from the New Yorker with a lot of "I was there" detail from the day of the signing.

This afternoon, university students are planning a silent march through the center of the city, evoking past marches in grief over the violence that has torn this country apart for so long.

(probably more like 7 million)

For now, trying to understand, and thinking about how to contribute my grain of sand within my small sphere of influence here.

A Year in the Life of Valerie

Soon after turning 7...

Cousin time! (July)

Tipón, Perú (July)

Halloween costume! (October)

With crochet chain she made (August?)

Twirl Girl!

School assignment

Superhero!

Nuevo Colon, Boyacá (October)

End of school year, Bogotá (December)

Dajti (January)

With friends in Tirana (January)

Cusco (Tambomachay)

With Grandma in Peru (January)

First day of school (February)

Happy 8th Birthday Valerie!

Kid Stuff

A restaurant we enjoy going to here is Archie's, where they usually have a kids' activity as well as the option for the kids to prepare their own pizzas. 

Val was NOT  fan of putting flour on her face, but they have the kids do this because it's cute. They did enjoy shaping the dough and spreading the toppings on.

In a very different vein, during Holy Week we spent a few days in Boyacá where our accountant, Elizabeth C., lives. We all walked down to her family's farmland with some small cousins. I don't have photos of the best part - the kids had a blast throwing stones into a pretty little stream running through the property. Terry and I often say we wish we could live out there!

And one last photo update - from the Lego Festival in February. Everything is Awesome!

Chocó

I found this post in my "drafts" folder unfinished but thought I'd post it now just because I want to hit my goal of 2 posts a week, even though I once said I wasn't going to blog about work!

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Terry just got back from a two-day trip to the region known as el Chocó, on the Pacific coast of Colombia. The photos in this post are all from a previous trip he took to the region. I've been able to visit several times in the past three years and it's always a pleasure.

It's a very hot and humid area - I think even hotter and more humid than Yarina, where Anita and I grew up. It rains pretty much every day. Most of the travel is by river.

It's also an area that has suffered a great deal. Foreign mining companies, guerrillas, paramilitaries, and the elusive coca-to-cocaine industry are all currently active in the area, and it is the small-scale farmers, as always, who are caught in the cross-fire. 

This region of Colombia was originally settled by various indigenous people groups; when the Spanish colonizers found gold there, they brought in boatloads of slaves from Africa to do the difficult work of extracting it from the riverbeds. However hundreds of slaves escaped and established their own communities deep in the jungle, and have been living there for hundreds of years now. So the majority of people in this region even now are Afro-descendents.

One sad result of the cocaine industry moving in is that many people have abandoned their cultivation of food crops, in order to grow coca which fetches an exponentially higher price. So nearly all the food is brought in from outside the region, which means that anytime an armed group wants to flex their muscle, they blockade the area and bring it to its knees.

One initiative that our organization has been involved in for several years is supporting a church-based project for replacing coca with cacao. Currently, the farmers involved are exploring avenues for  marketing their produce. 

It's a big question what will happen in this area once peace accords are signed. Will the armed groups really lay down arms, or will they morph into something else in order to maintain control of narco-trafficking?

They're all flexing their muscles; an armed strike was held last week that basically shut down the whole area. When that happens, people start running out of food since nothing can come in our out.

Just last month the Mennonite Brethren churches in Colombia celebrated 70 years of existence as a denomination here. They've weathered a lot of storms, violence and persecution. Our hope is that through our presence we may help them weather the coming ones.

Context

This is what happens when I forget to bring my knitting to a staff meeting

Last Saturday, I don't think I left our apartment complex. I had found an old, worn-out basketball court behind the utility shed and community vegetable garden that I thought would be ideal for sidewalk chalk - and it was! The kids and I drew rainbows and zucchinis and traced outlines of things and ourselves, played line tag and splashed in puddles. It started to rain and by afternoon all traces of our play time there were gone.

The next day I saw the messages and news items about all the crazy political stuff going on right now - the right-wing backlash to the current peace negotiations. Seriously, WHO stands up and says they're against peace???!?

Well... there are those who benefit from the conflict, frankly, so I suppose it really shouldn't be all that shocking.

But it's sad.

There's a sign I walk by on the way home from work, "future site of the museum of peace," with a picture of two dark Afro-colombian hands holding each other, and a beatifically smiling grandmother holding a red rose. I think it is ridiculous. It sentimentalizes peace. Peace-building work, after decades of armed conflict, is not a feel-good proposition. Dealing with the memories of all that pain, the processes of truth and reconciliation, will be extremely hard.

There are signs and graffitis for peace all over the city. I understand the fatigue and how tired people are of the conflict and the heavy toll it has taken on this country. It's hard to see those calls for peace being answered with increased and further violence.

Christmas 2015

Going slightly back in time, here are some photos from the Jantzi family visit to Bogotá for Christmas; the top three photos are from the Jardín Botánico, one of the best places to go in Bogotá - it's really big, and has an impressive range of flora organized by ecosystem. 

Metal horse sculpture

Nautilus fossil

Bottle-cap mosaic art (still trying to figure out whose portrait that is)

New water bottles! 

Portrait of Valerie in sidewalk chalk, by Aunt Rosanne

Rooms. Views.

Starting next weekend, this will (assuming all goes as planned) be the view from our new apartment... all the trees you see there are part of a huge park that is inside the apartment complex - such a great place for the kids to play! 

This is currently the view from our living room window: 

Not nearly as nice... We've lived in this apartment for 3 years now and it's been fine, there are things we've liked and not liked. But moving feels like a good chance to purge things we don't need, and refresh our point of view. Perhaps metaphorically as well as literally.

And this was our view from the top-floor flat we rented in a lovely old villa for two weeks in Albania - we arrived in the midst of the New Year's fireworks celebrations, enjoyed two days of sunshine, and then 10 days of rain. I felt like I could have stared out this window forever.

First Day of School!

Today Valerie started 2nd grade, and Gabe started kindergarden! They are excited about being at the same school together again, and G asked a thousand questions before they went in this morning. They were nervous, too, with all the unknowns ahead of them - who would be in their classes? What would be for lunch? etc.

We're also planning to move to a new apartment next week, so there are a lot of changes happening right now. Things to celebrate.

I'm celebrating the first anniversary of defending my dissertation. Yay!

Sunday Afternoon

We had a great afternoon yesterday, I was sorry I didn't take the camera along. The kids and I went to the library near Simon Bolivar park, it's a beautiful building with even more beautiful grounds and they love to play outside. It was raining, though, and loads of people took refuge with us indoors, running in with kites held over their heads for umbrellas (August is kite-flying month in Bogotá).

The children's area is equipped with soft sofas and papier-mâché sculptures (trees, knights in armor, etc.) and loads of books. After reading some fun books in Spanish we found a Calvin and Hobbes in English and spent nearly an hour in Calvin's world of imagination.

The rain had stopped, so we bought some snacks to eat outside while watching the fish in the fountain. We ran into a boy from Valerie's school, and his mom! Things like that make a hugantic city seem a little friendlier. Then the kids ran around stomping in puddles and rolling down the wet grassy hills until almost 5:00.

When we got home, Terry had cleaned the whole house and was starting to cook supper. Perfect.

Outlet

Well! I ended up unplugging for much more than a week - more like a month! It was fantastic. And hard to get back into the swing of regular e-mail reading etc. But we're back at the office now, although it's been quite quiet since a lot of people are at MWC Assembly at the moment.

I'll be back over the next half of the month to post more about the delegation that came, our trip to Peru, Gabriel's fifth birthday, and more - meanwhile here are some "sneak peek" photos of all of the above.

10-year anniversary of Sembrandopaz in Sincelejo, Colombia

The community of Pichilín shares their hopes and dreams for sustainable life while remembering lives lost in a massacre ten years ago.

Feria de Huancaro in Cusco, Peru! My sister and nieces in background

Gabriel's fifth birthday and first piñata!

One of our favorite spots - the stone slides at Sacsahuayman above Cusco

Cousin time!

At a retreat center in Bochica, Colombia

Out of Office

I'm off to the Coast with a group from Lombard Mennonite Church, so will be a bit unplugged for the next 7-10 days or so. Be assured that I will be busy, sweating, and slathered with mosquito repellent and sunblock. I'm sad to be leaving the kids again so soon, but I don't have another trip without them until September!