“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.” – Maya Angelou
When I parachuted into Colombia after months of work in environments of modesty and reservation, I was taken aback by the abundance of unbridled affection. A walk down the street in Bogota revealed that Toto, this was not the Middle East any more. Couples here want to shout their love from the rooftops and, given the scarcity of tall buildings, they settle for walking attached to the hip and kissing goodbye with passion of “Gone With the Wind” proportions prior to the men’s departure for war. Pet names, such as amor (my love), amorcito (my dear love), hermosa (beautiful), preciosa (precious), and princesa (princess) are all terms of endearment decorating interactions from a taxi ride to a business meeting. A police sign featuring armed officers in uniform at the Pereira airport, for example, replaced the o in “policia” with a graphic of a red, pulsating heart.
Love, faith and color in Candelaria, Bogota
Colombia, country of love. Alongside it: Colombia, country of conflict. I have come to Bogota to direct the women’s programming for a Centre of Reconciliation between former combatants and displaced victims of conflict. The curriculum of post-conflict reintegration draws on principles of conflict resolution, development, and women’s empowerment. While I have implemented a version of this program in numerous conflict and post-conflict environments worldwide, the women in my workshops here surprise me by revealing the beauty and harshness of the paradoxes of Colombia.
During a “rights education” exercise, which required reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and identifying an example of adequate fulfillment of each right in Colombian society and a case of its insufficient protection, the participants offered multiple examples of rights violations and dismissed my examples of adequate rights fulfillment with a resigned “this is not how things work in Colombia, princesa.” A different exercise, aiming at jarring the participants’ imagination about sources of happiness, asked them to define elements of a good week. The room flooded with examples of love. The next prompt was to make a ‘bucket list,’ naming activities in which the women would like to engage over the course of their life, places they would like to visit and experiences they would like to sample. The exercise virtually demands idealism; participants are encouraged to think of everything they could desire, regardless of its feasibility. Lists remained sparse. Conflict has a remarkable way of wiping hope for the future and one’s capacity to imagine life otherwise.
In the post (?)-conflict world of Colombia, memories of injustice and brutality coexist alongside manifestations of love. A commitment to peace and transitional justice on the part of some is coupled with a bombing involving strapping explosives to a 12-year-old boy perpetrated by others. Welcome to Colombia, country of contradictions.
Roxanne is currently a designing and implementing projects in communities of conflict worldwide. For more of her attempts to navigate the paradoxes of Colombia, check out her blog.
Latest posts by roxannekrystalli
- Dear Latin America - June 22nd, 2010
- From Capacity Building to Building Homes: Relief Work in Guatemala - June 8th, 2010
- Loaded Questions on Wheels: Politics and God - May 25th, 2010
- Hunting for Inspiration: Recommended Reading - May 18th, 2010
- On the Road - But Why? - May 11th, 2010
- The Tourist Trail Meets the Conflict Trail - May 4th, 2010
- "When are you coming back?" - April 27th, 2010
- Field Loneliness in Colombia - April 20th, 2010
