+a de julio ao++

vov.v, coioxni.
D
ear friends,
It has been a busy and
sometimes stressful two weeks. For
the rst time in life I rode in an
suv with bulletproof glass. And I
gave my rst, if brief, public address
in Spanish, as well as a television
interview, which our host, Luz Dari,
tells me was on a Colombian chan-
nel at ; ..x. Saturdaysandwiched
between episodes of e Simpsons,
which seem to run on a loop.
My health has improved, but
there is not much time to attend
to a cough and cold because of the
teaching and social schedule. Since
June as I have been teaching Eng-
lish between four and six hours per
day. I should say here, parentheti-
cally, that we have frequent breaks.
Tis past Friday I went for a coee
break with two students. Tis
included a sandwich of two thin
cornmeal arepas and melted cheese.
Vhen we returned another student
brought cake and soda.
For Colombians living, and
especially eating, comes before duty
or work. Five days is the longest
stretch I have gone in Colombia
without dancing. For the party
following our students graduation
from the rst phase of the English
program on July s, a rental-car
facility, owned by a relative of one
of the students, had been ap-
propriated. Chairs were placed
along the walls, and someone else
brought a computer, mixing deck,
and speakers. Ve danced on a tile
oor, facing the customer counter,
where people during the week line
up to rent Iyundais.
Te graduation ceremony was
extraordinarymore than three
hours of folk music from Cauca
and Iuila, a neighboring depart-
ment, speeches from teachers and
education o cials, karaoke sing-
ing, and presentation of diplomas.
Te ceremony was hosted by
Asoinca, the teachers syndicate
for Cauca. Iopayn is capital of
the Cauca region.
Asoinca has +,ooo teacher
members and maintains a higher
prole than teachers unions
in the United States. Founded
in +o:o, Asoinca advocates for
public education and draws stark
connections between education
and social justice. Its president,
Fernando Vargas Navia, and his
assistant travel with bodyguards
in a bulletproof car. Tis was the
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vehicle in which we were
transported to the graduation
party. Asoincas leaders are
threatened by paramilitary
groups, the right-wing coun-
terpart to left-wing terrorist
organizations such as Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarios de
Colombia (r.c) that still
operate in the lowland east of
Colombia, in border areas, and
in northern Cauca, believed to
be a stronghold. Asoinca has
lived with these threats at least
since the +ooos, when changes
in Colombian law granted
incentives for establishing aux-
iliary armed forces. More than
;o Asoinca-a liated teachers
have been murdered or kid-
napped (that is, disappeared)
since the late +osos.
Te risk is real. A week
before I arrived police out-
side the city stopped a vehicle
carrying a car bomb intended
for the Iopayn center. Vhen
detonated it killed two police-
men. Occasionally we hear
news of other car bombings or
guerrilla operations in dif-
ferent Cauca cities. Over the
weekend several coordinated
attacksincluding bombings
on market day in Toribo, in
which r.c operatives rigged
one of the famous Colombian
chiva transports with explo-
siveskilled six and injured
oo. But I feel safe: on a daily
basis a bigger danger are
the motorcyclists and overly
aggressive bus drivers and
commuters who refuse to yield
to pedestrians daring to cross
the street.
Getting away from the
chaotic tra c and car fumes
and dust is necessary once in a
while. In the country the soil
is rich, a legacy of the nearby
Iurac volcano that over mil-
lennia fertilized the valley. Te
volcano is active, with +; erup-
tions since +o+s: earthquakes
of +ooo and +os: changed
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Iopayn forever. In clods of black earth straw-
berries, potatoes, squashes, and exotic fruits
grow in a perpetual spring, although some of
the sweetest varieties of fruit are limited by
season. Tere is ample rain, temperatures are
moderate.
Children also are cultivated with love. I
was invited Sunday to a rst birthday party
for a students great nephew, Santiago. Tese
are important occasions for extended families
and include speeches, piata, and elaborate
decorations. Santiagos party was themed to
the lm Madagascar with monkeys shaped
out of balloons. Te party took place on an
allotment (parcela) outside Iopayn, sort
of a Colombian dacha. Families build open
shelters and work the land on weekends and
during school vacations. Te shelter on this
parcela was built with bamboo, with tin roof,
and has room for eight to sleep under cover.
Te parcel also contains one of the most
enchanting small football pitches I have seen,
soft underfoot, at, with two goals of bamboo
painted orange and white. Tere is a clear vista
of surrounding mountains, distant storms,
and, on this day, a rainbow (arco iris).
Te house in which I live with teacher
Luz Dari and her family is also open to the
outdoors. Iomes do not have heat or air-
conditioning. As a concession to visitors
from abroad, Edilberto, Luz Daris husband,
installed doors for the upstairs bedrooms.
Otherwise, in Colombian homes curtains are
generally adequate for privacy. Te ethos is
that life is public, to be shared. Ones under-
wear is hung out to see. Couples show love
openly. In Bogot I saw a member of a con-
struction road crew, in orange reector vest,
tenderly embracing his lover beside a rubbish
pile in the highway median.
Death is close, but life continues. A teacher
friend of Luz Daris as well as Luzs rst hus-
band were victims of Colombias state terror.
Ier husband was shot twelve times in his car,
head to middle, shoulder to shoulder, in the pat-
tern of a cross. Ie was survived by two daugh-
ters, Amy and Katherine, who was ve when
her father was murdered. She is now +o. Kath-
erine lives in this house, in a Iopayn barrio
named after Colombian independence leader
Camilo Torres. Amy lives elsewhere. Meals are
prepared and clothes washed, by hand, by Mar-
tica, who is a friend of the family or a relative.
Vere not sure. She irons everythingsocks,
underwear, blue jeans. Luz Dari has a son with
Edilberto, Camilo, who yesterday invited my
fellow teacher Randy and me to play football at
a eld down the street. Te family dog, Rocky,
comes as well. Ie is a good defender.
Celebration is essential to keeping the
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culture of death at bay. A three-week English
course for teachers would not be acknowl-
edged with much gusto in places I know
perhaps with a handshake as certications
were distributed. On July s, though, Randy,
Martina, and I sat on a dais at Asoinca next to
Caucas secretary of education and enjoyed a
parade of guitarists, percussionists, and sing-
ers who dedicated their songs to us. Every-
thing was lmed for Asoincas rv program.
It was a good opportunity for me to think
about the potential of language and how it
brought about this improvised interchange
of cultures. Maybe all change in the world
comes through language, I said to the group,
in English and Spanish. Language is culture.
Language is relationship. Language is power.
... By speaking a foreign language I want to
communicate and to say who I am. I want to
share thoughts and dreams. I want my world
to be bigger. I want to love more. If God has
made us all to speak dierent languages, these
are barriers for us to cross. Communicating
across language and culture is hard work. But
we are called to do it.
One of the strongest representations of
Colombianand especially Caucanculture
is the series of nighttime Semana Santa (Ioly
Veek) processions in Iopayn, a custom that
started in +::o and that has evolved into a
mechanism, in part, for preserving patriarchal
and family-based power structures. Te center
of the processions are the fourteen pasos, or
stations, representing the Iassion of Christ.
Centuries old, silver- and gold-plated, con-
structed atop wooden platforms, and trans-
ported with beams borne on the shoulders
of some of the citys most privileged male
citizens, each portable station of the cross is
locked in a secure wing of the Museo Ar-
quidiocesano de Arte Religio and has its own
syndicate, a committee of elders who decide
who shall have the privilege of suering the
weight of the station in the coming Semana
Santa. Overarching these groups is the Junta
Iermanente Iro Semana Santa, which has
a dedicated building for meetings, storage
(including archives containing centuries of
correspondence), and museum.
Our English students, while appreciating the
pageantry and elaborate costumes, express some
ambivalence. Vomen have only marginal roles,
bearing incense and trimming wax from the
candles ringing each paso. In Colombia there are
purer forms of celebrationlike after every goal.
Abrazos y besos, ion
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