Are we there yet?

Our final day in Colombia. This is the day that we meet with Jeff Rogers, the person who leads the section of the Bogota visas office that looks at the refugee visa applications. He and his boss made a strong appeal to us: take more Visa Office Referred (VOR) cases.

Perhaps a little primary on refugee sponsorship is in order at this point. Most Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAH), like MCC, that work with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) do sometimes called “Named Sponsorships” almost exclusively. That means that typically someone will come into my office or to a Mennonite church and say that they have a friend or relative who they would like us to help them get to Canada. If they look like they meet the criteria of being a refugee, we can submit their name, along with a sponsorship agreement from a church, to be evaluated by the Canadian visa office near them. The process can take years and the success rate is not high, though we try and weed out cases which do not think will meet the criteria.

On the other hand, a VOR case is a file that the visa office has already processed and approved and the person or family is ready to go in a matter of months. Back in 1979, when MCC Canada got involved in helping churches sponsor “the boat people” all the cases were VOR. However, shortly after the first Southeast Asian refugees arrived, they started trying to get friends and family who were still in the camps to Canada. These were the first “echo” sponsorships.

Why does the Bogota visa office want us to take more cases they refer? There are a number of reasons. First they have a quota of how many cases they can refer each year as cases that the Canadian government sponsors (GARs). They have been busy the first part of this year and they filled about 55% of their quota this year. In theory there is no quota on how many Privately Sponsored Refugees (PSRs) they can send, though in practice their ability to process them is a limiting factor.

Jeff Rogers said that they get 35,000 applications for refugee status in the Bogota office and they only have room in their quota for about 5% of those. Unfortunately, he estimates that about a third of the cases that they process are in need of protection. So they want to do more, but they quota will not allow them to do this. He basically said that they can send us as many VOR refugees that we can handle.

This was a compelling proposal for us. We too had seen the need in Colombia for resettlement to Canada. The pressure to deal with the named sponsorship in our office is heavy and it takes up a lot of time. We will need to “re-tool” to get sponsoring churches interested in taking VOR refugees. We will have to promote awareness about Colombia among Mennonite Churches in Canada so that they will take on this challenge. Re-tooling and re-directing is something that we have been talking about; our program has just finished a major review and that was one of the recommendations. For me, this seems right at this stage in MCC’s history. It could be that this could be the next “Boat People” or Bosnian stage of our refugee sponsorship. It’s not clear to me how we can promote this passion among our constituents. It goes against current Canadian government policy that is focusing on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia based on its improvement in the realm of human rights, an improvement that MCC staff and human rights organizations are not sure they see.

At the airport, as we wound our way to the Air Canada ticket counter, we saw a family from the Caribbean coast in front of us with multiple suitcase. It was clear to us that they were refugees—probably Canadian Government Sponsored. Orlando, our coordinator from Alberta, started reminiscing about journey out of El Salvador 28 years earlier. He left that country two days after he visited a Canadian visa office with nothing but a small backpack and a plastic bag from the IOM.

Over at the side of the queue, we saw several IOM staff in their blue windbreakers and white plastic IOM bags that we had met the previous day. They were guiding a group of about 20 temporary Colombian workers on their way to work at a meat packing plant in Brooks, Alberta. They were mostly young men with no families with them. When they land in Toronto, They will be given a two year work visa that allows them to work at that one employer. The refugees in the line in front of us will have permanents resident status when they land in Toronto and they will be able to apply for citizenship in three years.

Our journey was coming to an end and their journeys were just beginning. Or was their journey just beginning? When does a journey begin? When does it end?

Back in Bogota

This morning I packed away my shorts and sandals and we flew back into Bogota for the final component of our trip. At supper last night I said, “From now on we aren’t meeting with real people anymore.” Of course that is an overstatement. The people we will be meeting with have lives and hopes and dreams and struggles. We will probably not see that however, because they will be speaking to us as representatives of important agencies.

First however, we went back to the Mennonite Church we have been going to for the regular “Moment of Peace” event. The leader, Paul Stucky of Justapaz, chose to reflect on Psalm 137, which I found an interesting choice. “By the river of Babylon, we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.” He asked people to substitute “Bogotá” for Babylon and put the psalm in their own context. That made the Psalm very real for some as they talked about what they have lost and how they felt they were in exile.

I found it interesting that Paul pointed them in the direction of thinking about their situation as an exile. Exile-- to my mind-- is a temporary situation. The hearts of exiles are still in the place that they had to leave. A refugee is one whose story is more like the Exodus. They have left the land of oppression and suffering behind for go, and are focused on the Promised Land: the Land of Milk and Honey called Canada which we heard about the first day we were here.

I think many of the people we met on the coast were exiles who talked passionately about going back to their land some day. I expect more IDPs in Bogota to resonate with the exodus story of leaving behind the land of suffering for good. Today however, we did not hear that in the Moment of Peace meeting.

During the meeting, Ed Wiebe was also asked to speak about the Mennonite experience of displacement from the Dutch Anabaptist experience from the 1500s, to his ancestor’s coming to Canada in the 1870s.

With these stories fresh in our minds, we headed to the UNHCR office here in Bogota. The program director we met with is a Canadian who actually attended the Ottawa Mennonite Church for three years while he and his wife were living there. That church has been very active in refugee sponsorship over the years and he had helped with a settlement of a Sudanese family while there.

The most significant thing that I learned from that meeting is that the role that UNHCR plays with IPDs here in Colombia is different than anywhere else they work. This is because Colombia has the resources to deal with their IDPs, so the UNHCR’s role is more on the lines of trying to bridge the gap between the very good policies around caring for IDPs and the reality of weak implementation. They seem to be doing good things about land problems by making sure that the land of IPDs cannot be transferred to other people while they are away.

The next meeting was with the International Organization of Migration (IOM). We connect with the IOM mostly because they arrange the travel for IPDs that are going to Canada. We got a lot of helpful information about that process. We also noticed some disturbing trends in terms of the number of cases that are being referred to IOM for travel arrangements by the Canadian visa office. The meeting took a rather strange and unexpected turn when a program official responsible for short term workers came into the meeting to do a presentation. A couple of meat packing companies in Manitoba and Alberta have been importing short term workers and the IOM has been acting as the agent to get them there. While none of us really work with short term workers, we wondered among ourselves if this is a situation ripe for abuse of these labourers that needs to be watched by MCC.

Is Canada the Promised Land or is it Babylon for these Colombian workers working hard cutting up and processing our meat?

Rest and Meetings on the Caribbean Sea

On our schedule for this past Sunday said, “Break.” After a nice breakfast in the courtyard of our hotel, we bid good-bye to Bonnie who was flying back to Bogota to be with her family for Mother’s Day. The rest of us did a walk about the old city to see what we could see. We were street vendor magnets. People offered to sell us shirts, sunglasses, watches, jewellery, hats, cigars and many other things. We bought some things, mostly in the craft market in a row of shops along one of the outside walls.

Cartagena is a UNESCO World Heritage city that is almost 500 years old. The old city wall is surrounds the centre and there is an old fort on the hill. It seems like it is almost always intolerably hot and humid here. There does seem to be a nice breeze in the evening that makes it more bearable.

These days in Cartagena are meant to be for us to meet as coordinators to talk about the refugee programs in our various provinces, the review of the program that was just completed and how this learning tour will impact our trip. We have spent much of the time in a dull meeting air conditioned meeting with trip out to eat meals either the restaurant here in the hotel, which servers excellent meals, or somewhere in the old city.

It has been a relaxing time. Cartagena’s old city with its narrow cobblestone streets, balconies and old churches and buildings is a pleasant place to walk around. I have begun to feel at ease here. Two of the mornings I have struck out early to go for a run in the hot humid weather. I never found the nice beach I have heard about, but I did find a park along the water where a lot of other people were walking or running.

We can tell that we are back where the money is. The stores have different quality of goods and the vehicles on the streets are more expensive. This is the place where the wealthy of Latin America go to play.

Tomorrow we fly back to Bogota to embark on the fourth and final part of our time Colombia. This last two days here will be taken up mostly with meeting with the NGOs and the Canadian visa office.

Finding hope in Marialabaja

Throughout this trip I have been looking for similarities between my experience in Africa and Colombia. As we drove up to the community of Marialabaja, it was not difficult to see the similarities. The buildings and the trees were slightly different, the language was different, but the general feel of the people and the place was very much like rural Transkei in South Africa where we lived for six years.

As we drove into the town, we had to stop several times to ask for directions for the church. Finally we pulled off the main highway (scraping the bottom of the van as we did so) onto a dirt path. When we got to the church we heard the exuberant voices of praying. We were ushered to the front where we were welcomed by the church leaders. They sang some songs, asked us for words of welcome and then we went to the yard next to the church for lunch.

This was another community of displaced Afro-Colombians. On March 11, 2000, the people from this community were told that they would be killed if they did not leave before the following day. It seems that no one was killed in this community. While the men were all taken away to a location over the mountains nearby, they were all let go. Men from other villages in the region were not so fortunate. One of the major massacres of the region had happened a few weeks earlier.

The community relocated to where they are now, but just like the Remanso de Paz Church we met with the previous day, they dream of going back to their homes. “Once our homes smelled of coffee and coconut rice; now they smell of desolation.” On our drive to Marialabaza, we had seen what this desolation looked like. On the drive from Sincelejo we pulled off the highway into a village. Many of the houses were without doors, windows and roofs. This was the community where the people from the Remanso de Paz Church lived. Now, about eight years later a few families have moved back, but it still does not feel safe for many. And as we were told on Friday night, the people want to return with dignity and with reconciliation.

How does one help a community heal after being displaced? One of the things that we have heard over and over is that they need to talk about it the tragedy in order to move on. Terri and Charlie Geyser are MCC workers in Sincelejo. We had breakfast with them at their small apartment. Terri talked about how she as a social worker use to believe that one had to be in a safe place before trauma healing could begin. Now, she has seen that it can begin before that. She worked with the community to tell their story through artwork. After lunch in Marialabaza, we heard about all the things that the community is doing to strengthen and support their Afro-Colombian heritage. They are working keeping alive or rediscovering their traditions. Then they showed us the wall hanging that they had produced with the help of Terri Geyser. After they described the wall hanging, they asked if there were any questions. After we were finished we sat quietly. Then the woman who was explaining the situation said, “You all look very sad, but we are not sad.”

It seemed to me like this a community that was looking to the future. They talked about peace building, to going back to being simple farmers and to building a better Colombia. That is the sort of thing that we have heard often in the last few days in this region that was and continues to be hit by violence and displacement. The word hope is on everyone's lips.

After the being blessed by the elders of the community and exchanging words of thanks, we got into the van and bumped down the road to Cartagena. We had dinner together on a balcony of a former governor’s mansion that was built in the 1700s that overlooked a plaza. A cool breeze off the Caribbean Sea kept us relatively comfortable as we talked about the day. The second stage of our trip—the stage of visiting churches at the Caribbean coastal area—was over. Next is rest and then planning meetings for our program in our hotel by the sea.

Sharing a Coffee with Juan Valdez

The food on that trip has been great. Today was something special though, and I suggested at lunch that MCC start culinary tours of the Colombian Caribbean coast. I don’t think they will go for it. Too bad. The Caribbean coast is said to be one of the best agricultural areas with its humid tropical climate and the influences from from the Caribbean countries is evident.

We started our day in Monteria but after a quick coffee we were on the road to Sahagun to the Mennonite Church there for breakfast about an hour and a half drive away. There we found a warm group of people welcoming us to their church facility. They said that they have about 80 adults there on a Sunday morning with about 30 kids in Sunday School. Almost all are displaced people.

While we were there, we heard from the pastor of how they came to this area when they were forced to leave their home and started reaching out to people, even though they themselves had just lost their home. They have eventually develop ministries involving feeding displaced people, working with prostitutes and getting people started in small businesses.

The breakfast was the first of or great meals today. Cassava, fruit juice, eggplant mixed with egg, beans and rice and something called, “cat’s head” (which is mashed plantains mixed with garlic and spices and formed into balls about the size of a cats head; no cats were harmed in the making of this food) and of course Colombian coffee. We wander the yard around the church and found various fruit trees including my favourite: guava. It had been a long time since I have eaten fresh guavas off of a tree.

After this short visit we got in our van again and drove to the city of Sincelejo. There we had a meeting and lunch (as if we needed any more food) with the staff of Sembrandopaz (which means sowing seeds of peace). The town of Sincelejo hosts a great number of the regions IDPs and this region certainly has its share. Sembrandopaz works at a number of different projects to support IDPs. Many of their projects seem to be focused on the children and Moses in our group asked them if they had given up on this generation. The answer was, no, but they are the hope for the future, so we must put extra energy into making Colombia different for them.

And the lunch: the highlights were a wonderful fish fried with bananas, fresh mango juice, avocados, a cheese and cassava soup and of course more good Colombian coffee.

After another information session from Sembradopaz, we checked into our hotel, rested a bit and then went off to Remanso de Paz Church for yet another church for another meal. This is another church of displaced people (again about 80 people) that was built on a former garbage dump. We saw no signs of the places former use. The pastor is an amazing woman and so is her husband. And the meal! Coconut rice, potatoes, chicken, passion fruit juice.

After supper we sat around under the thatched roofed building by the light of single 100 watt light bulb and talked about what it was like for the people of the church to be displaced. The pastor’s husband in his red shirt, straw hat and perpetual smile, reminded me a little of Juan Valdez. You may remember Juan Valdez from the 1970s television commercials that promoted “100% Colombian Coffee.” In Bogota, one still sees Juan Valdez’s image all over the city in coffee shops and cloth bags in tourist gift shops.

I think I have met several people who could be "Juan Valdez" in my time here in Colombia: small farmers (campesinos) who grew coffee among other things to survive. The difference with these campesinos and the fictitious Senor Valdez is that these real “Juans” no longer pick coffee or work on the land, because the land has been taken from them.

The people in this group talked passionately about their desire not to stay in Sincelejo, or go off to Bogota, or immigrate to Canada, but to go back to their land, the land they believe was the most productive in the country and make it productive again. What’s more, they talked about wanting to get the Colombian senators who are in prison for the massacre that drove them from the land, to come out and work alongside them.

Their vision for the future seemed so redemptive, and all inclusive, their vision was so clear, their hearts were so light that it is hard to not believe that it will not happen. They asked for help though to make this vision come true. They wanted national and international presence to go along side them and reparation. While they want to return, they make it clear that they want to return with dignity.

To me, it seems they could not do anything without dignity along with their lighthearted Caribbeans spirits which embraced us all this evening.

The Risk of Wanting to Stay

In the domestic departure lounge of the Bogotá airport, there is a big sign in English that reads, “Colombia: The only risk is wanting to stay.” That seemed ironic considering the reason we had come to Colombia was to learn more why people must leave Colombia.

I have found it helpful on this trip to remind myself that people being displaced is not so much the problem in and of itself but rather a symptom of a problem. Here in Colombia, those problems are often related to land and that can be associated with mining or farming—legal or illegal crops.

We have talked a bit already about farm land use. This morning we learned a bit about Canadian mining interests in the country. Colombia has some mineral resources—gold, oil, coal—and a number of Canadian companies are involved in mining here. It seems also that in the late part of the 1990s the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) worked with some companies to rewrite the Colombian mining laws so that they the royalties paid to the Colombian treasure was much lower.

It is no coincidence that three-quarters of the displaced peoples come from these resource rich areas. Both guerrilla and paramilitary groups use the resources as a source of income if they can. In addition to that paramilitary groups move into mining areas to move people out and also they are suspected to make sure that union activity does not start up.

So if the displaced people we have met in Bogota and who come to Canada are a symptom of a problem, how do we get at the root of the problem? We spent part of the morning with Rebbecca Bartel, MCC’s Latin America and Caribbean policy analyst who has an office here in Bogota at Justapaz. We talked about ways that she could get us information about issues and what we could do with that information.

Lunch was with Paul Stucky, who talked to us about Justapaz’s work at creating “Sanctuaries of Peace” among the churches. He also talked about the importance of support and the phrase “psychosocial support” which has come up a lot as we have made the rounds here in Colombia came up.

After lunch our road trip began. We picked up our luggage from the hotel and went to the airport to catch our flight to Monteria. The flight that took a little over an hour would have taken about eighteen hours by road if all went well according to Bonnie Klassen.

In Monteria we were to meet a group of Mennonite pastors from churches in the area. After living with the relatively cool climate of Bogota, the tropical heat of Monteria was quite a change. The situation that the pastors faced was also quite different.

Mugasa and I have had a running conversation about what we see on the surface and what we hear is beneath it. Even here away from the capital, the streets are paved, the electricity and phones and water all work (though we have been warned not to drink it), and yet millions of people are being displaced from their land. This evening as we met with the pastors of this region and we got another glimpse of the situation.

They had a surprisingly polished presentation for us. They had a powerpoint presentation on what the churches were up to complete with a mission and vision statement, an outline of what their major work is: a shelter for family members of hospital patients, and HIV/AIDS education program and a soup kitchen among other things.

What was significant though is that they have resettled five communities of approximately 50 families each who have been displaced by either violence or by a hydroelectric dam (which was supported by CIDA funds). Bonnie asked them to tell us why they have done this. One of the pastors said, when the first group of displaced people came to them in 1997, they didn’t really care about the conflict. He said they were not prepared in terms of resources, or attitude or theology. Having 300 hundred homeless people on their church doorstep changed them. It wasn’t easy, but with money from a variety of sources they have helped these five communities build new houses in a new location.

The most moving story however, was from a pastor from another region who was there. About two weeks earlier he received a phone call from a person in the paramilitary saying if he did not leave town, he would be killed. They decide the threat was only against the pastor and not them so he left his wife and children behind. This is often the pattern. A person will leave the area and check with family back there to see if it will be safe to come back.

It seems that there is still a risk for many in staying in their home.

Finding a moment of peace

At supper today Peter Stucky, the pastor of the church that we were at on Sunday sat down to talk to us about our day. Our day started with Peter as we sat in on their regular Wednesday morning meeting with the church’s peace and justice committee. The committee works with IDPs who come from the rural area. As we learned yesterday, many IDPs from the rural areas eventually end up in Bogotá where they can hide out. Most of the time they are not followed, and as long as they don’t try to go back to their land and reclaim it, they are safe. Their issue is instead finding the skills and the means to survive in the city after a life in the rural area. Some of these people find their way to this Mennonite church and this committee, which includes a social worker and a psychologist, help them think about what their options are. Their goal is primarily to find a supportive community for them in the city, and the church can be that for them.

Occasionally however, they hear of a story of someone who cannot find safety anywhere in Colombia, and so they help them apply at the Canadian visa office to go to Canada as a “refugee.” Technically they are not refugees because they are still in their home country, but Canada has made an exception for Colombia. The church has been doing this for nearly ten years now, and they are getting pretty good at figuring out which cases the Canadian government will accept and which they will not. When we in Canada hear about these cases we look for sponsors for them.

The committee wanted to make it clear that they don’t want to be seen as a fast track to Canada, because most people’s lives are not threatened once they get to Bogotá. In fact, it seemed to me that their important work was working with the people who stay.

We heard about their work at 12:30 today. At that time each Wednesday, the church has something called “Pause for Peace.” After a time of prayer, three people told their stories of being displaced. One woman talked about how most of the men her age from her village had been killed. Another man talked about how he was caught between the guerrillas and the paramilitary and had to leave his land and come to the city. He talked about how he wasn’t a religious man, but found comfort in this church that has helped him and they have taught him the way of people.

It struck me that I have heard discussion about the way of peace and non-violence like this in churches in the US and Canada, but this was different. These people actually had lived through the violence of seeing family members killed and being told leave their homes. However, one man said, “I find it difficult to follow this way of peace. How do we do this?” He asked Peter, the pastor to respond, but he said, “I don’t have the answer for that, I can only turn to the people in this room who have suffered from the violence.” One man in response quoted Dietrich Bonheoffer, another woman talked about how we must learn that we must not feed violence with revenge, because it will only grow.

At the end of the time we were all invited to a meal of soup. People were encouraged to donate the equivalent of 20 cents, but if they didn’t have that, they didn’t need to pay.

After lunch we met with the Executive Director of Justapaz. Justapaz (which means “a just peace”) has been involved in a number of things including working with conscientious objectors in Colombia who want to avoid military service for religious regions, and support churches that work as “sanctuaries of peace.”

One of the most significant activities that Justapaz has been involved in recently has been to document reports of violence in the country and publish a report outlining the violence and making recommendations to address the humanitarian crisis that they see. This work is so significant that shortly before last year’s report was due to be published, the computers with all the data they had collected were stolen from their office. It seemed clear that this was a politically motivated theft and not one with economic motives. The third report is due to be published next month.

These are the things I thought about as Peter asked us about our day. Then he told us a bit about his afternoon. The four or so hours since our lunch at the church, he had been meeting with people who had come to the “Moment for Peace” meeting. The woman that he had just finished talking to had just arrived in Bogota. Last week, some armed men came to their house took her husband and her children and told her she had two hours to leave her house. Displacement is still happening, despite what the Colombian government would have us and our government believe. The Peace and Justice Committee at the Mennonite Church, the workers at Medicoles and at Justapaz see it every week. It is important for us to make sure that we do not let those in power in Colombia and in Canada deny this.

Tomorrow afternoon we leave Bogota and fly to Monteria north of Bogota to see a few places where Mennonites churches are working with IDPs in a more rural setting. We may not have internet acess there, so I may not be able to post new entries for the next few days. We are are back in Bogota next Wednesday.

Bothered by God in Cazuca

We met a lot people today. Most of the time was focused on Internally Displaced People (IDP) which is good because that is our job. First we had a meeting with Carol Byler of Mencoldes which is the Colombian Mennonite Church’s outreach program. She explained that Mencoldes is involved in things like micro-credit and agricultural development projects. They also work at helping IDPs who come to Bogota in the first month or so, before the governmental social system can kick in to help them. It seems that on paper at least the Colombia has a good social system for IDPs, but one must push hard to make it work.

Carol told us they process about 400 families a year which is a little less than five percent of the IDPs that come to the capital city. In the afternoon we went to the centre where they provide emergency supplies, basic medical and dental care and a bit of job training and life skills to help the families deal with the transition.

Much of the IDP crisis in Colombia has to do with the acquisition of land. Many of the IDPs who come to Bogota are poor rural farmers who have been displaced because someone wants the land that they are farming. The law in Colombia says that if one occupies land for five years, one can gain legal title to it. So armed groups run people off, large land owners occupy the land and plant cash crops like palm oil for export and in a short time they own the land.

In between our two visits to Mencoldes offices, we went to Cazuca, an “informal settlement” that butts up against the south side of Bogotá. Cazuca is one of those places where IDPs go to hide. They cobble together shacks, and eventually as they collect materials they build brick houses with tin roofs.

Those of us who had lived in Africa were reminiscing about informal settlements we had walked around in on that continent. For me, it looked a bit like kwaLink, a place near the Mthatha airport, only with steeper hills.

The reason we went to Cazuca, is because of the IDP connection, but also because there is a Colombian Mennonite Brethren Church there that has an MCC Global Family project. David, the pastor and his wife are an unlikely couple to be there. She is trained as a teacher, and he has worked as a fashion model. After David showed us around the project, we went upstairs in the church building.

As David stood in the unfinished pastor’s apartment in the second floor of the church building, he talked to us about how he came to be here. About six years ago, he was living his “normal” middle class life and he decided for some reason to work in Cazuca. At first, he was afraid to stay there after five o’clock—most Bogota residents would probably be afraid to go there at any time of day. In time it became familiar and now he has grown to love this place and the people here.

Many people cannot understand why he would choose this path, to give up living in a nice neighbourhood with a nice job. He said that God had transformed him and that he has come to love the people here. It seems that the school is also helping to bring some transformation as well. Downstairs from where we were, the worship area would be filled on Sundays with about forty people from around the area, and more than a hundred children. Between the school and the church, they are having an impact on their part of Cazuca and the especially the next generation that is growing there.

Before we went to have lunch with the children, David told us, “When you live in a place like this, God bothers you a lot with the needs of the people.”

Cazuca, David and his talk of “downward mobility” and especially the children I saw in the school there are were probably where I found the most hope today. I think that we all hope the children of today will have a better world, but it seems like the people this church and this school are doing something about this.

Ascention Day in Colombia

Today was a public holiday in Colombia. Today Colombians were taking a day to recognize Ascension Day (which was actually last Thursday). While this may seem like an act of devotion that we in Canada have dispensed with, like many holidays everywhere, the original meaning seems to be lost on many, and it simply becomes a day to take off from work. As a result it was difficult to find people who were willing to meet with a bunch of Canadians rather than take a day off. So we too spent much of the day not in church or touring sites relevant to refugees, but in the town of Zipaquira which a charming town about an hour north of Bogotá. There most of us went to see a Catholic Cathedral and a pathway with the Stations of the Cross carved out of a salt mine.

As I went through the Stations of the Cross and listened to our guide talk about what the sculptors were symbolizing in the crosses that they cut out of the salt walls, I wondered what Colombians (who are overwhelmingly Catholic) thought about suffering. When we got to the twelfth station, the station of the death of Jesus, the guide pointed out that the cross was much more discreet-- almost hidden--compared to the crosses at the other stations. He said that people often found this the most difficult station.

What is the response to suffering? Is it something that we confront, or is it something we avert our eyes from? I know the temptation is to turn from it, but at a certain point it certainly must be confronted. Today I got the sense that the Colombian government is not willing to confront the suffering, or perhaps they confront it with a heavy hand. For example, yesterday Bonnie said that one of the ways that the government has responded to the violence is to put a solider every 50 meters on roads to make them safe to travel. I thought this must certainly be an exaggeration, but today I saw this on our drive from Zipaquira. What a huge waste of resources this seemed to be. What more productive activities could these young men be engaged in rather than standing next to the road in the rain? It boggles the mind.

In other ways the government is clearly not willing to recognize the scope of the problem the country faces. This is especially true in the reporting of the statistics of Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs). While the government says that there are perhaps two million IDPs in the country. Other groups say that there are perhaps two to three times that many. The government seem to averting their eyes to the suffering of millions of Colombians.

Later, we had a wide ranging session with Nelson Berrio on the social political context of Colombia. I think that his discussion came down to several points. Drug trafficking is the central problem in Colombia and the current (and previous) government’s strategy of a heavy military presence with a huge influx of American military support will never eradicate all of the coca production or bring an end to the guerrillas’ activity. This is backed up by the International Crisis Groups recent report on the drug problem in Latin America. There needs to be a political exit, rather than a military one.

I think for me this year Ascension Day is a day of waiting and hoping for change.

Looking for Hope in a Foreign Land

Our first full day in Colombia has been a reasonably busy one as we recover from our travels.

In the morning Bonnie Klassen the MCC Representative in Colombia and Shalom Wiebe, who works with refugee issues here, came over and did an orientation session for us. It started with all of us talking about why we are involved in refugee work. I found this really interesting because we all come from such different places. The stories of our three Africans Jennifer, Moses and Mugasa were particular interesting to me. They had all either worked in refugee camps in Kenya or Uganda or been refugees. It's a good group and we are enjoying each other’s company.

I find parallels with South Africa here in a number of places: the bars on the window or the abundance of fresh tropical fruit, but the most striking so far came this morning when Bonnie was talking about the conflict here. She said that most people in Bogota and most of the major cities never really think about the conflict in the country because it doesn't touch their lives. It's something that's happening "out there" or to other people. It reminded me of what I heard white South Africans say about the violence in their country during apartheid. They didn’t really know what atrocities are being committed on their behalf. The dynamics of the conflict are different, but the self-deception is the same and that allows the conflict to continue. Antjie Krog’s book, Country of my Skull which is her account of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa talks about that.

Late morning, we walked to a nearby Mennonite church in a light rain which waxed and waned through the day. Shalom sat behind us during the service and translated for us.

Many of the Mennonite churches in Colombia have been leaders in working at peace and justice in the country and this particular church has worked a lot to support Internally Displace People (IDPs) who make their way to Bogota from other parts of the country. This Sunday they prayed for a family from this church that will be leaving for Quebec as Government Sponsored Refugees this week. By the end of the prayer both the family and the pastor were wiping tears from their eyes. It made me realize something of what the opportunities that immigrating to Canada can mean. In the prayer it was cast as something of a religious pilgrimage during the prayer. The phrase “land of milk and honey” was mentioned in connection with Canada. At the same time I wondered about the difficulties ahead of this family that they cannot imagine as they work to settle in a new culture. Are they ready for this? How could they ever be ready for a change like that? Certainly no journey, even a journey to “the promised land” is an easy one. I hope there will be someone to help them in the process.

The food has been wonderful so far. The fresh fruit and fruit juice has been another connecting point to my memoires of South Africa. The Africans in our group were particular happy to see fried plantains. After lunch we went to the museum of gold and the art glary of Fernando Botero (the best known Colombian artist) and to a shopping area. There were not many shops open though because of the rain.

The day ended with supper at the MCC office where we had a typical light meal for Colombians: bread and hot chocolate. Bonnie filled us in on MCC's history and involvement in Colombia and we talked broadly about the Colombian politics and problems. At one point, Moses asked Bonnie, “Where is the hope?” Her response is, “That is a good question. I have my own answers, but I want you to keep that question for yourself and try and find the hope yourself.” So we will be looking for hope over the next few days here in Colombia, even as the family we saw in church this morning will try and find home in Quebec.

In Transit

The physical journey began yesterday morning.

I have heard it said that in these days of air travel our bodies can travel much faster than our spirits. My body travelled from the homely old Winnipeg airport (which I think I will miss when the new one is completed) to the glass cathedral of Toronto’s Terminal one at Pearson, to the bland immigration hall of Bogotá's international airport. Along the way, I started meeting my fellow travellers on this journey as they too arrived in Toronto. First I met Ed Wiebe, our MCC Canada representative and the one who started us on this journey. A short while later, Elaine Harder from Saskatchewan (who arrived in Toronto the previous evening) and Moses Moini, who just took over the work in Ontario walked into the international departures waiting room. Jenifer Mpungu (BC) and Mugasa Sammy (Alberta) found us as we sat in the food court a short time later. Orlando Vasquez from Alberta will join us Tuesday night.

Our day of travel was uneventful except for a delay in Toronto. We were scheduled to get to Bogotá by 8:00 pm, but we didn't arrive till about 11:00 pm. Ed had warned us of difficulties as we tried to get from the airport to our transportation, with people trying assaulting us with offers to carry our bags and take us in their vehicle, but it seemed relatively mild to me. On the flight from Toronto to Bogotá, I tried to spend some time to get my spirit to catch up with my body. I’m not sure how successful I was. We will see.

As we travelled from the airport to our hotel in the mini-bus that was hired for us, I caught a whiff of what I think was coal fires. It reminded me of Maseru, Lesotho, another high altitude capital city. I think I will probably be using my Southern African experience (for better or worse) as my touch stone for this experience.

Are we there yet?

Winnipeg, Manitoba

When does a journey begin? Is it when one steps out the door, suitcase in hand, or before that? I think my journey to Colombia started long before this Saturday when I will head for the Winnipeg airport. It is hard to pin point when it started, but it was perhaps last summer when I started working part time at the Refugee Program desk of MCC Manitoba. I heard that a trip to Colombia was in the works for those workings in MCC’s refugee network. Back then I did not expect to still be doing this job this summer so I did not expect to be going to Colombia. That was fine with me.

I sometimes question the value of short overseas learning trips. This attitude in part comes from my involvement with hosting learning tours while we were in South Africa. While we enjoyed hosting people and saw it as an important part of our jobs, we were sometimes left with the impression that a short visit to another culture can only serve to give one a false sense of understanding a situation. I left South Africa in 2005 with a profound sense of how difficult it is to understand another culture, and so I have maintained a healthy skepticism of learning tours. Having said this, I think that MCC works very hard at doing learning tours well, and it seems that MCC Colombia has a lot of experience hosting learning tours. They probably have worked out what works and what does not.

As months marched on and I continued to fill in at this job, I was encouraged to go on the trip and so a few months ago, I reluctantly booked a plane ticket.

I hadn’t thought much about Colombia until I started working on refugee issues for MCC Manitoba. I knew that it was a dangerous place known for coffee and cocaine. I also knew that there was a strong Mennonite Church there that works hard to promote peace, and has written challenging letters to the Mennonite Churches of North America.

As I started preparing for my journey to Colombia, I learned more about the nature of the conflict and violence in the country. As I understand it, the conflict can be thought of simplistically as the “left vs. right” conflict that we in North America think of when we think of Latin America. On one side are the wealthy land owners who want to maintain control of the situation and engage paramilitary groups to do this. On the other side are Marxist rebels who are trying to liberate the people. In Colombia this has being going on for at least 40 years and some would say even longer.

Of course it is not that simple. Conflicts which go on for decades can develop their own inertia and original motivations can be lost. People in Colombia point to corruption as part of the problem and many groups terrorize though political assignations, and kidnapping and they raise money through the drug trade.

As I have done some reading in preparation for the trip, I have discovered that Canada is connected to the country in a few significant ways. First, there are a number of Canadian resource companies that are active in mining and oil exploration in Colombia. Because access to the land is important they side with the right-wing, or at the very least are seen to side with them. Their desire to control the land has gotten them tied up with the violent political struggle within the country. Related to this the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) also helped to re-write the rules around royalty payments for natural resources in the country that heavily favours foreign based extraction companies at the expense of the Colombian people.

A second problem that Canada is tied up in, is the negotiation of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Colombia and Canada. Human rights groups, labour leaders and the Mennonite Church of Colombia all oppose this deal for a number of reasons. Basically they say that this deal would reward the Colombian government at a time when human rights violations have continued and perhaps even escalated. On the other side, the Canadian and Colombian governments point to successes and suggest that things are getting better, so this is a good time to remove impediments to trade and investments to help grow the legitimate economy in Colombia. This issue has become a political football in both the US and Canada and that has made it difficult for both sides on this issue in the US and Canada to move from their traditional positions on FTAs.

Finally, Refugee issues are a part of the Colombia Canada connection and that is of course the reason I am going there. There are by some accounts 3.8 million Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Colombia and another half million Colombian refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries. Since 2003, 15 to 20 percent of refugees coming to Canada are Colombian and Canada is planning to accept nearly 2,000 Colombians in 2008. The Mennonite Churches in Colombia are involved in identifying people who seem to have no other alternative.

As I travel around, I will be interested to see how Colombians feel about these issues and what we in Canada can do to lessen the violence of this place. Are the heavy handed tactics of the US backed President Urbie and his assault on drugs, kidnapping and corruption making a different that should be lauded and rewarded with an FTA? I have read a number of op-ed pieces in Canadian and US papers which suggest this. Or is all of his work not making a difference in the drug trade and the violent political conflict? Does a different approach need to be tried to bringing peace need to be tried? My working hypothesis is the latter, but I hope to be open to learning.

So, I am somewhat reluctantly leaving for Colombia this weekend in order to continue my journey. I think my destination (or goal) is not so much a place, as it is an understanding. I hope to be able to come back to Manitoba and in some way bring others on this journey to better understand. I hope to see how the church there works with refugees and how the church here can be more involved in sponsoring these refugees. Ultimately we do this to bring peace in a conflict that has shaped more than a generation of Colombians.