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.
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