And some pictures from Quibdó

First week of December was spent in Quibdó the little town where we have our second office here in Colombia. The whole team was gathered there for evaluations, discussions and planning of next years activities. We spent most of the week in a conference room, but I had a little bit of time to get to know Quibdó too. Which was good, since I will move there when I come back from my 17 days-long vacation in Sweden.

Leaving Colombia tomorrow morning and will hopefully land in Stockholm the day before Christmas Eve.. I’m saying it again, PLEASE STOP snowing in Frankfurt and Stockholm, because I wanna go home to family and friends!! Please, please!!

Here are som pictures from Quibdó

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Accompaniment in Magdalena Medio

It’s been way too long since I wrote here, I know, but I have been doing other important things, and spent a few weeks without internet. When I was finally back in Bogotá I got sick and spent a week in bed, and then I had too much work..

Anyways, from 23 to 29 november my colleague Nina and I went to the Magdalena Medio area  to accompany Corporaión AVRE (which I wrote about in the previous post), who cooperates with another two NGO:s in the region:

ASORVIMM (Asociación de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado en el Magdalena Medio – ASORVIMM), who works for justice and remedy, as well as non replication of brutal violations against human rights, committed by the state. ASORVIMM also works to strengthen the victim’s organisation, to honour the victims, to recreate the memory and to fight impunity.

and

AVC – Asociación Campesina del Valle del Cimitarra, and NGO originating from peasants’ historical struggle and resistance movement. The NGO was created as an initiative for organisation in rural areas. The short-term goal of the organisation focuses on organisation, education, and politics for creating processes that can allow redistribution of land and a decent life in rural areas. And in the long-term they aim to create structural change on the Colombian countryside.

So together with these NGO:s we went to two villages in the Magdalena Medio region: Cerro Azul and Villa Nueva, to hold workshops with local inhabitants in these villages. These aim at giving participants a better understanding of the Colombian armed conflict and the functions of political violence, as well as tools of protection against these violations – international humanitarian law and human rights.

The main reason why these NGO:s needed accompaniment on this trip (expect from the generally intense conflict environment in the area) was that the President of ASORVIMM has received death threats because of her engagement in these issues, wherefore it is very dangerous for her to travel alone in this area. She has been receiving threats since 1998, when her partner and the father of her 4 children was assassinated and she began her work in defense of human rights.  This is a very common situation for human rights defenders here in Colombia, but by international presence from us, or International Peace Brigades, who accompanies her regularly in Barrancabermeja (where ASORVIMM’s office is located), it is possible for her and other human rights defenders to continue doing this important work.

So on this one week-long trip we took a flight from Bogotá to Barrancabermeja, and the following day a boat from Barrancabermeja to San Pablo from where we travelled in a jeep to the remote villages: Cerro Azul and Villa Nueva. The pictures illustrate the contrasts of our work as Peace Observers in Colombia.

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Magdalena Medio, Colombia

On Tuesday I will finally eave for my first accompaniment outside Bogotá.. The work in Bogotá has been very interesting so far, but now I feel ready to see a bit of the “real Colombia” and the every-day life of many Colombian’s, which is very different from our protected life in the capital.

We will first fly to Barrancabermeja, the fourth largest city in Colombia, located ca 400 km north of Bogotá. In Barranca, the internal armed conflict is more intense compared to the current  situation in Bogotá.

From Barranca, we’ll take a boat on the Magdalena river together with the accompanied who work with psychological support to victims of the conflict. During this trip, the accompanied NGO:s will hold workshops in two different remote villages regarding land rights and other sensitive issues.

The whole Magdalena Medio department is highly affected by the conflict and all armed groups; military, paramilitaries, guerilla etc, are struggling for power in the area. Because of this situation the accompanied have expressed that it would be almost impossible to realise this kind of event without international presence. In general in Colombia, the armed groups have strong respect for international observers, and act more carefully when international people are present. We hope that this will be the case also this time, and that our presence will help the accompanied to realise their activities without disturbances.

Except from the armed groups, our biggest concern on this trip will probably be the rough Colombian winter. At the moment we are experiencing the worst Colombian winter in over three decades and the heavy rains are causing earth slips and heavy floodings.  The latest news tells that at least 136 people have died and at least 1.3 million people have been badly affected by this extreme weather.

We hope that this weather will not affect us too much and that we won’t get stranded in one of the villages.. Directly when we get back to Bogotá on 29 November we have another flight to catch to Quibdó.. It will be a tough week there with a lot of discussions about the future strategies of our project here in Colombia.. I’m not sure, but I think that our bosses will be a bit more disappointed than us if we would miss that flight to Quibdó..;)

Anyways, since I’ll be in the middle of no-where for a while, I won’t be able to give you any news until the second week of December.. take care until then!

Last weekend in Carmen de Apicala

Last weekend I went to Carmen de Apicala to relax and to escape the cold rain in Bogotá. We spent 3 nice days by the pool and a bit of strolling around in the little village.

Since I came back to Bogotá on Monday evening I have been very busy, and I had to spend a few extra hours in the office this week. I’m preparing a one week-long accompaniment around the Magdalena River, and another week in Quibdó directly after, where we will have the annual evaluation and planing of next year’s activities. Will write more about this shortly.

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Pame in Colombia

We have just had another 3-days long weekend here in Colombia, but I am quite tired anyways for many reasons: 1.because of my screaming Chinese neighbours; 2. because I started work at 7 am yesterday; 3. because of a very nice Sunday-trip to Villa de Leyva and other touristic tours with my friend Pamela who came for a visit this weekend:)

A part from Villa de Leyva we also visited the city centre and old town of Bogotá, the Botero Museum (famous Colombian fat painter who painted fat people), Zona Rosa where all the expensive exclusive stuff is and Parque 93 with fancy bars and restaurants.

The weekend’s shopping bag includes: Black ballerina shoes, black top, a sombrero, a bracelet and a ring. Looking for boots and sneakers but can’t find any that I like in my size which is strange because I would think that short Colombian girls have smaller feet than I do. ..but 39 is always sold out..

Tonight I have been to the gym for the first time in ages, it was very nice! Will be chilling at home  the rest of the night as I start around 7 am again tomorrow. The plan was to spend the whole morning in the  Supreme Court but it looks like the public hearings related to the para-politics scandal will be cancelled for the third day in a row. But we’ll anyways go to an early breakfast meeting with the Women’s Peace Assembly that we are accompanying during the public hearings. And tomorrow evening we are going to a reception for young Nordic people in Colombia at the Swedish Embassy. I’ve heard that I’ll be served some Swedish delicacies, maybe herrings and meatballs, yummy:)!

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Plans, broken Plans, new Plans and broken Nails

This has been a very interesting week where I have learned how quickly things changes here..

We started the week with planning an accompaniment with Asfaddes to a town called Leticia, in the Amazonas on the border to Brazil and Peru. I was very excited as Leticia is a place that I have been wanting to visit for a long time. We would have gone there for a seminar but there would also have been time for some touristic tours, for example WATCHING PINK DOPLHINS..:) But finally we had to cancel the whole trip because we couldn’t find any flight tickets. I was off course disappointed to miss such an exciting trip, but at the same time happy because going on that trip would have meant that I had missed half of the visit of a long-lost friend. Tonight my friend Pamela from Ecuador will come to visit me, and we haven’t seen each other in 4 years!! Those are the ups and downs with the life I’m living, I have wonderful friends all over the world, but unfortunately and don’t see many of them/you often enough..

The second plan that was broken was related to the last week in November when SweFORs Colombia team will meet together with our bosses from Sweden to evaluate this years activities and plan the coming year. The idea from our side was to spend this week in a wonderful finca (a typical Colombian holiday resort) with swimming pool, jacuzzi and beautiful nature.. But the idea from the Swedish office was to spend this week in Quibdó (where we have our second Colombia office), a VERY HOT AND MOST HUMID PLACE ON EARTH,  without swimming pool and other facilities to cool down.. I leave it up to you to figure out whose idea won..

So when two plans where broken we had to make new ones. Luckily we were asked by the Asamblea de mujeres por la paz (Women’s Peace Assembly) to accompany them to the Supreme Court next week where public hearings, of ex politicians accused for collaboration with paramilitaries, will be held. It will be very interesting to follow the outcomes of the Colombian parapolitics scandal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombian_parapolitics_scandal) in the Supreme Court. And this plan is totally set and wont be changed;)

Yesterday we also made a few other new plans but they are a bit loose still so I’ll tell you more about them when I know more how they turn out.

Finally, after a week of hard work, I treated myself with a  nice MANICURE, WHICH IS RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP HERE.. But my nails where beautiful for like an hour before I destroyed them by doing some cleaning.. I told my house mate that if they haven’t dried by now, nail polish is not for me!! but I might give it another shot already today.. first running, a bit of cleaning and shopping, and then maybe a manicure..

My likes and dislikes of Bogotá so far

+ All the nice Colombians that I have met so far

+ My interesting job

+ Although the weather is not perfect, it’s still quite nice, and definitely not snowing as in Sweden (in October!!)

+ Having fun with my colleagues/house-mates

+ Bogotá is in general a really nice city with many nice restaurants, bars, salsa clubs etc..  a lot to do, I like:)!

-  My chinese neighbours who are screaming and arguing THE WHOLE TIME!!

- The horrible traffic and lousy taxi drivers

- It’s impossible to find hairspray here – I don’t understand how a country full of beauty salons can survive without HAIRSPRAY!?

Finally a quote of the day:
“People who are shorter than 1.50 m should not be allowed to use umbrellas” / my colleague Nina who are  bit angry with short colombian people who nearly poke her eyes out with their umbrellas.. apparently  a reoccurring problem here:)

Weekend in Medellin

I went to Medellin last weekend with my colleagues/friends Lotta and Matts. I would lie if I wrote that we saw many parts of the city.. We rather mostly hung out with a bunch of old friends of Lotta and Matts. Most of them from Quibdó, the little town where we have our second office. Matts and Lotta have already  been working there for about a year and I have been told to move my butt over there in January so it was nice to get to know some people already..

Now it´s Friday again and I feel like as if I have not slept since last Thursday. Besides the 12h bus ride back from Medellin the week has also included Mattt’s farewell  and Hugo´s birthday dinner, so I’ll be chilling at home tonight.. Dinner and salsa-party tomorrow..

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An important step forward…

After an  11 h bus ride on the bumpy road from Medellin, I came back to Bogotá yesterday morning.  After a quick shower, I rushed to the office, 1.5 hours late and so dizzy in my head that I wondered for a long while whether I had put in my contact lenses or not.. But after some coffee, or rather not until I had a big Colombian lunch, I was ready to get some work done…

I went to the Colombian Congress together with my colleague Nina where the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances was approved. It is an important step forward when it comes to the protection of the victims – and to the relatives of the victims of enforced disappearances. However the Convention still needs to be approved by Constitutional Court and signed by President Santos before Colombia can become to 20th country to ratify the convention.

This was an important day for Asfaddes which we Accompanied to this event. As I wrote in the previous post, Asfaddes is a Colombian NGO created by relatives to victims of enforced disappearances which is fighting to find out the truth about what has happened to their family members and for their rights of investigation and remedy.

According to the Commission for the Search of Disappeared Persons, 13 941 cases of forcibly disappeared persons have been registered in Colombia since the 1940:s, however the estimated number of unknown cases is large. Fear of reprisals, illiteracy, submissiveness to fatalism are some of the factors that explain the large number of unreported cases.

The rest of this working I would like to focus on writing an article about yeasterday´s interesting event.  But first I have to go to the Office of Home Affairs to pick up some kind of important paper, and then find a Notary Public and ask this person to certify two copies of this important paper.. Lovely administrative crap which will probably take most of the day!

Luckily, I have a nice little party to look forward to tonight..:)

 

First weeks in Bogotá

Two weeks ago, I came to Bogotá, Colombia, to work as a Peace Observer for the Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation (SweFor). So far, I’m really enjoying both work and social life here.

During almost 50 years, there has been an armed conflict between the state, guerilla and paramilitaries in the country, and it’s very common that people working with peace and human rights issues in Colombia threatened, harassed, forcibly disappeared, and sometimes even killed.  Based on this context, SweFor works with International Accompaniment in Colombia to protect and support local human rights organisations, in order for them to be able to carry out their important work.

SweFor has one office in Bogotá and another one in Quibdó in the department of Chocó (close to the pacific coast), an area which has been badly affected by the conflict. To begin with, I have been placed in our office in Bogotá where I will be responsible for our work on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. I will also work closely with one of our partner organisations called Asfaddes (La Asociación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos), which is an NGO created by family members to victims of forced disappearances.

Except from my work as a Peace Observer, I will also be blogging a bit about my social life here in Bogotá and around. I’m sharing a big house with my colleagues here so a lot is happening also outside office hours…

Since much has happened the first two weeks I’ll just make a short summary with pictures from different events..

Parts of SweFor:s Colombia team @ team-buidling, first day in Bogotá

 

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Me at Plaza de Bolivar, @ city tour, firts day in Bogotá

Me and Alexandra in action @ my first accompaniment

 

 

My first Ajiaco colombiano, which is a very traditional delicious soup which makes full as hell:-) The excellent chef was our friend Claudia from Diakonia