The cumbia of the disconnected

This is a belated post about another part of my trip to Medellín: a small protest that I went to with a friend who works for a human rights organization here in Colombia. (You can check out their work at http://forcolombia.org/). The event was set up by a regional coalition of human rights and community development groups and was protesting increased privatization and price hikes in public utilities, both of which make them prohibitively expensive and means that many people end up without water or electricity services.

After a breathtaking and, OK slightly scary, ride up Medellín's cable car I arrived in one of the comunas, Medellín's poor neighborhoods built up the steep side of the mountains that surround the city. Organizers had decided to do the march in the neighborhood rather than in the city center in order to spread awareness among other people affected by the price hikes, letting them know that people are trying to resist them. My friend and I met up with the marchers and started walking along with them. The organizers had made this event a festive one. There were lots of kids running alongside, young boys on stilts, lots of drums, and clowns in tutus. The march was a short walk and didn't have a huge number of participants, but did have a lots of spectators hanging out the windows and sitting on balconies of their homes. The march ended in a litle parking lot, where a guy with a microphone read the banners as they came in and where, eventually, salsa music kept the party-like mood going. One of the best moments was when they played a song someone had written called "The cumbia of the disconnected," a cumbia (another music/dance style here that gets played along with salsa in dance clubs). Despite its upbeat rythmn, the song was a lament about having to decide between buying food and paying the bills.

The event wound down -- with salsa still playing in the background and some people dancing -- with an invitation for everyone to share some bread and cheese and hot chocolate from a giant vat. It still felt like a party, but as scraggly-looking kids came out of the woodwork for some food, it also reminded me of how many people here are hungry.

All in all, the march gave me a chance to feel a little less ignorant about the problems here and about how people at every level are struggling to make Colombia's a less unequal society. I was a million miles from the immaculate and manicured campus of my school, and frankly, I was glad to be there for a change.