A little context about my delegation

Ten years after helping to start the Witness for Peace program in Colombia, I finally got to take part in a delegation here. It ended on Wednesday, and since then I have been struggling to figure out how to share what I learned in a way that isn’t too long, makes sense, and does justice to the people who entrusted their stories to us.

Our delegation focused on developments in the Urabá region of northwestern Colombia (near the border with Panamá). Rich in agricultural resources, biodiversity, and subsoil mineral wealth, the region is largely populated by Colombians of African descent. Most of the region is rural. Most importantly for our trip, Urabá has come to be seen as a microcosm of key problems facing Colombia. Here the issues of economic development, land ownership, internal displacement, paramilitary violence, and government inaction converge to devastating effect and in a pattern that is repeated all over the country.

But before I begin to tell the stories we heard during five days in the countryside, it is essential to give some context and background about Colombia today. So here are some things you should know.

· Since 2000, under an initiative called Plan Colombia, the United States has given about $7.3 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia. The main purpose of this aid is to fight the drug war, in which pretty much all of the armed actors in Colombia’s decades-long civil war are involved.
· Between 1999 and 2008, despite extensive aerial fumigation, the tonnage of cocaine produced in Colombia only dropped from 680 to 600. Coca is now cultivated in 20 of Colombia’s 32 departments.
· Since 2000, according to Witness for Peace, approximately 30,000 civilians have been killed, and 3 million have been displaced. The Colombian Ministry of Defense estimates that there have been 21,000 combat deaths since 2002.
· Using US assistance, outgoing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe implemented what he referred to as his “Democratic Security” policy. This involved a tripling of the military budget and nearly doubling the size of the security forces.
· During the time of Uribe’s Democratic Security policy, foreign investment (especially in extractive industries) has more than tripled, but rates of poverty and extreme poverty have barely budged.
· Between 2002 and 2008, Colombia was one of only three countries in Latin America where economic inequality increased.
· In the rural areas of Colombia, where approximately 25% of the country’s population lives, 0.4% of landholders control approximately 61.2% of the land.
· An estimated 80% of Colombia’s rural population lives in poverty.

So it was against this backdrop that my fellow delegates and I headed to Urabá to visit a number of "humanitarian zones," small communities where people displaced by violence that peaked in the 1990s have returned to or near the lands from which they were expelled. Now they are under tremendous pressure – and, at times, threat of death – from large landowners and cattle ranchers who, working hand in hand with paramilitaries and sometimes with the Colombian military, appropriated the abandoned lands to grow cash crops and raise cattle and who now claim to be the rightful owners of the land. It is an extremely complicated conflict and one that we worked hard to make sense out of. It was the people’s stories that helped us understand.

Year one of teaching abroad: check.

The school year is over. It is almost impossible to believe, and as trite as it may sound, the time flew. I taught four different courses and coordinated (or tried to) a department of 12 people. I am so tired!

A lot of people have asked me how my first year was, and my answer is always: challenging. I think that sounds a little unoriginal, but it is the truth. I think it suggests something that is really hard but good. I worked my butt off this year. I went to school early --arriving at 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. -- many, many days. I went to a zillion meetings, wrote a zillion e-mails, and went to some lengthy workshops all in Spanish. There were days the language thing wore me out. There were days the kids drove me insane. There were days the grown-ups drove me insane. But the reason I say the year was challenging is that at no point did I wish I hadn't come here to do this. I am exhausted but so glad I made this move.

I think over the next month -- in the rare quiet moments I will have -- I will keep reflecting on the year. (I've kind of already started to do that as the year wound down). Not surprisingly, there are hundreds of things I want to do differently and other things that I hope I have really learned how to do. Next year will bring new challenges, like two new teachers in my department. But I am hopeful that I will generally have a better handle on things.

So now I am taking a few days to wind down, which is an extra nice thing to do in my new apartment, before my summer activities begin. First my Witness for Peace delegation, then flying around to Ohio and Boston, and finally off to California for an AP World History seminar at Stanford. Does that schedule mean I love a challenge?