Steve is in Colombia

Denmark

2008-08-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

It seems that every time I sit down at the computer to write a blog the same thing happens - I think back on what I did and the places I went, and I find myself at a complete loss as to how I can best condense everything I'd like to write into a short, readable blog entry. If I had the desire I could sit here and roll out a long, detailed, rambling narrative about what I did each day, and the things that I liked, and the things that I didn't quite understand, but I honestly think that would be as boring as batshit. I have about as much interest in delivering such a narrative as any person who may be logged onto this page would likely have in reading it, so instead I'm just going to write a few brief recollections of my time in Denmark and leave it at that.

Denmark was nice; Joel and myself were generously hosted by our friend Nis in Aarhus and by Joel's friend Ditte in Copenhagen. I was again lucky to have friendly locals looking after me and showing me around, because it meant that instead of spending my nights in backpacker places full of drunken tourists I was able to meet some local people and experience how warm Danes can be (despite - or perhaps in spite of - their freezing cold summer weather).

From Copenhagen Joel flew off to London en route to South East Asia, and I got a plane east to Finland, where I've been for just over a week... I'm currently in Turku, where my friend Shayne (the one whose wedding was the excuse for this trip) lives; I'm quite enjoying the place, so I think I'll stay here until Friday when I have to fly back to Sydney via Hong Kong...

Belgium

2008-08-12T05:13:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting here for the last 20 minutes trying to write an entry about Belgium, but I can't seem to get past a few sentences... It was only a little over a week that I was there, but it seems like it was months ago, and even though Belgium's only a couple of hours flight from Finland, where I now am, it feels like it could just as easily be on the other side of the world. The rapid cultural shift between places in Europe that are geographically very close is something that I'm not used to. In the past when I've travelled I've been able to spend extended periods of time in countries and get to know the people and the culture a little bit, but the nature of the trip that I'm on at the moment means that every few days I'm heading somewhere else, so it's very hard to establish much of an insight into people and culture. I really liked Belgium; a lot of the reason for me liking it so much was probably the result of the warm hospitality of Julie, the most generous host you could ever wish for, but there was also something inexplicably charming about the place. Belgium isn't a place that springs to mind when you think of European travel itineraries: it seems to get overlooked alongside its larger, more well known, more powerful neighbours, and it would be quite easy just to pass straight through on the way north from France or on the way south from the Netherlands. We were able to visit towns in the French speaking south and the Flemish speaking north, and it was interesting to see how two quite different cultures share one country. I really don't feel like writing out a full account of all the places I went and the things I did, because those sorts of accounts always end up sounding similar, and can get quite boring, so instead I'll just say that there is plenty to do and see in Belgium, and I could happily go back there and travel around more - its size makes it easy to navigate, and there's friendly people, great food, and the world's best beer.

Paris

2008-08-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

I'm not really sure what to write about Paris that will be interesting or different from what millions of other people would write about it... Like Prague, Paris in the middle of summer is full of tourists, and the more touristy parts of the city (particularly the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral and Versailles) were swarming with large, pushy tour groups that were determined to make sure that you spent more time looking at the backs of people's heads than at anything of historical significance.

Despite the tourist crowds, I actually quite enjoyed Paris, it has manged to retain a sense of intimacy that is often sadly lacking in large cities. I was met at the station by Laura, a friend of mine who lives there, and she showed me around some of of the Paris neighbourhoods that tend to get left off the tourist trail, which was nice. She lives in an old Parisienne house in a nice part of town, and although she says that she hates it because of all the old furniture, the place felt full of history, and had a nice 19th century charm to it...

I also met up with Joel and Jonesy, two friends from the Coast, and it was good to see them again. We were able to get to the last day of the Tour de France, which was really exciting, and something that I've wanted to do for quite a while. The anticipation of the crowd on the Champs-Elysee as the peleton gradually approached Paris was almost better than the thrill of watching the yellow jersey fly past. I'm glad I was able to be there, and hopefully one year I'll be able to go and see some of the mountain stages and be in some of the smaller towns as the tour comes through.

After a few days of looking around Paris I met up with another friend of mine: Lea, a French girl I worked with in Sydney. It was great to see her again, and we spent the last night in Paris sitting on the hill in front of the Sacre Coeur at Montmarte, looking out over Paris and drinking wine...

On the Thursday night I said goodbye to Laura (thanks for showing us around), and then to Lea (thank you for everything, too). I get sick of saying goodbye to people, it's the part of travelling that I like the least. I know that saying goodbye is inevitable, but I always feel a bit crappy when I have to be farewelled by good friends, because you never know exactly when you'll see people again - hopefully sooner rather than later.

Bratislava-Vienna-Zurich

2008-08-07T04:26:00.000-07:00

I can't remember the last blog I wrote, but I think it was just after I got to Bratislava... The next morning Sam took me on a bit of a tour of Bratislava, which I actually found far more pleasant than Prague: Prague is a beautiful city, but its nice old parts are just way too full of tourists - Bratislava, on the other hand, is a bit smaller than Prague, and had less tourists and more charm.

Vienna's only an hour west of Bratislava, so after lunch we headed over there on the train and spent the afternoon looking around town. Sam's spent quite a lot of time in Vienna, so he was able to show me the sights which was good. Vienna came across as a very clean and well preserved city; it was the heart of the Hapsburg Empire, and the excesses of the ruling elites of the time are everywhere to be seen in the city's enormous palaces and intricately detailed building facades. Sam took me a typical Viennese beer garden where we had a beer and a schnitzel, then Zuzka met us so we could get the overnight train to Zurich.

The train got to Zurich early on Saturday morning, and since I had few hours to wait until my next train I had a bit of time to check out the city. The whole place seemed very organised and clean (although according to Zuzka the Swiss aren't really any cleaner than other people, they're just better at cleaning up after themselves), and because it was very early on a Saturday morning there was no one else on the streets, so it was like walking around a ghost town. Nevertheless, Zurich struck me as a nice city; the early morning sun on the big lake was a nice sight, but I couldn't see myself living in a place like that, it just looked a little bit too nice and well looked after to be real.

It was great catching up with Sam: it was nice to be able to talk to someone about my time in Colombia who had actually been a part of the experience. Even though it's now over a year since I was working with Alcance, it felt like it could have been yesterday, and when we went and had a few drinks in Bratislava's one Latin-themed bar I could almost imagine that I was back in Bogota...

Bratislava

2008-07-25T00:54:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update... I got to Bratislava (capital of Slovakia) last night, where I was met at the bus station by Sam, a good friend of mine who I worked with in Colombia who now lives here with his wife (she's Slovak, he's Swiss) ... Bratislava doesn't look like much when you drive through the outskirts, but the centre of town is really nice, it has some beautiful old buildings and a nice peaceful feel, which is refreshing after the amount of tourists that have flooded Prague... After I arrived last night my hosts took me out for a traditional Slovak meal, which was really good, and I tried the local specialty, a softdrink called Kofola, which is best described as fizzy liquid gingerbread, and was surpisingly good (but like I said to Sam and his wife Zuzka, that probably isn't much of compliment coming from a person who can eat Vegimite straight from the jar) ... This morning Sam's gonna be my tour guide around Bratislava (kinda strange, an Australian being shown around a Slovak city by a Swiss guy he met in Colombia), then after lunch we'll head to Vienna (Austria), which is just an hour up the Danube; from Vienna we'll get the overnight train to Zurich (Switzerland), then there'll be a bit of time to check out the city before I say goodbye to Sam and Zuzka and get a connecting train to Paris, where I'll met some friends and hopefully be able to see the last day of the Tour de France...

Prague

2008-07-23T06:13:00.001-07:00

I've been in Prague for a few days now, but it's a good thing that I head to Slovakia tomorrow, cause I don't think my body could handle much more time here. The food is really good but very fatty and heavy, and Czech's seem to drink more beer than water (actually, I've been told that Czechs down 137 litres of beer per person per year, which is the most in the world). They have a good reason to drink so much though, cause Czech beer really is excellent, and it's also quite cheap compared to most things here. In terms of looks, Prague's a beautiful city, it kinda feels like you're walking around in the middle of a postcard or a storybook or something: there's heaps of old buildings and squares and courtyards, and a nice castle and some old bridges and a cathedral. The general feel of the city is quite relaxed compared to other places that I've been, and everthing's very clean, but there are some parts of town that are almost unbearable cause of the amount of tourists. Yesterday I went walking through the Old Town, and across a famous old bridge that leads up to the castle, but a couple of hours of crowds was enough for me, so I went and found a piece of forest that ran across one side of the river, where I then spent a couple of relaxing, tourist-free hours walking randomly along little forest paths. It's been nice to see one of the world's famous cities, and I've really enjoyed catching up with friends that live here (special thanks to Alenka for hosting me); my next stop is Bratislava, where I'm heading tomorrow afternoon, and from there I'll head west to France...

Wellington, NSW

2008-07-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic, so even though I've been overseas for a few days now I still haven't had time to write an entry on what I was up to before I left. My last week in Australia was spent in Wellington, a small town in the Central West of NSW, where I was working on a project called Walama Muru. The idea of the project was to break down barriers between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and it involved students from UNSW working alongside staff from Nura Gili (the Indigenous programs centre at UNSW where I've been completing my final placement for my social work degree). A group of about 30 of us spent the week working at Nanima, which is an Aboriginal community 8km out of Wellington. We did some basic stuff around town like clearing a new fire break, planting some trees, preparing a foundation for a water tank, painting a fence, and fixing up a bus shelter. It all seems like pretty simple stuff, and it is, but the local council doesn't go out to the community to do it, and the CDEP (Community Development Employment Program) that used to do that sort of stuff got closed down a few years ago. It was a good week, and an important reminder that you don't have to travel to far-off parts of the world to observe high levels of poverty, disadvantage, oppression and exclusion.

Wellington then Europe

2008-07-13T01:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written anything on here, but that's because it's been a while since I've been anywhere apart from Sydney or the Central Coast... I've had a really interesting year and a half since I left Colombia: I've been finishing off my social work degree, which has included two really worthwhile 4 month placements, the first at a mental health unit in Campbelltown, and the second with Nura Gili, the Indigenous programs centre at the University of New South Wales. I also spent about 4 months doing refugee casework with Amnesty International, which was really challenging and taught me a lot, so things certainly haven't been boring, even though I've been in the same city for over a year. Tomorrow I'm going to travel again, and it's a good feeling. I'm going to Wellington (in New South Wales, not New Zealand), where I'll spend a week working on a community project as part of my final placement for my social work degree, then the very next day I'm heading to Europe for a bit of a break and to go to a wedding (a friend's, not my own) ... Anyway, instead of writing emails I'm just gonna make the odd blog posting, so anything interesting that I do that I think's family friendly enough to be put online will be recorded here...

more moralising and sociological bullshit

2007-02-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

To close off on my time in Colombia, here´s an extract from the final report that I submitted as part of my work:

To close, I would like to impart a few thoughts about this conflict, the people it affects, and my hopes for the future. I’ve seen a lot of tears shed by and for the victims of this war (and I’ve cried a few myself); sometimes you need to cry, and it’s important that you do, but I can’t help but think that if I cried a tear for every person whose life has been destroyed by this war then I too would in effect lose my life to the war, and become yet another victim of what is a disgusting, brutal tragedy. Those of us who have been lucky enough to be spared a life that’s ruled by bullets have a chance that many people never get – the chance to act without fear of violent retribution. The good people who stand by and do nothing are in some ways as accountable for this situation as those who carry out the massacres and the crop eradications, and the key to winning the fight against social injustice is the mobilisation of those who don’t like what’s happening, but have never taken the time to do anything about it. These are good people, with good hearts, and together they can make a difference. The harsh reality is that going to the occasional protest or signing the occasional petition is not going to lead to long-term, meaningful change - what is required is a sustained, well-resourced, well-directed effort on the part of the entire community. As the steps must be small, every small victory must be celebrated, and people must accept that there are no easy answers. The question being asked needs to change from ‘What can we do?’ to ‘What are we doing?’, and Colombia – indeed, the world – needs less talk and more action. Such an effort requires a united people, one that is prepared to put politics, race, religion and class aside, and one that refuses to stop until it has achieved the ultimate: a Colombia in which the goal of ‘not one more victim’ is not a dream, but a reality.

in Brazil

2007-02-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

Right, now that I´m finally in Brazil - and officially unemployed - I´ve got a bit of time to bring you all up to date on what I´ve been up to...

My last month or so in Colombia was pretty hectic, and mostly consisted of finalising things with my work and saying a series of goodbyes to people, and then finished up with a conference in Bogotá that brought together all the project´s participants from the 10 different cities of Colombia where we were working, which was good...

After that I went back to Bucaramanga for a few days, where I pretty much just bummed around, but I had a few days left before my flight to Brazil, and Bucaramanga´s a better place to be a bum than Bogotá - it´s smaller, warmer, and the beer is cheaper...

Now I´m in Brazil (where the beer is better, but more expensive), and I´ll be here till the first few days of March, so it should be a good break...

Christmas and New Year's Eve

2007-01-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

Right, now that I'm back at work in Bucaramanga I can finally give you all a bit of an update on what I've been up to...

After spending a really productive week in Armenia working with the Pais de los Niños project I spent Christmas in Medellin, then New Year's Eve in Cali (if you don't know where these cities are then go find a map). It was a good break, and one that I think I needed (I'm really concious of burnout, which is a real problem for people in the type of work that I'm doing, so I make sure that I take time out from time to time to clear my head). The most positive outcome of the break I took is that I now feel refreshed and motivated to continue with my work here in Bucaramanga.

This coming weekend is (another) long weekend, so I'm heading up to Santa Marta on the Caribbean Coast for a few days, and maybe over to Cartagena (also on the coast) if I get the time... It'll be nice to see the ocean after more than three months in the mountains (I don't think I realised just how many mountains this country had - it's all bloody mountains), so I'm really looking forward to the trip...

So yeah, that's where things are at... I'll probably pop up with another 'sociological bullshit' post soon, as I've been busy gathering my thoughts about the whole situation here, and they're almost ready to be inflicted on you stupid bastards who take the time to read about what I've been up to...

more photos

2006-12-18T06:52:00.000-08:00

for those of you who can't be arsed reading my rambles there are now some new photos on my workmate's blog...

I've already put the link up in an earlier post, but scrolling down to find it would obviously be way too much of an effort for most of you, so here it is again: http://andrestriana.myaiesec.net/

next few weeks...

2006-12-17T10:57:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow (Monday) I leave for Armenia, where I'm gonna be working for a week on a project called Pais de los Niños (Country of the Children) ... I'll basically just be playing sports and doing cultural stuff with a group of displaced kids, so it should be a good week...

After that I'm going to Medellin to spend Christmas with some friends, then either to Cali then the coast, or straight to the coast... Still not sure... I managed to negotiate 2 weeks of holidays with my boss (I think I was only supposed to get 1), so hopefully that'll be enough time to see a few of the things I want to see...

I get back to Bucaramanga around the 5th or 6th of Jan, then on the 20th I leave here for the project's closing conference in Bogotá ... I leave Colombia for Brazil on the 2nd of Feb, then back to uni in Sydney by the end of the first week of March...

I think this is pretty much the same as an entry I put up a while back, but you get that...

a few beers...

2006-12-07T06:59:00.000-08:00

Here are some thoughts on going out for a few beers in Colombia:

The other night a few mates and I went out few a few beers at my favourite bar, El Rancho. The beer is draught, which is hard to find in Colombia, and the glass sizes are 500mL or one litre, depending on what sort of mood you're in; the danger of glasses this big is that you can go out for '3 beers', and end up pissed, but the plus side is that when your boss asks you why you're not at all with it the next day you can reply: 'I have no idea why I feel like this - I went out last night, but I only had 3 beers!!!'

Anyway, the point of this post isn't to talk about glass sizes in El Rancho - it's to talk about the little kid that came around selling chips, nuts and smokes, and the thoughts that this generated.

At about 11pm, a little kid (no older than about 10) came around to our table with his tray of things for sale; I was hungry, so I bought some chips from him, and didn't give it a second thought. A few minutes later my friend Johan (a crazy bastard from the Caribbean Coast, but a top guy) asked me: 'Do you have that in Australia - little kids walking around alone, selling stuff in bars at 11 at night?' Obviously my answer was no, cause that doesn't happen in Australia, but it made me realise something that I've been aware of for a while now, but have never really expressed - I've become desensitised to extreme poverty and social injustice.

The first time that I witnessed extreme poverty was in Brazil in 2001, and it really gave me the shits; but a total of 10 months in Brazil (spread over about 3 years), and another 3 months in Colombia have meant that it is so normal for me to see such extreme poverty every day that it fails to have the impact on me that it once did. If I can become so highly desensitised to something in a total time of just over one year, then I can only imagine the level of desensitisation that must take place in the mind of a person who has lived their entire life in a country in which extreme poverty can be seen on every street corner. When you see this sort of shit every day the only way to deal with it is to accept it as normal, because if you cried a tear for every person you saw living in utter shit then you'd never put down your box of tissues. Desensitisation seems to me to be a natural defence mechanism that the human brain generates so that it can continue to function, despite the challenging circumstances that it is forced to confront. Humans have an amazing capacity for survival and self-preservation, and this sort of reaction to situations that present fundamental challenges to a person's conception of what is fair and just is an example of how we - often subconsciously - defend ourselves from the world around us.

The most dangerous result of this type of desensitisation is that it can succeed in normalising states of existence that are clear violations of fundamental human rights principles. If something becomes too normal it also eventually becomes acceptable, and the result can be a level of apathy that leads to a failure to act. I am constantly reminding myself that what I am seeing might be normal, but that doesn't mean that it's okay, and if I do nothing or say nothing then I am no better than those who actively work to maintain conditions of extreme poverty because such conditions advance their own self-interest - in fact, I am worse than they are, because I can see it, disagree with it, have the opportunity to act, and still do nothing. That is why I do things, because this situation is shit, and if nobody does anything about it then it's never going to change - somebody has to do something, so why the hell not me?

The bottom line is that these people are people. They are all humans, and the only thing that differentiates them from me is that I was lucky enough to be born into a relatively wealthy family in a rich country - one sperm the other way and I could just as easily have been born into some Colombian slum, or a Brazilian favela, or caught up in the middle of some fucked up civil war in Africa. I got lucky, and what I choose to do with that luck is a decision that only I can make...

Right, that's enough for now - Funky Colombian Monkey, when you do my archives please file this post under 'moralising and sociological bullshit' ... Haha...

current plans

2006-12-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

hey, this will just be a quick update to let you all (or at least those of you who give a toss) know what I'm likely to be up to for the next few weeks...

the current plan is to leave Bucaramanga on about the 20th of December, head to Armenia for a few days to help out my friends Victor (Chile) and Nico (Colombia) with a really interesting project that they've put together... It's basically working with poor kids to try and spread a bit of Christmas cheer, so that should be good... After that it's up to Medellin to spend Christmas with the rest of the Alcance Social interns (and whoever else comes), then to either Cali or Cartagena for New Year's Eve... If I go to Cali then I'll head to Cartagena from there, and either way I'll head from Cartagena to Santa Marta... After Santa Marta it's back down to Bucaramanga to finish up work (first few weeks of Jan), then off to Bogotá for Alcance Social's closing conference in the last week or so of January... I'll have a few days in Bogotá after the conference to say some goodbyes, then on the 2nd of Feb I'm off to Brazil for a month of doing sweet fuck all... I plan to spend most of that month on the beach and on the turps (for non-Australians, turps=piss=cans=booze=grog=sauce=ALCOHOL) ...

all good, hope that's brought people up to date... I'll add a more work-orientated post soon...

a big shout out to all, especially the funky colombian monkey (you pack of tools) ...

photos

2006-11-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

I know I've been pretty slack with putting photos up here (I do have heaps), and cause I really can't be arsed doing it right now I'm just going to put up a link to the blog of my workmate, Andres.

It's all in Spanish, but the photos aren't, so if you go to http://andrestriana.myaiesec.net/ you'll see some photos of the conference in Bogotá (the first week of the project), a few from our office here in Bucaramanga, and some from our rafting trip to San Gil...

best news I've had in months

2006-11-23T15:35:00.000-08:00

I found a TV station here that comes from the Carribean that's going to broadcast the entire Ashes series live!!!!!!!!!!

This is what a friend of mine would call 'phenominchable' news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't know what the Ashes are don't worry, it's not your fault - it's probably got a lot to do with the nationality printed on the front page of your passport...

Caving in San Gil

2006-11-19T13:09:00.000-08:00

Hey, I know this is a bit late (I was in San Gil about 2 weeks ago), but I've been busy, so this is the first chance I've had to put this entry up...

This follows on from the rafting entry (we went rafting in the morning, then caving in the afternoon) ...

Caving: After a bit of lunch and rest we headed back up into the mountains for the caving expedition. I had managed to pop my ear when we capsized the raft earlier in the day, but a few painkillers from the chemist helped, and we went into the operator's office to register. When I was told earlier in the day that we were going 'to visit a cave' I had imagined something like Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains (if you don't know where these caves are and you give enough of toss to look it up, just go to Google - if you're Australian and you don't know where they are then I suggest you forget Google and simply go back to school). Anyway, I thought these caves would be big, well-lit, dry, and relatively elderly couple/expecting mother/life-long claustrophobic (a.k.a. me)-friendly. My first clue that the caves might be a bit more full-on than this was the arrangement of miner's helmets and protective jackets that were laid out in front of the operator's office; the second clue was the consent form we had to sign, which asked for our blood type, and specifically stated that claustrophobics, people who couldn't swim, people with pretty much any semi-serious medical condition, and expecting mothers weren't allowed to enter the cave. The final clue (and the giveaway) was a photo board in the office that displayed a range of photos of people in the cave. These people weren't walking around well-lit caverns with their children and their elderly relatives - they were crawling on their stomachs through tiny gaps, and up to their waists in muddy water. By this point I was pretty sure I wasn't going to enjoy this, but I though, "Fuck that, I've already paid, and I'm buggered if I know when I'll be back here, so why the hell not?” Maybe it was the pain killers that I took for my ear that were talking, or maybe I was still drunk from the night before and delirious from a lack of sleep - either way, I decide to go into the cave...

So, we got fitted out with our helmets, our protective jackets, and our harnesses (why did we need to wear a harness...?), and followed our guide down to the cave's entrance. Surprise Number 1: The only way into the cave was by flying fox (thus explaining the harness. In turn, we all leaped off the rock platform where the flying fox started, and made it safely to the entrance of the cave. It was here that the instructors gave us the run down of what we'd be doing: he also delivered Surprise Number 2. Surprise Number 2: The way out would have a lot in common with the way in, but with water, and without a harness. With the major surprises out of the way, and everyone happy to proceed, we said goodbye to the daylight and went into the cave.

The first part was fairly basic: just keep your head low and your eyes forward, and you’ll be fine. We went through a big part of the cave that was full of bats; we sat for a while with our helmet torches off to experience total darkness; and we got wet up to our waists where there was no other option. This was all fairly normal and what I had expected (at least after I had revised my original expectations), but what came next was a bit more of a challenge. The instructors decided it would be fun if we moved through the cave in total darkness, so we all turned our headlamps off and put a hand on the back of the person in front of us. Step by step we moved forward into nothing, feeling around above our heads for variations in the height of the roof, and completely dependent on the person in front of us for a description of the lay of the muddy, uneven floor; we continued like this for what seemed like a long time, but it was probably no more than 10 minutes. The instructors eventually said that we could turn our lamps back on, and they invited us to look back at where we’d been walking. What I’d thought was a tiny, narrow passage was actually a reasonably large space, and with even a small amount of light it would have been easy to navigate. It was frightening to realise just how much your perception of an environment can change with the loss of just one sense – unable to see, everything had seemed far more enclosed and uncertain, and the level of reliance each of us had on the person in front of us was both unnerving and empowering.

The next challenge was a part of the cave that was only a metre (or less) high, which meant that we had to push ourselves through on our stomachs; I was only on my stomach for a minute or so, but during those 60 seconds I was highly conscious of the fact that I was close to 800 metres below the earth’s surface…

The final part of the cave was the best. To get out, we had to swim about 30 metres through a tunnel, and then jump off a four metre platform into an underground rock pool. It was just like something out of an Indiana Jones movie (only we weren’t searching for lost artefacts, no one was chasing us with rifles, and Carlos was the only one of us with a pretty girl in tow), and I reckon it’ll take something pretty spectacular to beat swimming through an underground tunnel as the most fun thing I do during my time here in Colombia…

That night we celebrated Carlos’s birthday by drinking a bottle of vodka in the park… Colombian vodka’s not the best, but it’s no worse than the crap that we hand over the bar in the nightclub that I work in (Hi Troppo) … After we finished the bottle it was time to catch up on the sleep that none of us had had the night before, so most of us went to bed (I think Ranko, Jean and Amit took a bit of time to finish off the bottle of rum that Amit had brought with him…) … Oh, and an earlier highlight of that night was the amazingly slow meal we had (customer service obviously wasn’t this place’s priority, and the food was crap, so I’m buggered if I know how they’re still open… My guess is that the place is a front…) … The only thing that made the meal memorable was that we got to share it with a crazy old guy that spent the best part of half an hour staring blankly at us through the window…

quick update

2006-11-17T13:59:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks have been pretty packed, and I'm short on time, so instead of trying to write it all down in detail, I'll just give a basic rundown...

The week after coming back from San Gil (I'll put up the caving story when I get time) I worked for a few days, then that weekend I went to Armenia with my favourite drinking buddy, Mayo. The 12 hour bus trip through the mountains was painful (you try sleeping when a bus is making 180 degree turns every minute or so), but it was definately worth it. Armenia is a small city in the heart of Colombia's richest coffee producing zone, and has some pretty amazing scenery, and really great people. It was a long weekend, and the plan was to leave on Monday night, but we decided to stay another day, which was good, cause it meant that I got the chance to got to go to Acción Social's territorial unit in Armenia, where my friends Victor and Nicolas work. It was interesting to see just how different things can be in the same country. The Coffee Zone seems a lot calmer (the territorial unit in Armenia maintains one Attention and Orientation Unit (UAO), (in Bucaramanga there are three), and everything seems a lot more organised...

This week at work has also been far more positive. I'm now spending most of my time actually working with people, not just in the office, which is really good. Since there was no real set role for me here when I came, I've been able to pretty much do what I want (within a certain framework, naturally). A real positive is that my Spanish is finally at a level where I can work relatively independently, so I'm now able to direct my energies into things that genuinely interest me. Most of this week has been spent conducting structured interviews with displaced people (the structure is provided by the government), and it's been a good chance to hear people's current reality and past experiences (most of which are horrific) direct from their mouths, and not just from a book or a policy document. These interviews have been a good experience, but I still find them very structured, and the amount of people that are always waiting to be interviewed means that there are constant time contraints. To remedy this problem, I've started planning some discussion/focus groups that I'm going to conduct in the UAOs. The idea is that the discussions will be informal, and the groups will be small. There will be no set 'yes' or 'no' questions, and all information will be completely anonymous (no names will be taken); I plan to provide a few general themes for discussion, and then just see where the discussion heads... Hopefully that way the things that are discussed will be what the people actually want to discuss, and not simply what the interview questions say they have to answer... Eventually, I'd also like to involve students from local universities in these discussions, but that's a more long-term goal...

I think that's enough for now... I'll add some photos when I get around to it...

Rafting in San Gil

2006-11-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

San Gil's a nice city: it's got pretty mountains, a peaceful river, some nice colonial buildings, and a relaxing park. But really, who gives a toss, cause you can see this sort of stuff in plenty of places in Colombia. The real reason people go to San Gil is cause it's the adventure capital of Colombia. Early Sunday morning (about 5am) we met up with Kelly (a Colombian intern with the project, and also Carlos Leon's lucky girlfriend - trust me girls, the guy's a catch), and got the bus to San Gil (just over 2 hours from Bucaramanga). Once we arrived, we had a bit of breakfast to remedy some hangovers from the night before (mine hangover hadn't hit yet, cause I still hadn't slept), and checked into a cheap hotel while Carlos went and checked out some prices with the adventure tour companies. We eventually settled on a 50,000 peso (AUD$28) deal that was made up of whitewater rafting in the morning and caving in the afternoon, and headed down to the tour operator's office to register for our rafting trip.

Rafting: after a bit of a wait while the rafts were prepared, we were taken high up on the Rio Fonce. We had a quick chat about safety, learnt some basic paddle maneuvers, and ten minutes later we were on our way down the river with our instructor, Mario. The rapids on the part of the river we were on go up to level 3, and apparently when the river is higher (in October and April) they reach level 4. It started off pretty easy, in fairly calm water, but as we got further down the river the rapids picked up in intensity, and it got more fun. About half way down the river, Mario suggested that it would be a good learning experience to capsize the raft in a rapid so that we could practice our rescue techniques, and this was probably the most fun part of the time on the raft. After that we got to float outside of the boat for about 20 minutes which was really relaxing, and probably the highlight of the morning. It felt really good to be able to spend some time outside of the city after a full month in Bucaramanga - it was a similar sort of feeling to the relief I feel every time the train from the city gets to the Hawksebury, which for me marks the start of the Coast...

Next update will be caving...

long weekend

2006-11-08T14:11:00.000-08:00

Right, since I've been receiving a few complaints that this blog has been full of "moralising and sociological bullshit" (to quote one of the highly sensitive individuals that commented on one of the entries), I've decided to include something that has absolutely nothing to do with the work I've been doing.

This long weekend a few of the other interns from the project came to visit Bucaramanga and to go to San Gil, which is a town that's just over two hours away, famous for whitewater rafting, caving, abseiling, rockclimbing and paragliding. On Saturday morning, Sam (Switwzerland), Ranko (Holland), Amit (India) and Jean-Maxime (the French part of Canada) arrived in Bucaramanga at about 6am, but since I slept in, I went and met up with them a few hours later. During the morning I took them to Girón, which is a small colonial town near Bucaramanga, and then in the afternoon we met up with Carlos Leon (from Bucaramanga, and the virtual dialogue manager for the project we're working on), Christian (another intern who's working in Bogotá), and Andres (the Colombian guy I'm working with) The plan was to head out to a town called Piedecuesta and use it as a jumping-off point for another town, but we ran out of time, so we decided to spend a few hours in Piedecuesta instead. There's not really that much to do in Piedecuasta, so we ended up going to a tejo club to have a few beers. Tejo is a game that's quite popular here in Colombia, and played mostly by men (I didn't see a single woman in the place we were in, so it's clearly not a place to go if you want to pick up - in fact, the only thing you're likely to pick up is a viral infection from the open urinal). It's a pretty simple game that involves lobbing an iron weight at a raised platform made of mud, in the centre of which is a small triangle of phosphorus that's placed on top of a small metal ring. The idea is to get the weight to hit the phosphorus so that it explodes and burns. Some people take it pretty seriously, but I think that for most men it nothing more than an excuse to spend the afternoon on the piss with their mates, away from the watchful eye of their wife or girlfriend. Either way, it was fun to try it, but I can't see myself getting hooked - it's not the most interesting game in the world, and once the initial thrill of making something explode wears of it's even less interesting. It's a lot like lawn bowls, in that the main attraction is that it's a game that even the least fit of us can play - and you can even do it while you get on the piss.

first two weeks of work

2006-10-22T14:09:00.000-07:00

This week has been interesting and challenging - interesting in that I've now had the chance to see both sides of Accion Social's operations, and challenging in that I've been confronted with a system in which I still struggle to see any clear role that I can play. The coming week is based on the development of a role description, so hopefully in a week's time I'll have a far clearer idea of exactly what I'll be doing here...

One positive to come out of this week was that we finally got a chance to work directly with victims of internal displacement; unfortunately, this was still in what was essentially an administrative capacity. The service that the UAOs (Attention and Orientation Units) provide is highly process-oriented, and the majority of the interaction between the staff (including myself) and the victims of internal displacement is based on the collection of documents and the completion of forms. To me, this isn't social work, it's administration, and it provides little scope for the provision of psychosocial assistance. This type of assistance (psychosocial) is supposed to come later - what the Territorial Unit and the UAOs provide is essentially an initial point of call and a future point of reference for the displaced population. Over the course of the next week I hope that, with the help of my supervisor, I will be able to define a role that allows for a combination of this kind of administrative work (which, due to the structure of the project, is unavoidable), and more hands-on work - possibly with a social worker or a psychologist. I'm still not sure if this will be possible, but I guess I'll know within a week...

my saturday afternoon

2006-10-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

This afternoon (Saturday 14/10/06) provided what was both the most confronting and the most positive experience that I've had since I've been away.

One of the girls who works for AIESEC in Bucaramanga also does some work for a local church that works a lot with marginalised communities in the area, so I went along with her to see what they do. Monday (now today as I type this into the blog) is the international day of 'no hunger', so I went with Natalia and her group of volunteers to a poor (and I mean REALLY poor) community to deliver meals to the families and their children in honour of it being 'no hunger day' on the Monday. The community is only 20 minutes out of Bucaramanga (which is itself only a small city), but it could have been on another planet. The cluster of homes is tucked in behind an industrial estate and a truck depot, and fits all the stereotypes that come to mind when you try to visualise total poverty - houses made out of scraps of discarded wood and corrugated iron; narrow, unpaved, potholed streets; mangy, stray dogs wandering around or asleep under whatever shelter they can find; the ever-present smell of unnfiltered diesel fumes mixed in with mud; more people than there seems to be space; and more children than there seem to be parents. Of course, a lot of the parents aren't there because they're dead or missing, as many of these people are internally displaced - victims of the ongoing armed conflict between government forces (including the national police and the armed forces), guerilla groups, paramilitaries, and private secirity forces. What remains of the families (usually the women, the elderly and the children) flee the violence in the countryside to seek refuge in the big cities, only to end up living in squalor on the periphery of a society that has little room for them, and find themselves at odds with an increasingly industrialised and commercialised economy that has limited need for their skills, which are primarily in agriculture and domestic work. Some do find work; some try to sell newspapers and lollies on footpaths and at traffic lights; some become beggars; others... I'm not sure.

There is so much to be done, and so many people are affected by this problem, but what the church is doing - reaching out to people in need, and trying to work with them on their own terms (I could launch into a diatribe about the paternalistic nature of welfare, but I won't) - is a positive step, because at least it acknowledges that there is a problem. This experience really forced me to confront the situation that I am here to understand, and made me realise that, no matter how small what you do may seem, something is better than nothing - in this sense, despite the confronting nature of seeing such extreme poverty with my own eyes, today was indeed a positive experience.

work: week one

2006-10-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I've had my fist week of work, and to be honest, I'm really not sure exactly what my role here will be. This week was based on learning how the UT (Territorial Unit) operates, so the focus was on administration and organisational structure. The UT here in Bucaramanga supports three UAOs (Attention and Orientation Units), which are where next week will be based. It's in these units that most of the 'coal face' work gets done, which interests me far more than anything that may happen in the central office - I came to Colombia to work with people, not with numbers, or names on forms. The UAOs are the key points of contact for internally displaced people that are seeking government assistance (I should point out here that to be eligible for government assistance the displacement must have been due to the armed conflict - displacement as a result of natural disasters, economic factors or development in rural areas doesn't count); from what I understand, the UAOs are over-stretched and under-funded, so working in them should be a real challenge. I hope that at the end of this coming week I'll have a better understanding of the full picture, and more of an idea as to what my role/impact here can/will be.

first week of the project

2006-10-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

The first week of the project was spent in Bogota with all 25 participants (minus two from India and one from Russia who were having visa problems), and was basically a huge information dump about the issue of forced internal displacement in Colombia so as to bring everyone up to speed with the current reality in which we'll be working. It was all in Spanish, which was pretty intense, but after while it became more normal, and I was able to get an idea of the issue of forced displacement and what's being done to address it.

The basic idea of the project (called 'Alcance Social') is to create awareness of the issue of forced displacement in Colombia (forced displacement, as defined by the Colombian govenment, is displacement that has come about as a result of the internal armed conflict in Colombia - basically, people who have fled their homes in the countryside due to fear of death at the hands of armed groups and have come to the cities to seek refuge). The idea is that each Colombian intern will be paired up with an international intern (I'll be working with a guy called Andres), and the various pairings will work with the government programs that work with displaced people in 10 different cites around Colombia.

We got a lot of info and it was a pretty intense week, but it was also great to meet and get to know all the other participants, who are a great bunch of people. The days were hard work absorbing all the information, but the nighttime activities were all based around getting to know the city of Bogota, as well as each other. We did some tourist-like stuff, as well as hitting a good selection of bars and clubs so we could get to know each other in a less serious environment, which was good. The social highlight was Friday night's trip on the 'chiva', which is a party bus that you can hire out that drives around to various nightspots in Bogota until the driver finally gets sick of all the drinking and dancing and music and drops you off at the main nightclub strip. 40 plus people drinking and dancing in the back of an old wooden bus is pretty crazy, and there's always going to be casualties: one poor girl fell while she was dancing and hurt her leg... she had a nasty bruise (and a nastier hangover!) the next day...

Saturday was the last day of the conference, and that afternoon/night we all split up in our pairings to go to the cities where we'd be working. With Andres, I got the bus from Bogota at 10pm, and slept all the way to Bucaramanga, where we arrived at about six in the morning. The AIESEC members picked us up at the bus terminal, cooked us breakfast, then left us to rest, cause the next day would be the first day of work...

First few days in Colombia

2006-10-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

My first few days in Bogota went something like this:

Thursday night (28/10/06): arrived at the airport where I was received by people from AIESEC (the organisation that's oganising the project I'll be working with). They then took me to a guy called Felipe's place, who was my host for the first few days. That night I went out with Felipe and some friends of his to a bar nearby, where I had my first taste of aguadiente, which is a spirit made from cane and flavoured with aniseed. In bars you buy it by the bottle then just serve yourself shots, so it can fuck you up pretty quick!!!

Friday: Felipe showed me round downtown Bogota, and we took a cable car to the top of Monserrate, which is about 3000m above sea level (Bogota is about 2500m), which gives a pretty awesome view of the city. We then walked around the old part of the city (La Candelaria), where we drank a chicha, which is a homemade drink made by fermenting fruit or maize in sugar - the right combination can be pretty nasty, and it's one of those bastard drinks that gets you drunk from the toes up, so you don't realise how smashed you are till you try and get up and walk out the door!!

Saturday was a bit more tourism, then a night out at a salsa bar so I could practice my dance steps...

On Sunday it was time to stop playing tourist, cause it was time to go to the hotel where all the participants of the project would be staying for the first week... The first afternoon was just a meet and greet and pretty relaxed. It was a good chance to get to know the other people that'll be working in the project (25 people from 12 countries - 10 Colombians and 15 internationals, who'll work in groups of two of three in 10 different cities around Colombia).

To sum up the first few days: it was great to have a look around Bogota and meet some great people... and a massive thanks to Felipe for being an awesome host...

The flight and Argentina

2006-10-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

Hey, this is the first entry I've made since I've been away, so I'm going to have to backtrack a little bit...

I left Sydney at about 9am on 26 September, then spent the best part of a day in a plane somewhere above the Pacific Ocean en route to Buenos Aires...

Buenos Aires: I was in Buenos Aires for about a week in 2003 (I think it was 2003...), and to be honest, not much has changed... The peso has lost a bit of ground on the dollar, which I'm assuming accounts for the ridiculous amount of bad mullets around the place (no money = less to spend on haircuts), although what they don't spend on haircuts they seem to spend on cigarettes, which are everywhere... Maradonna is a God, and so's Che Guevara (don't bother trying to debate either - turns out the rules of soccer actually DO allow for the ball to go off the attacker's hand and be counted as a goal) ... It's a very European-looking city compared to other parts of Latin America I've been to, and it was nice to spend a day or so walking around... The best bit for me was the Recoleta Cemetery, where all the really rich and important people in Buenos Aires move when they die. It's huge, and is more like a little town than a cemetery... The monuments are as tall as 20 feet, and you feel like you're walking through well maintained suburban streets, not a graveyard... Actually, I reckon the rich of Buenos Aires live better in the next world than most of the rest of the population do in this one...

After a day and two nights in central Buenos Aires I got the bus back out to the airport to get my plane to Bogota, which will be the next post...

Oh yeah, a tip for anyone planning on going to Buenos Aires: Ignore all the taxi drivers at the airport offering you a good value taxi fare to the centre of the city - the fares they offer are reasonable, but there is a local bus (#86) that goes into town for about five percent of what you'll pay the taxi driver...

first post - still in Australia

2006-09-20T22:58:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

As you'll probably know if you're on this page, I'm heading off to Colombia in a few days to spend 4 months working on a project called 'Alcance Social', which deals with victims of internal displacement in Colombia.

Instead of sending out massive group emails, I've decided to have an online diary instead. I'll try to post on here as regularly as possible, so if you're wondering what I'm up to, then just log on and have a look...