Busstories 7: A Missed Opportunity
- lisaluger
- Aug 28, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 26, 2023
-Encounter on the journey from Popayan to Pasto, Colombia, March 2015-.
My husband David and I had to get up early to catch the 6 am bus to Pasto. We could easily imagine what awaited us. Since the bus had left Bogota eight hours ago, it would be packed, and the air inside would be bad from the odours from the passengers who had been asleep for eight hours. We fervently hoped to get decent seats for the six-hour journey to Pasto. Everything else was secondary. Luckily, a few people got off in Popayan, and we hurriedly squeezed into the nearest available seats. The fact that we wouldn’t be sitting next to each other didn’t matter. On the contrary, that’s how you always meet new people.
But at this time of day, most passengers were asleep, wrapped in their blankets. So was my seat neighbour. I tried to get a first impression of him by looking at his clothes. when
I guessed that he was an old indigenous farm labourer. But unfortunately, I couldn’t see much of him because he wore an old poncho that also covered his face. He also wore a typical hat of the kind I had often seen on the indigenous men of southern Colombia. In my neighbour’s case, this hat had an important function. It fixed the poncho so that it could not slip off. So, for now, I couldn’t expect a conversation with the indigenous farm worker, so I turned my attention to the landscape.
The Andes are spectacular. High mountains, deep abysses and narrow serpentines. I could never get enough of it.
After a while, my neighbour woke up and was stretching. He was emotionless that suddenly a gringa, a blond foreigner, was sitting next to him. Obviously, this meant he would spend the next few hours silently contemplating the landscape. What else could you do with such a gringa next to you?!
I was used to such indifference. I had experienced all too often that locals automatically assumed that a blonde gringa didn’t speak Spanish and was just an ignorant tourist disinterested in the lives of the locals anyway.
I took a closer look at his profile and realised that he was not old, but at most in his early 60s. In other words, just like me. This time I was irritated that a Colombian of my generation was so disinterested. I was tempted to correct his view of the world a little.
Friendly and in my best Spanish, I commented on the beautiful landscape and fog covering the valley. And lo and behold, it worked. Surprised, he looked up, and we started talking.
Soon it was my turn to admit my error. It turned out that this supposed indigenous old farm worker was a very active, committed and innovative contemporary from whom I could experience and learn a lot.
He was one of the leaders of an indigenous community in the Putumayo region, near the Ecuadorian and Peruvian border. And so, I learned firsthand about many significant problems in this region.
Putumayo is a province where coca is grown. More than 50 per cent of Colombia’s total production is grown in Putumayo. Therefore, this area has become the strategic centre of the government’s anti-drug plan in cooperation with the USA. This so-called “Plan Colombia” provides for the indiscriminate aerial spraying of herbicides to eradicate coca plantations.
However, during this anti-drug war with herbicides, no attention is paid to sparing fruit, vegetables, bushes, and trees or not contaminating the rivers’ water, making drinking water and fish unconsumable. These actions not only drive coca producers to ruin but, above all, innocent inhabitants of the region into abject poverty. As a result, many now see flight as their only chance of survival.
At the same time, different armed groups, from the Colombian military and paramilitaries to the guerrilla groups FARC and ELN, compete for control of the area.
My seatmate reported that the indigenous communities were caught in the middle of the witch’s cauldron of violence, human rights abuses, economic ruin, environmental destruction, and recruitment by both guerrillas and paramilitaries.
The longer we talked about his work in an indigenous community in this highly problematic and contested region, the more impressed I was with his personality.
As it turned out, he had first studied psychology, then ethnology, but later also completed a business degree to acquire the necessary know-how to serve his community in a dignified and competent manner.
He was also a member of a special working group of indigenous community leaders who developed strategies and projects for economic improvement and ethnic identity with the Colombian government as part of an indigenous development programme. He was on his way back from Bogota, where he had successfully secured the continuation of the development programme for his community for another three years.
I was particularly fascinated by the view of the ethnic identity formation of the indigenous communities.
An external reason for these communities’ awareness of their indigenous identity is to prevent recruiting of young men and the poor by paramilitaries and guerrillas. The offers are tempting – money and power. Who could resist?
My interlocutor explained that the working group of indigenous community leaders considers the emphasis on shared values and commonality among indigenous tribes as a certain protection against the temptations of violent groups.
Interestingly, commonality was also an essential strategy in his community when punishing someone who had broken the law.
Their concept is not to isolate the offender by putting him in prison. Isolation is exclusion from the community and is therefore considered the worst punishment, which would only lead to hatred, envy and hostility, which is counterproductive, I was told. Instead of excluding the lawbreaker and isolating him in prison, the community should intensively care for the offender, find out the causes of his criminal act or antisocial behaviour and help him to become a fully respected member of the community.
I was very impressed by this approach. After all, I had just finished a research paper on health care in prison in England and discovered many shortcomings in this custodial system, which is geared towards isolation and punishment rather than social rehabilitation.
We could definitely learn a lot from such and similar approaches. I was electrified and saw in my imagination many opportunities for cooperation.
This new justice project was only in its early stages, but the other programmes’ economic and health improvements were already promising results.
My bus neighbour probably felt the same way I did. Then, unexpectedly, two like-minded people met who could support each other in their work.
He invited me and my husband to visit his district (another 6-hour bus ride south) and see the programmes and their successes on site. We could also discuss how and whether we could cooperate on research projects. Fantastic prospects opened up! I was about to jump into a new big exciting project! But I didn’t jump, and I regret that to this day.
Still in Colombia, we didn’t have time, or so we thought, to drive another six hours south to get to know the projects. After all, we were almost on our way home again.
At home in England, the manifold, more or less significant demands of everyday life displaced my vision of cooperation with the indigenous working group in Colombia.
I can’t shake off the feeling that I missed an opportunity for a meaningful and entirely new task. (LL)
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