What the FARC?

If you cared enough to check out this blog, or you simply scroll through the Facebook News Feed frequently enough that you accidentally clicked on my link, you are also probably aware that a couple of weeks ago Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos signed a peace deal with the FARC rebel forces. What even more people are aware of is that Colombian citizens, through a plebiscite or popular vote, rejected this deal. But what you might not know is what the hell FARC is, what a peace deal would mean specifically, why Colombians rejected it, and what all that means now. Well plug in your charger and brew some tariffed Colombian coffee, because you’re about to get educated.

When the FARC?

Protesting Gaitan's assassination in the Plaza de Bolivar,
where yours truly has been multiple times.

Back before anyone realized America wasn’t great anymore, say 1948, incredibly popular Liberal Party presidential candidate Jorge Gaitán was assassinated, triggering the Bogotazo, a series of violent protests and riots within the capitol that eventually plunged it and the country into what’s known as La Violencia, a ten year civil war claiming the lives of between 200,000 and 300,000 citizens. This civil war pitted the Liberal and Conservative parties against each other, something Americans can unfortunately relate to more and more these days.

Just normal Violencia happenings.

You see, Colombia was, and still is, a country with incredible inequality. Rural folks who had seen their lands sold off to pay for national debts were naturally pissed. And in a time of suppression against opposition to the elite, Gaitán represented the little dude, of which there were many in the country. After his assassination, shit hit the fan because the people had had enough. After the initial Bogotazo and Violencia, FARC – inspired by the Cuban revolutions of the 1950s and composed originally by mostly rural farmers and peasants – demanded rights and control over their land. The Colombian government at the time sent an army to break up the revolution, thus beginning the clash between rebels and the government.

Who the FARC?

FARC forces accepted both women and underage
soldiers, although they deny forcefully recruiting anyone.

Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia was formally formed around ’64 after the encounter mentioned above and is an armed Communist group following Marxist-Leninist ideology. Their fight is against the Colombian government and armed forces. But like most armed conflicts, the casualties have been mostly civilian. Since its inception, the conflict between establishment and guerrillas has resulted in another 200,000+ deaths. They get their funding primarily from cocaine manufacturing and/or trafficking. But they have also resorted to kidnapping and extortion. Indeed, last year I stayed at a woman’s house through Airbnb who had once been kidnapped and held for six months because her father was a wealthy banker. The FARC have been nearly impossible to eliminate because they mainly stick to the rural jungle areas that official government forces are far less familiar with. Though with the help of U.S. tactics and weaponry (because we love to get involved) the beginning of the millennium saw many of FARC’s primary leaders taken out and their numbers reduced. The juicy history here is that Santos, the current president praised for coming to this agreement with FARC, was the minister of defense for some of that time, tasked with cracking down on them. Today, there are an estimated 6,000 active fighters, a far cry from their heyday of the late 1990s and early 2000s when they were stomping through jungles with 20,000.

How the FARC?

So how did this here peace deal come about? Well, actually, there have been multiple attempts in the past, but neither side was willing to budge too much. The most recent accord signed this September 26^th  was a product of four years of negotiations, concessions made by the Colombian government, and aging FARC leaders who probably feel the weight of time and money playing for the other team. But it was signed! 

President Santos (left) with Londoño (right)

Everyone was there in Havana; UN leaders, John Kerry, Santos, and FARC leaders like commander Rodrigo Londoño. Everyone wore white, smoked cigars, smiled, took photos. All it would take now was for the Colombian people to vote it into reality and the country could begin to put the past behind them. September 26^th was to be made a national holiday, as if we don’t have enough. That is, until last Sunday when the Colombian people ultimately voted NO.  

Why the FARC?

How did this happen? Everyone I knew was voting YES, all polls suggested a wide margin of victory for the YES vote, and celebrations were being prepared for both government and FARC leaders. I remember telling Nathan and Steven, the new BVC volunteers here in Bogota this year, that for sure the YES vote would win. It was basically a piece of paper that asked, “Do you want peace?” Yes or No. Who would vote against that rhetoric?

It might have had something to do with the former president, Alvaro Uribe, and his very public opposition to the deal, calling it too weak. Sound like a resentful former prez who couldn’t get the job done? Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s actually look at this peace accord. First of all, the FARCin’ thing is nigh on 300 pages long. So neither you, nor I, nor most of the world will have read the whole deal. So I’ll summarize the main parts. Basically, had the deal gone through, the Colombian government would have pledged to invest heavily in the impoverished rural areas that gave rise to the FARC, improving roads, schools, clinics, other infrastructure necessities, etc. In return, FARC would have had 6 months to meet with UN officials to turn in their weapons. They also promised to get out of cocaine smuggling. They would have to help the army locate and destroy all the landmines that made the group so difficult and dangerous to look for. And finally, they had to apologize to their victims and confess their crimes before a tribunal.  

But that last part is why the NO vote won. You see, the FARC were seen as responsible not only for those hundreds of thousands killed, but also for all of the children without parents, families and communities displaced, towns destroyed or commandeered and otherwise controlled areas. The FARC’s end game might have been to take down the government, but by means of taking advantage of civilians everywhere. With that in mind, people paid attention to the part about them confessing their crimes. Why? Because, according to the deal, if these dudes confessed before a tribunal, they could then avoid being charged for said crimes, a potential reality that many were opposed to. After all they did, many wanted to see them behind bars, or worse.

But that brings us to what I think are the two saddest realities of the vote’s result, other than the obvious one about peace being rejected. First up is finding out how the vote shook out regionally. Let’s say you were affected by the FARC’s actions, had a family member killed, town destroyed, or something along those lines. You’d probably want the FARC leaders killed, jailed, etc., right? Well check out this graphic that shows how some of the most affected districts of the country voted. Some pretty strong YES’s there. Seems like a lot of people just want the fighting to stop. Obviously, not all the regions directly affected voted YES. But most of the most negatively impacted ones did, which I’m sure made the overall result even harder to swallow for them.

But what makes that even sadder is the voter turnout. As you can see, the NO vote won with 50.2% to the 49.8% of YES votes. Insanely slim margins! Many YES hopefuls were understandably left speechless. What I and many others find to be heartbreaking about that statistic is that only 37% of the valid voters showed up. You read that right. In a vote that is supposed to represent true democracy where every legal of age citizen gets a vote, even more legitimate than the U.S. presidential election (electoral college what?), over 63% of those voters didn’t show. Why? Probably a zillion reasons. You can go on and on about how maybe voting wasn't easily accessible in poorer rural areas, or how maybe most were already convinced that the YES vote would win by a wide margin. Whatever the reasons, the fact that so few people showed up to the polls is sad, and should hopefully speak to some Americans who are thinking of sitting this election out. I don’t want to attract attention away from the rest of this blog post, however average it most definitely is. But, results like this show that showing up does matter, something that should make you rethink staying home in November.

What the FARC?

So now, what’s going to happen? Do we return to war? Does the ceasefire get called off, everyone dusts off their howitzer and goes back to shooting, trafficking, and kidnapping? The truth is, no one seems to know. Prior to the vote, President Santos insisted that there was no plan B, that this deal had to be approved. Now that that’s shot, although both sides insist peace is still desired, there haven’t been talks of renegotiation, and few people I’m around talk about the vote, I assume partly out of disappointment. But also, because most seem to be holding their breath. President Santos recently stated that the ceasefire would be extended until the end of October. After that? Well, Happy Halloween.

Conveniently enough, I am merely hours away from leaving on a bus for Colombia's coffee region. Gonna be passin' through some rural areas on my way to where Pablo Escobar once ruled the cocaine business. Seems like the perfect time to embark on such an endeavor! 

J

Villavicencio and the Two Unplanned Birthday Parties

A lot has happened between the sowing and reaping of this blog post. For starters, the U.S. once again dominated the Olympics, a feat to be celebrated with tempered pride since we vastly outnumber other countries in terms of athletes competing. Also, though Colombian Olympians were few, all Colombians know of and are exceedingly proud of each of their Olympians – win or lose – where Americans would be hard pressed to name more than a handful of their own outside of swimming and gymnastics.

Because who doesn't want to spend their Friday
managing 70 sixth graders in public?

>We had our last class field trip of the year, spending an exhausting but meaningful day with the sixth grade class in Villa de Leyva, Chiquinquira, and Raquira (all much more pleasant on my fourth trip…). ‘Twas a glorious day filled with whining, prepubescent hormonal fragrances, and multiple kids vomiting thanks to the winding bumpy roads.   

>Teddy Bridgewater is out for the season, an event that falls right in line with Minnesota sports luck. But, really, I’m much more interested in what the rest of the world calls football.

>Speaking of which, I played in a football (soccer) tournament yesterday that lasted eight hours. My sliding, clumsy goal eventually sent us to the semifinals, though we ended up losing the next two to finish fourth out of eight teams. We were all content though, since our hodgepodge team of dads and teachers were no match for young semi-pros who’ve been playing together since high school.  

Tangoing.

>Our school had our annual poetry night, this year adding in tango routines by both students and teachers. I was supposed to dance, and had gone to many of the rehearsals a few months back. Then I messed up the good ole left foot, causing me to miss so many rehearsals that I told the rest of the teachers I just wouldn’t dance since I would have so much catching up to do (also, I’m not a huge tango fan. Give me salsa or bachata any day). Since it was also poetry night, we were all given paper and pen to try a hand at our own poetry. My attempt can be read at the end of this post.

>The remains of Jacob Wetterling, a boy abducted while biking home in St. Joe 27 years ago, were finally found. As a kid who also biked those streets growing up, this is huge in terms of bringing this case to a close. Though, since the Wetterlings are family friends, I can’t imagine the mixed emotions Patty and Jerry Wetterling are going through right now, as this truly eliminates the remaining shreds of hope that he might yet be alive somewhere.

>Brock Turner, Stanford student who was accused of raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, is out of jail after just three months, while others are serving years for petty theft or drug charges.

>The Colombian government finally established a peace accord with the FARC guerrilla forces that, together with pro-Colombian military groups, have killed over 200,000 Colombians in the last fifty or so years and helped create the worldwide stereotype of Colombia being dangerous. Colombian citizens will soon vote yes or no on this accord. More on this later.

>And, last and easily least important in the news, I promised my sixth grade homeroom that if they get the best GPA for the thirds straight trimester at the end of this year, I will cut my hair. Gauntlet thrown down!

But, the moment you’ve all probably given up waiting for: one of the strangest weekends to date.

 *                              *                              *

Thanks to the strong relationship between church and state here in Colombia, we have many long weekends corresponding with various feast days and other Biblical happenings. This is a pretty strong contrast to our stars and stripes approach to holidays e.g. Flag Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Veteran’s Day, My-god-we-love-government-and-war Day. You get the picture. The difference is that here in Colombia, these ten or so holidays are actually observed in schools and most places of work. What that means is that Colombian children don’t have the intense pleasure I had growing up of trying to understand the irony between getting a holiday while sitting on the bus going to school. It also means that when these long weekends do come around, Colombians – who can afford to – flee Bogota as if the city were under attack. Joining the flood a few weeks back, I decided to go swim in my own sweat down in Villavicencio. 

A "quick" 3 hour bus ride away.

Just outside the Andean bowl that Bogota is situated in, steamy, 80 degree Villavicencio is considered the “Gateway to the Plains” of Colombia (la Puerta al Llano) since it’s located in the foothills between the Andes and the Amazon. There’s not much else notable about this city, though some consider it’s well known nightclub, Los Capachos, to be one of the better clubs of Colombia. More on this later. But while we didn’t know what exactly we were going to do, we were most likely looking to get out of the big city life for a breather.

I teamed up with some more foreigners this time around. All together, we were three Americans, three Brits, one Aussie, and one Colombian. And the squad was in for an interesting weekend right from the start. Steve and I missed our bus thanks to traffic from the long weekend exodus. That, and our taxi driver didn’t know where the bus terminal was (Really? Really…). Off to a bad start here, folks. We get to the terminal with arrogant hopes to simply change our tickets for a later bus, a feat complicated by the fact that neither of our names is on our tickets, but Laura's who had already departed on an earlier bus. But, amen I say to you, the universe smiled upon us that day, as right when the lady at the desk was giving us the “yeah, how do I know you didn’t just find these tickets on the ground?” the manager pops up and just tells her to change it. “With no fee?” asks pulled-tight-ponytail-lady who really wants us to pay for a ticket change. “Just do it,” says our savior. Sure, that later bus meant we wouldn’t get to Villavo until almost midnight. But, hopefully, the rest of the squad would have living quarters figured out by then.

Actual photo of my journal while attempting
to write on the bus.

So what better way to celebrate our good fortune than to toast to our guardian angel in the first bus terminal bar we could find? It just so happened that Steve and I weren’t the only ones with this genius idea, as we had front row seats to an all-dude birthday party held at the back of this cantina. The party was for a guy whose friends apparently thought it was going to be his last, judging by how much aguardiente they were downing. At one point, on my way to the bathroom, one of the guys warned me that their friend had thrown up everywhere. Needless to say, our wait for the bus wasn’t short on excitement.

We roll into Villavicencio at around 11:30pm and walk the two blocks to our hostel only to find our friends were out at a local bar a few blocks farther down. Naively thinking that the evening would end quietly, we decided to go to the aforementioned club, Capachos, to pretend to dance for a few more hours. Coincidentally, I ran into two guys I had met the night before at a bar in Bogota, who were alums of the school I teach at. One of them, Hernán, had told me they would be going to Capachos and said we should meet up. Well fish, fish, Hernán. The next few hours were spent in the most PG-13 of fashion.

The crew. Jordan, Satchel, Larry (looking at phone),
me, Cox, Nick, Steve, and Laura.

Late Sunday afternoon, we decided to hitch a ride to a smaller town nearby, supposedly known for its meat. We ended up at a restaurant called Las Vegas and part of me wanted to meet the entrepreneurial genius behind a locale that probably drew most of its business on the name alone, since that’s what got us there. And just to make our visit to this little town even more worthwhile, we made sure to stop at a cantina so Steve could show us his karaoke magic.

In an attempt to have a quieter night, we made it back to our hostel in Villavicencio and opted not to go back to Capachos. While back at headquarters changing out of our sweat stuck clothing, I decided to accompany Steve out the front door for a curb beer to chat about the finer things in life like education, happiness, death religion; topics I’m not quite fully capable of expressing myself in in Spanish. And just like one dude once multiplied bread and fish, our one beer became two and our ten minutes became over an hour. If only time and beer could be multiplied so easily. The rest of the squad came trickling down to join us, and the stoop kids then took off down the street. We found a twenty-four hour car wash that also doubled as an open air bar and posted up for a couple of hours, playing 21, our game of choice (where you begin counting to 21 around in a circle, and when you get to 21 you make a rule, which ideally should make it more difficult to make it to 21 e.g. instead of saying 4 you say or do something else totally unrelated). We soon found that the car wash/bar also specialized in other services. One of our group members, in an effort to satisfy a curiosity I feel only foreigners would have after seeing a scantily clad woman go to the second floor of a carwash/bar at 3am, climbed the stairs when the owner wasn’t looking, returning shortly thereafter claiming that we were also enjoying a few beers underneath a brothel. Obviously we can’t be absolutely certain. But it would explain why a random car wash is the only place open at 4am on a Sunday night. Plus, carwash/bar/brothel just has a nice ring to it.

We made our way further down the street to an incredibly drab basketball court with accompanying sad jungle gym, with dim, flickering lighting that would make you feel as if dementors were about to emerge from the shadows. In the spirit of the ongoing Olympics, we had a makeshift long jump competition that was determined by your distance flown after jumping off a swing. After Satchel won – his form was a work of art – we were overcome by more curiosity when we heard music coming from the other side of the apartments the park faced. Heading into even worse lighting, we rounded the corner and stumbled into a birthday party for – well, we never actually figured out who the birthday girl or boy was since most everyone was… well, it was past four in the morning, you get the idea. We felt bad about intruding, but since the tent they had outside their house was right around the bend we had just turned, it probably would have been more awkward if a bunch of white guys about faced upon seeing a large gathering of Afrocolombianos. So while curiosity doesn’t help cats, it fed us dinner (er, breakfast?) since we were received with a mostly warm welcome from the whole group. Good thing, too, due to the fact that the cloud’s floodgates had just opened up on us. But I say mostly warm welcome because there were a few incidents that resulted in us hightailing out of there after almost an hour.

First, one guy wouldn’t stop trying to sell me acid. Upon his first sales pitch, I politely said no, that’s not why I’m here, but rather to hang out with people. But after a few more insistences I began to worry that he was getting impatient. Then, Steve claims to have seen a different guy make a gun sign with his hand pointed at me when I wasn’t looking. This wouldn’t really have given me enough to worry. That is, until we were pulling the chairs and tables into the house to avoid being swept away by the flooding streets and yet another guy was telling us how it wasn’t safe around these parts at this time of night. At this point, the signs were a little too numerous to ignore, and we gathered the squad, said a quick goodbye to avoid protests or reactions, and sprinted off back around the corner with water up to our ankles and rising. Potential crisis averted, we decided to celebrate with one last beer at our favorite carwash/bar/brothel.   

My only photo from the trip:
riding in the front seat of the bus back to Bogota.
Note incredible landscape.

Song in my head lately: My cousin, Ben Kewman, introduced me to Needtobreathe a while back. And their songs recently popped up randomly on my computer. Their song, Haley, is one that’s been played maybe a few too many times in my room, though Ben would probably contest that "too many times" don’t exist for them.

Spanish word of the day: We’re getting to the point where I’m honestly forgetting if I’ve used such and such Spanish term or such and such song yet in this part of the blog. So if I repeat, it just means it’s a significant word or song. This word, however, is only significant in who I use it with. Early this year, the computer science teacher, Daniel Rodriguez, became famous within the teaching corps for the expression, “beh” which doesn’t actually mean anything other than how my and other grandpas say “well…” when trying to end a conversation, frustrated, or as a way of saying “well, that’s that.” Many other teachers have since adopted the phrase and the meanings and how it’s spoken are varied. One meaning is as a sort of dare. Having many young male teachers around means having young male testosterone around, which can lead to push up or arm wrestling competitions in the teacher’s office area. A common conversation might go “Let’s do pushups, ba!” It can also be used to confirm or accept a dare or other proposition. “Want to go to the gym?” Baa! Or “Let’s go grab drinks!” Baa! Again, this Spanish lesson means nothing since it doesn’t actually mean anything outside of the teacher’s lounge. My apologies for continuing to waste your time.

Poem from Tango and Poetry night. For my English readers, sorry it’s in Spanish. For my Spanish readers, sorry that it sucks. I wrote it in five minutes.

A veces me pregunto

Caminando por el calle

Tu mano en la mía

Perdiéndome en el valle

De tu risa de alegría

O como me mata tu mirada

Esos ojos de café en fuego

Enamorada o enojada

No puedo decir hasta luego

Pierdo el aliento

O como hoy, todo el asunto

Como decir que es lo que me siento

A veces me pregunto

Other photos of my recent comings and goings

Watching the Colombia - Venezuela game. Alex and I
won the pool, saying that Colombia would win 2-0.
We split the 26,000 pesos, which paid for the beer.
Andres, Luisa, Santiago, Andrea, Jorge, me, Alex, Wilmer's friend,
Felipe, Nathan, Wilmer, Sofi, Steven.

Our indoor soccer team.
Alex couldn't play since he was the organizer.
Anderson, Carlos, Juber, Adrian, Sergio, Cesar, me.

A rare night out with the boys.
Throwing up double West sides for my man Shaul.
Exhausted, having just returned from 6th grade field trip.
Felipe, Alex, me, Santiago, Sergio, Nathan, Steven.

Sisters, Stress, Other Synonyms

Exam Week

Organizing pencils, sharpener, and erasers

clutching last shreds of order

Staring at exam

Shuffling feet

Nervous pen tapping

Irritated piercing glare

Tapping stops.

Lip biting

Wandering eyes, begging for answers

Or anything besides lettered bubbles on an answer sheet

Sigh of hopelessness

Pen out of ink

Shit.

Santander, roughly.

Been a hectic few weeks down here at Tibati. So I won’t waste more screen space than necessary. At the end of July we had Colombianidad, the festival at our school celebrating the different cultures of Colombia. Each grade was assigned a region to represent, tasked with putting on performances that demonstrate the distinctive character of their region. The sixth graders, for whom I’m a homeroom director, were given Santander. A region north of Cundinamarca (where Bogota is), Santander is known for its extreme sports, blunt, sassy, no-beating-around-the-bush citizens, and the huge canyon of Chicamocha. More importantly for the intentions of this blog, Santander is also home to a unique delicacy: hormigas culonas. More interesting than their consumption is their name. Hormiga means “ant”, while culona literally is an adjective to describe “a large derriere.” So together, hormiga culona means “ant with a big ass,” and these bad boys are baked and then scarfed down like peanuts.

Josue, the elected king of Santander for
  the sixth graders. Each grade selected a
king and queen to represent their
department in a way that brings back
awkward memories of homecoming for
everybody. Oh, and the
royal garb is supposed to be made of all
recycled material.

After eating some ants with junk in their trunk, the performances were given. Think of it as a series of high school plays and skits with about as much preparation involved as American high schoolers giving a group presentation for their Spanish class, and you pretty much are feeling the vibes of that day. Some skits, like those of the sixth graders, were adorable and funny in how nervous the kids were yet their excitement showed through. Others were hilariously risqué, like those of the older kids that made ample references to alcohol and sensual dancing. You know, things that schools in the states would freak out about (or, more likely, the parents). Naturally, everyone here loved it! As fun as school events like this are, however, they are equally as exhausting, having to run back and forth from snot-nosed eager kid to stressed out preteen, either keeping kids still or giving pep talks to those who were about to perform. But we won the performance part! And you’re right, the pep talks were an integral part of the victory.

Macjainer, Saray, and Diego giving a sassy performance.

Like most educational institutions during exams, last week hit the students of San Benito with a brick wall of I-told-you-so. But I won’t bore present reader or future JJ with anecdotes about students asking what they can do to raise their failing grades ("What can you do? Study harder next trimester." I make lots of preteen friends this way).

My favorite parts were indeed my English exams, but not in a sadistic, “mwahaha feel the wrath of my quiz” sort of way. Just the listening part made me happy. For the listening comprehension component of my exams, I like to make my own audio recording instead of just finding something online like most teachers (not their fault, they’re not native speakers). I also like to add a guitar into and outro to the audio. You know, for those precious melodious seconds where a student's brain works as fast as it ever has, frantically trying to remember what was just said in order to properly bullshit these taunting bubbled answers. Additionally, I prefer using female voices since the only native voices these kids hear day to day are mine and the other volunteers’, all of which are male. So not only is variety the spice of life, I believe it’s also helpful in developing their listening skills if they have to focus on different accents, intonations, speeds, etc. For the first trimester exams I had my friend, Amber, record her voice. But, in characteristically JJ fashion that raises no eyebrows, I had forgotten to ask anyone before exam week started this time around. Having only four days to come up with a recording, I turned to the one who would best understand my procrastination talents, mainly because I learned them from her.

I emailed my sister, Molly, with a Bill Lumberg-esque request of essentially “Hey if you could get this done soon, that’d be great.” But having heard nil by Wednesday – my Exam being on Friday – I decided to check in with the other sister. But by the time Thursday afternoon came around neither Michaela nor Molly had responded. So with an emotional mixture of shit and serves me right I opened my computer to record the damn things myself before seeing that they both had sent me their recordings within fifteen minutes of each other. Unable to choose between the two, I chose Molly’s voice for my sixth graders and Michaela’s for the seventh grade demons. I hope all my kids know, though, that as I smiled when I played the recordings for the listening part of their exam it wasn’t because I was enjoying my sisters’ voices stressing them out to the point of tears, but that I sure as hell could relate!

Spanish word of the day: Today's nugget of near-useless wisdom isn't even a word, but more of a prefix. The placement of the prefix "re" in front of an adjective seems to suggest a meaning of emphasis, kind of like the word "muy" (very or really). So something like se puso rebravo would mean "He got really mad. Or, more cognate-y, reprofesional would mean "very professional". 

Song in my head recently: I frequently go through City and Colour binges, sometimes putting one particular song on repeat as I get ready for school in the morning. Harder Than a Stone has been that song on more than one occasion. Even if you're not a fan of the dude's high, perfect voice, you can still appreciate his guitar licks and hammer ons.