Uphill, Both Ways
When I was little, my grandfather used to tell me stories about his childhood. As with all good grandparents, his accounts were mixtures of reality and rememory with a dose of good storytelling thrown in to make it all go down smoothly. I recall most clearly when he used to tell me about how he walked to school – 10 miles, barefoot, in the snow, uphill, both ways. I used to think that wasn’t possible, but that was before I walked to Piojó.
The actual town of Piojó is a little over an hour away from Barranquilla to the southeast. It is a pleasant town with a good road, most likely because it runs through all the nearby fincas (large farms) owned by politicians in the city. The town itself, however, is not all there is to Piojó. If you walk for about an hour and a half (uphill, both ways) then you reach a small community of men and women who moved onto land outside of town about two years ago to begin a new life. They didn’t do it for fun, or because the walk was so good for their health. They did it because they have been displaced from their original homes due to violence.
The violence in Colombia is challenging to explain because it has a long history and takes many different forms. There is subtle pressure that can barely be traced, and there is overt force that officials rarely care to trace. The people in Piojó, for a variety of reasons, no longer felt they could stay in their homes, so they, along with their 4.6 million compatriots moved to another part of the country to begin again.* Those who landed in Piojó are relatively lucky. Most people fled from rural areas of the country to the cities and now have no work and little way to sustain themselves. They were campesinos (small peasant farmers), and their move to the city has left them adrift. While Colombian laws to support displaced people are very impressive on paper they are promises rarely fulfilled, so the struggle for survival continues in an unfamiliar and often unwelcoming place.
A photo of the only downhill stretch...
But in Piojó a landowner said, “Come, live on my land. You can work it as if it is your own, and when the money from the government comes through, you can buy this land, and it will be yours.” It is a good promise, but it requires a lot of other promises to be fulfilled first. They are still trying to get the paperwork from the local government so they can begin the purchase of the land. It has been two years.
Still, the people keep up hope, and they continue to work the land. I am reminded of the passage in Isaiah in which …. And, perhaps with this in mind, they plant yucca, corn, maracuyá, tomatoes, rice, and more so that they can provide for their families. Last year was good. This year there has not been much rain, crops have failed, and the going is much harder, but they trust in God and pray that the water will return next year. Until then, they bring water and supplies in by horse or mule, and they keep on fighting because, come what may, they know what it is like to walk uphill, both ways
* According to Internally Displaced Monitoring Center 380,000 people were newly displaced in 2008, bringing the total number of Internally Displaced People or IDPs to over 4.6 million. With a population of just 44 million people, this makes about 1 in 10 people a victim of displacement. Colombia now ranks second in the world for the total number of IDPs, surpassed only slightly Sudan. You can read/listen to some of their stories here.
The view from the top
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[...] For the displaced people of Piojó who are trying to regain their footing in a new place. For much needed rain, and much needed [...]