Megan James in Colombia

Saturday 15 Septemberr 2007

The following two communications are from my friend Megan James, who worked with a Christian Peacemaker Team in Colombia this July. The first piece is an email she sent me from Colombia, and the second is a short reflection on a “Project of Life.”

Dear Mark,

I feel like I am at a funeral, and in a sense I guess I am. While I am learning so much, my emotions are upside down. Sometimes when people are telling their stories of how they were kidnapped and tortured or how their family member was killed, I am too hollow to cry. Other times, when communities are explaining that they organize so their children will not be touched by violence as they have been, I have to fight back my tears.

While the situation in Colombia grows grave everyday, between the seemingly constant fumigations, threats from paramilitaries and guerrillas, broken agreements by the government, and Uribe’s multi-national interested legislation, I am nevertheless amazed at the hope of the people. Although they are afraid, many people, it seems, believe if they shoulder their fear together, they can overcome it. It is the people’s hope and strength that I have fallen in love with. Theologically speaking, these people are truly working for the option for the poor and the Kingdom of God at the most basic level.

A professor in college once told me to do what made me feel homesick. (In other words, to do something that really moves me.) At this point, I am not sure how I am going to return to that states; I feel homesick here.

Just a few thoughts I wanted to share with you in particular.

Hope all is well!
Megan

We Will Build a Project of Life
Megan James
July 25, 2007

You cannot help in this country to feel your breath is taken away; like someone has stolen the life out of you as you hear how many lives have been stolen by violence. It is one experience to read the statistics, but it is another to meet them. One story is like so many others. Yet each story is different: a different person. And that is the saddest aspect in Colombia: too many people share a similar story. In another light, however, it is the common thread that binds people in solidarity.

Paolo Acúna in the city of Barrancabermeja formed as a community of displaced people. After being forced off their land, people traveled to Barrancabermeja and tried to rebuild using what materials they could find on the outskirts of town. Unfortunately, the paramilitary began to take over the homes in Paolo Acúna and forcing people to displace again. When the community protested, the paramilitary sought to kill the community organizers and their supporters like Hector Alverez. Hector’s son was not an activist in the process; he was just the closest person to Hector. And when the paramilitary could not catch Hector, they killed his son instead. Hector’s story is not unique.

Out of the tragic bond of violence grows an inconsolable resistance. Communities like Ciudadela Educativa and organizations like Organización Femenina Popular (OFP) use those memories of violence to propel them forward. As another community of displaced people, Ciudadela Educativa has not only resisted occupation by various guerrilla and paramilitary groups, but has also initiated various successful educational, economic, and community building projects. While the adults in the community are not formally educated, they have made their children’s education their priority. As a displaced community, it boasts a cutting-edge high school. The school is modern in design and plans to acquire technology for the classrooms. One leader of Ciudadela Educativa explained that it is because almost everyone in the community has been touched by violence that they place such a high priority on their children. She said, “Most of our work is for our kids, so they don’t have to go through the same things we have.”

The OFP’s motto “We do not bear or raise children for war,” not only stems from the memories of violence but is also kept alive and passed on through generations by their initiatives. The OFP provides youth and adult programming, affordable meals and medical and legal services among others. In short, they teach how to fight violence with creative ideas and love. Although this path is not easy, with 184 acts of violence directed at the organization since 2001 (including three assassinations), the OFP has won the support of the communities it serves, churches, and national and international organizations. It is in this space of solidarity that a member of the OFP declares, “We cannot give up and give in to the project of death. Instead, we will build a project of life.” Amen.

Megan James took Social Justice at SLU in spring 2003; she is in her second year of a Master’s in Theological Studies at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.