Translating, adventuring and the Future

Since returning from Leticia, the office has been hectic. Today, however, Thursday, the office is almost empty. Most people have gone to Cartagena, and I am going tomorrow morning early and I am so very excited! The Conference starts on Sunday and runs for 6 days. Let me give you some statistic-like facts: 156 countries have signed, 127 governments are registered to attend the conference, 50 ‘high level’ representatives are coming (ie Ministers of governments etc), 1000 delegates will be there, representatives from several non-state parties will be there – including the USA, despite them announcing onWednesday that they will not be changing their policy. 35 youth representatives from 25 countries will be attending the parallel youth forum, and there is also a parallel victim assitance forum.

The past three weeks I have translated many many documents, these days mostly into Spanish, and often for the press. Plus I have been working with the Colombian youth delegates, via Skype, to improve their English and work on the presentations they will be giving at their forum, and with Carlos who works in the office as I will be interpreting his presentation, (he’s a landmine survivor - his story is a sad one. But he’s doing so well for himself. Shall I write it? Yes. In 2002, when he was 14, he was playing with his friend, their football rolled away and his friend went to get it. An explosion. Carlos couldn’t hear or see and stumbled towards home. Someone helped him and from then he doesn’t remember anything until he woke up 1.5 months later from his coma. He was told his friend had died and he may not be able to walk again. 9 hard months of  recovery passed, and then he walked again. His brother heard about the campaign, they moved to Bogota and Carlos had 42 surgeries. He missed the one-year deadline for compensation from the state so has to pay for it all himself. He now works in the campaign and goes to school in the evenings. He wants to be an economist.) I’ve tranlsated so many stories like this one I fear they no longer seem real. But his does. You can see the scars on his face.

Anyway, enough of that. It’s been great in a bustling and slightly stressed office, everything is leaning towards this conference. Yesterday the quarterly Colombian anti-mine action bulletin was published, and more importantly, it was the launch of the 2009 Landmine Monitor, collated by ICBL* and facilitated by CCCM**. We all went to the launch in one of the universities in the centre of Bogota and I, along with Laura C, welcomed the press and took their details so they can  be registered for Cartagena. We heard speeches from Alvaro (head of CCCM), Camilo (researcher for CCCM), Sylvie, (executive director of ICBL) and several other people and although only 25 people came, it was good. Unfortunately somewhat overshadowed in the press however by the USA’s announcement that they won’t be signing next week.

So I am excitedísimo because a) the Caribbean again! b) this is an important conference and I’m going to see it first hand c) Everyone from the office is going and we’re going to have a great time together d) There will be so much going on and I will have an actual role e) I am going to go to the press conferences and the UN meetings and work out my future career path! Well, get some ideas anyway. Because recently I have been thinking a lot about what I want to do and the fact that I am so excited to go to the press conferences and meet journalists makes me wonder if that’s what I should be doing… but then again the UN and all these NGOS are so mega interesting and do good work. So really how am I supposed to decide. And really,a dn maybe unfortunately, it’s the governments who have the real power to change things, so maybe that’s where I should be aiming.

Amidst this flurry of activity, there has still been time to make the most of being in Colombia. I’ve been to a few more salsa classes, and tried but failed to avoid aguardiente, drink of the devil (mentiras, it’s just not very nice and leaves you with an un-paracetamol-able headache), spent time in the Candalaria and browsing markets, cursed the time spent in traffic jams, had my purse stolen, then delivered back to me sans cash, and the weekend before last was a puente (long weekend) so Laura and I took off to San Gil, adventure capital of Colombia.

It is such a lush little town. Its main square is an actual hub of activity, where during the day children play and old folk meet and chat, occupying the benches beneath the trees, and as dusk falls the youth take over and it is a veritable party until 11pm, when everyone relocates to the out-of-town clubs. And that’s when the witches come out. They’re somewhat superstitious in the pueblos of Colombia and Laura and I met a guy in the main square who told us all about the warning signs we should look out for. Then a woman who obviously lived on the streets ran across the square and his eyes bulged and he pointed a shaky hand toward sher, whispering “She’s a witch!” The next day we were in the square again, with a girl we had met the day before and the woman appeared again, this time with a massive bag of flour. She stopped near a big group of people and started hurling flour in all directions. The crowd ran screaming. and the woman ran towrds them and she chased them around the square, throwing flour as she went. Then she put it down and someone ducked to pick it up and run away with it. She chased them fiercely until she came upon an empty bottle, then ran to the fountain to fill it up, where someone pushed her in. And that’s when everyone stopped running away, and the atmosphere returned closer to normal. But she was not done. She went back to her flour, where it had been left by the tormentor, and began her rampage once again. And I was laughing so much at the crowd’s reaction, and the fear that everyone had of this poor woman. But when she came towards us with her flour I swiftly backed away… Crowd mentality took over!

This wasn’t the highlight of the weekend, merely a smalltown Colombia story tha tI wanted to remember. The highlights were many in fact. I went paragliding, which was so so much fun and actually not at all scary, and also white water rafting which I enjoyed lots, more than I expected after the last time when I did not enjoy falling in on grade 5 rapids, but this time they were grade 3 and it was ace. And we also went rappelling – abseiling down a waterfall, which was pretty amazing, although more difficult than I imagined – I had to hold on tight! Awesome weekend though. We also visited a cute colonial town where their traditional snack is toasted hormigas culonas – big-bummed ants. So I obviously had to try some, but I had to buy like 30. And I ate 2. They were actually not too bad, but the texture was bizarre, like soft but crunchy.

To completely change the subject, it’s very much nearly Christmas in Bogotá. There are so so many lights and a lot of them have been turned on. In the square in Usaquén, there are so many lights it’s almost daytime, but I LOVE it. There are loads of white trees, lit up, and it’s like walking through a glowing snow-covered forest, and between the trees, hundreds of stars are strung. And it’s making me so excited for Christmas, and therefore being in England, like rosy frosty cheeks and crunchy  icy pavements and coats and scarves and mulled wine and mince pies and carols and crossing the road in safety and things starting on time . But then I also realised that I’m really going to miss Colombia too – the people, the new friends, the mountains, the markets, the random fruits, the availabilty of fresh juice, the coffee, the salsa, patacones and the constant sound of laughter despite everything. But missing it means I had a good time right? And I have done. And there are more good times to come!

*International Campaign to Ban Landmines, champion of the Treaty - Nobel Peace Price 1997

**Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines

Heat, pouring rain and the largest river in the world

Sunrise on the Amazon

Wow, it’s been almost a month since I last wrote, how did that happen?! Since then I’ve been to the southern hemisphere and back! Let me explain…

After 2 weeks back in the office having been away the previous fortnight, Laura and I found we had very little to do. As the Cartagena conference draws ever closer there is of course much to be done, but less of it involving translation, and with another Laura having arrived on her year abroad too, there just wasn’t enough to split between three of us. So Laura C and I went to the Amazon. Well, we had actually booked our flights a few weeks before having checked first, but basically that’s why we went. And because Colombia is a country with Everything, so how can we not make the most of it?*

The flight was 2 hours and for the second hour all we could see out of the window was green. Endless stretching soft green, occasionally broken by a winding river, but from horizon to horizon there were only trees. And stepping off the plane, into the thick wall of heat, we were greeted by the sounds of parrots circling above us and a solitary passport control officer, who was waiting by the door, poised to greet foreigners as they waited for their baggage. This was Leticia, the biggest town on the Colombian side of the Amazon, at 37,ooo inhabitants. It lies at the furthest south-eastern tip of Colombia, where Brazil, Peru and Colombia meet and become one, without borders. Leticia is on the Colombian side, Tabatinga on the Brazilian, and across the river the Peruvian island of Santa Rosa. Three cultures, three currencies, two languages.

The Amazon basin has the most devoloped tourist infrastructure of anywhere in Colombia, and rightly so, there’s a lot to see! With 7 days and a limited budget, Laura and I had to decide how to spend them wisely, which was not easy. All the 2-3 day jungle tours were extremely expensive, and we felt that our money could be better spent on day trips and the 10-hour boat ride to and from Iquitos, Peru – the biggest city in the world unreachable by road, with 500,000 inhabitants. So, decisions made, we headed for Puerto Nariño, 2 hours upstream. Just before the boat was due to leave, there was an almighty storm. The rainy season had arrived. The roads flooded within minutes and we waded to shelter in the booking office, barely kept dry by our raincoats. Huge drops, columns of water, pouring, streaming from the rooftops, thunder: real rain, pure pleasure. This is how it should be done. An hour of beautiful chaos, where the people stop what they are doing to watch as the most welcome of all weather arrives in force. And the calm afterwards is like a sigh, a relief from the oppressive humidity that haunts the daylight hours.

Puerto Nariño is a town of about 500 inhabitants, mostly of the Tikuna tribe, and a hub for tourists in the area. We stayed there 2 nights, the first in cabins about half an hour’s walk from the centre, run by an ex-friar with 3 pet monkeys, a parrot, a cat and 3 dogs. The second night we stayed in a hotel in the town, where the shower was free from other worldly insects and we could make use of the internet that came with the 4 hours of electricity daily. There were 3 other travellers in the town, also staying with us – a Colombian, and a couple who were living in Canada but originally from Germany and New Zealand. Together, we hired a guide and walked for three hours through the jungle to an indigenous village. And the jungle is just how I pictured it: hanging vines, trunks stretching upwards so far that they appear to meet before they touch the sky. Chirrupping chatter floated above us mingling with singsong to create a hubbub that breathed fertility and possibility.

The indigenous village was on the banks of a tributary of the Amazon, and when we arrived there were several people swimming and bathing in the borwn water. All the wooden houses were on stilts, to protect them from the rising river water – after the rainy season the Amazon rises by 15m. We were invited to try the local drink, made of fermented plantane, which was actually quite nice, and we walked around the whole village, greeted by children very used to tourists. There are very few villages living in complete isolation these days, only sticking to traditional methods of living - the people were wearing jeans. But their techniques for cooking and building houses were their own and they were sticking to them.

The return journey was by boat, along the Amazon in a dug-out canoe, with the water lapping the rim. On the way, we saw a school of pink dolphins, leaping out of the water to show off their rosy bellies. We turned off the motor and watched them for a while, frolicking in the sun, unafraid. Completely impossible to photograph, like the butterflies who followed us wherever we went, but memorable.

Back in Leticia the next day, we cycled to Brazil for lunch. Speaking Spanish and getting replies in Portuguese made trying to order vegetarian food for Laura interesting (You’re a vegetarian?? So what do you eat, salad? But you eat chicken right?). And tyring to get directions to a restaurant with a salad bar was a long process involving much gesticulation. But we managed to get some lunch, shading from the scorching heat, and then cycled back to Colombia! We went for another trip later, this time to Kilometro 26, where there is a reserve which offers high rope expeditions and also has a snakery. Thankfully, these were the only snakes we saw, at a safe distance, sleeping, but impressive nonetheless. We climbed the trees, up to the canopy, for a view of dense leaves of all shapes and sizes, and branches and birds and bugs. And the zipwire was so much fun, flying through the treetops in the sunshine.

The boat to Iquitos left at 4am from the Peruvian island of Santa Rosa. We had a mild panic at 3.15am when the key to the hostel broke in the lock and our rickshaw taxi hadn’t arrived, but thank goodness for the German who woke up and lent us his phone and his key so we could get out and away. So we took the rickshaw to the port inTabatinga, Brazil to get a boat taxi so Santa Rosa, Peru - 3 countries in half an  hour! The port was thriving, with 2 boats leaving for Iquitos and taxi drivers, boat taxis and street vendors hustling for business. What a journey. We passed canoes, fishermen, children swimming, small islands, sand bars and all the time surrounded by jungle on the far off banks. I remember thinking, before the sun rose, how symmetrical nature is – the silver of the water reflected the silver arc of the cloudy sky and all the way around the horizon, the sillhouette of the dense forest. Being in the jungle makes you think a lot about nature – there is so much to marvel at, and everything survives, balanced and in its element, evolved to cope perfectly with the situation. And actually I think the people have evolved too – they were just so much less sweaty than I was! Seriously it was pretty gross. After a day’s walking, all you want is a shower, and the minute you step out of it, you need another.

In Iquitos, we did another day’s jungle walk, this time in primary jungle, which was denser, more vine covered and noisier. We saw all manner of butterflies and insects – I got stung by a wasp and it was so painful! We saw birds, monkeys, a caiman and armadillo tracks – but no jaguars, trantualas or poisonous snakes. And we swung from a vine, hicimos Tarzan. We ate a fruit that our guide called guava which hangs from trees in long thin green pods and is furry and sweet. Bizarre, but quite yum! We returned to Leticia the next day, on the 6am boat, this time leaving as the sun rose. It’s amazing how you can spend 10 hours on a boat and hardly notice the time passing, with an ipod for company and the sun on the water.

That day was Halloween, which is big in Colombia. When we got off the boat we were surrounded by children and families, costumed and ready with their little pumpkin pots for treats. But at 9pm the town went quiet and the children dispersed, leaving a lull before the adults came out to party the night away. And on our final day in Leticia we shopped a little, ate ice cream and watched the rain. My conclusions from the trip? It is no coincidence that Amazon and amazing are such similar words!

Since returning to the office, work has been hectic and buzzing. On Tuesday we had a team meeting, the only one we’ve had with everyone present. We discussed what everyone’s going to be doing in Cartagena, and what everyone is doing until then, and I am excited! The three inglesas have been given the task of translating for the 15 survivors going to the conference, funded by Mercy Corps – who are also paying our flights and accomodation! (And we tried to persuade them that we could stay in a hostel, because I definitely feel bad that we’re using charity money, but they are determined we’ll all be together!). Also going to the conference are the four youth delegates from around the country funded by Mines Action Canada, who are running a youth forum alongside. Daniel, who I stayed with in Popayan, is one of them. And they all need to have a reasonably good level of English, since delegates are coming from all over the world, so I now have daily afternoon Skype English conversation classes. It’s been fun, chatting to them, helping them, working on their presentations. So 2 and a half weeks of busy busy and then the Conference!

*Here I would like to quote the Italian photographer Giovanni Diffidenti, newly arrived in Bogota to work with the campaign, meeting landmine victims and documenting their experiences. “Colombia is a country where beauty and horror coexist in inexplicable contrast.” So True.

If you like photography check out his website, it’s ace: www.giovannidiffidenti.com or landmine specific: www.theperfectsoldier.com, and another good one is Gervasio Sanchez.