Volunteering

First actual day of setting up my soon to be volunteer work was on Saturday.
The barrio of Galan is quite poor, although the mayor og Bogota` is progressive. So that most areas have public schools. The area surrounding Galan is on a hill, which is being mined for various minerals. Gabriel told me (who is part of the labor group CGT) that the paramilitaries and government displaced the entire hillside of homes so that they could begin mining. Pointing to the other hillside full of homes, mentioned that this one was next.
The school was being used as a training for the police. We could not enter the classroom for half and hour untill they evacuated. Why choose a school for police training ground? indoctrination. In Aruaca, where i was at before there wa a large movement to get the military and police out of the school. With signs of a cross through the guns. Armned people (guerrilla, military, police, etc. are all banned) is the idea anyways.
On friday during my run I passed by a school of young children. For their protection is a man in military uniform with a machine gun walking around. Unfortunately i didn`t have my camera, is what quite an opposing view.
Military service is compulsory unless you pay to get out of it. Moreover, those with less education are usually sent to more dangerous areas. The police are now doing random ID checks on the Transmilenio (transportation system) in order to catch draftdodgers.
Back to Galan... the children have a range of ages and are the kids of the union of workers from the informal sector. aka those that sell fruit on the street, or vegetables, etc.
part of the program is extra education, part is to bring up other issues. The one we talked about on saturday was trust. Most the kids trusted very few people, or none at all. While distrust may be important because there are lots of bad people out there, one must still be capable of trust, and be open to the idea that there are people that care for them. Trust is also a large obstacle to form a workers union and a community of shared resources.
one of the older girls (12-13) began asking me questions about what i thought of the poverty of Bogota, and what was my opinion on abortion.
I bypassed the stance that this is a topic of morality that i should not discuss.
I told her that I felt that abortion was a personal issue and no one else has the right to tell anyone else that they should or shouldn`t get an abortion.
Abortion was recently legalized in Colombia last year. Correction: it was legalized in cases of immenent death for the mother, in cases where rape can be proved, or when the mother is passing on a lethal disease to the baby. There were 11 abortions peformed (legally) in Bogota` last year.
Other topics of Colombia: I read an article recently of the fighting between different factions of the AUC in Eastern colombia. (near Villavecenia which is where i took my last vacation... interesting how these fights just spring up...) This is a new phenomenom because usually the AUC is fighting against the guerrillas, killing for pay union organizers, displacing communities, working alongside the military, or what have you. But never before have they been fighting against eachother. My roommate claims it is a product of the disarmament. Some groups have turned in their guns, while others wish to keep on fighting. They are no longer under the same umbrella of AUC. I have a wider version of this. I believe that this is the result of 20 years of government policy supporing violent militias. Gabriel simplified it to being about territory. The disuputed land is on route to the border of Venezuela. Paramilitaries are heavily involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping, and killing for money. Especially power. Except now they are out of control of the government which would like them do be doing these things only when asked to. Paramilitaries fighting eachother for territory, is now one more aspect of violence Colombians will have to deal with.
Humanitarian exhange. These talks took a sky dive over the summer when 11 politicans were killed by Farc. It is not known yet whether they were killed (as FARC claims) when the military violated the ceasefire and so they killed them. Or as the government claims FARC wanted to send a message which is why the 11 people were killed. Talks are resuming once again. Hugo Chavez is a mediator. Vamos a ver.