La Cienaga part II, from foreigners to family.

Don Jorge hard at work

Our remaining time at La Cienaga was filled with lessons and wonderful connections, blooming like the thousands of orchids collected in the mountains and cultivated in homes by the women of the community.  We continued our work with Jorge and Ehider, and also took several trips and had many teachers in our quest to learn more about varied agricultural techniques. 

Ramiro processing Achira

The first was with a man named Ramiro, whose kind smile and wonderful sense of humor, along with his indigenous roots and his contented way, made him a perfect example of how the project in La Cienaga can help to consolidate and re-acquire indigenous knowledge simply by asking questions, sharing opportunities and enthusiasm, and exchanging understandings.  Ramiro is a wizard when it comes to plants – he has in his herb garden a medicinal plant for every ailment that could present itself, from a cough to the flu to muscle soreness.  Furthermore, Ramiro knows how to process and harvest many native plants and shrubs which had been used ancestrally, but are no longer commonly utilized.  This includes a plant called Achira, which is a plant with large tubers which, after careful processing, can be made into a delicious flour.  We spent all day with Ramiro, laughing and enjoying each others’ company while peeling, then grinding the bulbs into a pulp, soaking them, and then slowly acquiring the resulting flour, which sunk to the bottom of the bucket of water and then had to be painstakingly filtered and cleaned multiple times.  A long day’s work resulted in several kilos of Achira flour, lessons about ancestral traditions from Ramiro, and the transference of ancestral knowledge from oral tradition to written and media record.

Learning from Ramiro

Another day, our trusted friend and informative guide Ehider led us to the roadside where we toured a Panela factory.  Panela is evaporated cane juice, which comes in block form and is found in every ‘campesino’ household in Colombia.  Along with a strong identification with Colombian culture, Panela also has several advantages: it is much healthier than processed sugar (it causes significantly less tooth decay, contains less chemicals, and is higher in several essential vitamins); it is much easier to process in small-scale (the long-short of the process is grinding the sugar cane to extract the juice, filtering it, and then boiling the resulting liquid until it becomes a syrup which is poured into wooden crates and promptly dries into a solid, easy to transport block of sweet gold); and, perhaps most importantly, it tastes much better than sugar (trust me, its possible).

Edible gold: Panela blocks

The factory that we toured used electricity to spin a turbine which ground the cane, then used gravity to filter the resulting cane juice, and employed a relatively simple system of boiling stations to progressively dehydrate the juice until it was ready to solidify.  The entire heating system was a huge furnace underneath the factory, which encompassed the entire length of the production process, and was fed entirely by dried sugar cane husks created during the grinding process.  The factory was an investment of the municipal government, who gave the technology to the farmers to utilize.  The cooperative that worked the factory did so once a month, for 15-20 hours straight (depending on the quantity of cane acquired – which was also grown by members of the cooperative).  The resulting Panela is then shared equally among the members, who are free to consume or sell their resulting share as they please. 

Pressing the cane to make juice

There are many important lessons from this process.  The first is that it is possible to implement (to borrow a term from E. F. Schumacher) ‘intermediate technologies’ – that is, technologies which use locally available materials, are relatively labor intensive rather than mechanized, and are capable of being operated by locals - which, if properly passed down to trained and sensitized community members, can facilitate an easier way of processing.  Second, that a community cooperative can work together to share in the fruits of labor without major disputes, without hierarchies of control, and without profit motive. Third, that property created by a government entity can be given to community groups, who are able to maintain the equipment and use it responsibly.

Storing cane waste to dry for later use

The whole operation is fueled by it's own "refuse"

These points were important learning lessons for Claire and I, who have seen first-hand many ‘development’ projects fail due to a lack of understanding from those implementing the projects, the intention of putting in place technologies far too advanced to be operated and maintained by the community to which they are ‘given’, and the idea that only property which is ‘paid for’ will be valued by a given community.  This project disproves these theories, and while only one example, gave us a positive example to sink our teeth into (pardon the pun).

Panela requires constant mixing by hand to keep it from boiling over

While spending time in La Cienaga, we had the pleasure of talking, relaxing, and cultivating relationships with some incredibly wonderful people.  We met many elders and middle-aged people who had been farming their whole lives, and were incredibly excited to share their stories and their knowledge with us.  However, after some time spent in the community, we started to recognize that, aside from Ehider - who is our age - no one else between the ages of 18-30 was around…

Ehider and some of the many quinoa crops

The problem of urban flight is a serious issue for this community and many others like it.  The draw of the city, and the chance for a 'better' education, pushes many youths (those who have the means and opportunity) to flee the country-side for the promises of the city (in this case, Medellin).  While this does provide innumerable opportunities for learning, cultural awareness, employment, etc., it also places serious strain on the communities from which these youths originate.  Many do not return, in part because of the misdirected perspective of many city dwellers that farming and living in the country is unglamorous and uncivilized.  Other factors include financial considerations (higher paying jobs in the city), and social concerns (there are considerably more people to meet in cities). The middle-aged and elder generation of La Cienaga wonder what will come of their community as their children pursue spouses, families, and lives in the city.

Jaime, his wife Marcela, mother Ruth and baby Sarai.

Manuela (15) proved a wonderful companion, we made Hawaiian lei together

We got to see to the heart of the matter during Semana Santa, when many youths returned from the city (where they were either working or pursuing an education) to be with their families.  Here, we spoke with the younger brother of Jaime, Alex, who - though he had studied agriculture after high school - was working in a plastic factory in the city: a job he despised.  When we questioned why he didn’t return, he told us that he didn’t want to give up the city lifestyle:  he liked the culture, the movies, the people (most specifically, the women).  Other people like Jaime (who works as an accountant) hope to return, but finding the financial constraints of returning to the country difficult to overcome.

Certainly this is a complex problem that has its upside and downside.  Cities offer incredible potential for many people, and moving to cities has improved the lives of countless people.  Yet simultaneously, most who live in today’s cities place great strain on the earth’s resources, and are inherently disconnected from nature.  The effects multiply in a place like La Cienaga, because each youth who leaves the country to live a more resource-intensive lifestyle in the city is one less person who will be producing food for him/herself, his/her community, and possibly even that very same city.  In the States, we have seen the result of this urbanization (a term which is used as an advertising catch-phrase on billboards in Colombia) – the mechanization and corporatization of our food supply. The lack of a local market, and the creation of larger and more concentrated urban markets, makes organic and/or small-scale farming an even more difficult endeavor. It is, perhaps, the most important and grave issue facing our society at present.  This example seemed clearer when looking at the small community of La Cienaga; while the community’s youth were in the city they were almost required to consume products and foodstuffs distributed by large corporations like Exito (like a South American Walmart), rather than their own families and communities (who subsist by selling their harvests on a local level- the "small farmer").

View from Amparo's house of the community of La Cienaga

Luckily, many people are realizing this, and at the same time that Monsanto is tightening the noose around the food supply of the world (this is not an exaggeration: The Real Monsanto Protection Act: How The GMO Giant Corrupts Regulators And Consolidates Its Power, others are starting city gardens, returning to organic practices, and moving back to the country-side.  Certainly these solutions are small compared to the problem at hand, but speaking with people in La Cienaga has reinforced the lesson for us that the only solutions which truly serve people are local solutions.

Arturo (Sri's Cousin?)

We learned about the perspective of students in this community with regards to the challenges they face at a school day in the near-by town of Giraldo. Our friend Arturo (a teacher at the school and wonderful host) hosted us for a wonderful evening with his family, and brought us to the school the following day. Upon arriving, he quickly explained that Claire would be speaking in his class, and that I would be giving a speech with Roger, another teacher. 

When Roger and I arrived in the classroom, the students hushed immediately (along with a few gasps) as all eyes glued to the Gringo at the front of the class.  We were (according to Arturo) the first foreigners to attend school in Giraldo.  Roger introduced me briefly, and while doing so, wrote on the board the subjects (unbeknownst to me) I would be talking about: ecology, organic farming, cooperatives, and globalization.  Did I mention this was all in Spanish?  I would have had enough trouble improvising such an elaborate speech in English.

I spoke in faltering and nearly incomprehensible Spanish about saving trees, growing without chemicals, preserving local culture – basically your standard hippy rant. I was impressed with the quality of the critical questions sent my way.  “How will we protect our resources from the Canadian mine that is trying to exploit our land?” (The company is called Continental Gold, there have been many protests and displacements which have not made the news – but here is one that did: mines in Buriticá.  Translate the article in Google and you’ll get the idea.  Note that Continental has exploration rights in Giraldo and many surrounding areas, where inhabitants farm and live.)… “Can we feed the world without chemicals?”… “How can we work together to create stronger resource protection?”

Jaime, with permaculture irrigation systems to prevent run-off

Many questions were difficult and have no clear answers.  I told students this outright.  I still have too many questions myself about the world and its ways to pretend to have many solutions for such intuitive youth.  As I shared with the pupils, our hope is that we can develop local answers, as these same students create their own solutions to the problems that life and society thrown their way.

Claire, always positive, was a bit less pressed by some of the younger classes to which she spoke.  By the end of the day, she had the whole school greeting her with ‘Aloha’.  Not to make light of her situation, she also fielded some difficult questions:  “What is your mom’s name?”… “How many pets do you have”… and our personal favorite “When you and your mom are at home speaking in English, can you understand one another?”…

Claire with Arturo and Don Javier after a hard day's work

The day at the school was wonderful, and we had such a great experience that we decided to come back the next week and hang more with Arturo.  It was the week of Easter (Semana Santa), and so we attended the reenactment of the crucifixion of Christ and the “ten stations”.  We’re a bit rusty on our Bible Studies, and really had little idea what we were getting into.  We watched as a man playing Jesus (who had grown his beard out all year for the role) was whipped on stage and taken through the entire trial.  Then, after it was ruled he would be crucified, the procession began walking throughout the town, stopping at each one of the ten stations.  More than half the town (hundreds of people) followed Jesus (including us), as the drama unfolded.  Dramatic scenes included Judas jumping from a tree and hanging himself (with a body-support wrapped around his torso, but only one rope visible from around his neck), and the requirement that Jesus (who was still being actually whipped) carry a huge and realistically sized crucifix for nearly the whole procession. 

The experience was quite unique, and an indication to us of how truly embedded Christianity (and especially Catholicism) is in Colombia.  It is an interesting irony to attend such a ceremony on a trip to restore indigenous knowledge, but then, so is the whole endeavor of two US citizens of European ancestry trying to work with Colombians to learn from and restore their ancient heritage.  

Don Javier, the owner of the house from which the program operates .  85 and still walking 45 mins up a steep hill twice a week to work his fields. What a beautiful man.

Through the paradoxes that form our lives, we give thanks to have met so many wonderful people in and around La Cienaga, and to have been welcomed so generously by strangers, who offered their homes and hearts to us expecting nothing more than earnest conversation.  The lessons learned and the people who affected us in La Cienaga deserve a novel in themselves, and it is a crime to abbreviate our experiences to such an extent.  We left again with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts, assured by our new friends that “this is our land”, and that any time we return, there will be food, warm smiles and open hearts to welcome us.

They're just such cool bugs!