Red Cedar

While I would like to be posting Colombia journal entries, I am instead at work today. Pheh! Just because you go away, life at home doesn’t stop!

Besides the usual work stupidity (that I hoped would die down while I was away but hasn’t) – Darren was transferred unexpectedly to Lane County where he can’t phone me from and now has a hearing scheduled for next week – problem being that I wanted to attend the hearing but can’t find a plane ticket for under $700, and I’m not sure my employer would be overjoyed about another absence from the office right now. I spent this morning being pretty tense about the situation, but have now mostly accepted the fact that I can’t talk to Darren, can’t attend his hearing, and will have to wait until some future date to actually see him. I just don’t see any other way – though I feel pretty bad about not being able to be in court for him at least one of these times.

Update: I just figured out the Lane County prison phone system which is serviced by one of the other Texas-based private phone companies and managed to set up an account with them. Once Darren’s lawyer gives him the info he can at least phone me again.

Besides that, I got my nomination forms in for the union position I decided to run for last month this afternoon – after some fretting about whether or not I should actually go for it given my bad odds. We’ll see what happens, but I would be very surprised if I win (even with the fancy bio I laid out today).

It’s Friday, and even though I have only been in the office one day this week, I feel like I need a weekend! I’m sortof proud that despite my edgy state I worked my way through the prison bureaucracy to get the phone calls sorted out – dealing with the system always feels like this overwhelming hurdle, and getting over it a small victory.

I returned home this morning with a full head and an opened heart – the struggles and landscapes of Colombia imprinted into my view of the world. I intend to post some excerpts from my journals here as soon as I can manage them but for now I have managed to post my photographs to the red cedar photo gallery. Go look – they are just simple snapshots – but you can get a sense of where I have been for the past two weeks.

This will be my one and only dispatch from Colombia via the blog… This trip has turned out to be far more packed than I had realized it would be with meetings and travel taking up 14 hours or more per day.

Needless to say, I got through the US and into the country fine – and the past nine days have been spent in various parts of the country meeting with trade unions, indigenous groups, human rights organizations and barrios of displaced peoples. I have taken pages of notes, written copious amounts in my journal and taken dozens of photographs which I will try to synthesize into some coherent postings when I return home (I will be uploading my photos to my red cedar photo gallery as a first priority after returning).

We have been lucky to have access to places that most outsiders would never be invited to, the expectation being that somehow we can do something to help people once we return to Canada. I am afraid at times that the expectations might be too high… but at least in one case myself and two other people on this tour have agreed to personally fund the operation of a women´s center in the town of Neiva in the Huila province for the next year. It´s a small start – but when you are facing global injustice, it feels like almost nothing at all.

I have lots to say about Uribe, the paramilitaries, the FARC, the countryside, the resistance and the people – but am running out of time and couldn´t do it justice on this little sleep in any case. I am returning home on the 11th/12th which seems far too soon to me… so stay in touch and my travel reports will be posted here.

I leave for Colombia tomorrow morning – all packed and ready as I am staying in town tonight – but wow am I ever stressed about this trip! Triggered mainly by my fear of borders no doubt. But I’m all set, and will face those fears tomorrow morning bright and early with a brand-new passport and a wallet full of cash.

My anxiety has been somewhat out of control in the last two days which I am chalking up to job unhappiness, triggered traumas and pms. Once I get on that plane tomorrow, I am expecting all of this to dissipate so I can go back to being my normal only mildly-stressed self. In the meantime, I leave you with another poppy picture from the weekend.

I will try to blog while I am traveling but it might be difficult. I will be back online as of the 12th if you don’t hear from me before then.