Dateline ACT

Colombia 02/04

Forced from their homes, Colombia’s displaced try to create a sense of home elsewhere

by Lotta Sundberg, Church of Sweden Aid/ACT International

Tobia, Colombia, December 9, 2004--Approaching the village of Tobia via a steep path, Hebert Gutiérrez, a coordinator for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia (IELCO), starts calling the name of Rosa Amaya. He wants her to know who is coming. There are many guerrillas in Tobia, and everyone is constantly alert.

Rosa, a petite, 39-year-old woman with long, blond hair, is talkative. She has eight children – six girls and two boys – ranging in age from one to eighteen years of age. Her 9-year-old niece lives with them as well, since Rosa’s brother is in prison. The children are the center of her life, her pride and joy.

Rosa’s husband Orlando works as a hotel guard in Bogotá. He comes home to his family once or twice a month with enough money for his children’s schooling. Rosa takes care of everything else. She gets up at 4:00 every morning to make churros (round bread), which the children bring to school to eat and sell.

Rosa works in her gardens during the day, and can provide her family with a varied and nutritious diet. She grows yucca, maize, platano, beans, sugar cane, papaya, pineapple and cooking bananas. She also has a few hens that lay eggs. She produces enough to sell some for a small income, which she uses to buy flour for the churros. On the weekends, all the children are at home to help her, both in the plantations and in the housework.

On the face of it, this family appears to be doing relatively well, but their lives weren’t always so easy. It is one of millions of displaced families in Colombia, forced from their homes in a conflict that has lasted 40 years. They often settle in areas that are often undignified and unclean, shantytowns with harsh living conditions.

IELCO is one of several members of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International assisting displaced people in Colombia. They are providing assistance in the areas of food security, health, psychosocial care, agriculture and risk management and advocacy. With the support of ACT members around the world, these members are able to provide displaced people – individuals, families and whole communities – with the assistance that empowers them to improve their lives, often through their own work.

For Rosa’s family and others in her community, this meant having access to latrines, which reduce the spread of water-borne diseases. IELCO helped the community build these latrines. Orlando was unemployed at the time, so he and Rosa built theirs together.

The couple also needed materials to build a proper house. To get them, they spent extra time working on their plantation and were able to sell enough fruit and vegetables to buy bricks. A staff member of IELCO helped them with construction drawings, but the couple built the house themselves. While it’s still not big enough for her large family, Rosa is happy. Luis Guzman, the local contact between the families and IELCO, points out where they were living before - a hut with a small, sloping palm-leaf roof on poles. “They slept in the dirt like animals,” Guzman says. “No walls, no beds.”

When the project began to bring water to the community, Rosa was in the late stages of pregnancy and her husband was away. She couldn’t meet the project’s demands on cooperation and therefore did not receive a water tap. But her neighbors helped her get a hose. Having easy access to fresh water was a big improvement to the family’s life because of the steep path down to the river. They use the water for drinking, cooking and washing up, but Rosa still goes down to the river in the dry season to do her laundry.

When asked if it would be easier to live down by the river and close to the rest of the community, Rosa says she wouldn’t dream of it. Her family loves where they live, so why should they move there, she asks. She has no need for close neighbours; she has all her children for company.

The next phase of IELCO’s project will provide families with material for kitchens, and Rosa is in the process of planning hers. Guzman explains that Rosa will get better floors, walls, roofs, tables and shelves. IELCO does not expect Rosa to change her traditional way of cooking, but will only help provide better facilities for it. Rosa is looking forward to this.

Families will also receive education in hygiene and health. Rosa says she and her family are healthy. When asked about the worries and concerns of her everyday life, she thinks about it before answering, “I don’t have any worries! I’m calm, and I’m not worried about the future.” And her dreams for the future? “I pray to God that we stay healthy, so that all the children can study. I’m content. Everything is fine!”

As her visitors leave, thanking her for her time, Rosa suddenly realizes that she hasn’t offered them anything to eat or drink. Trailing behind her visitors down the path, she disappears into the greenery and returns with a big, freshly picked pineapple, a sign of hospitality. Even as a displaced person, an alien of sorts in her own country, she still offers the warmth of a host for visitors to her adopted home.

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