A Much Needed Update

First Week in Cali, Colombia

Tomorrow will mark my first week in Colombia. It's been great since the beginning. My first day in Colombia was Thursday August 9, 2007. It was by far the longest travel day of my life. It started at about 2 am and did not end until about 10 pm. The rest of the days have been a mix of getting to know the local culture, politics, and the city in general. Cali, Colombia is a beautiful city, it has some humidity and most homes don't have hot water, but besides that I can say that it has been a great experience so far.

August 15, 2007 – Government Outsourcing to local NGOs

Today marked my first field day. We traveled to the town of Bolivar, located in the northern part of the Valle de Cauca, about 3 hours north of Cali. Since today seemed to mark a day of firsts, I was also introduced for the first time to the "Chiva", a traditional bus used in the rural areas of Colombia. It's very colorful, as most things are in this part of the world, and you would not be surprised to see passengers riding on the roof of the bus holding a few vegetables or even chickens. Fortunately for me the roads in this part of Colombia match or even surpass those in the United States, the same can't be said about the busses. The trip was very enjoyable, the scenery was spectacular, and it really gave me a feel of the real Colombia. Most of the ride was filled with large sugar cane plantations; every now and then we were able to come across some papaya and tomato crops. It's surprising how mechanized agriculture is in these parts of Colombia.

Our main goal for the day was to see a community recycling project being put in place by a local environmental NGO called Eco-Futuro. The recycling center was very rudimentary but was able to keep the small town and the surrounding community very clean, in total the municipality had no more than 20,000 inhabitants. It also served as the local garbage collection center. All of the refuse was collected and taken there to be sorted and properly disposed. It was amazing to see how much work goes into a small venture such as this and even more surprising to see the great benefit this relatively small project can provide. Most of the garbage was recycled and sold to keep the small enterprise running. Green waste was made into very high quality compost sold to local farmers and recyclables were sold to different companies who buy the waste products.

It's an excellent model with only a few problems. Of course what makes the volunteers life difficult is the apathy of the local community towards recycling. Since the recycling project is kept alive through the NGOs funds and any profit made from the sales, the project is in financial troubles. However, the local management knows these problems can be resolved by simply charging the local community $3,000 pesos a month; don't be alarmed that's only about $1.50. The extra revenues would help pay the workers a living wage and provide some medical benefits. In addition, the windfall profits would also be used to benefit the local community since it's a locally organized NGO with full transparency. It was made very clear to us that the NGOs administration had no intention in using the money for other activities besides helping the environment of the surrounding community.

As a result of this project, the local government was able to brag to other municipalities that their surrounding area was maintained clean simply by outsourcing the task to a non profit. Since the non profit was in it for the environmental and not the financial gains the local government was able to provide a basic service to a community, at almost no cost to itself, it simply had to provide the land for the plant to operate. The local government will soon have to start charging the surrounding communities the small fee to maintain the service however, it will be a fraction of the cost of a private company.

August 28, 2007 – Proyecto de Acercamiento y Participación Ciudadana

For the past few days I have been developing a work program for the project I will be involved with while in Colombia. I am in charge of developing a proposal that would eventually help engender citizen participation in the local political process. I have found it difficult to come up with innovative ideas as to how I will go about in doing this. Luckily I have met some very bright people, one of them being Victor Hugo who has an M.A. degree in Public Policy and is currently teaching a very interesting course on Colombia's historical political problems. The idea that we are currently working on is to develop a mechanism that would engender citizen participation in the local political process. This will be achieved through an education program that will teach the members of local grassroots organizations about their basic political rights. We will also be analyzing the grassroots organizations basic organizational structure, since many organizations may be demanding from their local government what they themselves do not adhere to, democracy.

So far I think my first few weeks here in Colombia have been an excellent experience. I've found it very easy to blend in to the local culture, most people see me as Mexican and not American, I finally found a place where being Mexican is a social advantage. Most people introduce me as "This is my friend from Mexico" and in fact, most of my friends call me something that includes the word Mexican; here they are in no particular order: Mexican Power, Eddie the Mexican, and Mexican Boy. I find it very interesting how Mexico has a very interesting cultural influence on the Colombian people. Most people here know of popular Mexican T.V. shows and movies while most people in Mexico know nothing about Colombia aside from Pablo Escobar and cocaine.

September 5, 2007 – Trip to Combia

Background

After being in Colombia for almost a month I have learned a lot about the political and social situations that grip and tear this beautiful country apart. Aside from the very obvious and ever-present conflict between the government, the FARC and the AUC, the Colombia countryside is filled with many other problems not linked to the military conflict. The problem of landless peasants, evident throughout Latin America, is exacerbated here in Colombia. This is the direct result of many historical problems; however the social situation of many of these landless peasants is also the direct result of more recent events, such as the military occupation of their lands.

ASOCOMBIA – Asociación Campesina Agroecológica de Combia

Today I was fortunate enough to travel into an area where there has been heavy FARC activity over recent years. I visited an association of farmers from the Combia community, about 2 hours west of Palmira. One interesting thing I noticed as soon as I started talking to the people in the community was that many families often have less than half a hectare to cultivate the crops they sell in the local markets. To add insult to injury, most of the small farmers have some of the worst land in the country. It's not rare to see tomato being cultivated in a 30 to 45 degree inclines. The creation of ASOCOMBIA is a direct response to the problems being encountered by the local farmers. They mentioned that the area around their village is controlled by five families, one which has over 6,000 hectares of land throughout the region. This has forced them to cultivate their crops in the most marginal lands available in the area, while the landed families use most of the land for cattle grazing, vastly undermining the lands potential.

The community organization was created nearly a year ago in order to create a mechanism where the families from the Combia region could commercialize their products in the local market. However, in order to gain more market leverage ASOCOMBIA joined three other organizations in the region and created a second level entity called COARA – Campesinos Organizados Ambientalistas del Río Amaime (roughly translated to Organized Environmentalist Farmers of the Amaime River) in order to generate greater benefits for their communities.

Political Awareness

The reason for my trip to Combia was to create a political diagnostic of ASOCOMBIA's members. I am involved in a project that requires me to create a political profile of organizations in the Valle del Cauca region. Once the political profile is created, I will put together a plan of action where I will train the members of the community organizations in basic government functions and methods and eventually create a politically active member of the local community.