pop-ed
I started out with this thing with the intention of of presenting both a more personal and as such more readable account life here and also a view different to that of how Colombia is commonly perceived in the UK. It has occurred to me recently however that the things I've been writing about probably present an image not far off from the tumultuous stereotype. Im not sure if this really is the case but either way I thought that at risk of boring you it would be useful to remark on the albeit busy work wise but general tranquility and routine of my daily life so as to balance it out a bit.
Yes, in cities life largely carries on and though a struggle for many due to economic conditions there is routine and order. I personally get up early and eat breakfast in a small room connected to an even smaller kitchen on the street where I get the bus. Its good stuff, eggs, scrambled with tomatoes and onions with rice and plantain and a cup of hot sweet milk with the faint aroma of coffee. And then a bus to the Uni office, a bumpy and mildly hair raising drive but pretty straightforward. I like travelling on the bus, noticing new things each day and having a chance to catch your thoughts in between the nights sleep and talking to people. I spend all day at the uni normally, attempting to get on with work in between answering the phone and the general interruptions of the comings and goings of various people. I like to have the large dark glass door open and the lights off but my colleagues prefer the opposite. I get a free lunch if i cue for it and normally do: soup, rice, meat, a slice of plantain and fruit juice, its basic and mass produced but decent. The office normally go home around 6 and i head back to work at home before heading out to catch the last of the street food on the corner where I have become a regular to the disgust of body but the satisfaction of brain. The neighbourhood is one where you frequently bump into people you know at all hours and thus I have managed happily without a phone or social planning. Walking around in the warm air of last night I found a part of San Antonio id never come across and clearly the oldest, beautiful brightly coloured houses perched on the slopes of San Franciscan inclines, adorned with lively plants and capped with terracotta roofs.
Tuesday, after having missed multiple previous appointments due to the busyness of last week, I finally went to see the popular education project that a friend has been badgering me to visit. We waited a long time for a bus which is very unusual if going anywhere else in the city. I was told its not for this neighbourhood. The Aguablanca district, despite housing over a quarter of the city's population (some 1.5 million people out of 4 million) is in many respects marginalised from rest of the city. Transports are less frequent for nothing more than the fact that many inhabitants have not the means to get out, even to the city centre. It lies in the East of Cali, and its population expands daily on account of “las invasiones” the influx of displaced and destitute campesinos, internal refugees seeking asylum in the city. The population falls into social stratas 0 and 1 (less than US$1 per day) and the role of the state in these illegal outlying settlements is no more than keeping public order with large police patrols.
As the bus pushed deeper the roads began to deteriorate, housing materials become more crude, the streets narrower and the population more dense. The streets are lined with stalls selling all the basic necessities, the zone is in many ways a self contained, insulted by poverty. We stop and jump off outside a pool room with two open walls and old men shooting balls with ferocious speed and accuracy in characteristic latin american style. The school lies in the Poblado Dos sector of the zone and we reach it quickly.
The building itself, consisting of four classrooms and a small open area in the centre was originally constructed by the government in the 1980s when Urban Guerilla Movement M-19 handed in their arms in return for a government commitment to certain social programs. It was later abandoned and then reutilised by the education project two years ago as part of a community initiative subsidised by The Municipal Services Company Emcali in collaboration with a group of 14 Uni Valle graduates as teachers. Emcali have since withdrawn financial support due to lack of available funds but the teachers continue unpaid and have set up the Foundation for Popular Capacitation FUNDECAP with the intention of providing poplar education in an area of the city neglected by the State.
On arrival I met with some of the enthusiastic teachers outside the busy entrance and was taken to see the nearby allotment. Its maintained by the students and occupies a stretch of wasteland in between some makeshift housing and a black drainage river nearby the school. The two young backyard-tatooted males attending it showed me round the impressive bounty of bannanas, black beans, tomatoes, corn, plantain and coriander.
There are currently 250 students studying at the school covering all age ranges and a further 250 outside of the immediate catchment comprised of parents, street kids and elderly people involved in extra curricular projects including art, dance and theatre. Of the 14 teachers, 11 were educated in the Cali’s Public University, La Universidad del Valle (Uni Valle) and whose degrees cover the spectrum from politics to maths. Courses are offered from basic literacy and numeracy to history, politics, geography, maths and physics in preparation for the nationally standardised state exams which would enable students to attend the public university with financial support. Adult literacy classes are given by ex-graduates of the school and many students take part in other voluntary functions. The school recieves zero state financial support.
I sat in on two classes, comprised of students ranging from ages 14 to 38 from all over colombia and as such ethnically very diverse. The focus on socio-political consciousness absent from the state education curriculum was striking and the student´s perceptive analyses of their situation, prospects and most of all dreams, quite moving. The classes were lively, argumentative and exiting. Student were inquisitive about my country and what had attracted me to theirs. On at least three occasions I was asked by students as perplexed as many people in the UK why Mr. Blair persists with the special relationship with the USA. They asked me about literacy in the UK and what it meant for political participation in general the population. I replied that we suffer the same addiction to soaps and opiate entertainment, the same apathy, though not on account of a lack of literacy (or the capacity to enquire) but on account of a lack of consciousness and self belief that change is either necessary or in our hands. While just about everything that materially comprises a normal school was lacking, a recognition of the urgency of change and crucial self belief to realise were not.
After the class was the weekly meeting of students and staff, a rowdy but crucially impassioned and participative affair discussing payment of fees (£2.50 per month per student to cover basic costs), the approaching exams and the direction of further projects and ideas to attain funding.
I suppose what struck me most about the visit was the practicality of the project. In the world I am in here, of Unions and international non-governmental organisations, and particularly coming from a UK political science degree the focus on solutions is heavily weighted on top down political processes; appealing to national governments for change or informing the international community with the intention of raising consciousness outside to bring about policy change from above. While I clearly believe this to be an important part of the process I had largely overlooked the fundamentals. What is going on here is educating the people affected by the policies we wish to change, people that are often excluded even from the deiscourse of resistance. This is a population that globally consists of the majority and is potentially very powerful. popular education is also a form where results are visible unlike the sometimes seemingly fruitless circles of political bargaining in which we invest so much of our time.
The teachers I spoke to told me of their university experiences with which I could identify well from personal experience; of desperately trying to mobilise the students for change both for ourselves but more (particularly in the case of activism in the more economically developed world) for the purpose of helping or changing the conditions of others in worse situations. It can be demoralising experience. Their response was to go to where the problem manifests and mobilise and inform those affected. A simple and logical move. Im not claiming that any this is unheard of new radical measures or that the institutional political avenues should not also be pursued but simply remarking that I pesonally had overlooked its merits and it ws impressive and exciting to see such a vibrant process in action.
[The school is running on minimal funding and the teachers solicited my help in making contacts with European NGOs that might be able to provide something. Popular education is quite a hot subject at the moment and significant EU funding comes to Colombia administered by national and international NGOs. In view of this I thought it would probably be possible to find some money somewhere. I have no experience in this field and do not know how the process works. If anyone has any ideas, people to contact, methods, please contact me and I will translate and relay the information. Thank you]
Yes, in cities life largely carries on and though a struggle for many due to economic conditions there is routine and order. I personally get up early and eat breakfast in a small room connected to an even smaller kitchen on the street where I get the bus. Its good stuff, eggs, scrambled with tomatoes and onions with rice and plantain and a cup of hot sweet milk with the faint aroma of coffee. And then a bus to the Uni office, a bumpy and mildly hair raising drive but pretty straightforward. I like travelling on the bus, noticing new things each day and having a chance to catch your thoughts in between the nights sleep and talking to people. I spend all day at the uni normally, attempting to get on with work in between answering the phone and the general interruptions of the comings and goings of various people. I like to have the large dark glass door open and the lights off but my colleagues prefer the opposite. I get a free lunch if i cue for it and normally do: soup, rice, meat, a slice of plantain and fruit juice, its basic and mass produced but decent. The office normally go home around 6 and i head back to work at home before heading out to catch the last of the street food on the corner where I have become a regular to the disgust of body but the satisfaction of brain. The neighbourhood is one where you frequently bump into people you know at all hours and thus I have managed happily without a phone or social planning. Walking around in the warm air of last night I found a part of San Antonio id never come across and clearly the oldest, beautiful brightly coloured houses perched on the slopes of San Franciscan inclines, adorned with lively plants and capped with terracotta roofs.
Tuesday, after having missed multiple previous appointments due to the busyness of last week, I finally went to see the popular education project that a friend has been badgering me to visit. We waited a long time for a bus which is very unusual if going anywhere else in the city. I was told its not for this neighbourhood. The Aguablanca district, despite housing over a quarter of the city's population (some 1.5 million people out of 4 million) is in many respects marginalised from rest of the city. Transports are less frequent for nothing more than the fact that many inhabitants have not the means to get out, even to the city centre. It lies in the East of Cali, and its population expands daily on account of “las invasiones” the influx of displaced and destitute campesinos, internal refugees seeking asylum in the city. The population falls into social stratas 0 and 1 (less than US$1 per day) and the role of the state in these illegal outlying settlements is no more than keeping public order with large police patrols.
As the bus pushed deeper the roads began to deteriorate, housing materials become more crude, the streets narrower and the population more dense. The streets are lined with stalls selling all the basic necessities, the zone is in many ways a self contained, insulted by poverty. We stop and jump off outside a pool room with two open walls and old men shooting balls with ferocious speed and accuracy in characteristic latin american style. The school lies in the Poblado Dos sector of the zone and we reach it quickly.
The building itself, consisting of four classrooms and a small open area in the centre was originally constructed by the government in the 1980s when Urban Guerilla Movement M-19 handed in their arms in return for a government commitment to certain social programs. It was later abandoned and then reutilised by the education project two years ago as part of a community initiative subsidised by The Municipal Services Company Emcali in collaboration with a group of 14 Uni Valle graduates as teachers. Emcali have since withdrawn financial support due to lack of available funds but the teachers continue unpaid and have set up the Foundation for Popular Capacitation FUNDECAP with the intention of providing poplar education in an area of the city neglected by the State.
On arrival I met with some of the enthusiastic teachers outside the busy entrance and was taken to see the nearby allotment. Its maintained by the students and occupies a stretch of wasteland in between some makeshift housing and a black drainage river nearby the school. The two young backyard-tatooted males attending it showed me round the impressive bounty of bannanas, black beans, tomatoes, corn, plantain and coriander.
There are currently 250 students studying at the school covering all age ranges and a further 250 outside of the immediate catchment comprised of parents, street kids and elderly people involved in extra curricular projects including art, dance and theatre. Of the 14 teachers, 11 were educated in the Cali’s Public University, La Universidad del Valle (Uni Valle) and whose degrees cover the spectrum from politics to maths. Courses are offered from basic literacy and numeracy to history, politics, geography, maths and physics in preparation for the nationally standardised state exams which would enable students to attend the public university with financial support. Adult literacy classes are given by ex-graduates of the school and many students take part in other voluntary functions. The school recieves zero state financial support.
I sat in on two classes, comprised of students ranging from ages 14 to 38 from all over colombia and as such ethnically very diverse. The focus on socio-political consciousness absent from the state education curriculum was striking and the student´s perceptive analyses of their situation, prospects and most of all dreams, quite moving. The classes were lively, argumentative and exiting. Student were inquisitive about my country and what had attracted me to theirs. On at least three occasions I was asked by students as perplexed as many people in the UK why Mr. Blair persists with the special relationship with the USA. They asked me about literacy in the UK and what it meant for political participation in general the population. I replied that we suffer the same addiction to soaps and opiate entertainment, the same apathy, though not on account of a lack of literacy (or the capacity to enquire) but on account of a lack of consciousness and self belief that change is either necessary or in our hands. While just about everything that materially comprises a normal school was lacking, a recognition of the urgency of change and crucial self belief to realise were not.
After the class was the weekly meeting of students and staff, a rowdy but crucially impassioned and participative affair discussing payment of fees (£2.50 per month per student to cover basic costs), the approaching exams and the direction of further projects and ideas to attain funding.
I suppose what struck me most about the visit was the practicality of the project. In the world I am in here, of Unions and international non-governmental organisations, and particularly coming from a UK political science degree the focus on solutions is heavily weighted on top down political processes; appealing to national governments for change or informing the international community with the intention of raising consciousness outside to bring about policy change from above. While I clearly believe this to be an important part of the process I had largely overlooked the fundamentals. What is going on here is educating the people affected by the policies we wish to change, people that are often excluded even from the deiscourse of resistance. This is a population that globally consists of the majority and is potentially very powerful. popular education is also a form where results are visible unlike the sometimes seemingly fruitless circles of political bargaining in which we invest so much of our time.
The teachers I spoke to told me of their university experiences with which I could identify well from personal experience; of desperately trying to mobilise the students for change both for ourselves but more (particularly in the case of activism in the more economically developed world) for the purpose of helping or changing the conditions of others in worse situations. It can be demoralising experience. Their response was to go to where the problem manifests and mobilise and inform those affected. A simple and logical move. Im not claiming that any this is unheard of new radical measures or that the institutional political avenues should not also be pursued but simply remarking that I pesonally had overlooked its merits and it ws impressive and exciting to see such a vibrant process in action.
[The school is running on minimal funding and the teachers solicited my help in making contacts with European NGOs that might be able to provide something. Popular education is quite a hot subject at the moment and significant EU funding comes to Colombia administered by national and international NGOs. In view of this I thought it would probably be possible to find some money somewhere. I have no experience in this field and do not know how the process works. If anyone has any ideas, people to contact, methods, please contact me and I will translate and relay the information. Thank you]
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