Update from Nils

Michele and I are spending a few weeks apart as I take part in an accompaniment in Nariño, in the far southwestern corner of Colombia, 30 hours from Barrancabermeja by bus. Nariño is beautiful, it’s very mountainous and also has a lot of rainforests. Right now I’m in Pasto, the capitol of Nariño, but we’ll mostly be working in the town of Ricaurte, about four hours from here. The newspaper ‘Diario del Sur’ has a bunch of photos of Ricuarte on their website (click here).

The photos do a pretty good job of telling the story of Ricaurte: beautiful mountainous rainforests, and lots of soldiers.

We’ll be in Ricaurte to accompany a community of Awá indigenous people that have been suffering in the armed conflict recently. Hundreds of families have had to flee their homes due to ongoing battles between the army and the FARC guerrilla, and many civilians have been killed, either caught in the crossfire or killed by landmines, which are prevalent in the rural areas. My teammate and I are not going to be visiting the rural areas for our own safety, but our accompaniment from Ricaurte can be helpful to the community leadership as they go about their work. We’re also hoping to write some articles to make the struggles of the Awá people more visible. I was here in Nariño last year in November, and it feels good to be back doing this valuable work.

Vacation in San Gil

We recently took a few days off team for a 4-day vacation in and near San Gil. Nils is leaving for an accompaniment in Nariño (the far southwestern corner of Colombia) so we wanted a vacation together before he left. San Gil is about 5 hours away from Barranca by bus, and the area around there is known for it's natural beauty, and it's beautiful colonial towns, as well as being a center for extreme sports such as whitewater rafting, hang gliding, and spelunking. We didn't do any extreme sports, but we did have a nice getaway, and went on some great hikes together.

In addition to San Gil, we visited the nearby village of Barichara, a beautifully-preserved colonial town. From there we hiked to a waterfall and to Guané, an even smaller village. Here are some pictures from our trip:

San Gil