-
Pretty sure this was the hardest picture I’ve ever had to take.
This past Tuesday I was part of a “march against FARC,” a hastily organized protest in reaction to FARC’s execution of four Colombian soldiers during a failed rescue operation.* The soldiers had been captive in the jungle for nearly fourteen years and were found dead next to their chains, shot to the head. I joined thousands of people dressed in white as they made their way across the city center chanting for the end of the FARC, demanding that remaining kidnapping victims be freed, demanding peace.
These types of protests are common in Colombia, I remember them since I was a child, a sort of outlet for the collective outrage over a war no one knows how to fix. The mood was not somber. It was a sunny day, and people waved flags and sang along. But it was much harder for me than I had expected. A little girl walking next to me, about nine years old, clutched a yellowed picture of a woman holding an umbrella. Maybe her mom. Maybe an aunt. Tears came down her face, and when I finally gathered the courage to ask, I just got a number: eight. Eight years, “disappeared”. God, I don’t know how to deal with this. I cried the whole way.
It’s easier now, to forget we’re in the middle of a war. Ten years ago, before my family left Colombia, war was everywhere. My school bus had armed escorts. We never left the city because FARC roadblocks made it was too dangerous to travel by land. One of my classmates saw his grandmother kidnapped on Christmas eve, when guerrilleros just walked into their country house holding machine guns and tied everyone as they took her away. Today, the war has become more of an abstract concept. Something you see in the news. Something you argue about how to fix after two beers too many at family gatherings. But not for that little girl, and not for that old woman with the big picture of John Paul II. Not for millions of Colombians that still live it every day.
Tuesday’s march was a sobering reminder that our war is very much still here. We have a long way to go.
*There’s a big controversy about what was actually going on, the Army denies there was a rescue operation underway. Blame’s in the same place regardless, if you ask me.
-
Made this today. Can you guess what MY idea is?
-
This is probably the kind of thing that would have started a flame war over the Pfoho email list when I was at Harvard, but since I did the grown up thing and unsubscribed when I graduated (sigh), I’m going to complain to the empty silence of the Internet.
Since Wednesday night, a tent city has been set up in the middle of Harvard Yard, as protesters sympathetic to the Occupy movement gathered there, leading university police to shut down the most central part of campus. Since then, as about 350 protesters ask for a “university for the 99%”, the uninvolved 95% of undergrads found themselves locked away from their dorms for hours, waiting in long lines just to get home.
Occupy Harvard is making my blood boil. It’s lazy, uninformed, and, it seems to me, largely driven by a desire to participate in the cool trend of the Occupy movement in a very Harvard student way: without leaving the bubble and having to suffer the inconvenience of leaving campus to join Occupy Boston.
A lot of the criticism outside of Harvard (at least from what I have been reading on Twitter) stems from the irony of having the students of a long standing symbol of elitism and the “Amercian aristocracy” join the movement. Those people don’t get it either. The real problem that I have with the protesters is that, as they vaguely complain about inequality and corporations, they are targeting an institution that embodies the ideals they claim to be defending.
Harvard is a corporation, yes, and it makes money, yes. But it is also a non-profit institution, and one that uses that money to provide 70% of its students with financial aid, with kids from families that make less than $65k a year getting what is essentially a free ride. I am an immigrant probably more near the bottom 10%, yet I attended Harvard on full financial aid, being treated the whole time to the most astoundingly privileged educational experience any one percenter could dream of. I had top notch professors and facilities, an amazing residential life that was equal to students of all backgrounds, experiences abroad, and yes, God forbid, even the occasional lobster dinner. Despite my family’s financial status, I had access to the best education in the world, I graduated nearly debt free, and I have been afforded a level of social mobility unthinkable in most of the world. And I was by no means a token or exception.
I’m not arguing that Harvard is perfect. It has certainly made some questionable investment decisions, and many of the students that are part of the movement have legitimate grievances against the university that should be expressed, including the preference given to legacy applicants. But those are almost silly compared to the point about the future of the country that the Occupy movement is trying to make, and Harvard is making as honest and determined an effort to be accesible and diverse as any institution I have heard of. To “Occupy” Harvard is a disservice to the movement in general, and to the students that have worked their asses off to be there.
If some students really want to show their solidarity, they should stop disturbing those that are there to study, hop on the T, take that mythical ride across the river, and find a nice lawn in front of some evil corporation, bank, or government office to set up their neat little row of brand new matching tents. I understand the pain of not being a few yards away from a warm shower, and the free food at Annenberg, but, guys, who said changing the country was going to be easy? Get out of the bubble. Get out of our Yard.
-
Reason #1256 why it’s nice to be home: doodling like a middle schooler counts as “helping the family business”. (These were made entirely in Sharpie)
-
can we leave the contact information with each other. cauze i like u and wanna to make friend with you when i saw you at the first sight. can we?Chinese student that reminds me that I’ll love China
-
Things that are meant to be reassuring and fail: the anti kidnapping and anti extortion hotline, as advertised on a billboard in Pereira.
But guys, it’s toll free!
-
Photo reblogged from The Economist
I get a perverse and completely unfair sort of pleasure when Americans have travel paperwork hassles, even tongue-in-cheek customs forms coming from the moon.
I think anyone that knows me is already sick of hearing about my visa woes. Being Colombian is probably as bad as it gets in terms of travel hassles including visas required, extra processing times and “random” searches, except perhaps for a few Middle Eastern countries (we are not on this chart, but if I had to guess, I’d put us all the way at the bottom near Iraq and Afghanistan.). But even for a Colombian I’m an outlier.
I try not to think about it too much, but just since this past March I must have spent well over two thousand dollars on visa application fees and all the associated travel arrangements (including a last minute Cape Town- Paris flight because I didn’t have the right British transit visa). That’s if I don’t try to quantify all the emotional distress caused, and the months when I’m having to sit around and twiddle my thumbs waiting for something to happen.
I’m glad I don’t have to apply for a visa to go to the moon any time soon, but I do wonder if the Lunar consulate would be more responsive than the French.
Gulliver, our travel blog, relates a nice story for travellers frustrated by paperwork: when the Apollo 11 astronauts returned from the moon, they filled out a customs form and declared their cargo. (via Space.com)
-
Valle del Cocora, one of my favorite places in the world. Last week, with gringo in tow, it looked more beautiful than ever.
