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Date: September 16th 2010

from Colombia accompaniers Suzan Ireland and Kaitlin Porter, 14th September 2010.

During Suzan Ireland's first weekend in Barranquilla, she and Kaitlin attended a conference, "Jovenes por la Unidad de Pueblos Hermanos" (Youth for the Unity of Sibling Nations), that included young adults from Colombia and Venezuela in order to build grassroots interactions between people of the two countries. The idea was that the media and governments give the people of each country so many misperceptions about the other country that these young adults needed to flesh out some of these issues while having some face-to-face time together.

The conference began Thursday night with a worship service. Singing, clapping and hugging brought the group together quickly. Participants were recognized from both countries, and they warmly welcomed Kaitlin as the young representative of the United States to be a part of things. It was one of those moments when it would have been difficult to know that the participants were from two different countries whose governments are tense and ready to spring at one another.

The technical stuff was dealt with on Friday: working through the politics and histories of Colombia and Venezuela that have paved the way for the current relationship, or lack thereof, between the two states. These presentations were framed by various bible passages including Isaiah 32:7 "Justice will bring peace, tranquility and trust forever." Then participants discussed what justice would look like for them in each country. Colombia's conflict was explained at length, and after lunch the Venezuelans countered with how the conflict between the two countries was affecting people in Venezuela and how they realized that there were certain shortcomings in Chavez's diplomacy. Both recognized and discussed the United States' involvement in a less than positive manner. Through friendly debates, topics of how to reconcile these issues were discussed and both parties came to realize that the major issue was that each one's perceptions of the other country were based on what th
e media told them and what the government expected them to believe. What we saw in this conference was international relations at its finest, when people tear down the walls between them and move closer to realizing that they are one.

Saturday was the culmination of these discoveries. There were posters, dances, songs, and declarations made to honor and conclude what the conference was all about, and then the group took to the streets with balloons and whistles, not as a protest against either government, but as a moment to share the joy and friendship that was generated in the course of a few days. The signs carrying both the Venezuelan and Colombian flags proclaimed that they were people united. They were brothers and sisters even if their passports said they were not.

The theme of the conference could be best expressed through an activity that everyone participated in on the last day. Everyone was divided up into two teams placed on opposite sides of a 6x6 square grid. The object was to guess the path and remember what steps the person before you took and for each team to try and get all their members across without being able to talk. At the end of the game, the student who organized it gave further explanation of the purpose of the game. Everyone was a winner, because the object was to get everyone across, but since we were put on opposite sides and divided up everyone automatically assumed it was a competition. The fact of that matter is that Colombia and Venezuela, and indeed all the countries and peoples of the world, were created as one. We divide ourselves and decide to compete against one another for resources and power. We forget that God created us to be one and he/she simply wants to get everyone through the maze.

In a lot of ways the ideals of the accompaniment programs were reflected throughout the weekend's activities. So much of what can be done to find justice and peace in the world is simply taking the opportunity to get to know one another for who we really are, to discover how people are mostly the same everywhere and to rejoice at what makes us unique. Then Suzan and Kaitlin can return home to say "Yes there is terrible violence in Colombia, but Colombian people are not violent" or that "the Colombian government have made horrible mistakes, but so has the government of the United States" and we have to be able to move past our previous judgments and wrongdoings and see how we can make things right.




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