Hi from Sincelejo, the capital of the department of Sucre, Colombia. We’ve had several tremendous days of interviews and site visits in the Montes de MarÃa region, which was hit hard by the conflict in the early 2000s and which is now increasingly a focus for U.S.-supported “integrated action” programs. Today we go to MonterÃa, Córdoba, and then back to Washington.
Here’s a 100-second video I recorded from the back of a pickup truck on the road between Macayepo and Chinulito, both of them sites of massacres in 2000, and both of them experiencing a partial return of displaced people.
Some of you may recognize Nancy Sánchez of the Colombian human rights group MINGA (winner of the Institute for Policy Studies’ 2003 Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award). It may appear that I have Nancy in an affectionate embrace; actually, I’m clinging desperately with my free hand to the roof of the truck in order to avoid flying out. The road is in terrible condition.
On the road between Macayepo and Chinulito from Adam Isacson on Vimeo.
On the road between Macayepo and Chinulito from Adam Isacson on Vimeo.
July 10th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
If you took the bus like I did 5 years ago you wouldn’t have to worry about falling out of a truck.
Must have rained a lot because when I took that road it was smooth as a stick of butter.
I suppose taking the bus wouldn’t do much for your image as ‘manly blogger’ though would it?
July 10th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
I’d have loved to have taken the bus. Would’ve been a lot cheaper and easier to have a conversation. But no such thing exists. And the atrocious state of the road was the first complaint I heard from everyone. Did your smooth-as-butter experience include having to ford the Macayepo River eight times?
Let’s file that unnecessarily hostile comment under “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
July 10th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
keep doing these videos Adam – they’re great!
July 11th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Sounds like you were literally ‘taken for a ride’, I know the road you used but that’s not the route most people use.
Don’t feel bad even kind good humoured people like Colombians have been known to pull the wool over the eyes of the naïve.
July 12th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Oh, that _other_ road, right. The one by the Burger King and the outlet mall. Yeah, I was wondering about that.