April 20th, 2008 | Published in Colombia, Conflict, Culture
“I had a professor who told me black is the absence of color, the absence of culture. We are invisible,” Robert tells me.
Let’s take a step back.
“What was your perception of Quibdó before you arrived here Tim?” Robert asks me on air.
The red light beeps “On Air”. The producer kept pushing me to speak. My palms wet, my mouth dry –my least favorite ironic bodily reaction to fear– I look to Sandro for help.
Can I say “this is the ‘black’ part of Colombia forgotten by the rest of the country”? Not knowing the racial landscape, I avoid this comment, tip-toeing around the issue as I have been so dutifully trained to do in my own culture.
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April 17th, 2008 | Published in Colombia, Culture
“When you speak in another language, you become another person,” starts Sandro. “It’s more that communication, it’s the adaptation of another culture, another set of paradigms.”
“At the base of it all it’s about communicating using all the tools you have,” I jump in. “Half my family is Italian,” I continue gesticulating wildly. “This is how we communicate. At times even a simple request to pass the antipasta can lead to eye injury. Here though the gestures are smaller, subtler. I had to learn the language of gesture as well as the words.”
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“I had a professor who told me black is the absence of color, the absence of culture. We are invisible,” Robert tells me.
Let’s take a step back.
“What was your perception of Quibdó before you arrived here Tim?” Robert asks me on air.
The red light beeps “On Air”. The producer kept pushing me to speak. My […]
“When you speak in another language, you become another person,” starts Sandro. “It’s more that communication, it’s the adaptation of another culture, another set of paradigms.”
“At the base of it all it’s about communicating using all the tools you have,” I jump in. “Half my family is Italian,” I continue gesticulating wildly. “This is how […]
“The people here are beautiful. So nice. So generous. I never have to worry in the streets. Quibdó is surrounded by natural beauty as well.”
I’m talking with a class of students practicing English. I figured the simple questions about family, home, and food would be benign enough.
“My father’s been dead for ten years,” one student […]
Any talk of displacement inevitably includes mention of Choco, the Pacific state predominately populated by Afro-Colombians.
“Many of our displaced students here are from Choco,” says Maria Teresa Morales, the coordinator of colegio Bello Oriente.
“These are images of the horrors in Choco,” says photographer, Jesus Abad Colorado playing a slideshow of recent miliant activity: children holding […]
Their eyes light up when they hear some is interested in their lives, their families, their dreams.
Youth in Bello Oriente slicing into some sugar cane for an afternoon snack.
Youth in Main South hanging out and having fun!
For the next two months this group of youth from Bello Oriente will be photographing, video taping, and […]
The view is stunning from this vantage point it is possible to see all of Medellin. The signs of development are everywhere: The new science center, the new metro, the new high rises.
I turn around and it’s a different story.
Bello Oriente is a community of families displaced by the violence in nearby towns and villages. […]
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