Most of us can remember phrases or images painted by writers in books or short stories or plays or poems.  When they capture completely the essence of an event or scene or moment between people, or describe a mountainside so exquisitely. It is one of my aims to get there.  And I am so pleased to have such an attentive, captive audience as your good selves. Thanks for the encouragements.

My difficulty is trying to describe for you just what I experience here in Colombia, with all its wonders and small happenings, and some of our hardships.  The loneliness at times is profound and who knows what I would do without Annie and Hernan to talk with.  There is only so much Spanish I can take in, and few people who understand my sense of humour. When I tell a joke and someone gets it, I know I have crashed through those cultural barriers.  I admire those of you who did it alone like Therese or are doing it alone like Rachel.  I try to remember your stories when I want to toss up my hands and tell everyone to go jump.  My links with all of you through email are a lifesaver.  Laughing at some of your expressions is a relief and a reminder of Australian irreverence, a curious contrast to the law-abiding natures. 

When I got pulled over the other day by the traffic cops, and the private called the sergeant and the sergeant called the captain, and I knew I had the wrong documents on board, I thought, bugger it, I am not bribing them and I am not good at it anyway.  When the captain just wanted to practice his English, and I prattled on about what nice people Colombians were, I thought of all those previous times with Oz cops and the lessons they taught me.  Bless them.  I often recount the story here of when I got pulled up by cops in central Brisbane for going through, I still maintain it was yellow, a red light.  Brian was in the car. I got out and argued with the big copper. I said Brian would back me up, while he was shaking his head saying, no I wont. The copper kept nodding as I argued, and as he nodded, he said, its going up, its going up, and I think I ended up paying more than $200 some 20 years ago. Those were the days.  As it was, the Calera cops let me go, feeling good that they could tell their wives they had talked English with an Australian that day.

Two weeks ago, the Governor of Antioquia (population wise 10 times that of Queensland) and eleven of his staff, after seven months of being held by the FARC guerilla in a remote mountainside, where it rains incessantly, were shot in the head as a Colombian military helicopter flew over looking for them. Two survivors escaped. The country again went into a deep mourning like it had after the Club Nogal bombing earlier this year.  People on the streets wore tshirts bearing his face.  He was a high profile peace activist.  Even the potato farmers here shed a tear for him and his staff when they talked about it.  The plot thickened two days after the enormous funeral, when a Senator revealed that the day prior to the murders, the Governors own helicopter had been spotted by the survivors, taking FARC out of the area. It seems that the Governors office had FARC working inside.  Such is the complexity of this civil war.

People tend to simplify the battle as a drug war.  It is as complex as any other civil war where you get the fatal mix of oil, drugs and USA intervention Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam to name a few.

As the politics is complex, so too the people and their histories.  You dont meet anybody here who hasnt been scarred in some way.  Annie went to her first party the other afternoon in the township.  15 is really big here and the parties are always extravagant like a coming-out or debutante.  Viviana was turning 15 but her family could not afford to give a party where the friends could come. So Cindy did and the kids all paid a little for the softdrinks and videos.  Cindy who is a cheerful kid has no mum. When she was 8, her mother, who sold fresh fruit juice in our local square, was talking with a couple of local soldiers, and one of their rifles went off and killed her on the spot.  The young soldier, who knew everybody in the town, was so remorseful, that he asked to be imprisoned.  The husband did not press charges.  And Annie said Cindys father mopes around the house in the background like a character from a Russian play. 

Annies best friend here, Katherine, has parents who lost their jobs when the governments toppled here in the 1990s. It seems everyone has a story of making money out of the mafiosa in the 1980s when Colombian drug money was spent here. The mafiosa were fiercely nationalistic and chose Colombian goods over anything imported.  Hence, Jorge, Katherines dad, made carpets for them occasionally, and Gloria, Kats mum, did interior design on a number of their houses. Now, Jorge is still unemployed and Gloria teaches ice-skating.  Those were the days, people say.  Despite the paybacks and incredible violence, people talk about the drug barons with affection because they looked after their own people and were fiercely nationalistic. In a country where there was incredible poverty, and you needed someone to pay for your childs operation, you could always turn to your local drug baron and of course, he would never say no.  Naturally, there were conditions.  Despite the replacement of the private drug barons by major dealers like the FARC guerillas, people still remember those days as good ones. 

Just as people here think Australia is Terra Nullius, so too we have misconceptions about Colombia.  Its easy to simplify a situation, harder to think about its complexities.  When I look at the kids marching for peace, little ones with white flags in every city here, famous singers singing for peace, actors leading marches with mayors, and the kids from one of the schools in this farming district of ours singing at the top of their voices for peace in front of the mayors office, I remember that essentially that is what we all want. For those of you who have it, you are very lucky.  For those of you who want it, keep walking.