Column: An Aggie in Colombia
“My earliest memory as a 5-year-old was a massive explosion breaking the windows in our home,” my tour guide, Julio, stated solemnly.
The cause of this explosion was a bomb meant as a message of warning between two cartels. My tour guide, now an adult, was a hapless bystander in the middle of a city at war.
As our tour continued, he gestured towards a large plaza in the center of the city. “Every time the bus took me by this square growing up, I closed the window and crouched down in my seat. There was always crime in this square.”
I heard his stories, but I felt a disconnect between his memories of violence and what I was witnessing. That same square that Julio had been so afraid of is now a tourist attraction containing concrete pillars that light up at night.
A nearby building, once illegally occupied by gangs and used as a base to commit crime, is the headquarters of the secretary of education. A bustling metro cuts right through the center of town, providing affordable transportation to distant communities.
This resurrected city is Medellín, Colombia, located in the Antioquia department high in the Andes mountains. The entire duration of the tour, I felt as comfortable and safe as I would in any major city in the U.S.
The opportunity to work as an intern in this city has enabled me to witness a city of change striving towards a better future.
On another tour, I visited Comuna 13, once so dangerous that two decades ago, the Colombian government sent tanks and military helicopters to attack the guerrilla forces occupying the area.
My guide in Comuna 13 preferred to remain anonymous but remembers the engagement lasting 12 hours. Her family was in a nearby neighborhood.
As we walked up the steep hill to the Comuna, she stated, “There was always gunfire in these areas; it was very dangerous.”
I braced myself for what I’d find. I expected this community on the mountainside to be a desolate place afraid of a difficult past. Instead, I found happy faces, many belonging to small business owners blasting music in the streets and selling their goods.
The most striking aspect of Comuna 13 was the escalator on a mountainside as steep as those in Utah. This escalator runs between favela style housing of metal roofs and brick walls. Residents can now move around the community with ease.
The locality is beautiful. Every wall is painted with vibrant colors. My tour guide started to explain one of the paintings that contained the three founders of the village.
A man standing above the wall called out to us. As he waved, my tour guide realized he was one of the founders depicted in the painting. She introduced us, and we were given a warm welcome.
The paintings all told stories. A depiction of an elephant caught my attention. She explained, “The elephant expresses emotion similar to humans — that’s why it was chosen. It also has a good memory. One of the tusks is broken to show the hardship this community has been through.”
Connecting many of these mountain communities to the train system is a metrocable, a gondola-style ski lift stretching up the mountainside. This accessibility has changed the lives of many Colombians.
School was too far for many such communities. Even the bus fare was too expensive. With the metrocables, students can live at home and commute to universities more centrally located within the city.
The question I keep asking myself is how did this city change so much in such a short period of time?
A partial explanation came from Julio. He explained a government initiative to build “Library Parks” in some of the poorest and most dangerous parts of town.
“This library taught kids they don’t have to pick up a gun and participate in violence to be part of society,” Julio said.
Another crucial factor was the train and metrocable systems. “The train was built during the most violent time in our city’s history,” Julio said. “The train is always clean; no one leaves trash or scratches the seats because of what it represents to us as Colombians. That train represents the transformation of our city.”
I finished my tour with Julio at a large open courtyard. It was evening but strangely empty. No street vendors or pedestrians were going about their business. At one end of the courtyard sits two metal statues. One was complete, the other had been torn apart.
Behind the statues was a large replica of a newspaper with an ominous heading. “There was a huge festival years ago, right here in this courtyard. A bomb was placed in that statue, killing many innocent people,” Julio explained.
I believe the empty courtyard is a good example of the Colombian resolve. The old statue is in place to remember, while the new signifies the city’s rebirth.
I talked to an Uber driver when I first got to Colombia who asked me, “What did people think when you said you were going to Colombia?” I explained most were worried I was going to a dangerous and violent place.
The follow up question was insightful: “But what would you say now?” I told him Medellín was safe and full of friendly people. He nodded his head approvingly. I believe many Colombians feel a similar desire to be known worldwide as hospitable and friendly.
Great changes have occurred, but there is still work to be done. The tour I took of Comuna 13 is part of an organization known as Casa Kolacho that helps children in the area. They offer hip-hop lessons and teach kids to create art similar to the paintings that light up their community.
Everywhere I’ve gone in Medellín, friendly faces have greeted me. The city is hopeful and the progress made is tangible.
In 2016, the city was given the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize. The prize is awarded to the city that has achieved the greatest technological and sustainable urban solutions.
Colombians have proven a society can learn from their past and make the future better for their children. My experience here has taught me that happiness is a choice, not a result based on a set of circumstances.
-Tanner.Thomsen@usu.edu
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