The second in a series of interviews with victims of urban violence in Medellin, Colombia.
"Sometimes we would get up at 6am to go to school on the bus and we would find someone dead on the corner."
This series of interviews was carried out in June 2014 as part of my research for my dissertation towards completing my masters degree. You can read some research on Medellin here. As I was only able to use excerpts from these interviews I have decided to include them here so that the voices of these amazing people can be heard in full. Practically every single one of the victims expressed their desire to be heard so this is my part towards that and please also share so that these people can be heard far and wide. These are stories of resilience and strength and not of weakness and victimisation. Hopefully they can serve to change the image of victims of violence.
This second interview was with Cielo who is and was a victim but is also much more than that. She is a community leader, representative, activist, project manager, mother and came to be a very good friend. I spent time with her in the Cultural Centre of Moravia, where you can read about in my last blog here. We also walked around the neighbourhood and visited some of the worst off people who still live on the rubbish dump and refuse to leave.
What is special about the place you live?
There is something that distinguishes Moravia and that is the rubbish dump. It’s one sector of the barrio. This morro (hill) is made of rubbish and doesn’t have any public services. The large population that has gathered around the morro has created a social and economic dynamic of co-habitation and community due to strong leadership and over the time this has gotten the attention of the municipality. It was a great surprise for everyone that the barrio developed here because who is going to live in rubbish? But we have gained a lot of recognition locally, nationally and internationally for culture and fortunately our face is changing.
When one speaks of Moravia you always have to go back to the morro. Its a point of reference for everyone. The people’s view is always towards the morro. It distinguishes us.It defines who we are and how we have overcome problems and moved on. Its a barrio that has a lot of resilience.
The centrality of the barrio is also very important due to the geography and the train passing. Due to the location, people in the barrio have to mix with visitors from other parts. This allows an interchange of services. This was a rural area before and very central. It was not very populated. There was a lot of farming and then this became commercialised. The community began to sell products to the visitors and the visitors would give gifts of clothes to the people in the barrio. This generated a commercial dynamic due to the train, connecting us with the city.
Has there ever been any accidents?
Since the barrio has been affected so much by violence, when I was a child, I remember the barrio had a very violent dynamic. I saw many people murdered in front of my eyes. I had a very happy childhood because I had a big family. There were ten of us. My father was murdered when I was six years old. This was a very hard situation. The violence was very strong here during the times of Pablo Escobar. There various groups, and for a child it was not a nice place to be in the streets. One did not want to be in the street playing when a shoot-out began, in the middle of the bullets flying over-head, with people falling at your feet as happened to me several times. I remember seeing them wounded and in agony. This had a great impact on me but I am not traumatised by it. I have managed to get over it but its very sad to remember it. Sometimes we would get up at 6am to go to school on the bus and we would find someone dead on the corner. I remember that being very common. The murders were very violent. Several times they found women in the river. As a child one wants to see it out of curiosity. One wants to know if it’s someone you know. This involves you involuntarily.
The violence was not always in the streets. Sometimes a mother might put the hands of a child on the stove in the house for example. The mothers were very strict. There wa a lot of inter-family violence. Often the mothers wouldn’t send children to school thinking that it was not important or because they didn’t have any clothes or food. So they didn’t go to school due to being poor. There are still a lot of children who can’t read or write. This is terrible when education is free.
There are all types of violence here.
There have been various disasters but not many natural disasters. Every year there is a fire on the morro so they say that definitely nobody can live there because its very vulnerable. In some parts, smoke comes out. One year there was a very strong fire when one child died. Sometimes, because the people don’t have public services, they get them contraband with improvised installations, bare wires etc.and one spark can start a fire. Since that there have been more but these fires initiated interventions. These fires spread extremely quickly because the morro is pure rubbish and the houses are made of wood. There is a fire almost every year.
They say that memory is important in getting over the difficulties of violence, that it’s important for the next generation to be aware of what happened before. How do you view this?
In the CC there is a space dedicated to neighbourhood memory. You can find a lot of photographs and texts that tell the story of the barrio. They show the story of the interventions and the start of construction of the centre. On the morro, they have put little flags to indicate where families used to live and the family can put a word, any word they want, on the flag. We can see the flags right beside the houses that are still there. There has been an impressive displacement of people. Sometimes up to 19 people lived in little house which were very small. In my house, we lived 12 people. 10 of us slept in one bed. Because of the density of houses here, most of them are not very well ventilated because they dont have windows. Because this is an informal barrio, there is almost no privacy between houses and there are a lot of alley ways. Culturally, if a child gets married he can live in the parents house with his new wife and his children so families get very big.
This centre of memory is for the local people to know the history of the barrio and also for visitors to get to know the barrio and we are here to tell our histories and what is not in the texts. Which is very important. Conversation is important for us and for outsiders.Plan de Mejoramiento Integral de Moravia is an important project that also needs the memory of the neighbourhood. This is always changing shape and vision with time. And it doesn’t always achieve its goals.
The leaders are always reclaiming the memory of the barrio in order to maintain control over how things operate in this area because its us that know these things. We don’t want that we forget who lived in these places for example. For this we work with the municipality who plan these projects.
This is one of the most strategic and important areas of the city due to its location and its facilities. This is down to the interventions but principally due to the internal organisation and impulses from the community. We don’t want this to be forgotten. We want the community to take the credit for these changes. This work has hurt us a lot. We have suffered a lot to get where we are. I have scars, physical and mental. We say, we are here and we want development, but we had do much work to get where we are. The state has invested a lot yes, but that's because of the work that we have done and they have historic debts to pay. Here we have experts in these things. We haven’t studied perhaps but we learned from experience. We have experts in housing, health, education everything.
Now we have the CC and managers of the macro-projects that can manage the resources but the leaders of the past created all this. We were discriminated against a lot. When I graduated from university I couldn’t work in a lot of places because I come from Moravia but now people envy me. The dignity we have now is great. We are not so discriminated. Once I heard it, they said that they wouldn’t hire me just for living here. Now they tell me how great the centre is.
What does it mean for you to have a centre designed by one of the most recognised architects in Colombia?
It’s a great honour. Firstly because this was the dream of my colleagues before the municipality. The culture of the barrio is extremely strong and evident. It’s a richness. They decided we needed a music school for the musicians in the barrio. This generated a lot of respect for the barrio. We have dancers, musicians, writers, traditional dancers from Choco, african rhythms, painters.
The centre is filled with people when they present. Thats a great pride for me. We have a very young population who like urban culture, graffiti, hip-hop, mcs. We have language classes, capoiera.
Before this centre existed…. The centre didn’t generate the culture. The culture already existed but we didn’t have the ideal space for these activities. This is a platform for interactions, presentations, processes, learning which helps to give potential what we already have. This is a space by the community for the community. One week we have a group from the barrio and the next an international group so this interchange is a wealth. I had the amazing opportunity to visit Italy with the Centre and represent my barrio.
The centre also gives the chance to some of the youth to present their culture in other parts when we are invited to other cities for shows. This is all the culmination of community work.
 |
| Cielo showing me around the houses of the neighbourhood. 9 people live and sleep in this one bedroom shack made from rubbish scavenged from the dump. |
What is special about the place you live?
There is something that distinguishes Moravia and that is the rubbish dump. It’s one sector of the barrio. This morro (hill) is made of rubbish and doesn’t have any public services. The large population that has gathered around the morro has created a social and economic dynamic of co-habitation and community due to strong leadership and over the time this has gotten the attention of the municipality. It was a great surprise for everyone that the barrio developed here because who is going to live in rubbish? But we have gained a lot of recognition locally, nationally and internationally for culture and fortunately our face is changing.
When one speaks of Moravia you always have to go back to the morro. Its a point of reference for everyone. The people’s view is always towards the morro. It distinguishes us.It defines who we are and how we have overcome problems and moved on. Its a barrio that has a lot of resilience.
The centrality of the barrio is also very important due to the geography and the train passing. Due to the location, people in the barrio have to mix with visitors from other parts. This allows an interchange of services. This was a rural area before and very central. It was not very populated. There was a lot of farming and then this became commercialised. The community began to sell products to the visitors and the visitors would give gifts of clothes to the people in the barrio. This generated a commercial dynamic due to the train, connecting us with the city.
Has there ever been any accidents?
Since the barrio has been affected so much by violence, when I was a child, I remember the barrio had a very violent dynamic. I saw many people murdered in front of my eyes. I had a very happy childhood because I had a big family. There were ten of us. My father was murdered when I was six years old. This was a very hard situation. The violence was very strong here during the times of Pablo Escobar. There various groups, and for a child it was not a nice place to be in the streets. One did not want to be in the street playing when a shoot-out began, in the middle of the bullets flying over-head, with people falling at your feet as happened to me several times. I remember seeing them wounded and in agony. This had a great impact on me but I am not traumatised by it. I have managed to get over it but its very sad to remember it. Sometimes we would get up at 6am to go to school on the bus and we would find someone dead on the corner. I remember that being very common. The murders were very violent. Several times they found women in the river. As a child one wants to see it out of curiosity. One wants to know if it’s someone you know. This involves you involuntarily.
The violence was not always in the streets. Sometimes a mother might put the hands of a child on the stove in the house for example. The mothers were very strict. There wa a lot of inter-family violence. Often the mothers wouldn’t send children to school thinking that it was not important or because they didn’t have any clothes or food. So they didn’t go to school due to being poor. There are still a lot of children who can’t read or write. This is terrible when education is free.
There are all types of violence here.
There have been various disasters but not many natural disasters. Every year there is a fire on the morro so they say that definitely nobody can live there because its very vulnerable. In some parts, smoke comes out. One year there was a very strong fire when one child died. Sometimes, because the people don’t have public services, they get them contraband with improvised installations, bare wires etc.and one spark can start a fire. Since that there have been more but these fires initiated interventions. These fires spread extremely quickly because the morro is pure rubbish and the houses are made of wood. There is a fire almost every year.
They say that memory is important in getting over the difficulties of violence, that it’s important for the next generation to be aware of what happened before. How do you view this?
In the CC there is a space dedicated to neighbourhood memory. You can find a lot of photographs and texts that tell the story of the barrio. They show the story of the interventions and the start of construction of the centre. On the morro, they have put little flags to indicate where families used to live and the family can put a word, any word they want, on the flag. We can see the flags right beside the houses that are still there. There has been an impressive displacement of people. Sometimes up to 19 people lived in little house which were very small. In my house, we lived 12 people. 10 of us slept in one bed. Because of the density of houses here, most of them are not very well ventilated because they dont have windows. Because this is an informal barrio, there is almost no privacy between houses and there are a lot of alley ways. Culturally, if a child gets married he can live in the parents house with his new wife and his children so families get very big.
This centre of memory is for the local people to know the history of the barrio and also for visitors to get to know the barrio and we are here to tell our histories and what is not in the texts. Which is very important. Conversation is important for us and for outsiders.Plan de Mejoramiento Integral de Moravia is an important project that also needs the memory of the neighbourhood. This is always changing shape and vision with time. And it doesn’t always achieve its goals.
The leaders are always reclaiming the memory of the barrio in order to maintain control over how things operate in this area because its us that know these things. We don’t want that we forget who lived in these places for example. For this we work with the municipality who plan these projects.
This is one of the most strategic and important areas of the city due to its location and its facilities. This is down to the interventions but principally due to the internal organisation and impulses from the community. We don’t want this to be forgotten. We want the community to take the credit for these changes. This work has hurt us a lot. We have suffered a lot to get where we are. I have scars, physical and mental. We say, we are here and we want development, but we had do much work to get where we are. The state has invested a lot yes, but that's because of the work that we have done and they have historic debts to pay. Here we have experts in these things. We haven’t studied perhaps but we learned from experience. We have experts in housing, health, education everything.
Now we have the CC and managers of the macro-projects that can manage the resources but the leaders of the past created all this. We were discriminated against a lot. When I graduated from university I couldn’t work in a lot of places because I come from Moravia but now people envy me. The dignity we have now is great. We are not so discriminated. Once I heard it, they said that they wouldn’t hire me just for living here. Now they tell me how great the centre is.
What does it mean for you to have a centre designed by one of the most recognised architects in Colombia?
It’s a great honour. Firstly because this was the dream of my colleagues before the municipality. The culture of the barrio is extremely strong and evident. It’s a richness. They decided we needed a music school for the musicians in the barrio. This generated a lot of respect for the barrio. We have dancers, musicians, writers, traditional dancers from Choco, african rhythms, painters.
The centre is filled with people when they present. Thats a great pride for me. We have a very young population who like urban culture, graffiti, hip-hop, mcs. We have language classes, capoiera.
Before this centre existed…. The centre didn’t generate the culture. The culture already existed but we didn’t have the ideal space for these activities. This is a platform for interactions, presentations, processes, learning which helps to give potential what we already have. This is a space by the community for the community. One week we have a group from the barrio and the next an international group so this interchange is a wealth. I had the amazing opportunity to visit Italy with the Centre and represent my barrio.
The centre also gives the chance to some of the youth to present their culture in other parts when we are invited to other cities for shows. This is all the culmination of community work.
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