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Journey to the U’wa world

24 February 2015
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Dora and Henry’s son poses with his parakeet.
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Dora and Henry’s son poses with his parakeet.

  • On this journey we accompanied Fabian Laverde of the organisation COS-PACC to the indigenous resguardo (protected territory) of Chaparral-Barro Negro, in Casanare department.
  • “Woman, let yourself be loved”, begs the whining voice on the radio as we travel in a 4x4 truck through a cut in the forest, up and towards the mountains of Colombia’s eastern cordillera.
  • We stayed in the house of Henry Salon, governor of the U’wa resguardo between 2012 and 2014. In Casanare, the U’wa community has just 500 inhabitants that live in a territory of 18,600 hectares, which is about the size of the island of Aruba.
  • From Henry’s house you can the Sierra Nevada of Cocuy, whose snow-topped mountains reach 5,300 metres in altitude. That is where most of the U’wa population lives. The ancestral lands covered about 14,000 square kilometres, or half the size of Belgium. Today, they possess less than 14% of these lands.
  • The U’wa community has lived with the presence of armed actors on its territory, and the interest of petroleum companies. “An indigenous person without territory is like a fish without water”, the U’wa leader Alvaro Salon would say every day, until he died in 2007. The circumstances of his death have yet to be been clarified. The community’s position remains firm: “no to the exploitation of natural resources within their territory”.
  • Fabian has been advising and accompanying the community for years. He is also from the countryside and apart from having long meetings he also likes to help with the daily chores.
  • Former governor Henry Salon participates in everyday activities, in the picture he is splitting wood to prepare the sancocho.
  • Henry and his wife Dora have a vegetable garden behind their wooden house, where they grow tomatoes, cabbage and corn. 15 minutes from the house they have a plot where they also grow plantain and yucca. The community lives off agriculture.
  • Henry tells us that the community would like to start a seed bank for native plants to protect and preserve different local varieties.
  • Dora and Henry’s son poses with his parakeet.
  • We are in a very remote area with little mobile phone signal and Caroline calls the PBI office in Bogota with a satellite phone to report that there have been no security incidents.
  • A girl on her way to school takes her baby to class with her.
  • The school is just in front of Henry’s house. And while Fabian is meeting the new governor of the resguardo and its board of directors, Caroline plays with the children on recess.
  • In school they learn and maintain the U’wa language. Some families don’t talk the language at home anymore; and that is why it is very important to the community for them to practice in class.
  • Orley has had his fighting cock for four years; it is called Mi Pinto (for its multi-coloured feathers). He takes it everywhere, even when he is working in the fields. Mi Pinto has won many cock-fights already, and they are very popular in the region.
  • Back to the western world.
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