Caracoli Part 2

Janeth and Elvia were two mothers who were raising their children in Caracoli. Janeth, who was not much older than me, had a beautiful spirit about her. As she walked us to her home she carried a huge sack of rice or potatoes that had been given to her by the director of the child care center. It was a pretty big bag to have to drag all the way through the barrio littered with debris. This was the first time I noticed the “agua negra” that ran throughout barrio. I’m not sure what was in the black water, but I think it was a mixture of human waste and other hazardous waste. It was very difficult to walk around and attempt to avoid the small puddles that were created by the augua negra, and I eventually gave up my efforts to do so.

We finally made a turn off the main road and began a long decent onto a steep lane that lead to the homes of Janeth and Elvia. The children helped the pastors and I traverse the unstable hillside with much ease and excitement. They were so proud and happy to have us visit their homes, and I was happy to be so warmly accepted.

Janeth’s home consisted of four brick walls with unintended holes scattered over the brick. The roof was made of a piece of tin that was held down by cinder blocks and buckets filled with sand or water. Her front door was a thin metal sheet that quietly clanged when the wind blew. Inside, there were two beds covered with a few thin blankets that did not appear to be sufficient enough to bring much comfort during the chilly Bogota nights. (To give you some sort of an idea of how chilly the nights are here, I started off with four blankets on my bed and I’ve upgraded to six. My neighbor and also my close friend, Liliana, so kindly lent me two more after I explained to her how cold I was during the night. I felt grateful and guilty for taking them after I remembered the families in Caracoli.) There was a small sink to the right of the room, and in the back left corner a curtain was hung up to allow for some privacy when someone wanted to use the bathroom. The floor was made of hard compacted dirt.

The family that lived here consisted of Janeth, her two daughters, her brother and her mother. They had a TV set up and a light that hung from the ceiling. In this small little home (I refuse to refer to it as a shack because the word just sounds lifeless to me) a family of 5 shared their lives together. We had a small devotional with the family. The Bishop said a beautiful prayer, and I held back tears when I heard his voice falter and when I saw him shed his tears. (I know I’m supposed to close my while we pray, but I was curious as to why he has stopped speaking mid-prayer.) As we left their home, I was greeted with a beautiful view of a hillside covered with children who were flying kites.

We walked further down the hill, again with the help of the excited children, to Elvia’s home. Though her home was larger, it was not much different than the one we had previously visited. She lived here with her five children and a chicken whose leg was tied to its cage. Once again we had a prayer, and this time I did not open my eyes when I heard the Bishop’s voice falter.

The completion of our visits led us back to the top of the steep hill. Along the way a little girl named Caroline asked me questions about the US. She wanted to know what the most popular food was, where I was from, if I had a boyfriend back home. She was a typical preteen girl, who had beautiful brown eyes and long brown hair. I felt bad telling her that I didn’t know what the most popular food was because we had every kind of food that you could possibly think of. She just laughed when I told her this, and started asking more questions about American culture.
As we stood and waited for the Bishop to come pick us up in his SUV, I took a long look at the sepia tinted world that I was invited into. I heard the laughter of children as they chased the stray dogs that populated the streets. I saw the wary eyes of old men who sat out in front of the stores. I saw the smiles of a mother as she said goodbye to us and gave us all farewell hugs.

Once again, I’m going to stop. Though my time in Caracoli is over, I still feel the need to reflect some more on the situation there and how I’m processing all the things that I witnessed.

Amanda