The Peripatetic.

Another timely rant on why I am a sap for Pasto and what that has to do with China and midterms . . .

Focus on mountainous range behind community building exercises

International Cooperation Regional Strategy head in the Narino government

Mural on the outskirts of Pasto

Let the games begin: finding ways to move one large group onto a tiny mat without talking

Spanish facilitator, Colombian participants

It was all, once again, oddly familiar: people from a bigger, outside organization (in this case, UN-affiliated) came to speak in an area where few foreigners venture.  It was not unlike, and forgive the drawn-out comparison, China.  Specifically, it was not unlike the development work in China to which I was privy.  Pasto, of course, was significantly more diverse, but after spending weeks in Lijiang with a gathering my former organization’s small groups from our projects around the country, I cannot argue that China was homogenous, either.  Like the eyes mentioned last week, the spirit of these gathering are strikingly similar.

Some “foreigners” — it used to be a few of my colleagues, sometimes even me — would get up and present something to a group of “locals.” The idea was to find ways for people to communicate with each other so that the real process of community building can begin.  In areas where tourism has not had much of a dint, when people do not have years of angst against the wild foreigners exploiting their resources — albeit while fueling an economy — and bringing the worst from home into someone else’s backyard, in these areas there is a pervasive sense of genuine hospitality.  Pasto has that: a genuine feel.  When people smile, they are not getting paid for it.  So when you play the simplest of games, the ones where you all take a few hours or so out of your sessions on development — on where your resources lie, what to do with them and, more importantly: what are you dreaming? — to pause, go outside and play, people are not upset that you just stole the last ten minutes they had to push their life-altering points home.  They join in, and there’s a spirit of cheer.

This is not to ignore the frustrations and pains and inevitable sacrifices and failures that everyone faces in a community ridden by poverty and directly impacted by violence within its own state, but it is to say that what everyone often misses in these areas — be it China’s coal-belt, hidden from the sun and suffering innumerable environmental and medical setbacks for the population or be in in Pasto, with one of the worst reputations in a country fighting off an horrific reputation —  is that there is a palpable sense of joy when you walk in these rooms, of welcome for a foreigner, of good cheer when in groups.  Throughout the games, everyone looked out for each other. Everyone laughed.  Then they went back inside and began tackling, with PowerPoints, with microphones, with ‘modern’ settings to offset age-old games, the insurmountable.

Making it personal: So here is the lesson to cull in the midst of midterms and papers and the seemingly insurmountable (How did I get so behind in life? How does everyone at this school know more than me? How do I not fail econ? Where was I during that last problem set when I actually had the time to learn this stuff?…) is that my insurmountable problems are, obviously within the framework of a credible institution that has been churning out students like me for quite a while, not insurmountable. Those questions pale in comparison to: how are my children going to get a proper education at all?  How do I pull up my entire town from poverty?  and Who is actually, really, going to help me?  Amidst those questions, a few games on the outskirts of town will show that the spirit is most definitely there. So who am I, of all people, to feel deflated right now?  Pasto, months ago and in another universe we students like to call “summer break,” still has a shining example or two, and above are the pictures to prove it.

Attitude is Pasto’s sterling quality, and perhaps its best.  Attitude in the backdrop of volcanos and a lush green mountainous range?  Priceless.