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Colombia<br />
accompany<br />
Cecilia “Chila”, a displaced black<br />
woman who had led this and many<br />
other initiatives in San Francisco<br />
district.<br />
When the light of the sun<br />
that accompanied us that day<br />
disappeared, I received a distressed<br />
call from the director of the<br />
organisation that had enabled<br />
the entire process. She said Chila<br />
had been killed just a few minutes<br />
after the end of the activity. Her<br />
dead body lay on the football pitch.<br />
People were paralysed with fear;<br />
nobody dared go to her. I wasn’t far<br />
away and all I dared was to make<br />
a couple of calls to the authorities<br />
and local people who might safely<br />
be able to help. Death was back in<br />
San Francisco and other districts<br />
of Buenaventura just when it had<br />
seemed the killers were yielding<br />
to the peaceful strength of the<br />
community.<br />
Second day...<br />
In the late afternoon, in the chapel<br />
of the Franciscans, a few metres<br />
away from the place where Chila<br />
had been killed by anonymous<br />
weapons, family and friends,<br />
known and unknown, gathered<br />
to bid her farewell and to share<br />
their pain and indignation. Among<br />
the unknown were three of us<br />
paisas, as they call anyone who<br />
is not black around here, vaguely<br />
acknowledged as “the <strong>Jesuit</strong>s” and<br />
friends in a joint project. The night<br />
before, we had prepared a short<br />
audiovisual presentation with the<br />
pictures and videos we had taken<br />
that Sunday afternoon, when we<br />
thought they might serve during a<br />
different kind of celebration.<br />
In a room behind the altar,<br />
we discussed with members of<br />
different organisations what<br />
kind of words we should use, who<br />
would speak and what to say, and<br />
whether it would be sensible to<br />
send a clear message about human<br />
rights through the presentation we<br />
had prepared.<br />
In that chapel, there was<br />
despair, indignation and pain<br />
caused by injustice and the<br />
mystery of death. However, from<br />
my perspective of faith, I could<br />
recognise the risen Christ in that<br />
lifeless body behind the altar.<br />
Black people do not stand in<br />
silence in the presence of death.<br />
Music, drums, movement and<br />
alcohol accompany death, for<br />
life and death are not separate<br />
but parts of the same essence.<br />
There is death in life itself. With<br />
the melody of the music, the<br />
penetrating drumbeat, the cadence<br />
of the poems recited for Chila,<br />
and that strange mixture of life<br />
and death, my heart burst into<br />
tears. What exactly was I doing<br />
here, why had life confronted me<br />
with this reality, what could I offer<br />
these people, what lessons should I<br />
learn? What was God telling me in<br />
my desolation?<br />
As tears rolled down our<br />
cheeks, Don Mario, leader and<br />
poet from Buenaventura’s La<br />
Gloria district, approached us to<br />
shake hands, saying emphatically:<br />
“Whites don’t cry for blacks,”<br />
suggesting with these words that<br />
we had become brothers of the<br />
community. A lasting friendship<br />
was born.<br />
Third day...<br />
Months later, thanks to the seeds<br />
of life born from that celebration<br />
of death and to Don Mario, we<br />
found ourselves sitting under a<br />
tree in the Matía Mulumba centre,<br />
to discuss possible ways to give<br />
practical form to our friendship.<br />
Children performing in a cultural activity in<br />
Lleras neighbourhood, Buenaventura. The vast<br />
majority of Buenaventura’s residents are black.<br />
(David Lima Díaz SJ)<br />
7
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