Report from Mulatos
After few days of building our house in a simple farmer wooden house and getting into the campesino rhythm, we could prepare some drafts of activities and open our system to a high level of spontaneity and flexibility. The first participants landed in the Aldea de Paz and we all started to discover together what is this Peace village about and what are next steps to be realized together in a continuous mutual learning. Few workshops started: to build a simple compost toilet, to clean the chapel, to build foot-ball and volley-ball playgrounds, to design and gather all local materials for the building of the roof of the school/memorial, to continue a media work with few young people and produce together a documentary about this current gathering, to create a model of seed garden with seeds from Tamera and from the Peace Community with different technics. Little by little, the usual shyness of the campesino was vanishing and giving place to a heartful and rich contact with us. The youth of Mulatos is learning more and more how to be responsible for the community. There are also some « elders » around 40 who help to support the community process through their sincere participation. They like to be around here. One of us got quite sick with parasites in the stomach and we were trying to support her healing as much as possible until it was too strong and she had to go down to the town with 2 of us in order to get the right medication. So from 9 people, we spent a week so far with 6 people only. After 2 days of adaptation to the new positions, the group body of the Global Campus formed in a beautiful and powerful way where the participants were asking for more and more activities! The women and men circles we impulsed we very wished and welcomed where we could understand and learn more about their situations and see more and more perspective together. Videos, talks and texts were used to open a space of understanding and sharing about core issues such as: water, seeds, food/nutrition, forest, vision of the Aldea de Paz, etc. The leader Gildardo is so happy and grateful that we support Mulatos so much and is working hard from morning to evening to enjoy as much as possible the energy and knowledge gathered here now. The security situation in the area is quite good since the last pilgrimage. There was “only” one combat between La Union and San José… It is very visible that the strong action of the last pilgrimage led in the area left foot-print and there was no significant movement of the paramilitaries nor the Army except in one situation. In the other hand, Gildardo was sharing that there are more and more approach of neighbors to the Peace Community for advising and accompaniment (how to become more and more autonomous -our future compost toilet is already famous!-) and to resist to the war actors. Every morning we go to the little stone circle and do our morning prayers with Sources of Love and Peace. This gives us a lot of strength and we speak out, what is in our hearts. And we are very much looking forward for the Global Grace Day celebration where the whole community is invited to join the global prayer, showing to their elders the realizations of the 2-week camp and the perspective for their near future within the Peace Community. Right after the GGD, we are invited to accompany a new pilgrimage to Rodoxali/La Hoz as a follow-up of last visit one month ago. We greet you all from Mulatos and thank you again for supporting us and keeping us in your hearts and prayers.
