The Four Directions: Dancing Dolls in the Sun

We started our march with a bit of sage, drums and a blessing to the four directions. There were 60 of us gathered on the sidewalks of San Francisco standing in the midst of the city bustle while Luis, a local Colombian, gave instructions to turn and face in each of the four directions.

East: to our Congressional Representatives and President Obama, may they hear our message loud and clear!
South: to our brothers and sisters in Colombia, may our solidarity be felt!
West: Where the sun dies each day, may it rise again!
North: That’s where we are standing right now, look around, see who is next to you.

… up above, look at the sky and the heavens.
…. down below, to our ancestors, those who have come before us…

From there we began to organize ourselves, each person picking up one end of a long string of paper dolls. We had made each paper doll by hand, cut out with scissors and decorated with markers, over the last few months. Each one represented 1,000 displaced people, people who were forced to leave their lands and homes. With a total of 4,000 dolls, we were haciendo presente, or making present, the 4 million displaced people of Colombia.

It was a hard number to grasp – even as I worked on the final strings of dolls late the night before… I could hardly believe that each piece of paper in my hands actually represented 1,000 human beings. The numbers are overwhelming.

Our walk began, the long strings of paper dolls between us, drummers drumming and everybody chanting along the way. We walked all the way up Market Street, right through the heart of San Francisco. People were intrigued – “what were the dolls for?” they asked.

After about 40 minutes, walking in the hot sun (it was 92 degrees!), sweating, chanting and handing out yellow flyers to onlookers, we made it to the Federal Building where Nancy Pelosi’s office is housed. A commission of three went upstairs, bearing gifts: a strand of paper dolls, a letter signed by those present and a poster opposing the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia. They were well received – one of Pelosi’s staff met with them for about 25 minutes, taking notes and trying to understand the complicated reality of Colombia’s situation.

This Day of Action was the largest nationally coordinated grassroots action for Colombia since 2003! We not only organized a similar action in seven major cities across the US, but we also sent 20,000 postcards to President Obama and thousands of faxes and emails with the same message: no more US military aid to Colombia, no FTA, no aerial fumigations, truth, justice and integral reparations for the victims and to promote a negotiated solution to the conflict. In other words, it was a great success!

To see photos of our action in San Francisco, click here. Or in Washington, DC, here.

If you read Spanish, you can see some of the media coverage from Colombia in El Espectador, El Tiempo, the organization that works on displacement in Colombia Codhes, listen to Contagio Radio or read an article in English here.

As we celebrate this beautiful, creative grassroots mobilization, we know there is so much work to do!

Like they say in Colombia, adelante!