ahhh back from vacation...never a good feeling

My life has been a bit of a whirlwind these days. Last night was the first time in over two weeks where I havent had between 3 or 4 guests sleeping in my bed, on my couches or in any little cubby hole they could find. Dont get me wrong, it has been great. Just tiring. I did get an awesome vacation in with two really good friends from Seattle, Jenny and Emily. We biked through Bogota dodging people and carts, we cook a whole thanksgiving feats and then celebrated with 14 people from 5 countries speaking 4 languages and then took off for four days on a beach that backs into a jungle covered mountain and flows into ocean colored a marble between green and blue. It was amazing by many counts. Pictures to come

Now I am happy to report that the apartment is back to its organized normal, I am back to sleeping in my own bed and things, personally, seem to be calming down a bit.

Things in Colombia, however, are not.

First, the Community.
The big news is the dramatic presence of paramilitaries around two villages a couple hours north of where we live in La Union. While paramilitaries have always been present, they are being much more obvious this time around, and we have actually been there to attest to it. They are forcing the people into meetings and threatening total control and food rationing.

Also, in this same area, there are been series combats between the paramilitaries and the guerrillas. Outside of the fact that combat is always worrisome, this instance in particular is dangerous because it seems like there might be a shit in the balance of power.

Cant give much analysis right now, but it is really worrisome for us and the community.

Second, happendings in the are of irregular military recruitment. Basically, the Constitutional Court ruled that the street round ups the military often does to prove military status are ilegal. I might have explained it already before, but in Colombia, military service is obligatory and every male hast o register with the brigade in his district before he turns 18 so that when he does so, he can immediately start is one to two years of military service. Then the military often goes out into the streets and sets up check points in which they question every young male about their military status. These you havent presented themselves and have to military card, are then borded onto a truck, taken to the nears battalion and immediately tested for suitability and, if deemed fit, incorporated at once into the army.

Human rights organizations have ben fighting for several years now that this be recognized as ilegal detention and in violation of a young mights freedom of movement. The court took a large step toward doing so with this most recent ruling.

The precautions are sever. First, it isn't clear as to whether the ruling is applicable only to those younger than 18. Second, the ruling establishes no disciplinary action for violations; the court views that as the job of the military. In essence, then, no one really expects the round ups to end as their is no incentive for he military to do so.

Coming next is the even more important cases of Las Pavas, which is an continuation of the worries I talked about in the Mapiripan case in the post before last.

Lots of stuff.