While in Colombia I was thrilled to meet Julio Cesar Nieves
Escandon. Julio is a History professor of Indigenous people of Colombia
- Arhuaco people. He was our mentor and facilitator and took us to
see this private and extremely prestigious community.
The Arhuaco are a profoundly spiritual people who follow their own
unique philosophy that tends to globalize their surroundings. They
believe in a creator or "father" named
Kakü Serankua, who
engendered the first gods and material living things, other "fathers"
like the sun and the snowy peaks and other "mothers" like the earth and
the moon. They consider the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta to be the heart
of the world, and believe that the well-being of the rest of the world
depends on it.
The Arhuaco live in the upper valleys of
the Piedras River, San Sebastian River, Chichicua River, Ariguani River,
and Guatapuri River, in an Indigenous Territory in the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta Mountains. Their traditional territory before the Spanish colonization,
was larger than today's boundaries which exclude many of their sacred
sites that they continue to visit today, to pay offerings. These lost
territories are the lower parts by the steps of the mountains, lost to
colonization and farming.
When I visited their community, I
brought with me toothbrushes, toothpaste, cookies and soap to give to
the children an their families, which they loved. Nutritionist Professor Iris Perico with the government
was also there and she weighed and measured the children and gave a
lecture about food preparation, nutrition and cleanliness to all the
women. She taught them things like how important it is to clean under
your fingernails before preparing food to stop the spread of disease.
Here are some photos from my visit. The children sang for us and thanked us in their indigenous language.
For more information about Project C.U.R.E. please visit, www.projectcure.org
