What the FARC?

For field training, our class was split into 4 groups: 2 NGOs and 2 Journalist teams. Our mission was to report on the ongoing conflict between the Colombian military, the revolutionary guerillas (FARC, ELN) and the drug cartels. Although we were physically located on the Nicaraguan border, in simulation we were in Tumaco, Colombia. Yes, the lines between the real world and simulation were often blurred... Like the time I attempted to extract revolutionary information from a very willing army officer who offered me grapes and pears, only to later find out that he had no clue about the simulation at hand. Ooops. Delicious fruit, though.

So...it's been nearly three days since I've returned from field traning, and I'm still waking in the night thinking that the guerillas, military or drug cartels are coming to get me. The most difficult thing about being in a conflict zone (even a pseudo-conflict zone) is that there are no "good guys". On the first night of training, the al-Jazeera team was arrested by "Fuerzas Militarias", the host organization in charge of our security. As local journalists, three team members and I had to drive for miles to an unknown village and debate with local police for the release of our colleagues, after being thrown out of our cars by machine gun-donning military men to be patted down for weapons. Luckily I keep all of my heavy artillery in my underpants, so we were allowed to pass. The rest of the week followed in the same vein, as we constantly had to check our backs everywhere we went. If I had interviewed revolutionary guerillas on tape, I had to hide the camera SIM card in inappropriate places, like my bra, before returning to the military base. When contacting the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), I had to deny any relationship with the military, which was rather difficult considering that our only source of protection came from governmental armed forces. Actually, when traveling by boat to meet the FARC commander, I was found suspicious of being a spy, and was killed. Don't worry, they brought me back to life a few minutes later, which was kind of dissapointing given the beautiful ocean I was planning to haunt while my colleagues were conducting interviews. Oh well.

It wasn't all excitment, fun and games, however. One day we spent 4 hours learning how to deactivate landmines, only to be informed at the end of a long, instructional seminar that the way to deactivate them is to call expert landmine deactivators. So if you ever encounter a field surrounded by yellow tape reading "Danger: Landmine Zone" decorated with skull-and-crossbones, call your local landmine authority. Despite that anticlimax, I did learn a lot of useful things, like how to tell the difference in sound between an M-16 and an Uzi. (P.S Guns are LOUD. Airsoft did NOT prepare me for that.) I also discovered a lot about my emotional fortitude (or lack thereof) as I was asked by a FARC leader to take a child soldier home with me. Yup, I brought him home with me (imaginarily), only to later discover that I had endangered our entire convoy by assisting the enemy. Oops again.

In all, it was an amazing experience. I missed my lil' family like crazy, but the more I got into journalist mode, the less my heart hurt. When I came home, Harper gave me a huge smile with her gummy mouth + 1 tooth. And despite my greatest fears, she definitely didn't forget me. So I'm slowly readjusting back to normal life, although part of my mind is still somewhere out in the Costa Rican jungle, fighting alongside FARC for "the People".

This is where we stayed. The bedrooms were luxurious compared to the doorless, toilet paperless bathrooms.


These are deactivated landmines found on the Nicaragua/Costa Rican border


This is Chepon, who followed our team from the military base 10km into the jungle as we navigated by compass, map and Jose-David (see below).


This is a really great shot of a FARC soldier killing a drug lord. Sorry about the hand obstruction.


This is Jose-David, our FARC guard who accompanied us on our 10 km hike to a massacred village.