This week, Colombia's special peace tribunal, the JEP, handed down its first sentences to the soldiers who murdered and framed civilians to boost military statistics – killings which came to be known as the 'false positives.'

The court has ordered those who committed atrocities to work on community projects, to build works in the territories where they left scars, and to face the communities whose rights they violated, as agreed in the 2016 Peace Accord. I'll be explaining the ruling in this week's Colombia Briefing along with this week's other headlines.

To mark this historic ruling, this week's episode will be an extended and updated audio version of Emily Hart's investigation into those war crimes and the families still seeking justice – an article first published in DG Magazine - read by the author herself.

During Colombia's civil conflict, the army murdered thousands of civilians - framing them as guerrillas and criminals to boost statistics. In exchange for 'combat kills,' soldiers received cash, holidays, and promotions. The official number is 6,402 – though many estimate that the real number is closer to 10,000.

As events have been moving fast surrounding Uribe and his sentencing last month, Alsema and myself also put out an "explainer episode" which can also be accessed here on Patreon. 

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. Please subscribe to her Substack: https://harte.substack.com

This week, Emily Hart speaks to Lucas Marin Llanes - the director of development at the Latin American Drug Studies Network, and a research affiliate at the Andes University's Center for Security and Drugs Studies (CESED).

There are already some allowances for personal and medicinal use, but last month, Lucas and CESED proposed a whole new framework for legalised commercialisation. 

The first question is of course, why do it? Lucas proposes that regulation (done right) might be a way to take power from Colombia's armed groups, and to ensure decent working conditions for rural farmers; it could also ensure the quality and content of the cannabis people are consuming – as well as contributing to a realistic public health policy on the issue. 

But is it too soon for Colombia – are the security guarantees in place to avoid retaliation against those who want to join legal markets? Is the market built to ensure social justice outcomes - and inclusion for those who have long been a part of the chain of production? And - crucially - is there the political consensus to drive the policy through?  

And, somewhat paradoxically, is it too late? Has President Gustavo Petro's government – despite radical work at international bodies – fumbled the project, leaving no time in the remaining year of his mandate to make real change in the country?

So how might it be done? And what are the stakes? We'll be getting into all of it in today's episode.

And since Emily Hart is hosting the podcast again – the Colombia Briefing will be subscriber only this week – if you want to make sure you never miss an update, you can head to harte.substack.com and sign up to get the news as text and audio every Monday.

Abby was inextricably drawn into Colombian history in 1999 by the murder of her partner, Terence Freitas. Terence was kidnapped and killed by the FARC guerrilla, alongside two other indigenous rights activists - killings which sent shockwaves through political and activist circles both here and in the United States. 

The three had been working with the U'wa indigenous community in the northeast of the country, where Occidental Petroleum - a US-based corporation - was threatening to start operations in ancestral U'wa territory.

In the years following, as well as grappling with grief, Abby joined in activism with the U'wa from the United States, facing Occidental on Capitol Hill: she later even testified as an accredited victim at the Colombian peace tribunal, the JEP. 

The dense interweaving of the personal, political, and historical, make for a moving and unique set of experiences which Abby narrates in her extraordinary new book: 'Truth Demands: A Memoir of Murder, Oil Wars, and the Rise of Climate Justice.'

The Colombia Briefing will be subscriber only this week – so those of you who have already signed up will be getting it through WhatsApp and email as usual - but if you're missing your hit of news and want to be sure you never skip an update, you can head to the Colombia Calling Patreon or to Emily's Substack – harte.substack.com.

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This week, Emily Hart speaks to multi-award-winning translator Frank Wynne about Latin America's most beloved cartoon - Mafalda - and how he brought her to life in English. 

Dubbed 'a hero of our time' by Italian philosopher Umberto Eco and 'Charlie Brown with Socialism' by the New York Times, Mafalda is a precocious six-year-old girl living in 1960s Argentina - full of questions and observations about the world and the adults who surround her. She loves democracy; she hates soup and yoyos.

Though often lighthearted and sprinkled with slapstick and wordplay, her curiosity and questions are more than they initially appear: illustrator Joaquín Lavado, known as 'Quino' uses her seemingly innocent interrogations to skewer the hypocrisies and nonsense of contemporary politics. 

In the voice of a cartoon child, these questions and criticisms ran under the radar, but in 1970s Argentina, even her voice felt too critical: Quino left the country, which then suffered a coup and a subsequent military junta. He later said he would have been arrested had he continued to publish Mafalda; many of his friends and collaborators were.

Though the cartoon strip only ran for ten years, and Quino himself died in 2020, Mafalda has a huge and lasting legacy across the world - from Argentina where it began, to Chile where it was banned, and here in Colombia too: you can see statues and graffiti of her in Buenos Aires, and buy her merchandise down the banks of the River Seine. 

Frank will be telling us about this Latin American icon and the process of translating her into English – the first translation ever published, which came out in June of this year. He'll be tackling the tensions inherent in translating comedy – especially in cartoon strip form – as well talking about the stealthy satire and societal critique which Mafalda was able to enact: a crucial humanist and critical voice, disguised as a child.

We'll also talk about how Mafalda's relevance reaches way beyond her context and time, about modern censorship and satire amid deepening repression, and why now is the perfect time for Mafalda to reach English-speaking audiences - particularly (perhaps) in the United States.

Frank also tells us who Mafalda would have been if she was born today, and who she'd have been if she grew up… 

Plus the Colombia Briefing - also reported by Emily Hart. 

Few figures in Latin American politics polarize opinion like Colombia's former president, Álvaro Uribe. Right now, Uribe, Colombia's president from 2002 to 2010, faces charges of bribery, procedural fraud, and bribery in a judicial proceeding. Prosecutors must determine whether he instigated others to manipulate witness testimony in an attempt to mislead the judiciary for his benefit.

So, along with Adriaan Alsema, director of Colombia Reports, we take a deep dive into the "early years" from Uribe's birth in Salgar, Antioquia and up until his campaign to become governor of the department, taking in his education, his role on the Medellin city council, director of Aerocivil, Mayor of Medellin and many family connections. 

Allegations of ties to drug cartels and paramilitaries have dogged him since the early 1980s, when the civil aviation agency he then led was accused of giving air licenses to drug traffickers. Declassified State Department cables from a decade later show U.S. officials were told the up-and-coming politician had ties to cartels.

In future episodes we will look at further details surrounding Colombia's most powerful political force. 

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. 

La Escombrera, a vast rubble pile overlooking Medellín, is considered to be Colombia's largest urban mass grave. Its excavation this year has unearthed the remains of people whose families have been searching for them for decades. 

Earlier this month, it was announced that the excavation there is being expanded. Some hope that what is found in that rubble will answer deeper questions - about how the conflict unfolded here in the city, and how the state was complicit in murders and human rights violations committed by paramilitary groups.

This week, Emily Hart, journalist and Colombia Calling host, takes us through an article she wrote on her Substack about La Escombrera, the dynamics and history of Colombia's civil conflict, and about how this war - largely characterised by rural conflict and guerrilla tactics - ended up radically changing the face of Colombia's cities.

Sign up and subscribe to Emily's Substack: https://harte.substack.com

And don't miss, the Colombia Briefing reported by Emily as well. 

Jennie speaks to Emily Hart and Richard McColl.

In the 1980s, a Colombian neurologist named Francisco Lopera traveled on horseback into the mountains seeking families with symptoms of dementia. For centuries, residents of certain villages near Medellín had suffered memory loss as they reached middle age, going on to die in their fifties. Lopera discovered that a unique genetic mutation was causing their rare hereditary form of early onset Alzheimer's disease. Over the next forty years of working with the "paisa mutation" kindred, he went on to build a world-class research program in a region beset by violence and poverty.

In "Valley of Forgetting," Jennie Erin Smith brings readers into the clinic, the laboratories, and the Medellín trial center where Lopera's patients receive an experimental drug to see if Alzheimer's can be averted. She chronicles the lives of people who care for sick parents, spouses, and siblings, all while struggling to keep their own dreams afloat.

These Colombian families have donated hundreds of their loved ones' brains to science and subjected themselves to invasive testing to help uncover how Alzheimer's develops and whether it can be stopped.

Buy the book! https://a.co/d/giumqZR 

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart: https://harte.substack.com/

What explains selective violence against social and community leaders in the aftermath of war? Why does the killing of community and social leaders continue unabated in Colombia? 

This week on the Colombia Calling podcast, we look at a new academic article entitled: "Delegative peacebuilding: Explaining post-conflict selective violence," written by Dr Sally Sharif and Dr Francy Carranza-Franco which explains so much regarding the on-going conflict in Colombia, the issue of "partial peace, who is doing the killing and why and hear some possible solutions. 

Joining us is Dr Sally Sharif, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University and Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and incoming assistant professor of comparative politics at Holy Cross University, Boston. 

Victoria was never meant to come to Colombia, in fact, had things gone according to plan she would be in China right now.

But, fate had a different path in mind for this native of a small town near to the city of Perm in Siberia, Russia.

And so, on this week's Colombia Calling podcast, we hear from a Tatar far from her birthplace near to the Ural Mountains and find out how she ended up in the town of Tabio, 45km north of Bogota.

Our conversation takes in her life as a language teacher (English, German and Russian), her arrival in Colombia, her beginner mistakes upon arriving in Colombia, life hacks that we all need here, her cultural adaptation, family traditions, body positivity in Colombia, love and relationships and her life now.

Tune in to hear from someone who has truly embraced a new life in Colombia in what is an incredibly upbeat and positive episode of the Colombia Calling podcast.

And if you fancy some language classes, check out: @tabiunarusa on Instagram.

There's so much to say about the Latin American Boom in literature, but how can we possibly discuss it at this point in time without mentioning Mario Vargas Llosa and his recent passing.

And so, as a Colombia-focused podcast, we take a look at this era and these personalities in the literary world, such as Colombia's inimitable Gabriel Garcia Marquez but through the prism of Mario Vargas Llosa. With very special guest Juan E. De Castro, professor of literary studies at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. Author of Writing Revolution in Latin America: From Martí to García Márquez to Bolaño and Bread and Beauty: The Cultural Politics of José Carlos Mariátegui, among other works, we discuss a variety of topics relating to but not restricted to:

1. The Latin American Boom.
2. Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and "that punch."
3. The importance of the Latin American Boom.
4. The end of this literary milestone.
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude - the Netflix version.

 And so much more, including the Colombia Briefing with Emily Hart. 

This week we speak to Camila Gonzalez Rosas, Director and Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Los Andes University in Bogotá and Researcher at the the Centre for Investigations into Microbiology and tropical parasitology and we discuss tropical diseases in Colombia.

Nothing is off the table from chagas, malaria, dengue, leishmaniasis, zika, chikungunya and Covid-19....we cover it all.

What are the possibilities of another Zika outbreak? What are the consequences of the loss of biodiversity and climate change in Colombia? We also talk about zoonotic transmission where an infectious disease is transmitted between species from animals to humans (or from humans to animals)

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. Subscribe to her Substack here: https://substack.com/@ehart

Please consider supporting us on www.patreon.com/colombiacalling  

Colombian energy giant Ecopetrol has polluted hundreds of sites with oil, including water sources and biodiverse wetlands, the BBC World Service has found.

However, as detailed in a new documentary produced and directed by Owen Pinnell of the BBC: "Exposing the toxic record of Colombia's oil giant | BBC World Service Documentaries,:" there are far more issues involving Colombia's Ecopetrol beyond just pollution the region's water sources such as potential links to paramilitary groups.

As quoted in the documentary: "Matthew Smith, an oil analyst and financial journalist based in Colombia, says he does not believe Ecopetrol managers are involved in threats by armed groups. But he says there is an "immense" overlap between former paramilitary groups and the private security sector. Private security firms often employ former members of paramilitary groups and compete for lucrative contracts to protect oil facilities, he says.
 
Whistleblower and former employee of Ecopetrol, Mr Olarte shared internal Ecopetrol emails (now named "The Iguana Papers") showing that in 2018, the company paid a total of $65m to more than 2,800 private security companies.

"There is always that risk of some sort of contagion between the private security companies, the types of people they employ, and their desire to continually maintain their contract," Mr Smith says. He says this could potentially even include kidnapping or murdering community leaders or environmental defenders in order to "ensure that Ecopetrol's operations proceed smoothly".

And so, journalists Emily Hart and Richard McColl of the Colombia Calling podcast, have the fantastic opportunity to discuss what it meant to film this documentary, meet the courageous people who were and are willing to speak out about some of the crimes being committed in the region of Barrancabermeja, Santander and how the whole area is being affected by this.

BBC Article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crewlj11jljo

Tune in and see the documentary here: https://youtu.be/Grp3YRhSf2o

This is a truly incredible episode of the Colombia Calling podcast, please be sure to share, like and spread the word. And as always, tune in to the Colombia Briefing, reported by Emily Hart. 

In today's episode, Emily Hart speaks to archaeologist Daniella Betancourt: the woman decoding the enigma of Colombia's mummies.

Mummification is a practice which has been carried out all over the world, from Chile to China – from the ancient Egyptian pharaohs to Vladimir Lenin and Evita Perón, and - though chronically understudied - right here in Colombia too.

These preserved remains are, Daniella tells us, a perfect time capsule: bodies frozen in time, they give us all sorts of clues about the ways people lived, and their beliefs about life and death.

With the National University of Colombia, Daniella has been studying a collection of 36 mummies found in various institutions, trying to work out who they were, who mummified them, when - and why.

Because until now, there has been so little study of this practice in Colombia, there's still an awful lot find out, not least because these mummies were created by indigenous communities whose histories and customs were interrupted and erased by the Spanish colonisation of the country: many of Colombia's mummies were destroyed and even burnt.

But there is evidence that indigenous groups in Colombia kept practicing ritual mummification long after the arrival of the Spanish – perhaps a high-stakes act of cultural resistance, a spiritual imperative, or an attempt to create talismans of power – at this point, we can only guess – what the study has revealed, however, is that mummification was practiced much more widely than was previously thought – by more groups and in more regions of Colombia.

Though in the historical chronicles of the Spanish invasion and early colonial period, there are some descriptions of mummies, most of the contextual information has been lost – in fact we don't even know where most of these mummies came from or how they were found, as their burial sites were desecrated by tomb raiders and looters who took anything of value and sometimes even displaced the remains themselves. However, the new study by Daniella and the team has shed new light on these Mummies, able to reach amazing conclusions about diet, geography, and even health from state-of-the-art scientific methods.

However, as Daniella will tell us, some of the results actually pose more questions than they answer – we'll be talking in particular about a mummified two-year-old girl, who surprised Daniella even after years of studying her, and whose strange condition continues to confound researchers. We'll also be discussing the ethics of studying human remains, and of displaying them in museums.

The headlines for this week are also reported by Emily Hart.

Barry Max Wills, author of: "Better than Cocaine: Learning to Grow Coffee, and Live in Colombia," and Richard McColl of: "The Mompos Project: A Tale of Love, Hotels and Madness in Colombia," join editor Dan Cross on this week's Colombia Calling podcast.

In a conversation that takes in the topics of culture and identity, immigrants to Colombia, writing about their adopted homeland, their books and the editing process, the triumvirate chats about the recent launch party and conversation event at Bookworm bookshop in Bogota.

 Enjoy this fun conversation!

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart, check out her substack: https://substack.com/@ehart

And buy the books please:
The Mompos Project: https://a.co/d/49iOsiz 
Better than Cocaine: https://a.co/d/7gAtzyR 

On this week's Colombia Calling podcast, we speak to James Bargent, an investigative journalist for Insight Crime about his work putting together the new podcast: "the Shadow of El Dorado."

Along with his colleague Mat Charles, the resulting podcast is a multi-year project which takes the listener into the world of organized crime and how the Gaitanista (Clan del Golfo or AGC) criminal organisation controls the mining economy and its subsidiary interests in the town of Segovia, Antioquia.

Their search for Colombia's blood gold takes us to Segovia and the illegal mines at the very beginning of the global supply chain.

But what they find there is a strange mirror world, where conventional narratives fall apart, and the names and labels they try to apply do not make sense.

 Tune in to the podcast: https://insightcrime.org/audio-from-the-ground-up/the-shadow-of-el-dorado-p…

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. 

Climate change has been a constant feature of Planet Earth: at points in history, the planet has been both much cooler and much warmer than it is today - if we know which plants occupied an ecosystem the last time the Earth was a certain temperature or had a certain level of CO2 in the atmosphere, we can predict what our ecosystems will look like in the conditions that we will soon be living in. 

Using tiny fossilised clues, Carlos and Camila are doing exactly this. 

The climate change we are currently living through is unprecedented in speed – and water and rain cycles are a major concern for humanity's continued existence on the planet, so one focus of this work is the Amazon rainforest – both Colombia's slice of it and further afield. 

President Petro's Disastrous Televised Cabinet Meeting or The Petro Presidency Meltdown.

Pause for breath if you can, but we've been experiencing a barrage of negative headlines surrounding Colombia's President Petro.

This began with, at first, the online fracas with President Trump over the treatment of Colombian illegal migrants being returned to their homeland to, most recently, a total car crash of a televised cabinet meeting.

Did you watch it? If not, the best bits have been put together here by El Pais for your viewing entertainment: COLOMBIA | Los momentos memorables del consejo de ministros de Petro | EL PAÍS

Anyway, on this episode of the Colombia Calling podcast, we chat to Adriaan Alsema, director of Colombia Reports, about whether we can call this the "Petro Presidency Meltdown," and what we can expect from the Colombian premier for the remaining year and a bit of his tenure.

We look at the cornerstone policy plans of Petro's administration and discuss if whether any will get through Congress before his time is up. What has happened to Total Peace (Paz Total), the Health, Pension and Labour reforms...is the Petro project doomed to failure? And, where does the political chameleon and survivor Armando Benedetti fit into all this?

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. 

Tune in and subscribe!

This week on the Colombia Calling podcast, we speak to Lorena Estupiñán-Pedraza, a professor of international relations and political science from Boyaca, but resident in the southern city of Cali.

In a far-ranging conversation, we discuss Lorena's PhD studies public policy implementation in Boyaca, local problems with global impacts and all about what it means to be from Boyaca and to understand the Boyacense idiosyncrasy and culture.

Tune in to this, the Colombia Briefing with Emily Hart and subscribe to the podcast.

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A new documentary, in the making, seeks to document the sacred nature of an ancient medicine. We're all familiar with vivid tales of projectile vomiting and the complete loss of bodily functions during an ayuahuasca ceremony but who, amongst us, has really explored the benefits of a ritual?

This documentary seeks to educate us, through a carefully curated journey from the lands of the Taitas (shamans) in Putumayo, the process of creating the ayahuasca (also known as Yage), to the preparation of the ceremony, the ritual itself and then a reflection of the ceremony and its outcomes.

The documentary maker: Sam Lipman-Stern is an Emmy Nominated Filmmaker with a passion for the visual arts that dates to his early days as a graffiti artist. In August 2023, HBO released Telemarketers, a 3-part limited documentary series created, executive produced and co-directed by Lipman-Stern. Time Magazine called it, "One of the Most Exciting Docuseries in Recent Years!"

Sam Believ founded LaWayra retreat together with his wife Estefania in 2021. LaWayra was born as a passion project from the desire to drink medicine from our home and share medicine with some friends and slowly grew to become one of the best Ayahuasca retreats in the world. At the retreat they provide a world class Ayahuasca experience and stays for affordable prices.

Check out: https://ayahuascaincolombia.com/

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart
View her Substack: https://harte.substack.com/

And please consider supporting the Colombia Calling podcast: https://patreon.com/colombiacalling

Jonathan Swift, "Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it."

… never truer than in 2025

This week on the Colombia Calling podcast Emily Hart and Richard McColl tackle the issue of disinformation and fact-checking in Colombia and fortunately, we don't have to take on this task alone but are joined by two experts in the field. Laura Sarabia Rangel is the Editor of El Detector de Mentiras at La Silla Vacia and Jose Felipe Sarmiento joins us from ColombiaCheck and we get to pick their brains about the need for fact-checking, disinformation in Colombia and how one undertakes the process of finding the truth. 

There have been so many circumstances where people and politicians have been saying things that are simply untrue, in Colombia specifically, about the health reform, the stigmatisation of indigenous communities or the denialism of the False Positives, to name a few. 

So, we get to hear how Laura and Jose Felipe work, put some rumours and untruths to bed and discuss what readers and consumers can do to make sure they're consuming high quality media. 

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. 

Sometimes, it's just fun to have an agreeable conversation, and this is why I enjoyed chatting to Vivek Jayaraman.

Vivek was born in Tamil, India and in the way life takes its unusual routes has ended up living in northern Bogota and with a love of mountains - he's from the plains - and a firm desire to know and understand the regions of Cundinamarca and Boyacá, Colombia.

In his words: "Thus was born Project Boyacá and Project Cundinamarca. The idea being that I visit all the 123 and 116 municipalities atleast once.

"People associate this part of the world with drugs, violence and the remote jungles. My attempt is to try and change this perception, taking into account that Colombia is my wife's home country.

"I got fascinanted by small towns having grown up in similar places back in India. It was equally impressive to see names of the towns that can trace their origins to the indigenous culture of Muisca that dominated this region - Guachetá, Guachetá, Machetá for example - Chetá refers to farmlands. The indigenous origin is not too appreciated here I also wanted to create awareness of these.

"My wife is from Guachetá, Cundinamarca which is believed the town of the Son of Sun - Goranchacha, which she did not know before I met her.

"Eventually I want to have a repository of these travels in a website with photographs, Instagram being an easy way. I have made 100 posts each year 2022 onwards. I was this close to create a calendar last year with photos from specific regions, then it was too expensive and too late. This being, the idea of India through the eyes of India."

What a wonderful story, you'll agree.

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart.

In order to understand the issue of the cocaine trade in Colombia, we need to look at three factors:

1. Drugs Policy as a Geopolitical tool.
2. Markets: A Political Economic issue.
3. Narratives: the Myth of the Narco.

On the Colombia Calling podcast this week we speak to Estefanía Ciro Rodríguez, expert on drug politics, the cocaine economy and the Colombian armed conflict. We discuss la Escombrera in Medellin, Pablo Escobar, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Arms trafficking by the Sinaloa cartel and the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación to Colombia, genetically modified coca, cocaine seizures, the price of cocaine, and why Colombia as a nation needs to look in the mirror. Check out: https://alaorilladelrio.com

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. Support her on Substack: https://substack.com/@ehart

and

Support us on: https://www.patreon.com/c/colombiacalling 

Brendan Corrigan has had multiple jobs in his time in Colombia (dating back to 2011), and his most constant has been that of a contributing writer of acerbic observations for the El Tiempo national newspaper, with an office job in marketing thrown in for good measure and some forays into the acting world by way of a telenovela (soap opera) appearance here and there.

However, there's been an ever present itch and it has been his desire to get out into the wilds of Colombia to see and experience some of the ground covered by "the forefather of human rights," Irishman Roger Casement.

Aside: Who was Roger Casement? Roger Casement was commissioned to undertake a report on the reported abuse of workers in the rubber industry in the Putumayo basin in Peru. The report was published as a parliamentary paper (1911) and had considerable impact, gaining Casement international recognition as a humanitarian, his contribution being acknowledged with a knighthood.

Anyhow, Brendan being an Irishman in Colombia has felt the strong urge to pursue some of the history surrounding his countryman and this led him to travel to La Chorrera in the department of Amazonas in Colombia where Casement had worked. We hear his tales from the road in Bogota, San José del Guaviare and la Chorrera.

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. 

As there are now a growing number of people considering moving to Colombia, and where better than the country's enticing Coffee Region, we decided to focus on this topic for this week.

Known for its natural beauty and landscapes, lush countryside, friendly and hard-working people...it's an easy sell. But what happens when you are ready to take the next step beyond internet research and start the actual process of moving your life to the cities of Manizales, Pereira or Armenia or a pueblito nearby? This is where Erin Donaldson comes in!

 A long-time immigrant to the Eje Cafetero and now resident in Manizales, Erin knows the whole area like the back of her hand and can furnish anyone with all the information necessary:...taxes - no problem, healthcare - easy days, travel and transport - piece of cake. She'll help you make that transition from expat to immigrant.

Enjoy this engaging conversation and check out her website: https://coffeeaxistravel.com and there find links to all of her other social media platforms including her YouTube channel.

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. 

Have you heard of "destination duping," "rosy retrospection," "JOMO," or "trailblazer hotels?" Well, with Colombia of course in mind given that this is the Colombia Calling podcast, we leap into 2025 with an upbeat episode discussing travel trends for this year. We mull over each of the aforementioned phrases with Bruce Mclean, travel expert and owner of BNBColombia Tours.

Hear us talk about how Colombia may just return to being an "emerging tourism" destination again and stepping beyond this to establish itself as a global player...there's still a way to go, but it can happen and things are looking good for both 2025 and 2026.

 Oh and "JOMO," means "Joy of Missing Out!" Can you travel this way?
 Check out: https://bnbcolombia.com

Well, where to start with this interview?!

It's that time of year when we endeavour to discuss more hopeful and positive episodes and then an email hit my inbox from Rick DellaRatta and Jazz for Peace.

 And thus the episode came into being.

Rick DellaRatta is a multi instrumentalist, pianist, composer and founder of Jazz for Peace and we discuss what can be done to try and use music as a common ground for good.

 Rick shares the story of how Jazz For Peace began and what he is doing with it, We discuss Colombia, Brazil, India and then Rick plays some jazz on his keyboard live for us during the episode, can you guess the tracks (only available on YouTube: )?

 Check out: jazzforpeace.org

We've never done this before, but heck, why not?! So, here is the first ever Colombia Calling Christmas Appeal in our 11 plus years of being on the air. Cartagena Paws and their supported Foundation of Tu Fiel Amigo in Cartagena have been on our radar for some time and a certainly deserving of some welcome help. We speak to

Maureen Cattieu about the work of Cartagena Paws and Tu Fiel Amigo. ​

Cartagena is home to nearly 400,000 street animals and the population is ever growing. As a way to help combat the overpopulation and contagious illnesses, Cartagena Paws has begun conducting large scale spay and release clinics, in addition to vaccine clinics in and around Cartagena. Spay and Neuter clinics serve two purposes: wide scale vaccination of both pets and strays and spay/neutering of stray animals. Maureen Cattieu founded Cartagena Paws in 2015, when she was living and teaching abroad in Cartagena, Colombia.

Maureen spent over 10 years in Colombia working to help save the animals on the streets while focusing her instruction in the classroom on teaching empathy and compassion for all animals and living things.

She currently lives and teaches in Key West, Florida, but continues to run Cartagena Paws, Inc. to the fullest of her abilities and saves countless lives throughout the years. She is dedicated to continuing out her lifelong mission to create positive change and awareness in the community and construct the first ever Educational-Based Animal Rescue Center in Cartagena, Colombia.

 There's WishList of Amazon if you feel like contributing.
 https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3C93C87TISSII?ref_=wl_share

The journey of making Torah Tropical began in 2021, in the midst of Colombia's historic civil unrest. Despair at the Duque government's policies and botched implementation of the Peace Process boiled until erupting into the tumultuous National Strike of April 2021. The uprising was the defining moment for a generation of young Colombians, a time those of us in the streets remember as an expression of hope, of a shared dream for a just society where a young person can aspire to a fulfilling, violence-free life.

So, this week, we speak to Ezra Axelrod and David Restrepo about this new documentary and what making it meant to them and where it took them and the protagonists in terms of the great questions in life, religion, identity and place.

Description of the Documentary:

In a tropical paradise turned dystopian by the Drug War, a struggling Colombian family in the city of Cali, reinvent themselves as Orthodox Jews who believe God is calling them to the Promised Land. Over the course of year in which reality and religious parable collide, they risk everything in an attempt at making Aliyah to Israel, putting their faith and family to the ultimate test.

Torah Tropical tells the universal story of searching for identity and belonging in the face of adversity. Through Isska and Menajem's struggle to give their daughters a better life, the consequences of economic, racial and religious exclusion are explored with poetic intimacy, inviting audiences to fall in love with a family that defies stereotypes and inspires us to find hope in the middle of the world's cruelest intersections.

https://www.torahtropical.com

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'Romantic, adventurous and thrilling ... remarkable' Telegraph

 'Vivid, fast-paced and wonderfully ambitious … Patria teems with alternative stories of a continent's life and peoples' New Internationalist

In late 1869, Richard Francis Burton stepped ashore in Southampton, fresh from a sightseeing tour of bone-strewn South American battlefields. The most lethal conflict ever fought on the continent was still stumbling to its gory conclusion. But if the celebrity adventurer expected to be mobbed with reporters, he was disappointed. Burton was 'mortified' to perceive how oblivious his fellow Britons were to 'perhaps the most remarkable campaign fought during the present century'. Tales of Dr Francia – Paraguay's dour, iron-willed dictator for almost thirty years – had once piqued the public's curiosity. But the country had since 'dropped clean out of vision. Many, indeed, were uncertain whether it formed part of North or of South America.' He found 'blankness of face' whenever Paraguay was mentioned, 'and a general confession of utter ignorance and hopeless lack of interest'.

Over 150 years later, the amnesia persists. If South America is a forgotten continent, Paraguay has fallen off the map altogether. Foreigners often confuse it with Uruguay, in many ways – a secular, liberal, World Cup-winner – Paraguay's opposite. The world takes Paraguay's drugs, beef, soybeans, migrant labourers, cleaners and midfielders, but has blanked out their distant source. In London, Madrid or New York, this might be understandable. But Paraguayans have long felt isolated and ignored even by their neighbours. In an aphorism so often repeated it has taken on the character of a curse, Augusto Roa Bastos – the country's most famous novelist – described his nation as 'an island surrounded by land'.

So, we discuss and end up philosophising about Latin America's place in the world, Lawrence's adventures across the region, Colombia, Paraguay and his new book, "Patria, Lost Countries of South America."

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/435719/patria-by-blair-laurence/97818479246…

It has become a cultural phenomenon in Colombia, beginning first in Bogota before branching out to Medellin, Cali, Lima (Peru) and now Cartagena...everyone knows all about Gringo Tuesdays.

So, this week, coinciding with the launch of Gringo Tuesdays in Cartagena, we speak to co-founder Travis Crockett about how the business has grown, the differences in running events in each location, how they survived Covid and where they plan to expand to next...hint, two more overseas locations.

This is a good news story about some entrepreneurs that took a punt on an idea and it worked, becoming one of the most unmissable nights for language exchange and then latin-style partying in Colombia.

Tune in to hear about "bio pong," yes, you read that right, not "beer pong," but "bio pong," and other anecdotes from 13 years of running Gringo Tuesdays.

 We wish them all the best on this next venture in Cartagena.

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Grace Brennan. 

https://www.gringotuesdays.co
 and
support us https://www.patreon.com/colombiacalling

After nine years away, Tim Buendia, has made it back to the town of Aracataca - birthplace of Gabriel Garcia Marquez - and it seems timely with a new series based on the author's opus: "One Hundred Years of Solitude" due to be aired on 11 December 2024 on Netflix.

Tim, an adopted son of Aracataca, is perhaps singlehandedly responsible for his tireless work in bringing international tourism to the birthplace of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian Nobel Prize winning author. And it was all falling into place with tours, a steady stream of visitors and significant press coverage...and then he left. 

We discuss what this return to "Macondo" or Aracataca means to Tim, how he has been working diligently in the interim years to continue promoting Aracataca, about his poetry and a new art gallery he is inaugurating in the town. Check out the website: https://www.thegypsyresidence.com

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. 

Hello and welcome to another episode of Colombia Calling – I'm Emily Hart and this week we have something a little bit different – the radical linguistic technique which is building peace - personal and political - all over the world, and the inspiring woman bringing it to Colombia. 

This week, I have with me Camila Reyes Azcuénaga – the founder of Resuena, the organisation bringing the school of thought known as 'Nonviolent Communication' (NVC) to Colombia, a way of structuring our thoughts and communications to prevent and heal conflict, breaching the divides of culture, politics, and identity. 

Developed in the late 20th Century by psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, NVC now has trainers and centres in more than 60 countries around the world. This simple technique aims to humanise the 'other', and forge communication, collaboration, and trust – from our daily life, to our work, and well beyond. 

Camila studied law and political science and worked with indigenous communities and landmines here in Colombia, but felt the country needed a more fundamental change than she could achieve with that work. She left Colombia in search of something which would shift the paradigm of violence and conflict entirely. 

After stumbling across Nonviolent Communication training during Occupy Wall Street, she felt she'd found what she was looking for – she spent years training and finally returned to Colombia, founding Resuena in 2011, running free workshops for years.

Resuena has now trained thousands, from institutions like the United Nations, the Truth Commission, and the Search Unit for Missing Persons, to grassroots social leaders in conflict-stricken areas of Colombia's South-west. The group helps people to navigate interpersonal relationships and conflicts, as well as maintain cohesion within movements and groups. 

Through guided discussions, participants are trained to identify the patterns of behaviour that divide them and weaken their collective campaigns and processes, and then to replace them with a focus on acting from common ground. This year, Resuena also launched the 'Sowers of Nonviolent Communication' network – so that trainees can go into their own communities and pass on the training. 

So today, Camila is going to give us a masterclass in these techniques and their underlying ideas, talking us through the four steps – observation, feeling, need, and request – along with some everyday examples. She'll then tell us about her amazing work in some of Colombia's most difficult contexts, and why this work is so necessary not just for the country – but for all of us.