the water is rising

I´ma force myself to write this in english. I am conflicted.  I already wanna drop spanglish, por que no? But lets see. The water is rising and I do not know what to do…. I know I need to be healing myself and I don´t just mean from my umbilical hernia surgery that is scheduled to happen in less than a fortnight. I feel fine but I know i aint right. I know something is not right in me, something is hurting more than usual. But whatever, the water is rising and there is nothing we can do, the company locked the gates of the tunnels and even the former president who started the project said those after him fcuked it up, and while the governor and the local environmental authorities say everything is wrong and they can´t fill, the Ministry says…. Fill it! 

 After the trauma of months and months of watching forests i´ve loved and that have cared for me and others for lifetimes, the time came for defense and i was alone. For a week Velocin was with me, surrounded by 40-100 loggers with chains saws as long as my arm span. After that I was on my own. I filmed for some days and then retreated. Too painful to bear witness and not be able to do nothing. Reflecting and feeling all sorts of negative emotions that the folks, my folks, mi gente, Huilenses, campesinos, Jagueños, even Jaguos  i have struggled with time in and time out for them to be recognized as affected while i´ve never been on a list, and then, and then the moment to defend the territory that everyone always talks about, in every space, and the folks who do road blockades and farm land liberations for weeks or months on end meet the moment where it is to defend the forests in the lands adjacent to the river, the homes of so many animals, and other activities part of our lives and that moment comes, and… everyone has something else to do… 

its so unbelievable yet real to see everyone online, in the media, the political class furious over how dare Emgesa fill the Quimbo H.P. before finishing everything they are required to do. How could they?.... the same people who have hated us and ignored everything for the last 8 years… where were they these last 8 years?.... for every single strike, road blockade, land liberation, rumble, endless assembly, nights after sleepless nights of guard and watch, how could they…. where were they? 

there is a rumor i can´t get out of my head…. the quail, iguanas, and rabbits stuck in tree tops as the water rises, that is what they say, and they already are drowning…. and everything is militarized…. I start to think i want to film... how i am going to leave for a bit this year, before this finishes… and i feel guilty…. But what am i going to do here, i want to film, but others can too, me being gone four months, we will see… it is clear to me that i must remain in the territory, whether i go work and travel elsewhere, i must have a base, a foot hold an anchor, and hopefully that can one day look like land. mine, but preferably as part of a collective. There is few things that can compare to the love I have for where I am from, where at least half of me has called home for a very, very long time. My short yet constant immersions as a child and teen juxtaposed to north American urban school years and college life was enough to allow me to make decisions at a young pre-teen age of future self-determination of my name and residence. 

These last four years, consistently being here, accompanying and re learning this territory, loving it so much, defending it, failing at it, the feelings about it, succeeding in building and transforming with people… how this is happening to us all, everywhere. It is wasn’t a dam, it would be a mine or oil or something else… so many commitments and obligations, starting with my health but other cycles that must be closed well too.  I can´t get the image out of my head of the tree chopped down bili bil trees… of the peñas of that place…. And how its changed  and how it will change, how it will no longer be as it has been. It will be in the middle and under. It will always be there, but it will be with out a trace. Whether they be interviews, filming, photographs, collecting rocks or sand, there are soo many things that I need to be doing and day and night and day and night the water is rising and I do not know what to do…