“Piojo is not anything like Magdalena. Now I bathe, wash clothes and dishes in water I carry from a stagnant pond the cattle use. A burro carries jugs of drinking water from the town below the mountain.”
The land, the mountains around Piojo are tropical dry forest, a biome that receives no rain many months of the year. Dry forests support flora and fauna completely different than wetter regions in the tropical regions of the world. Adding to the challenge, climate scientists as well as Colombian campesinos are keenly aware of changing weather patterns. Planting times and crop development is disrupted.
In 2009 the small group of 8 households who moved to Piojo experienced severe drought. Extremely limited rains came during the time rain was expected. The corn and rice they were accustomed to plant in other regions failed. Most of the households are sustained economically by young adult children who work in cities. They eat yucca which tolerates dry soils, and occasionally kill a chicken. It's costly to buy them feed.
Colombia has a beautiful law that promises land to those who have been displaced from their lands by violence. But not the same land they fled after massacres and disappearances by the paramilitary forces. Angelina’s land and her neighbors' rapidly became an african palm oil plantation with a corporate owner.
ANDESCOL (Association of Displaced Colombians) accompanied by international and national humans rights group, and churches presses the government to comply with the law. Their success is extremely limited though government land scandals have been revealed.
“We are country people and do not feel well in cities. We have a right to live. We need land to feed our families and a safe place to live.”
