An Open Letter to the Government of Israel and to All Their Apologisers and Supporters.

I will have such revenges on you both That all the world shall—I will do such things,— What they are yet I know not,—but they shall be The terrors of the earth. - Shakespeare: King Lear, Act II Scene IV. Dear Israel and friends, The other day, on a television in my dingy hotel room in a Colombian small town, I saw Arye Mekel, Israel's Consol General, telling the BBC that Israel is "doing the Lebanese a favour" by bombing the Hizbollah. With a straight face he told the camera that "most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing". Of course it is true that a majority of Lebanese ordinarily oppose the actions of the Hizbollah. It is true that the Hizbollah are a ruthless and destructive guerilla army whose killing of Israelis and contribution to the continual culture of violence in Lebanon are not only counter-productive to their "cause" but heartbreaking terrible and entirely unforgivable. One would think from comments like Mekel's that Israel is well aware of the difference between the Hizbollah and Lebanon. But it is impossible to understand one's values, one's beliefs, one's mind without taking into account his actions. In the past two weeks Israel has decimated the infrastructure of Lebanon and targeted and killed both the civilian and humanitarian population. You have flattened schools and airports, bridges and hospitals, homes and petrol stations. You have sent missiles into the new aqueduct built by Rafik Hariri with aid from the Italian government - a symbol of cooperation between Lebanon and the European Union. You have bombed milk factories and pharmaceutical factories. You have once again displaced over half a million people from their homes, killed hundreds, maimed thousands. You have bombed Red Cross vehicles, you have killed UN volunteers and health workers, you have ordered the evacuation of southern villages then bombed and murdered the fleeing convey of civilian vehicles. You have broken the heart and soul of Lebanon right at the time the country was starting to blossom after decades of civil and regional war. Your aim undoubtably is to defeat "terrorism" and to defend your citizens. But what you are destroying is not terrorism. You are destroying a country, a people, a sense of hope, a future. You are fertilising the Arab and Muslim world, and Lebanon in particular, with anger, with fear, with hatred. You are teaching a whole new, young, largely educated, multi-lingual generation of Lebanese - many of whom missed the pure horror of the country's previous years of conflict - why it is their parents and their grandparents had so much resentment for and fury at Israel. You are breeding terrorism. You are teaching that violence is the only solution. And you are dooming your own people, and with them the entire world, to decades, if not centuries, of continued bloodshed. A young and concered Mexican asked me the other day why the Israeli army and their unfaltering supporters (the US, for example) does not attack Syria, if they are the political supporters of the Hizbollah. Why attack Lebanon? I would like to propose an answer to this question; tell me if I'm mistaken. If Israel was to attack Syria, the response would be obvious. Syria has the military capabilities to immediately respond; they could hurl rockets at Tel Aviv, at Ashkelon, at West Jerusalem. Lebanon has none of this military power. Its air force is made up of three ancient Hawker Hunters and an equally ancient fleet of Vietnam-era Huey helicopters. So it is Lebanon which you attack. We know well that members and sympatisers of "terrorist" or guerilla organisations live throughout Lebanon, just as they live throughout the world. We know they live in Gaza, they live in Tehran, they live in Paris, they live in New Jersey. To bomb Beirut and to bomb South Lebanon in order to "break" the Hizbollah makes as much sense as bombing the United States once suspected terrorists are located. And such acts are as close to "terrorism" as any acts by Hizbollah. I laugh to think of what the international reaction would have been if in the last year, after one of the Israeli armys frequent incursions into southern Lebanon to "capture" Hizbollah fighters, the impotent Lebanese army had responded by bombing Israeli cities and bridges, by destroying Ben Guiron airport, by killing hundreds of Israeli citizens. Such an act would have universally been called terrorism. Yet Israel's attacks are, at worst, described by the EU, and even by the timid Lebanese prime minister as "disproportionate". In your country's 1982 invasion of Lebanon 17,500 people were killed. Please, please stop this before we reach anywhere near this number again and set Lebanon, the region, and indeed the world back another 24 years. Yours Sincerely, Christopher John Stokes Girón, Colombia, 2006

Timeline of Important Events, Part III

NOTE: This is the third time I will write this entry. The first time I was over halfway through when a hit of the backspace key once again mysteriously erased the entire piece. This made me aggrevated but I decided the only thing to rid me of my heartbreak was just to write it again while it was fresh in my mind. The second time I was just about finished, just deciding if I needed another sentence to finish it all off, when my computer just suddenly restarted itself. None of the other computers in the internet place did this - just mine. For reasons which now escape me I had once again not saved the entry. The man behind the counter sort of shrugged and charged me the full amount. I had been in the internet cafe for almost five hours. I went out into the plaza, into the cool air, and just stared at the trees. I have decided, though, that as this day has already been pretty much given over completely to the internet I will attempt to reproduce this for a third time. After all, Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas wrote a number of the novels in his Petagonia up to five times when his manuscripts they were stolen, seized, lost or destroyed. So, with Reinaldo on my mind I return, and, having eaten a very late meat-based lunch and watched the music video for Hips Don't Lie by Shakira and Wyclef Jean for what is, quite literally, the 70-somethingth time since being in Colombia, I feel refreshed and ready to start again. I must defeat this pincha entry. I will not sleep until this fucker is down. -------------------- At night the town of Barichara is still and completely silent. The sloping streets are streaked in yellow light, the cobblestones small and dark, the houses sit shuttered and proud with their whitewashed walls and red roof tiles. There are almost no vehicles, not even parked on the roadsides. The sandstone cathedral glows orange under floodlight. In the canyon behind the town silent lightning flashes behind low clouds. The sparks of light reveal cats behind rubbish cans, tall crucifix gravestones in the tightly packed cemetary, a duo of young lovers on a park bench in the town plaza. Ana, Jorge and I are eating Brazilian cashews near one of the smaller churches and we are arguing for and against the existence of elves. We are drinking tap water from a red bulletproof Canadian drink canister with a maple leaf design and a sticker saying "Made in USA". We are imagining ourselves as characters in Hollywood slasher flicks, but what with the darkness and the eerie silence and the lightning and the squeaking of wheeling bats, we have decided actually not to jump over the wall to the cemetary. Instead we approach the open metal gate of the Children's Park. Outside there is a parked motorcycle. We tiptoe into the blackness and we are clutching each other tight and glancing around. Under the rotunda there is a hulking, black silhouette, and Ana's eyes are wide as she breathes "It's a person! Lets GO!". We go, moving like shadows. Back in the light of the streetlamps Jorge and I have lost our fear of a few moments ago and dismiss any notion that there is any thing dangerous ever in this tiny town. We are talking at full volume now, which makes everything seem less scary. Ana is not convinced, however, and chooses to stay sitting alone by the benches in the alameda. We turn to go, though and she squeaks "mmmMMMMWAAAIT!" and runs to join us. We stop to read the sign on the wall by the gate; "Parque Infantil," it reads, then below it a phrase with missing letters - "R ED R U IO", which gets us talking about The Shining and makes me start growling "redrumredrumredrum!" in a kinda gruff voice. It is at this moment that Ana freezes and goes white and I turn around and see, behind the metal grate in the wall, a man's moustached face, staring silently at us from the darkness. Now, my subsequent reaction is one that I can not justify or explain, even after extensive cross-examination from both Ana and Jorge, and it has become, since, a cause of much humour in our little trio. My reaction was: in shock, to raise both arms up, like an attacking bear or big cat, and to claw the air viciously while yelping, loudly, "REDRUMREDRUMREDRUM!!" at the face of the man, as if trying to exorcise him from the park. There was no thought process to this, and once I registered what I was doing and what he must think I backed away silently while the face disappeared and the man in full appeared at the entrance to the park, startling Jorge who hadn't yet seen the face and was just puzzled about my sudden outburst. "Is something the matter?" the man asked in Spanish, looking suspiciously at his motorbike. Jorge replied, "No Señor, we were just wanting to come into the park but we weren't sure if it was open". "It's always open" he answered, and shrunk back again. We went in, quickly and I avoided the mans gaze but noticed, as we passed ,his girlfriend hidden away in the darkness. They left, and we played on the see-saw and danced and laughed and encountered a huge millipede. We owned that park, then. But still, we remained giddy with soft fear. Still there were the sounds of bats, still the silent lightning. Still the street lamps mysteriously switching off around us. Still the wind and the quiet emptiness of the stone town. Still, the shadows. -------------------- By day, Barichara is a gentler, kinder place, its ghosts and elves long gone. In the mornings a thick mist hangs through the streets as stores open their wooden doors to sell handicrafts and creamy brown tubs of arequipe. The fresh sun glistens on the cobblestones after the morning rains. Old men in wide cowboy hats lean on slender canes and amble slowly up the hills. The sounds of church bells and the tooting of the minibus horn. School children gathering in the main plaza to flirt and gossip. Smells from the resturants of cooked trout and goat. The cathedral rises bold and splendid. Purple flowers, overhanging the white walls from the courtyards. One of the mornings we head by bus into the nearby town of San Gil to do some white water rafting. On the walk along the riverside malecon I kick my foot and crack my big toenail into two pieces, which is painful. A lady from the rafting company fixes it up with some disinfectant and a bandaid while we are waiting for our guide. He is late because he ran into the river to avoid the approaching army. The army is currently making a sweep through the town in an attempt to recruit men, and indeed, as we wait here come soldiers on motorcycles, black guns poised and tall, heads turning as they look for any possible candidates. What they are looking for are young, male Colombians - if they ask you must be able to produce, on the spot, evidence that you either have already served in the military or are exempt from doing so, otherwise you will be taken immediately for an interview. Unless you are incredibly lucky you then must front up for intensive training before a lottery to find out where you will be serving for the next year and a half. If you are really unlucky your location will be on the front, in the jungle, fighting and possibly dying in the long battle against the country's everpresent guerilla groups like the FARC and ELN. For this reason we instantly forgive our guide's AWOL status and wait in the sun for him to return. Which he does, grinning, and we begin our rafting. The rapids are fun and we get wet, but whats really special is everything happening around us. The sky is clear and glowing and the banks are lined with brown willow trees, drooping spectacular. The rocks are dark and jagged, the water murky and brown. There are groups of thin cattle, lazing by the water, there are black vultures hopping, there are swarms of butterflies whipping in mini hurricanes, storming in flashes of white and orange. We float downstream, in and out of the raft, and we listen to the water and the wind and the chirruping, giggling birds.

Timeline of Important Events, part II

Theres been ten days since the end of camp, when we all assembled in our final circle on the bug infested grass and there were tears and there were proclaimations of love and thanks and sorrow and hope. Surrounding us was the colour green, swirling botantic, fresh and broken only by flecks and patches of colour; the white trunks of the eucalypts, the dirt road, the bright flowers of red and blue. Our chugging hearts, the desperate hugs, this familar scene. All of us, fast inventing futures in our tired minds. The arms were loosened, last wet kisses, and we were on the bus. Away, to Medellin.

Since then the group has been shrinking daily, people being shaved away by buses and aeroplanes, to school and families, from 27 of us to just me. Today, in the multilayered Bucaramanga station I watched as Jorge and Ana's bus backed out into the soft rain, their faces smooshed to the glass, fingers pulled into sideways vees like presenters on the Colombian music television show Cool Play. This is loneliness. It's been three days with just the three of us, three days in the small town of Barichara, but this time seems longer to me than the whole time the camp lasted. It only seemed right that they join me for the rest of it. But now it is only me.

But first, lets backtrack. In Medellin we celebrated the eve of Colombia's independence by dancing with whistles and flags in a large and famed nightclub crammed full of cowboy gear. On the bartops were teams of professional dancers, gorgeous women with elliptical plastic breasts and sparkles on their skin, thick jawed men built like tree trunks, and midgets chucking headstands. After an hours sleep we head southwards, thirteen of us now, to the Zona Cafetera, our minivans hugging the lush hills stacked with coffee plantations. We bathe in thermal springs, our bodies light and soft in the steam and sulfur and the jungled mountains hugging us tight as the afternoon light glows then fades. We hire a mariachi band to perform two tender songs to us under the looming statue of Simon Bolivar in the empty Pereira plaza. At the Parque Nacional del Café (like a coffee themed Disneyland for 6 year olds, without any actual attractions) we form a guerilla organisation, las FACEP (Fuerzas Armadas Contra el Patacon), committed to ridding Colombia of one of its more bland foods, the mashed plantain patty known as Patacon. Jorge accepts my 5000 peso dare to approach patacon stores and announce our groups intentions to overtake them and "take all the patacon hostage," much to the confusion and amusement of the store ladies. One reaches for the money she is counting out and tucks it away, worriedly.

The highlight of the coffee zone, though, is Valle de Cocora, where tropical looking wax palms rise tall out of the thick white cloud which blankets the forest. We take horses along the valley, over gushing streams and vibrant meadows, the hills on either side eerie and beautiful, the cloud spectral and the tall palms emerging slender, like roman candles. The farms end and we are engulfed by jungle, where we dismount and explore a waterfall before trotting back along the valley as the sun disappears and we pile 16 into an open backed jeep back to town. Darkness now, and the fields along the roadside are coated with, literally, millions of fireflies, glittering like static in the black grass.

We took the nightbus to Bogota. We had to choose between companies, and the one we didn't take rolled into the capital behind us with a shattered window. Woah, we said, and Jorge asked a little girl what had happened. It had been a direct bus to Bogota, but a man had wanted to get off along the way. When the bus driver refused the man took the little red hammer and just smashed the emergency window out, which as you might imagine left many passengers pretty cold for the remaining journey over the high passes of the Andes.

When it was just the three of us left we headed northwards again, to San Gil, and to Barichara.

Entry Two

Entry Two in the "What Chris is Doing In Colombia Over the Next Month" creative writing competition.

by David Parsons of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Chris boards the bus wearing a new shirt: tree-frog green, greyshort-sleeves, and an italicized elephant screen-printed in flat blue above his washboard stomach.

The mall was cool, air-conditioned, made him uncomfortable. His new ranchero hat keeps the sun from his eyes as the sun shines in the window; it reminds him of the mall, and this he does not like. It comes to mind now: why, he wonders, doesn't he like the hat reminding him of the mall? He thinks on it, and begins to like the memory. The small, semi-private internet cubicle at Marión with a keyboard he could hardly navigate for the accents and a photograph of the swiss alps with the word SUISSE in red letters on top; buying Mexican candies in a small Colombian hardware store because the shopkeeper told him, "Son los mejores, mi amigo."

Memory is like that, he realizes, as he watches the others board the bus and lurches as the yellow bus -- "East Mississippi School Bo rd: Bus 14"emblazoned in black on one side, the "a" conspicuously missing -- begins the short ride back to camp. We remember things as we like to. His distaste for the cool consumerism of the mall will metamorph into an appreciation of the differences of pop-culture that come with language and geography changes: he will remember smiling as he heard a deep masculine voice ringing out, "doble-ve doble-ve doble-ve punto coca-cola punto com," as a radio commercial played over the speakers of a clothing store. He will realize that he can't be sure whether things happened as he remembers or whether they may as well have happened because he remembers.

The lush green foliage, the smells of corn and smoke from roadside vendors selling food to people inside noisy buses and trucks, the sound of horns honking and spanish pop-music -- they all seem to float by as his mind weaves them into his story.