Week #21

We all went to spend Sunday at La Boquilla, a place with a beautiful extensive beach and mangroves. This is one of the places where we work with the community in the Project. The Boquilla is located at north of Cartagena, was founded 200 years ago and is formed by descendants of Afro slaves, whom were mainly fishermen. It receives this name because of its location, it separates the sea and the marsh de la virgen and is only connected by a small mouth that receives the name of Boquilla. It is a place with a very strong contrast, where on one side are large buildings, mainly hotel chains and on the other side, an Afro-descendant community with poverty problems.

In Repelón people celebrate a night of reading of the “Bando”, when is the opening of the carnivals and the feasts of God Momo, which is celebrated throughout the Colombian Caribbean. In these celebrations people dress in colorful, different rhythms characteristic of the region are heard and all people dance and sing with the music.

The working group had a meeting, which was attended by Gabriel Navas (project coordinator), Emilio Paredes (Representative of the freshwater communities), Lavinia Fiori, Jaime Rojas (Representatives of the marine water communities) and the interns. A review of each of the projects of the communities was made and doubts were raised and activities to be carried out to finish the projects for the next workshop.

The XXI “Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias” is taking place in the city, which is a space for dialogue and celebration about literature, visual arts, cinema, music, geopolitics, journalism, the environment and other topics. Leonor Espinosa and Brigitte Baptiste had a discussion about the gastronomic traditions of the Colombian communities and the use of different species of different ecosystems in traditional cuisine. The motto of this important Colombian chef is "Gastronomy for development".

To continue learning about Colombian cuisine and especially from the Caribbean region, we attended to the XXXIII Gastronomic Festival of the Frito of Cartagena, which takes place from 22th January to5th February in the city of Cartagena. This festival shows the variety of fried foods and desserts that are offered in the Caribbean region. Musical samples were showed, one of them was from a famous group in the region that plays band music, this group called “banda 19 de marzo de Laguneta” made a great performance playing porros and fandangos in honor of the feasts of the Virgin of the Candelaria.