The Sleeping Beauties by Suzanne O’Sullivan

Author:Suzanne O’Sullivan [O’Sullivan, Suzanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Books

6

A Question of Trust

Prejudice: Unreasonable opinions, without knowledge, thought or reason.

As the taxi pulled to a stop at the top of the hill, I could see a group of people seated in a semicircle. They sat under a makeshift corrugated awning that was balanced on poles stuck into the dusty ground. Most of the people were dressed in careworn T-shirts and shorts; some wore panama hats, others sported cowboy boots. They sat in couples, with the occasional person sitting alone, and there was one group of three. Chickens pecked the ground around their feet and a saddled donkey was tied to a nearby fence. No one looked happy, and they barely turned their heads to acknowledge the car that was pulling up beside them.

This was La Cansona, a region of Colombia that lies in the heart of the Maria Mountains. It is roughly three hours’ drive from the picturesque tourist town of Cartagena. No tourists visit La Cansona, but not because it isn’t beautiful – it is. Behind the people gathered on the hill was a ridge, beyond which I could see miles of verdant hilltops and valleys. In another country, one without a tortured history, this would be a place for weekend retreats and country walks, but La Cansona has a violent past that it is still trying to shake off.

I was in the region to talk to schoolgirls who were caught up in a health crisis that had begun in 2014 and was still on-going. The girls had been told they had mass hysteria, and they were just as angry at the label as any US diplomat would be, but they didn’t have a strong political machine to act as a voice for them. In the front passenger seat of the taxi was Carlos, a stocky middle-aged farmer and father of one of the sick girls. He had agreed to be my chaperone for the duration of my stay in El Carmen de Bolívar, a bustling but faded colonial-style town, and the biggest town in the region. Also with us was Catalina, an interpreter. Like my Kazakh companion, Dinara, Catalina is a journalist. Colombian-born and multilingual, she had organized the logistics of my visit, including tracking down Erika Garcia, a resident of El Carmen, who had arranged introductions with some of the families caught up in the outbreak. As an activist for many social and political causes, Erika had set up a support group for the girls. She and Carlos campaigned together. He had arranged this hilltop meeting, but had not told us much about it. Catalina appeared to be as surprised as I was at the sight of the surly looking group.

I had been in Colombia for just a few days, but, by the time I arrived in La Cansona, I had already spoken to several families affected by the outbreak, all of whom lived in El Carmen de Bolívar. While there, Erika had asked me to visit the remoter villages, whose inhabitants couldn’t afford to travel to El Carmen.

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