Teather for reconciliation

For all of us, the name Santa Marta, is  synonym of beach, wind, sea, vacations, fun, sun and fish, a city that combines the pariadisiac with the historic and colonial aspects, a city that we visit every six months or so, and then it dilutes in our memory along with a summer love.

What very few know, are the huge rainfalls that flood the samarian streets, trying to imitate the flood of our old rio grande, the tranquility of its people, the slow movement of the tic-tac of a clock in a working day

What we don´t know either, is the suffering that such a beautiful city had to go through, suffering that was caused by the war between brothers and neighbors that have been fighting long ago, and who belong to groups out of the law, people who didn´t have other reason to fight than  hunger and lack of opportunities (this is a judgement that I dare to give, coming from an ignorance that begins to be lighten by my experience in the last months in this city)

My encounter with this new Santa Marta has been posible thanks to the work I have been doing with the ACR. For the last seven weeks, we have been doing theater and literature workshops that have reunited the comunity with people that left the weapons to reincorporate to the society and their families, around a different artistic experience. Our goal is that the participants get together through a process of creation.

The workshops begin every Saturday at 2 pm. As the participants begin to arrive, we receive them and integrate them to a big circle in the patio of the Hugo J. Bermudez school. At 2.30 (the samarian tic-tac never stops), a place that used to be a jail in the XIX century and today is one of the most traditional schools in the city, becomes a space that week after week, participants and teachers of the project, have begun to love. In the circle, we begin with different theater dynamics that help us understand the power of a good communication in the scene, as a good example of what our society should be, and we get together and have fun.

After that, the participants go to their literature and theater groups where they ,by means of the game, begin to understand these two wonderful arts and to practice them. In the first stage of the project, all the participants went through both experiences. Now that we are approaching the time of the final show, each participant will choose the one he or she likes the most, to work in the production of that objective.

Around 6 pm we get together again in the Hugo j. School patio, to do a closing activity  that leaves us with a good reflection for the next week and for our lives.

As we leave the space in order, with the help of youngsters of the 11 de noviembre group, to return ir to the severe doorman of the school, we say good bye to that wonderful  group of people that I am beginning to know and I can only hope that the reader gives himself the chance to spend a saturday in Santa Marta to discover another part of the real colombia.