IMAGES & WORDS BY NATALIA ORTIZ MANTILLA
This is a town that has part of its memory buried under tons of water. A concrete wall 190 meters high and 350 meters wide interrupted the flow of the Sogamoso River, which disappeared for a long period in 2014, exposing a sandy bed of stones polished by the water where different types of fish were dying: bocachicos, blanquillos, chocas, striped catfish, many of them indispensable for feeding riverside families and for the local economy. Upstream, behind the great wall, a mirror of water grew, drowning hectares of forests, pastures, crops, and the wells where fish abounded; wells named one by one by the fishermen of the Sogamoso who knew every stretch of this river as if it were their own body. Life has not been the same since then. The cast net no longer falls into the water, the bocachico no longer swims upstream, the otter no longer fishes, and even the weeping woman is no longer heard, thanks to that dam named in memory of the drowned river.
Peasant farmers and fisherfolk, men and women who have no title to the land but carry popular wisdom on their backs, began to move around the territory and settled where they could. Some considered themselves lucky and were relocated by the company, but their riverside souls could not bear to be far from the murmur of the water and instead had to endure the dry whistle of the wind among unfamiliar pastures and trees; they say that many of the elders were overcome with sadness. Others went further afield, choosing to swap their work on the land and river for more industrialized jobs in the artificial palm oil forests or managing a business in a distant town.
There is something that these mega-projects do not take into account in their Environmental Impact Studies and that cannot be recovered, relocated, restored, or repaired: the biocultural memory where traditions, territory, ways of inhabiting it, and cognitive abilities in the personal sphere but also in community life are interwoven. This complex fabric is what gives identity, roots, culture, and knowledge around the tangible and intangible. The exodus that has occurred in this territory due to the environmental, social, and economic damage caused by the construction of the dam has not been accounted for, and its magnitude is only appreciated by those who remain in the region and know how to hear the silence that grows on the banks of that great pool, in the river that is dying downstream and slowly settling into the collective memory.
The Movement in Defense of the Sogamoso and Chucurí Rivers was born out of a love for the land and for life. Made up mostly of women, they did not know what they were facing; they had never seen a dam and could not imagine that their lives, the ones they had before and the ones they had dreamed of for the future, would be so drastically transformed by this watery monster. However, the journey has given them wisdom amid so many stumbles and disappointments. They work for three reasons: 1. The restoration of the rights of those affected by the dam. 2. The reconstruction of environmental memory. 3. Survival in the territory, seeking to build new alternatives that include food autonomy, water autonomy, and energy autonomy.
Rosalba Jaimes and Nubia Anaya on the Sogamoso River. Rosalba (left) arrived in this region as a young woman, where she married and started a home.
The protagonists of this story are Claudia Ortiz, Nubia Anaya, and Rosalba Jaimes, women leaders who grew up among the waters of the Sogamoso River, who remember times of abundant fishing and when it was common to hear stories of spirits and beings that inhabited and protected the river. but there are also Shirlly Díaz, Angy, and Mariana García, young women who in their few years of life have experienced the abrupt transformation of the river, the territory, and customs. However, they all have a common goal: to be able to live with dignity in their territory, which means adapting to economic, social, and environmental changes, finding harmonious ways to survive in accordance with their values, their objectives, and their deepest desires.
In Colombia, 70% of the energy matrix is composed of hydroelectric power plants, and although this has been classified as a clean energy source, the environ-mental, social, economic, and cultural consequences at the local level come at a high cost: changes in the microclimate, the displacement of native species, damage to crops due to the arrival of new vectors and animals in search of food, the loss of traditional trades, and the breakdown of the social and family fabric are some of the impacts that communities have to bear in the name of the common good and development.
For this reason, and due to the country's abundant water resources, the intention of "En este pueblo ya no canta la lechuza" (In this town, the owl no longer sings) is to generate reflection on the impacts of this energy source and the opportunities for change that can arise in the transition to a diversified and fair energy production matrix, with the active voice of rural communities, where these megaprojects are often located. At the same time, be a visual story that narrates, from elements of family and collective memory, fragments of life, thoughts, and longings of those who are committed to remaining in the territory despite having lost part of their identity, now drowned under tons of water.
Natalia Ortíz Mantilla is a recipient of PWB’s Revolutionary Storyteller Grant.
