Zenu

Los Palmitos is a community of indigenous people in North East Colombia. They have been in this part of Colombia since before Christ and were alsmost wiped out by discease during the Spanish conquest of the 15th and 16th Centuries. The ancestors of the people I met had managed the marshy land so that like that of Holland, with canals it was able to be drained and grow crops and sustain them. Exploitation and violence after the Spanish conquest and since continue to deprive them of their land. These days they are exploited by business interests that have dispossed them of their land and fenced it of for cattle rearing. I met with the Zenu on the last day of my recent visit to Colombia. At first they were reticent to say anything, we had so little in common, even that I had come from the land of John and Charles Wesley did not make an impact. The whole dynamic changed when it was mentioned that I had worn a hat made by them at the olympics, this was the trigger for these quiet people to share with me the injustice of their situation. Men and women from the community shared how the The Methodist Church is the only church in their community and the means for them to tell their story to the world. The hats and other products they make are made from the women and dyed leaves of palms. They are paid £0.33 per meter and many meters of the half inch braid are needed to make the hats know throughout the world as a symbol of Colombia. What takes many days for them to produce is sold for many more times what they receive. They feel that once again they have been exploited. First the conquerors, then the settlers and today fellow Colombians and big cattle sindicates are robbing them of their lands. Their church is a traditional palm thatch structure on mud, the pastor’s home is a similar two roomed structure with a bamboo screen to provide privacy alo on mud. The family sleep on one room and cook on the floor of the other. This is the same for many people in the community who also have to share their homes with other families. The Methodist Church in Britain through the World Mission Fund has been making a grant to the Methodist Church in Colombia to support the Zenu people in telling their story and claiming justice for the way that their culture is being exploited now as it has been in the past.

Tom Quenet.