CURIOUS VIDEOS

Colombia is second only to Sudan in terms of its number of internally displaced people, with between two and four million internal refugees caught in the country's political riptides and often left to languish in slums and shanty towns. But in Cali, Colombia's third largest city, one group of women is forging a new path. The women are striving not only to fend for themselves, but to move beyond core survival and to express their new reality through their performance the theatre group 'Birds of Paradise'.

COLOMBIAN PACIFIC INFORMATION

The Pacific coast, is in western Colombia

The Colombian Pacific coast is made up of 4 states (departamentos). The most Northern state is Choco:  

To the south is Valle del Cauca:

South of Valle is Cauca:

South of Cauca, the most southern state is Nariño Which is bordered by Ecuador

INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

In the Colombian Pacific region they inhabit different indigenous communities, for example:

The Guambiano Indians

Approximately 20,000 Guambiano Indians still live in Colombia, most of them live within a short distance from Silvia. The name of the Guambiano Indians comes from a bag called a guambia, a traditional bag used by Guambiano women to carry around weaving supplies. Guambiano women are renowned for their weaving skills and their woven wares are a principal source of income for the community.

Guambianos still live a very traditional life, especially their traditional clothing. Men and women wear finely woven ruanas , a type of Colombian poncho. The females accessorise with chaquiras, necklaces and wristbands made out of small colourful beads.

The Guambianos are self-sufficient and grow all their produce on the local terraced hillsides. The market is a vital trading day for the community as commodities can be sold and traded for other commodities.

The Awá Indians

The Awá (or Kwaiker, a name given to them by Spanish conquistadors and missionaries) traditionally inhabit the regions of northern Ecuador and southern Colombia.

In Colombia, the Awa population is frequently targeted by paramilitary groups and the government's own military forces. In the past two years, there have been at least five Awa Massacres. According to the United Nations, the Awa are currently facing extinction, along with 33 other Indigenous Peoples in Colombia.

The Cañamomo Indians

The name of this group is not properly belongs to an ethnic group, since there is no self-designation or about ethnographic records. It has been given this name by appealing to the name of the receipt of colonial origin. They are living on the left bank of the Cauca River and Supía municipalities of Riosucio, Department of Caldas. Cañamomo includes receipts and Lomaprieta and San Lorenzo, with a combined population of 26,083 inhabitants.

Cañamomo community and has nineteen Lomaprieta paths among which include Iberia, political center of the guard, Sipirra, Portachuelo, Panesso and Cañamomo. The receipt of San Lorenzo is located on the right bank of the road connecting the head of lmunicipio Supía with Riosucio. It has the following paths: Pasmi, Veneros, Tunzará, San Jose, Costa Rica, Piedras, Honduras, Llano Grande, Aguas Claras, Blandon, Sipirra, Lomitas, The Danube, La Pradera, Buenos Aires, La Plata and San Jeronimo inspections and San Lorenzo.

Do not retain their native language, however, the inhabitants of San Lorenzo, according to Jorge Franco story in his Hildebrando, for the year 1949 had a cacique Quirama named Ramon, who speak their own language with other natives of this community.

The Embera Indians

The , people live in small villages of 5 to 20 houses along the banks of the rivers throughout the Chucunaque/Tuira/Balsas River watersheds in the Darien Province of Panama. There are generally three villages on each tributary that branches off from the main river system. Each village is about a half day's walk apart. The villages are built on a small rise, set approximately 100 feet in from the river. The houses of the village are set about 20–50 feet apart atop the rise on posts, with no walls, but tall thatched roofs. Around each village, the jungle is partly cleared and replaced by banana and plantain plantations, a commercial crop for the Embera, who sell them to get cash for their outboard motors, mosquito nets, and the like. The hills leading down to the river from the villages are usually hard packed reddish clay. There are sometimes large boulders being played on by naked children. Dugout canoes are usually seen pulled up on the riverbanks.