STATEMENT
What is it to be a llanera? How have the territory, the practices, the food shaped my identity as a llanera? Why is everything changing so fast? What can I do in the face of a latent danger of the disappearance of culture and territory as I know it? How do I remember the plain and how do I recognize what it was and what it is?
This is a photo and creative writing project inspired by two concepts that are also actions: to remember (via Robin Kimmerer 2013) and to recognize (via Amitav Ghosh 2016). My project of remembering and recognition constitutes a meta-story about the llanera culture. I explore here the unique experience of being llanera from a personal and family reflection. Llanera/o in this project, are the people who, like me, like my parents and my grandparents, were born and raised in the eastern plains of Colombia; and some of us, like me, grow up in the city, far from el llano - the plains of my country but sharing the sense to be in the world, the culture, and food.
I remember and recognize the particular way in which the llanera/o lives according to the cycles of the earth, the seasonal rhythms of the rice, the relationship with their companion species (cows, horses, and dogs), the human-animal language that sings, the loneliness and distance from other human beings, and the sense of community.
To answer what it is to be llanera, I also ask myself:
1. Who recognizes? It is a question that forces me to think and recognize where I am writing from. Who is the eye that sees and the voice that tells the story? I recognize my place and my roles of creation. I identify with— as Kimmerer writes—“(…) a traveler between scientific and traditional ways of Knowing”. I am writing this story as a sociologist, as a visual creator but also as a woman, Latina, migrant, first-generation student, and as a caretaker by inheritance of a territory in the Colombian plain. As a migrant, I always must explain the place where I come from. Here I allow myself to do it and I celebrate it.
By remembering and acknowledging I am digging into my identity. This is an action that is being carried out not only for me but also for the viewer of these photos and words. Both this product and I, we place ourselves in a role of translator between generations and between cultures.
2. Who is recognized? Answering the question by who is recognized requires an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach.I recognized being a llanero through the case study of my family, my llanera family. Inspired by Donna Haraway, I am also figuring out what are the companion species that give meaning to the llanera culture? I begin to enumerate not only the people, but also the horses, cows and bulls, bees, the rice, and others. To be a llanero is to be in constant communion with the earth, plants, and animals.
3. What is recognized? I recognize that there is a particular relationship with the land and animals. That the physical senses work differently. Or they have other abilities. I recognize that there is a deep love for the land and the idea of family. Daily life works according to the cycles of the sun and the rhythms of planting rice and livestock. I also recognize that these cycles are changing throughout the industry.
I also recognize - following Kimmerer 2013 - the positive and negative practices in relation to the environment. At what point did the massive cultivation of rice and extensive cattle ranching begin to represent a danger? how the quest to survive economic challenges has led to the massive felling of our forests? Where are the new generations of llaneros?
My dad has grown rice for as long as I can remember. I have left and returned seasonally to the plains throughout my life. I use the idea of being the daughter of rice to talk about those two phenomena. On the one hand, rice monoculture and extensive cattle ranching are rapidly changing the landscape of the Colombian plains. On the other hand, the migration of the new generations to the big cities is changing the traditional practices of being a llanera/o.
Each image and word comes out from the daughter of the rice. It means the new generation of a/and a tradicional cop that is/are now changing faster.
Inspired by Haraway's feminist theory (Haraway, 2016), I would like to come to understand how the actors of this world could love and take account of each other in less violent ways. As part of this new generation of my family, what can I do? What am I going to do? Following Ghosh 2016, how do I put the action on me?. What can we do individually and collectively to prevent such disasters? What will happen to a territory that I will inherit and that is being deforested?
I wanted to start by doing this recognition.
Following Ghosh's question (Ghosh 2016), what are the challenges that climate change poses for humanities and art? How from writing and photography can I recognize the uncanny? Ghosh documents the unthinkable landscape change since writing. I'll do it from documentary and family archival photography and from an attempt at creative writing.
I develop these ideas through photography, narrative writing, and this statement. I am interested in developing academic products with more inclusive and experimental languages to be consumed by other audiences. This combination of languages is inspired by Latin American Thought, specifically, inspired by the Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda. Who in his book The Double History of the Coast, develops a double narrative that dialogues with each other. (To briefly contextualize, Channel A, Even Pages (left) develops a free narrative, more similar to field diaries. Channel B, Odd Pages (right)) develops his theoretical frame (Fals Borda, 1979) (Riveros, 2021).
In terms of form, write in the first person because it is my story. I write in Spanish because it is the language with which I perceive the world; it is the words and emotions -in Spanish- that allow me to make this recognition. Those that make me think, recognize and remember not only the questions I ask now, but the ideas this project have come with. Thus, the English translations are made for accessibility to this content.
It is under construction. Just as the uncanny events do not stop, this creative work does not too. I am the daughter of rice or the Colombian plains who wants to narrate the world view of her ancestors to find, perhaps, ways that allow future generations to recognize what it is to be a llanera/o. I hope this work serves to alert people to what is happening to farmers, like my dad, who are trying to survive by planting rice. And that we can together activate our agency to make a world where we all stay - and by all I mean both humans and more than human species.
I want to recover the ecosystem from which I was born. I hope that this work that is beginning opens the way for gathering efforts to achieve this. Together we can make Mount Carmelo a reality. A family dream that we all win with I want to recover the ecosystem from which I was born. I hope that this work that is beginning opens the way for gathering efforts to achieve this. Together we can make Mount Carmelo a reality. A family dream that we all win with ❤.
The eastern region of Colombia is the territory that has seen me grow intermittently. Among the mystery of its vast plains and the exotic nature of its flora and fauna unfolds the reluctant, kind, and unique character of its people, who are also mine. I grew up in the counterpoint between the city and the plain. And at this intermediate point where my identity and heart are not defined, I evoke the chaos and the possibility of anonymity that Bogotá (a city) offers me; and I long for the silence and meditative solitude that I only get on the plain.
The ambivalence of the two worlds is what inspires this project. From the gaze of a city dweller, I recognize, admire, and portray the days that pass slowly in the countryside; work, food, waiting, and the cycle of the sun that governs daily work. The night with its candles and the fireflies that appear in the endless plain, but above all, I portray the feeling generated by the distance. My distance. Which allows me to recognize the beauty of objects, people, and the environment that seems stopped in time.
[September, 2016. Bogotá, Colombia]
Here is a part of the story.
I am from Yopal, Casanare, Orinoquía Region, eastern plains of Colombia. I was born in Yopal but grew up in Bogotá, the capital of the country.
This story begins between Yopal and the Puerto Rico estate - here Puerto R., as my father tells him. Puerto R is located in the village of La Redención, Municipality of Nunchía, Casanare. My family and I were born in this area of Colombia.
Casanare is a flatland that borders with the eastern side of the Andes’ eastern ranges. The ranges end here, where I was born. From the air, you can see how these magnificent mountains decrease until they are completely flattened. From the ground, on one side you can see small reliefs in the distance. On the other side, especially at sunset, there is a landscape so bereft of landforms that the curve of the earth can be drawn on the horizon.
Puerto R is the farm that my grandparents built. And I say they did it in every sense of the word. My mother tells me they arrived in a truck, with their little kids and some workers ahead, making their way to pass. Therefore, I’m writing about where my mother and her 11 siblings were born and where my grandparents established their love and family.
Perhaps my family's story is also a mini-story of the colonization of the plains of Colombia. Puerto R. was in the middle of nowhere. Only cattle, virgin land, and new inhabitants were in the process of mutual domestication. The borders were invisible, moving, only recognizable by some signs of large trees or ravines. Expansions were made according to the needs of the cattle. The more cattle, the more land. I do not know when the barbed wire began to act as a limit. Now everything is fenced off.
Being in such a remote land, my grandmother Carmen set up a shop. She sold anything from needles, fabrics, cigarettes, and drinks, to animals. She baked bread, made clothes, raised children and animals, she gave birth. Some supplies arrived by plane or my grandfather brought them from excursions of more than two months through the departments of Boyacá and Meta. It took any buyer at least 2 days to get to my grandmother's store on horseback. So when they arrived, the horseman would take another two days to rest, eat, trade, and leave.
Every two years, a baby was born. There’s a rhythm when I compare the birthdates of my uncles and aunts, a rhythm only interrupted a couple of times by the kids that died. Infant mortality was "common." Out of 12 children, 9 survived. "As it happens in nature" my grandmother answered me when she noticed my astonished face for the uncle/aunts-angels that I never met.
In 1970 my grandmother was widowed with 46 years, 9 children, 1 farm 1 rural shop, and around 1000 head of cattle. Almost everything disappeared when my older uncle - the man - got in charge at 16 years old. After my grandmother's death, the large farm was divided into small farms that changed their name. Borinque, El Jordán, Los Corozos, Palo de agua, Pachamama. My mother was given the house where they were born. Therefore, my parents' farm is still called Puerto Rico. Maybe the actual version of Puerto R. is 10% of what the original farm was.
I believe that I am llanera.
Some llaneros live in the countryside that I cannot decipher here. Other llaneros were born in the houses of the plain — like my mother and her sisters — but left the plain to study. There are others who, like me, did not grow up there but who share the landscape, the food, and the culture. We share how to be among nature.
The people who stay in the plain stay to work because that’s what the field is for. Contemplation is allowed, sure, but maybe third generations like mine. So for my cousins and for me, especially if we lived in Bogotá, the farm was for rest.
My mom says the llaneros are not flamboyant (scandalous, boisterous, presumptuous). She instead says that they are cautious and very familiar. I would add that they are melancholic. It shows in the songs and the tone of voice when they say goodbye. They are shy and insecure, perhaps because colonization has taught us that those from the center are better than those from the outside. But at the same time, they are proud of their land.
They are lonely. But this loneliness is because of the absence of other human beings. That’s because, on the plain, the land extensions were so vast that the contact with other humans was limited. I am also sure that the llaneros prefer the company of their horses and farm dogs. The horse is their companion species. With horses, they work the field, move through the mountains, and travel the plains. They find a way between the two of them. There are no GPS or weather apps to help them out.
I would also add that for the llaneros, it is challenging to feel comfortable with new people, but once they are comfortable, they are something else. They play and laugh hard, out loud, that laughter that makes the belly hurt. They make jokes and tell stories in detail, with all the detailed information. Oral tradition is lovely there. People have strong accents. It is spoken quickly and between the teeth. Each story is told and repeated with the details of the landscape, the feeling of the moment, and the gaze. It does not get to the point right away but surrounds it and becomes full of mystery.
Some physical senses are more developed in the plain. My family's sense of sight is far superior to mine. I do not understand how they could tell someone was coming from the middle of the savanna. How they knew the limits of the farm from the big horned tree in the background, where the workers came from, or where the tractor was. I do not see anything. I guess because I was not able to notice things is why I started to photograph them. The images allowed me to return whenever I wanted. I see the passage of time in them and, somehow, notice how it happens in me too. Although I seldom appear in the photos.
I do not know what sense it is, but the llaneros definitely have a very developed sense of orientation, measurement, and weight. Where I only see savanna and mountains, they see directions. They know how to accurately calculate the size of a batch of planting. And approximate how much a child weighs, by sensation or intuition, so they can measure how much medication is needed. They also have the bodily ability that cattle work demands.
In my case, and in that of my mother and aunts, our superpower is the smell. Since I was a child, I knew I was arriving at my house in Yopal because it smelled of the plain. It smells like the first rain when it wets the earth and cement. The temperature of the air entering the nose changes. I do not know if this sense is due to being a llanera or if it’s just genetics, but comparatively, I have it more developed than other people. Lately, when I arrived at the farm, I started to sense the smell of the rice chemicals.
My dad started growing rice when I was around 4 or 5. That meant he lived on the plain while my mother, brother, and I lived in Bogotá. From there, our visits and vacations were adjusted to the times of the rice cycle. And then to those cycles was added the cycle of the “family economy.” Everything in disposition and around the rice.
The sowing cycle is defined according to what the cabañuelas indicate. Cabañuelas is a tradition used for generations to predict the weather for the rest of the year. They work like this: from January 1 to 12 of each year, each day in ascending order indicates the month's climate that corresponds to it. And from January 13 to 24, each day completes the month's prediction but this time in descending order.
Rice cultivation begins with the preparation of the land, continued with the sowing, fertilizers, and fumigations, and finally, the harvest. But that is not the end of it. After the harvest, it comes endless days of trying to get the mills to receive the rice. And then waiting to be paid. One of the risk factors for small farmers is that they cannot sell their harvest. The mills control the price of the kilo, who they receive rice from, and what is the penalty they give to each load for its impurities (humidity, vain grain, etc). Despite being a short crop, the rice cycle lasts the whole year.
It is said that the phenomenon of the boy and the girl have modified the cabañuelas. For this reason, the decision-making of planting times has become complex. With the boy and the girl come periods of extreme summer and extreme rains. With the boy, the earth breaks down due to the lack of water, and the cattle - and many other animals - are at risk of dying of thirst. The opposite happens with the girl. The rain does not stop, and the streams overflow. What a flood! Look how everything looks so white. Indeed, the flooded savanna looks white. If the farm manager does not realize it in time, the cattle - and undoubtedly other animals too - would die.
My dad is a small farmer. He plants between 20 and 120 hectares per year. About 15 years ago, planting rice was expensive because of the labor required for it. Feeding and paying wages were expensive. I remember that the harvests needed about 15 workers. In recent years, this has changed. The Colombian Rice Federation's presence and the region's large mills have changed planting practices and rhythm. Currently, only 3 or 4 people are needed for the harvest: The machinery operators and the bulk carrier -in charge of keeping the accounts of the packages-. What is expensive now is the cost of the seed and the endless list of chemicals for the soil.
I never understood why my dad kept planting rice if he rarely got free earnings from it. In front of my questions, my father answered that rice is like a game, and as such, it becomes a vice. It does not matter if he loses a year because he sows more eagerly the following year. At the end of the day, "rice is not for everyone; it is only for the brave, the risky ones." Following his logic, I felt that my dad always had to "keep trying." And he has kept trying, always with the faith that the following year would be better for him.
Rice is his vice, and maybe now it is mine too. It's lovely to experience the process of sowing, seeing how it grows, walking the crops, and seeing the fruit it bears. I planted 7 hectares this year, and my dad gave me another 0.5. So, I was in charge of hundreds of rice plants that fit on 7.5 hectares.
My mom says that everything that is sown is given away. However, as a child, I never understood why we did not eat the rice we sowed. When I asked - year after year - I remember that they did not answer me why. My mom or one of my lovely aunts would begin the story: "In the days of Grandpa Siervo, we used to grind rice here on the farm". And why not anymore? "I don't know because now we bought it ready in a plastic bag".
I do not know when that changed. I have no recollection of milled rice on the farm. What I know is that in the last 7 years, it began to be prohibited or sanctioned that farmers kept rice to be used the following year as seed. Fedearroz and the millers started to demand the use of certified seed to "ensure" the purchase of the crops.
When I was between 4 and 7 years old, I loved to eat flowers. My favorites were the cayennes from my grandmother's house in Yopal. Those from Bogotá didn't taste the same. So in Bogotá, I didn't eat flowers. So hunting cayenas (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) was one of the first things I did every time I arrived to Yopal. Of course, that happened after hugging and trying to climb my granny. The most spectacular being on the planet.
When I was 8 years old, I was also an expert hunter of giant worms user for fishing. At 10, I led my cousins into picking up mangoes, mamoncillos, guavas, oranges, or tangerines but first, we would eat as many fruits as we could. Then we fill the bags or totumas to the top with fruits. At 13, my parents stopped taking us to the farm because the conflict between the paramilitaries and the guerrillas worsened. The rumor was that either of the two sides was taking away teenagers. So in my story, there is a big bump of not Puerto R. in it.
Over time I lost that hand-to-hand contact with the earth and grew with disgust and fear. I got closer to the city. I guess I got more clumsy, but at the same time, I gained other skills associated with ideas.
With each new visit, my dad took me less and less to fish because, according to him, I would get filled with ticks. Before, I thought that age made people more vulnerable. In my case, I no longer consider that my age has made me weaker for the plain. Now I think the city is the one that has made me this way. Either way, I still go fishing and fill myself with ticks.
The best time to fish is between 5 and 6:30 pm. During “deer sun” time, the sun is setting. The strategy is to be as quiet as possible; from time to time to call singing the bocachicos (Prochilodus magdalenae) and never but never let the hook entangle with the palisade of the Old Mother. Ultimately, everything I couldn't do, my dad would do for me, and I would be there next to him.
I feel that there is a general regret for those of us who have not grown up there. Our skin burns, the bugs bite, the tumbapendejos allude to its name and make us fall, etc. However, getting to know the plain is a must-do. While I am a city bug, I am also one who grew up intermittently in that magical place. So I also learned to know the land through experience.
I know some things and many others that my body knows. For instance, I recognize that if I don’t want the grass to make me fall, I have to stop dragging my feet when walking. That I can hold onto most sticks, trees, and bushes except for the varasanta (Triplaris americana) –if I hold onto it the red ants will remind me –with a lot of pain- that I shouldn't do it. I know that in case of an attack by the Africanized bees, I have to run towards the thickest forest or look for water. I know how to feed farm cows, chickens, and dogs. And I know what to do to make the ducks happy: change their water daily for freshwater.
There is other knowledge that is not rational. For example, the fluff from the rice does not hurt me. I never got chickenpox, measles, or rubella, even without being vaccinated. I don't suffer from constant flu, and even with close cases, I never got COVID - or at least I didn't develop symptoms. Faced with this superpower that I have, my mom replies that this is thanks to the food she gave me. Thanks to the Old Mother's fish, the milk collected and cheese made on the farm, the meat of cows, chickens, and pigs raised in Puerto R., and the different fruits we collected.
The farm runs in my microbiome. Although I lived in Bogotá -8 hours away by car- I fed from the farm. Not out of necessity but out of taste, tradition, and my mom's love. I remember constantly receiving boxes full of food. In Colombia, people show their love through food.
***
Only this year, my father "civilized" - as they say in the plain - about 18 hectares of virgin forest. That meant the death of hundreds of trees and the displacement of countless wild animals. They “clean” the land to plant more rice and have more pastures for livestock. My dad did what my grandfather did years ago, what the llaneros have done for generations to balance living costs trying to compete in the rice and cattle market.
Puerto R. has about 260 hectares, of which 250 have been colonized. All native forest has been cut down and replaced by pasture for raising livestock and rice crops. Only 10 hectares - or even less - house the remains of a natural ecosystem. And this is only the case in Puerto R. This situation is repeated in the farms of my uncles and neighbors.
The consequences of this disaster are not far to be seen. Every year the summers are harsher and the winters more devastating. No trees shelter the animals with their shade or help to counteract the force of the water that comes down from the mountain. The house my grandfather built is also at risk. What was a small crack in the ground is now a great glen. Each downpour threatens to eat up another piece of land.
This mango tree taught us that the solution lies in the roots. My mom made it her mission a few years ago, and now this wonderful being already has other trees in the middle that will help it fight to keep the bank from going away.
Mass planting of trees is the solution that I find possible in facing this imminent risk. It is not easy or cheap, but it is what we need. My mom dreams of replanting the farm with native trees to recover the landscape. Monte Carmelo -in honor of my granny Carmen- is the name she chose for this new place we dream of. Yopo, Nauno, Gualanday, and my favorite, Aceite de Copaiba, and native fruit trees of the region are also welcome. Lemons, mandarins, mangoes, guayavos, guanabanos, etc. Food sovereignty is another solution to reduce risk latency.
This year we started planting 18 trees that my brother donated. We wanted to begin to counteract the impact of the 18 hectares of the virgin forest my father knocked down. I don't know how many of these little bushes are still standing. They had a challenging mission: to survive next to a rice crop, which implies surviving herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides.
In February 2021, during the pandemic, I decided to move to Yopal. For the first time in my life, I lived in the city where I was born. It was a period of travel between Yopal and Puerto R. During which I planted 7.5 hectares of rice. I learned from my dad. I hiked the trails my grandfather built. I fed the cows, calves, chickens, and ducks. I reconnected with ancestral knowledge that runs through my body and my way of seeing the world. I remembered.
Now, I have begun to recognize and reconstruct this story through these words. A story that is mine, of my family, but above all, of many more than human beings who have made a life in the plain possible. Now I owe them to tell their story and manage their speedy recovery and reforestation.
In August 2021, before traveling to New York to study, my dad promised to donate 18 hectares of Puerto R., All to start Monte Carmelo. He gives me the land, and I start the reforestation plan.
He says, "an anticipated inheritance". I say, "thank you, we all win." I think he did it to motivate me to come back - even though I don't need any reason to. I have every reason to do it.
[December 2021. New York, US]
***
Text and photos by Sylvia Juliana RT
sylvia.riveros@nyu.edu (929) 599-8184
Bibliography
Fals Borda, Orlando. 1979. Historia doble de la Costa (t. i). Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Fals Borda, Orlando.1982. Historia doble de la Costa (t. ii). Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Fals Borda, Orlando. 1984. Historia doble de la Costa (t. iii). Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Fals Borda, Orlando. 1986. Historia doble de la Costa (t. iv). Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Ghosh, Amitav. 2016. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Haraway, Donna J. 2016. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. In Manifestly Haraway. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Kimmerer, Robin W. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis: Milkweed.
Riveros Torres, Sylvia Juliana. 2020. Entre el conocimiento científico y el compromiso de transformación. In Trayectorias y Proyectos Intelectuales. El Pensamiento social en América Latina y Colombia. Bogotá: Editorial Universidad Javeriana.
Visual references
Escobar, Juanita. Llano 2007-2015. https://juanita-escobar.format.com/architecture-gallery
Salgado, Juliano R., Wim Wenders, and Sebastião Salgado. 2015. The salt of the earth.
Credits:
Sylvia Riveros