Dog Days of Summer
August 2005
I remember being a kid playing outside with friends during the dog days of summer. During those hottest days we would run and play under the big old pine tree in our neighbor’s yard, at the playground or simply in our back yard always with our closest friends. Above all we would run to our mothers screaming when we heard the bells of the ice cream truck coming down the street. After buying our treats we would sit under a shade tree and devour our ice cream, mine having a gumball at the bottom. The dog days of summer were hot, humid and sticky but we never missed playing with friends and cooling off with ice cream.
August 2005
I remember being a kid playing outside with friends during the dog days of summer. During those hottest days we would run and play under the big old pine tree in our neighbor’s yard, at the playground or simply in our back yard always with our closest friends. Above all we would run to our mothers screaming when we heard the bells of the ice cream truck coming down the street. After buying our treats we would sit under a shade tree and devour our ice cream, mine having a gumball at the bottom. The dog days of summer were hot, humid and sticky but we never missed playing with friends and cooling off with ice cream.
On August 12, paramilitaries entered La Florida while the children of the community were in school. The school children and adults visiting down river heard the ´pa, pa, pa´ of gun fire when the paramilitaries killed the Diego* family dog. A community member reported that the children at the school witnessed the dog’s murder. No one knows why the dog was killed; whether for enjoyment, because the dog was barking or to intimidate the community members with the fear of death. Either way the four young children of the Diego family lost a beloved pet.
The day before, I shared breakfast with this family. I really enjoyed playing make-believe animals and cowboy and horse with the boys age 3 and 6. At first I was the horse and they the cowboys. After the horse needed one too many rests they lassoed each other and ran all over the yard.
These should be the stories of the dog days of summer. However for this Colombian family and so many like them being caught in the middle of civil war where most of the violence is played out in civilian communities the dog days of summer are of fear of guns, fear of paramilitary and guerrilla violence, fear of disappearances and assassinations, and fear of death.
For me the murder of the family dog culminated when I saw its dead body floating down the Opón River caught in a log jam. Its death and the sighting of its dead body so near the canoe has become a symbol for me of the 135 people assassinated in Barranca from January to August 2005, particularly the 60 who were assassinated in June.
A friend recently asked me if this time in Colombia is preparing me for something else in my future journey. In my mind’s eye, I see the dead body of the dog floating in the river and I wonder if I am being prepared for the day when I see my first dead human body floating on the Opón. The dog’s death symbolically reminds me that Colombia is recorded as the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere and the third worst humanitarian crisis by the United Nations.
The dog days of summer in Colombia are hot, humid, sticky and oppressively heavy; filled with fear, violence and death.
*Name changed
Tracy Hughes
Tracy is serving as a long-term volunteer for three years. She serves with the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) based in Barrancabermeja, Colombia.