July 2009. On Sunday I visited the Tercer Milenio Park; the area only a few blocks away from the President’s palace that internally displaced people occupied in protest in Bogota. Since mid-March, about 2,000 people (one third minors) live here in fragile huts made of nylon and pieces of wood. By occupying the public sphere they intended to make visible the drama of more then 4 million of forcibly displaced people; victims of a prolonged internal conflict and of political violence.

On Monday, the president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe will come face to face with president Barack Obama. The meeting is scheduled at a very sensitive moment for Colombia. Used to considerable familiarity with president Bush, Colombia is probably one of the few countries in the world where the election of the first U.S. African-American president was greeted with skepticism. The leadership of the country has been anxious to approve a free trade agreement currently opposed by the U.S. Congress. Colombians took offense for such resistance.

When Jose Saramago wrote that a benevolent Tsunami swept Barack Obama into the White House allowing him to become the first black president of the United States, the Portuguese author defined the wave of change that brushed the entire country from west to east. During the Bush-Cheney era, thick and obscure clouds had dimmed the soul of America.