The Butterflies of Buenaventura (Part 3): A Rising Tide of Tremendous Troublemakers

David Sulewski, together with his wife Tibrine da Fonesca, works with MCC in Quito, Ecuador, coordinating the Refugee Project, a ministry of the Mennonite Church in Quito to refugees, the majority of whom are fleeing from the armed conflict in Colombia. This post was taken from their personal blog, Gathering Peace and is the third in a series.

Part One, Part Two

On a sultry Saturday afternoon in March, in the month that commemorates the International Day of Women (the 8^th) and the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the 21^st), the Mariposas converged on a plaza in downtown Buenaventura for a peaceful march through the streets to raise awareness about sexual violence against women and children.

To passersby they handed out flyers that read: “A life free of violence against women and children is possible.”  Cars slowed to watch the gathering as the Mariposas waved their signs.  With the volume on their megaphones turned all the way up, they chanted, “Women have rights; we are with you.”

At that moment, a Bohemian bus painted with a mosaic of funky colors pulled up and out streamed a troupe of women outfitted with drums, trumpets and trombones. To enthusiastic cheers and applause, La Tremenda Revoltosa Batucada Feminista—The Tremendous Unruly Feminist Batucada —had arrived!

La Tremenda Revoltosa is a recently formed, Bogotá-based, all-women musical ensemble that plays Afro-Brazilian percussion in opposition to machismo, heterosexism, racism, neo-capitalism, and all the effects of these dominating systems on the land, on the people, and on the very bodies of the women of Colombia, especially on Afro-Colombian and Indigenous women.

They had come to join forces with the Mariposas and to musically accompany their fearless cry for justice, for a stop to structural violence, femicide and ethnocide, and for a Buenaventura—indeed, a country—where all can live free of every form of violence.

Everyone stood in breathless anticipation as the ensemble got into formation. Motionless, with their instruments poised, the women fixed their eyes on their director as she counted down. On three their music shattered the silence—not just the physical silence, but also the silence of impunity, the silence that terror imposes on others.

Everyone danced to the rhythm of the drums, moving their bodies in elegant, free expression. Animated by the higher power of music, the rally departed from the plaza and began moving down the street, stopping traffic as onlookers came out to watch—and even join in. The women of La Tremenda Revoltosa raised their voices in song:

La tambora haré sonar por la dignidad, de este pueblo que no quiere más feminicidios

Aquí vamos cantando, 

aquí vamos bailando, contra el machismo, el racismo también,

¡no lo olvide usted!

The drum will sound for dignity, for this people that does not want any more femicides

Here, we will sing, 

here, we will dance against machismo, and racism, too

Don’t you forget it!

To conclude the rally, they marched to the seaside park. The tide was high along the sea wall. La Tremenda Revoltosa formed a drum circle and the Mariposas danced in the center as the sun began to set, yielding to the new moon rising.

As night fell, the Mariposas invited me to join them for a Lunada on the grounds of a nearby seminary. Beneath the soft glow of the new moon, these descendants of Cimarronas—enslaved Africans who escaped the chains of their bondage and fled to live free in the mountains—gathered to remember their heritage and to keep alive their ancestral practices that strengthen their identity as Afro-Colombians. Sitting on the earth around a fire, we invoked the names of women in our lives, living and passed, who gave us life and wisdom. Then, we blessed and shared a meal. The women recited poetry and told stories well into the night, relaxing happily in one anothers’ company before facing a new day filled with all its struggles and joys.