Taline is 33 and originates from Lebanon but after 24 years in the UK says London is now her hometown.  She has a BA in Politics & French, an MA in Area Studies (Near & Middle East) and a Diploma in Information Science.  She worked in knowledge management for 6 years before joining the Barrancabermeja and Ubaba team of the Colombia project in September 2004.

People ask me where I’m from - there are many replies to that question. If I want to keep it simple I reply that I’m from England or I say that I’m British. I get puzzled looks; I don’t look English at all! I look very Colombian or Latin, but my roots go deeper than that. I was born in Lebanon but am of Armenian culture (Armenia the country, not the one in Quindio, Colombia). I guess this makes me feel like a person of the world, without a particular country or nation to hold on to. My identity is made of multiple layers and I feel privileged to be able to camouflage myself within many cultures. This comes in very handy at times, especially when travelling alone.

I lived in Lebanon for the first ten years of my life and experienced the civil war in Beirut - sleeping in windowless corridors to protect ourselves from bullets and shrapnel, living underground in the basement of our building, school closed for weeks or months on end, a kidnap attempt, a bomb hidden in a pot plant delivered to the local grocery shop, my grandfather killed in a bomb blast while playing backgammon in his usual café. These are the things I remember from my childhood. Despite the war, I also remember the sweet and happy life in Lebanon with childhood friends, playing and running on the streets, swimming in the sea, being surrounded by Lebanese and Armenians with open, warm, wild characters, hospitable and always with open arms and smiles on their faces.

We moved to London in 1982, and I am lucky to have been given the opportunities that come with living in a developed, stable and liberal country. Sometimes I ask myself what would have become of me if I stayed in Lebanon? The answer I always come back to is most probably married with 3 kids, having travelled less and seen less of the world. Maybe the only prospect of work would have been as a housewife, I don’t know.

I’ve travelled a lot in my life and I intend to travel more; get to know more of the world. I have a great curiosity to know more, to see and experience and find a meaning for this life. I spent a year in France as part of my studies, three months in India living the hippy life on a shoestring after having graduated from university, been on activity hiking holidays in Peru, Ethiopia and Egypt. I studied BA Politics and French, then MA Area Studies (Near and Middle East). Soon after, I accidentally found myself working in knowledge management with an international audit, tax and consulting company. I was sponsored for a Diploma in Information Science. I later worked as a consultant in knowledge management and information management with two other organisations, 6 years in total. After the ambition, the passion for my work, the excitement, I went through a quiet period and began questioning the meaning of it all. I was getting on, almost 30 years old, but I was still single and independent. I decided I wanted a change in my life, and decided to pursue a different career, one that involved working in South America. I found out about PBI and one thing led to another... I spent 6 months in Central America in order to improve my Spanish and then finally travelled to Colombia in September 2005 with PBI.

I think I made a good decision; I’ve never really looked back. In Colombia the work with PBI has been very enriching, very unique, exceptional, an experience! It’s taught me many things and has made me feel many things. At times it is frustrating, at other times fulfilling. I have grown wiser and more knowledgeable as a person. I’ve built some beautiful relationships with other volunteers, and met with some excellent characters and personalities. I have especially been amazed and moved by the passion and motivation of the human rights defenders we accompany.

I joined PBI because I wanted to work in human rights - in the field with actual human rights defenders, communities and organisations, and in South America. I was impressed by PBI’s history of work in various countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti and others. I remember reading the book ’Unarmed Bodyguards’ and finding it all so interesting and valiant and then wanting to be part of it all. In particular, I was especially interested in its principles of non-violence and consensus building which I learnt a lot about during my PBI orientation weekend.

Protective accompaniment works because it makes visible the work of NGOs to the international community, informing the outside world of the realities of the situation in the country; the death threats, displacements, assassinations, all kinds of violations of human rights. It puts pressure on the government of the country to ensure that it abides by the set human rights recommendations and gives the real people in the field, those accompanied - human rights defenders, lawyers, members of peace communities, women’s organisations - hope that they are being protected somehow, that their space is being fought for instead of being diminished. A space they need in order to accomplish their valiant work. 

I get a whole lot out of being a volunteer. First of all, the contact, the closeness and the first hand experience with those accompanied. When we accompany, we observe, we see, we smell, we feel the situation around us. Often, contact with the person accompanied can be very intense, but with time that person opens up to you, building confidence and you find yourself having intimate conversations and debates, asking questions you would never have imagined possibly asking, opening up and learning so much more about the situation. Learning about the individual’s life, life in war-torn countries in general. I often feel very lucky to have the opportunity of being in places and events I could only be in as a PBI volunteer; first hand experience.

Living with similar volunteers from all parts of the world in the same house has been a special and unique experience with PBI. Living and working together, being in regular meetings, deep in debates (some very heated). At times finding solutions, other times solutions yet or never to be found. I think what is even more special with PBI is the way we make decisions based on consensus. At times I have doubts whether this fully works, whether horizontality truly exists, but what’s important in the work is that everyone has a voice, everyone’s opinion is taken into account. That to me is important. Ensuring that decisions are made with all sides analysed and debated. It can take a long time to make a decision and can be very frustrating at times, but the frustration and the stress is also part of what one gets out as a volunteer.

I remember one event which sums up why I work with PBI. I was accompanying Jackeline, coordinator with the Organizacion Femenina Popular (OFP), in one of the municipalities of Barrancabermeja, called Yondo. At the comedor (grassroots restaurant) of the OFP, a woman approached Jackeline, worried and frightened, asking her if she could help her save her son. Her son used to be a member of a paramilitary group but had just left and wanted to hand himself to the authorities. Because of his decision he was being searched for by the paramilitaries (in order to be killed). Jackeline decided to help the woman and her son and we left Yondo by boat with the women and her son, both white with fright.

I was puzzled by Jackeline’s decision of saving the life of an ex-paraco. Later I asked her why she took that decision. This is what she said:

"It was a very tough decision to make, maybe the toughest I’ve had to make in my life. My brother was assassinated a year ago by paramilitaries and for all I know this same kid could have been the one who pulled the trigger. But at that particular moment I was helping not the son, but the mother. I saw the look on her face, it filled me with emotions, I did it for her, to save the life of a mother’s son."

In Colombia, most kids join the paramilitary groups for economic reasons, often they don’t have a choice - either them and their families are starve of hunger, or they join. The accompaniment here with Jackeline was about saving a life no matter what political connotations were at play.