In the last decade several formations and projects have been carried out with the aim of revitalizing the language nasa yuwe, organized by Garabide Elkartea in collaboration with nasa and with the collaboration of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and the City Hall of Durango, among others. With Kichw, last year the Garabide Association organised in-depth training under the auspices of the Basque Development Cooperation Agency (AAVD) with the Kichwa associations. As part of this training, the Kichwa activists have launched various projects in favour of language and culture. Members and authorities who have worked on these projects come to Toribio to learn first-hand about the revitalization process that has been taking place in the last decade in the Nasa territory.

The revitalization process of NASA yuwe has grown a lot in recent years. Amidst a context of violence against the platforms, the platforms have created numerous immersion schools based on the Nasa language yuwe, have trained adult teaching and literacy, have cultivated the linguistic landscape, have translated and interpreted various cultural and didactic materials, among other initiatives. The kichws come to Toribio to get to know and share this process.

We are nervous about the violence suffered by the platforms, because the Kichws have had many problems at the border and about the convenience of getting to a successful port in the middle of the day. According to the Department of Defense of Life and Human Rights of the indigenous organization CRIC, 24 members have been murdered in the department of Cauca in recent months in 2022, and 14 of them in the region of Norte de Cauca, in Toribio.

Ecuador’s problems on the border with Colombia have led to delaying the arrival of the members of the kichwa, which is already at night when they enter the territory of the nasa. However, as agreed, members of the NASA authority and the Indigenous Guard for the Kichws to enter safely in the territory of the platforms have embarked on escorts. In the absence of the last section of the journey, the Kichw bus has stopped without being able to move. The bus is chained to the entrance of a bridge due to a detachment caused by the rain falls in recent days. Despite the fact that it is now 12 o'clock in the evening, the platforms have quickly arranged for the 30 kichws to climb to Toribio. They are not prepared to stop this bridge that is being built between the two peoples in the first of the objections. They have obtained three cars and have launched themselves in search of the occupants that the precariousness of the road has prevented them from moving. It is 3 a.m. when the last kichws have entered the classrooms.

On 15 March he woke up from a hard blow, which caused a head injury. Miller Correa, a member of the Toribio Board and advisor to the Provincial Indigenous Association ACIN, has been killed this morning in Popayán. His name appeared last week in a leaflet of threats signed by the paramilitary group Aguilas Negras, which has refused to participate. Known to Miller Garabidetarrak, when from 2018 to 2020 he was general coordinator of the Life Plan of the Nasa Project of Toribio, together with members of the association Garabide, we were present at several meetings.

The landscape that the news has created is painful. Seeing the body of friends Nasa causes pain, they're drifting without knowing how to digest so much brutality. We do not know how to act Kichwa and the Basques, with a feeling of anger to the heart, and without being able to take away from them the powerlessness of wanting to help friends and not being able to do so. However, the firmness with which they fight when talking to the platforms is surprising. Speaker Echi Teran nasa talks about the situation in the following terms: the nases who have participated in this chronicle have used or not used a false name because of the danger that this entails: “It will greatly affect our process. But it doesn't mean that we stay quiet, let alone. The struggle will always continue, protecting language and culture, but also territory and life. These are situations that mark us as an indigenous people. The relatives of Kichwa have been very surprised by this context. There's a lot to think about, there's a lot to keep working. Despite feeling pain and pain, we continue with more strength to push this process forward.”

Before breakfast we had the opportunity to talk to the authorities’ platforms. The exchange of experiences between kichwa and platforms must be suspended and the kichws must leave the NASA before it is too late. The whole community will get involved in the collection and burial of Miller's body and in a situation like this it doesn't make much sense to keep on with the agenda we had for the whole week. Moreover, the leaders are not sure what direction the situation will take. In last Sunday's presidential elections in Colombia, the decline in uribism can be intubated and it is not yet clear what the new scenario will be. “This government is going to die in elections. But he is going to die killing,” says a colleague of Toribio, who has chosen not to give a name for security. In this context, keeping 30 kichwas in Toribio is not safe and we have taken the decision to remove the kichws from there, between Basques and Kichwas.

Tomorrow the Kichws will come out, although we are not very clear what their fate is. However, we have decided to take advantage of the day that will pass in Toribio and the meeting between platforms and kichws will continue, although it will last only one day. There was a lot of work behind this project and also a lot of illusion. One of the platforms that has worked on the organization of these meetings, Lena Mezkisuu, points out the hope: “We were waiting for the meeting, it was important for us. We were working on this twinning since last year and we were preparing to have the Kichwa Relatives here. We were very hopeful to share the experiences of the Kichws and to show them how we worked. Kichwa is a people with the same problems and worries about losing their language.”

We have all organised an emergency meeting and the agenda that we are going to work on throughout the day. Meanwhile, the platforms have suspended the classes – the meeting is organized in an educational institution – and all the students are heading towards the central room. For the eleventh time they will have to tell the children that one of them has been killed, that they have lost another one because they are the leader of the community and because of their commitment. From the room there are cries of tenacity to continue with Miller's work, by professors and students. Lena does the same reading as the screams coming from the room: “It’s a huge loss and at the same time a blow to the process. Politically, it weakens us, it leaves us with a very important person. Since Miller is not with us now, he leaves us with a teaching, a subject, a very important teaching to continue on this path of resistance and struggle. I believe that this teaching is to work in unity, not to divide it. We must seek opportunities to strengthen this process and not forget where we came from.”

It's almost 12 noon when we've started the meeting. The platforms welcomed us officially singing. How many things a single NASA yuw song can say! As the hours go by, we feel that the atmosphere of the encounter is changing. Initial rabies and impotence are transformed as the exchange progresses. Not because Miller's murder is not present in this room, but because that initial pain is becoming pride and conviction. Janeth Otaval, head of the project in Ecuador, expresses the respect that the kichws have felt towards the platforms: “On the dirt road we see leaders die and yet they keep fighting. This has had a great impact on us and gives us strength to continue in our struggle.”

The two peoples look at each other and show their determination to continue this determined commitment to the revitalization of their language and culture. We are happy to end the exchange, with good atmosphere and boiling feelings. Janeth Otaldo and Echi Terán make similar readings about this exchange. Janeth continues to bet on this relationship: “Although the time we have been short, this sharing has been important, and above all to be together in person and to meet the family people. I think it gives us a stronger link, it gives us strength to continue working together when we return to Ecuador.” “Twinning with the other people has been very important. This twinning has allowed us to analyze how we are. For the Nasa people, it's been a significant experience, because we have many similarities. It will help us to strengthen the peoples of Nasa and Kichwa, but also the other indigenous peoples of Colombia. We have been left with a great deal of unfinished business, but this process must continue.”

In these meetings we have felt ourselves as privileged witnesses. Witness the first steps in the construction of this bridge between the two peoples. Twinning marked by Miller's death. Luz Maisa Chávez Córdova, one of the organizers of the kichwa camps for children and adolescents, leaves this reflection: “Somehow, I feel that what has happened is going to help us expand this path further, help us to look further.”

The Nasa and Kichwa peoples use a lot of metaphors related to nature in their everyday language. The platforms will not bury Miller, but they will sow him. Until the last hour we wanted to take advantage of the day and it's 11 o'clock at night for when we go to sleep, we still hear the last dances and the echoes of the songs. We're going to sleep, with suspicion. The suspicion that in this century that the crisis seems to be going to triumph, the Basques will not be alone on this shore of the sea in the struggle to remain. Be Miller. Let's grow up in us.