María del Pilar Casamachin Yule (Toribio, Colombia, 1994) is a Nasayuwe speaker. He studied in Spanish at school, obliged to reject the language of his home: “At home we talked nothing more about nasayuw, and we started school, and we only got the mockery, we were also shy to talk to each other in our language, and we were afraid.” He was not convicted, but has testimony of his old relatives: “The teachers took the rule and told me they were touched by talking about nasayuw.” At all costs, Casamachin had to learn to speak in Spanish. “But you can’t imagine, I just learned to talk about degenerated Spanish. I still have difficulty speaking correctly in Spanish”, nos confiesa.Luis Evelio Velasco Nuskw (Tacueyo, Colombia, 1986) has a similar

experience, although he suffered to a greater extent the exclusion: “That was discrimination and cultural genocide. When I started school, I only understood Spanish. The teachers didn’t let us talk about nasayuw.” He experienced exclusion physically and emotionally.

“I was once taken out of the room. ‘If you do not speak Spanish, you will not enter!’, for example, the teacher told me. And on more than one occasion it occurred to me to see some classmate punished in the corner, standing, or kneeling on his knees on the wool or the chicharrillo… I met those first hand punishments, not only first hand. And the consequences of these penalties came home, because the parents said, ‘At home we have to stop talking about nasayuw, our children see in red school for talking about nasayuw’. Thus came the parents, and in many places the transmission of language was interrupted.” Years later, the situation began to change due to pressure from the Andean community itself, the struggle of the previous generation of Velasco. “However, there was a time when I didn’t want to know anything about nasayuw, because our language only contained mockery and contempt.” Today, they both work in the struggle for language.

Activist
Nasa was asked by the community authorities to Velasco as a language activist ten years ago and conducted a training course on tongue revitalization, including: “Then I realized the importance of language. I think the suffering of school also made me sprout. I decided I had to fight for those who know how to speak nasayuw to speak in our language, for them to keep their language, and for those who don’t know how to learn.” That's what he's working on, and right now, he's told us he's working on models of school immersion, content and creation.

Although 96% of the region is a platform, speakers do not exceed 20%, according to the 2013 survey. Use is greater in mountain populations than in urban populations. “We are almost in the urban environment of Toribio, which has caused a greater loss of nasayuwe among us,” says Velasco.

Casamachin knows all kinds of situations: “I think use depends on the speaker’s awareness. I just started in activism, I talked about nasayuw, but I had no linguistic awareness. It's something else. Moreover, I have seen everything: what you know speaks, what you are teaching children, and, in the event that parents have not taught them, what I have noticed is that they want to learn to speak. 'Why didn't they teach us? ', some now say to their parents. In many families it has been the case that parents talk to each other about nasayuw, but in the Spanish media to their children or visitors. The reason was, of course, the mistreatment of the children at school. Today, many young people do not understand the nasayuwe, they only know how to make nasayuw with diosal.”

Asking Velasco about
the situation of the nasayuwe, he tells us that 244,000 nasayuwe are speakers in Colombia, distributed throughout the country: “Each community nasa has its own Nasayuwe variety, and the differences are considerable. Fortunately, in 1998 they agreed on the unity of the alphabet.” Today, all Nasayuwe varieties use the same alphabet, so the language cannot be taught in school. And because of that, Casamachin has learned to read and write.

Since 1978, the nasayuwe has had legal access to the school from the recognition of the language by the constitution of the country and the beginning of the steps towards possible bilingualism. Velasco is unhappy: “Say yes, bilingualism, but one or two hours a week, teaching our language has no effect. In 2011, however, the leaders of our community promised to establish strategies for the recovery of the nasayuwe and we began to reflect on it to teach the nasayuwe as the first language.” Now they have also done something else: “This year, once the immersion methodology has been developed, pilot projects have been launched in different schools in Toribio to teach our language at a rate of 80%. In these drivers, the nasayuwe is the main language and the Spanish is the complementary language by 20%”. At the same time, work

has been done on the Community Education Project, a program to recover Nasa culture, “within what we include linguistic recovery”. And turning the educational project that so far gives priority to Spanish, giving priority to Nasayuwe. And, as Velasco has told us, they cannot do so, even within the Colombian Ministry of Education, because it is the platforms themselves that manage education in their territories, guaranteeing the country's constitution. “However, we know that, despite constitutional support, the national authorities will never come to offer us anything: we have to explain to the authorities what we want.”

And given that in Toribio there are three districts, and 62 schools, three pilot projects, and no more, there are also many reasons for starting up. “We do not have the possibility to teach Nasayuwea as a subject, but we do not have enough content to study all the teaching with Nasayuw, there is not even a methodological route at the moment. However, in view of the experiences here, and with the help of Garabide, we can make some proposals and start organizing a complete methodology.” Pilot projects aim to extend teaching to the whole territory, nasayuwez.El the future says they would also want to address adult education, but that must be

done
step by step, according to Velasco: “We are eighteen promoters of our language, no mas.De 2016 to 2020 we organize a plan to revitalize the language, prioritizing adult education and literacy.” In these eighteen promoters, some are working on the methodology to carry out adult teaching, on the implementation of media… Meanwhile, we have an alternative radio and a web, always with the objective of visualizing the language”. They have an eight-hour schedule per week, but not entirely nasayuwez, because not all the announcers know nasayuwez, and Velasco tells us they're going to change.

As both partners have told us, awareness is awakening within the Andean community: “The demand for language learning increases. ‘I also want to study’, they tell us, and we try to help. But we are only 18 activists, in this and that we are working on.” Now they are in contact with the singers who talk about nasayuw, spreading their songs, and influencing the linguistic landscape, the health sector, the world of work, the streets, the altars...

The
collaboration between the
Colombian NASA community of Gariden Estancia and Garide is not new, according to Velasco: “For years they have been helping us in counseling. We are now also in the process of drawing up the revitalization plan. In these years, we activists have expanded our knowledge about revitalization, we have adapted it to our context. I, for example, have come to Euskal Herria and seeing how they have worked, have reinforced my ideas. My stay here has fed me, made me reflect: ‘This media was launched here. How could we do that?’, for example, by asking questions like this. In this sense, this stay has marked me, encouraged me to further assist the team of activists of the Andean community.”

In Casamachi you are surprised. “Our situations are very different. You have a lot of means. I wish we had one day! I would do it now. I just started the activist, but I’m willing to

contribute there.” Casamachin doesn't doubt what you've seen. “Ikastolas. I find it surprising how you have planned the teaching”, says that it refers to how to work in the ikastolas.Por

your part, Velasco has highlighted the collaboration he has perceived in favor of the Basque: “The government subsidizes and needs to be, but I have realized that we do not have to wait absolutely for the help of governments, that we have to be economically autonomous as well.” And, in turn, tells us about the context, considering that the Colombian army and guerrillas come from the environment: “Ours is an environment of war and repression, they beat us both on the left and on the right, they fight in our lands. We do not join anyone's struggle, we are neutral. That's why we get stuck with each other, murder is the bread of every day. And come here and peace! This environment helps to advance!” he wanted to stress.

Activist, Velasco Nuskwe long ago. The newly initiated, Casamachin Yule, has been called and enrolled in a comprehensive training programme. Nuskwe, “zaparradatxo”, in Basque, and Yule, “errekasto”, in the work of revitalizing the Nasayuwe language of the Nasa people. “We also received petitions, not a few, to recover our names from the platform. That is what many families ask us to tell us the naming options for their children.” Last Casamachin annotation before flying to Colombia.