"What does "dar papaya" mean? This was the first question that Everett Wilson asked me (Sarah) when he interviewed me for Turning Wheel magazine a few months ago, and it is a question that many people have asked before and since. Everett interviewed Kore, Liza Smith,the Youth Arts and Action Delegation leader, and me for a great article in the magazine that just came out. The interview is full of information about the dar papaya project, the Colombian conflict, the peace movement, youth organizing to resist the war and create alternatives to violence, and the intersection of Buddhist practice with human rights work in Colombia. We so appreciate the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, publisher of Turning Wheel, for bringing attention to the situation in Colombia by highlighting the dar papaya project's work.
We wanted to give you a glimpse of the interview - what follows is how I responded to Everett's first question. We hope it gives you a sense of the nuanced meanings of "dar papaya" and why we chose it as the name for our documentary film.
The Turning Wheel issue in which the interview appears includes many more great articles about war and peace, and is available from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Check out www.bpf.org and order copies of the magazine from membership@bpf.org.
Also, please join the discussion with your comments about what "dar papaya" means and how you have used it/ heard it used. We would love to hear your thoughts!
Now, what does "dar papaya" mean, anyway? (As defined by Sarah Weintraub, copyright Buddhist Peace Fellowship 2009)
There is a very Colombian phrase dar papaya. It means, if you translate it directly, 'to give papaya.' Dar is the verb 'to give.' I've only heard the phrase in Colombia, and it has a very Colombian, very specific but multi-layered meaning. It's actually one of the themes of what we're doing in the film.
But the way I've most often heard it used - the phrase as you almost always hear it - is no dar papaya.
'Don't give papaya.'
What it basically means in most contexts is, 'don't get yourself in trouble.' Don't tell people more than they need to now. Don't share anything you don't need to share. Don't make yourself a target, and that could be politically, or it could mean don't wear your big camera on the front of your chest and walk through bad neighborhoods. So in the cities it's mostly used in that way. No dar papaya means don't put yourself out there to get robbed - don't fling your wallet around or talk about how much money you have. No dar papaya: don't be giving away all your papaya.
In the rural region where I lived then I first lived in Colombia, it was used more in the political sense. If you're going through a military checkpoint and they start asking you questions, don't tell them more than you need to, don't start telling them, 'I'm a member of the peace community, and you all shouldn't even be here and you're all corrupt...' It's just giving them papaya, giving them ammunition to use against you. So it means keep a low profile. No dar papaya.
So we chose the title for a few reasons. I like the way it sounds both in Spanish and in English. In Colombian Spanish - anywhere else it doesn't really mean much - but in Colombian Spanish it has a kind of edginess to it, because you always hear the phrase no dar papaya, so calling the film the Dar Papaya Project is already a little bit edgy or pushy.
People start asking, 'What kind of trouble are you making?' It's a rocking-the-boat kind of feeling.
But I also just like the way it sounds. And I think it also reads in English, it sounds kind of like tropical, slightly unusual, so I think it works whether or not you actually understand the phrase.
We thought about putting a definition of the phrase on our website, and when I tried to come up with a definition, it was like what I just told you - I mean it's a paragraph long, and there's all these different variations, and people take it in slightly different ways, so we decided not to put up a definition.
For those who know, they know.
People who've lived in Colombia or who are Colombian or who've worked in Colombia get it and have different takes on it. Some people say, 'Oh that's so cool!' And other people ask, 'Why did you call it that? What are you trying to say? Are you trying to make trouble?'
So aesthetically we liked the way it sounded - both in Spanish and English - and then in the meaning... On the one hand we're not expressly trying to dar papaya. We're not trying to make trouble or trying to give ammunition to be used against us, and at the same time there is a feeling that we're not not trying to do that. We're not no dar papaya either. We're going to talk about what's going on, and if people don't want to hear about it, too bad. that's the edginess, and that has a lot of resonance with the Colombians we work with.
Order Turning Wheel magazine to read the rest of this in-depth interview! Write to membership@bpf.org.
Thanks again to Tanya Susoev for the photos.
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