Girls of Uchitu'u

Girls of Uchitu'u

Helena Salguero Velez / Colombia

Uchitu'u is a small Wayuu hamlet located in the area of the Cabo de la Vela hills, between the Guajira desert and the Caribbean Sea in northern Colombia. This territory, through its vast desert, the undulation of the hills to the continental shore and the aquamarine color of its sea, reveals the mystery of the original culture that has inhabited it for centuries.
Sonia and Yelitza are two Wayuu girls, 10 and 8 years old, who live in the Uchituu community. united
of blood through the maternal line, they have learned in their mother tongue, the relationships to survive according to what
that they find in nature. Despite being raised in the same context, Sonia and Yelitza have several
marked differences among themselves, which are largely a reflection of the influence, which, at their young age, has marked contact with practices and customs outside their territory.
Material thought, school education, commerce and tourism that have come to Cabo de la Vela, have
enormously permeated in the daily life of the indigenous communities, generating tension between the value for
the ancestral worldview and the "civilized" world, raising questions about the forms of education that
younger indigenous generations receive to build their identity.

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