In the recent years their territory has suffered changes very quickly.

The neighbors are being pushed to sell their lands. Sugar cane to produce agrofuels is being harvested now where they used to harvest crops to eat.

Sugar cane gets to the doors of the houses and with it the lack of water, the agrotoxics, the burning, the heat and the ashes.

The impact is huge.

The streets are busy with heavy trucks that destroy the poor infrastructure, the residents who are not working as security guards or construction workers in Cali, end up working in the sugar cane plantations as the only choice left, under very poor working conditions, that reminds them of the worst of their history.

The situation is no better for the women.

They cannot grow their own crops after they lost their cultivable land.

So they are left with the choice of becoming maids in the city – earning very low salaries which barely cover the transportation costs – or stay home.

Real World Radio toured the area and witnessed some spontaneous protests – like street blockades to push a company to fix a broken water pipe that one of its trucks had broken – and met with the neighbors of Cauca Viejo in a kiosk, a place of community gathering since the ancient times, similar to a hut with no walls, where everyone talks about the situation and they look for solutions.