Jennie speaks to Emily Hart and Richard McColl.

In the 1980s, a Colombian neurologist named Francisco Lopera traveled on horseback into the mountains seeking families with symptoms of dementia. For centuries, residents of certain villages near Medellín had suffered memory loss as they reached middle age, going on to die in their fifties. Lopera discovered that a unique genetic mutation was causing their rare hereditary form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Over the next forty years of working with the “paisa mutation” kindred, he went on to build a world-class research program in a region beset by violence and poverty.

In "Valley of Forgetting," Jennie Erin Smith brings readers into the clinic, the laboratories, and the Medellín trial center where Lopera’s patients receive an experimental drug to see if Alzheimer’s can be averted. She chronicles the lives of people who care for sick parents, spouses, and siblings, all while struggling to keep their own dreams afloat.

These Colombian families have donated hundreds of their loved ones’ brains to science and subjected themselves to invasive testing to help uncover how Alzheimer’s develops and whether it can be stopped.

Buy the book! https://a.co/d/giumqZR 

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart: https://harte.substack.com/

What explains selective violence against social and community leaders in the aftermath of war? Why does the killing of community and social leaders continue unabated in Colombia? 

This week on the Colombia Calling podcast, we look at a new academic article entitled: "Delegative peacebuilding: Explaining post-conflict selective violence," written by Dr Sally Sharif and Dr Francy Carranza-Franco which explains so much regarding the on-going conflict in Colombia, the issue of "partial peace, who is doing the killing and why and hear some possible solutions. 

Joining us is Dr Sally Sharif, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University and Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and incoming assistant professor of comparative politics at Holy Cross University, Boston. 

Victoria was never meant to come to Colombia, in fact, had things gone according to plan she would be in China right now.

But, fate had a different path in mind for this native of a small town near to the city of Perm in Siberia, Russia.

And so, on this week's Colombia Calling podcast, we hear from a Tatar far from her birthplace near to the Ural Mountains and find out how she ended up in the town of Tabio, 45km north of Bogota.

Our conversation takes in her life as a language teacher (English, German and Russian), her arrival in Colombia, her beginner mistakes upon arriving in Colombia, life hacks that we all need here, her cultural adaptation, family traditions, body positivity in Colombia, love and relationships and her life now.

Tune in to hear from someone who has truly embraced a new life in Colombia in what is an incredibly upbeat and positive episode of the Colombia Calling podcast.

And if you fancy some language classes, check out: @tabiunarusa on Instagram.