Colombia's trailblazing vice president: Black, female and champion of the 'nobodies'
LA TOMA, Colombia — Shovel and wooden pan in hand, rubber boots hoisted up to his shins, Leider Ocoró Ambuila strolled past the zapote tree, past the stands of ripening bananas, past the cow pen, down to the banks of the Ovejas river.
He was soon crouched at waterway's edge shoveling silt into a concave pan, or batea, a ritual passed down for generations. He splashed water on the grit and tilted the pan to help separate mud and pebbles from the real stuff — gold, minuscule flecks of which soon sparkled from the muck.
"Francia also worked hard to find gold," said Ocoró Ambuila, 41. "I grew up with her. We played together. She is one of us."
In these remote parts, where destiny is shaped by water and gold, the reference was clear: Francia Elena Márquez, the most eminent, and provocative, citizen of La Toma, a string of villages and farmsteads spread over verdant hills and valleys that is home to some 8,000 people, overwhelmingly of African ancestry. Most are descendants of slaves brought to South America centuries ago by the Spanish to work in mines and on plantations.
Márquez is a single mother and former live-in maid who escaped rural poverty
