“We are a country at war,” says the young woman next to me, nodding for emphasis. Her words are jarring. It’s surprisingly easy to forget this when you’re in Colombia.

The country’s international reputation, steeped in cocaine, kidnappings and bloody conflicts, lies far from what greets travellers to this country — warm, kind locals, stunning scenery from north to south and a mysticism that makes Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude seem real.

The country’s most recent round of conflict began in the 1960s, when leftist guerrillas took up insurgency campaigns against the Colombian government.

Between 1992 and 1999, two-thirds of the world’s reported kidnappings took place in Colombia. Colombians lived in fear — few daring to travel around the country, many censoring their every word and action.

I am in the city of Medellin, which has borne the brunt of this war. Once home to Pablo Escobar and his cartel, the city was where bloody battles took place in the 1980s for control of the drug-trafficking industry. Today’s modern, thriving Medellin is a far cry, say residents, from a city once wracked by curfews, persistent military checks and the constant hum of explosions.

It’s no wonder the city’s slogan is “Medellin: From fear to tranquility, from tranquility to hope.”

Today I am living part of the change that has swept Colombia. I’m at a ceremony to celebrate the graduation of 800 former guerrillas and paramilitaries from the government’s three-year rehabilitation program.

Here to cheer them on are their beaming wives and children as well as many of the 1,600 former fighters who are still in the program. They are here for a taste of their futures. Camera crews from local media pan on them eagerly. Later these images will be broadcast, tantalizing the citizens of this war-torn country with dreams of peace.

I came to Colombia on a whim, hoping for a glimpse of the country’s underbelly and an encounter with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Here in this room, sandwiched between former fighters at all stages of rehabilitation, I get exactly the stories I came looking for.

There is José, who was 15 years old when FARC took control of his neighbourhood on the outskirts of Medellin. An antidote to the grinding poverty of daily life, FARC recruited him with the promise of a salary and protection. It started off easy enough — lessons in Vladimir Lenin and Che Guevara in the early evenings and weapons training all night. He did it all secretly, not even telling his parents.

Drugs and money flowed freely among the guerrillas, as did stories of compadrés living deep in the jungle. José sat by quietly as his colleagues took whatever they wanted from local businesses, and watched as they killed anyone who dared disobey them.

But not all of it was bad, says José. The guerillas also organized cultural events for the neighbourhood — dances, concerts and video screenings.

One year after he joined — and just when it seemed inevitable that he would have to start taking a more active role in the killings — paramilitaries wrestled control of the area from FARC and José escaped. He took refuge in the government’s offer of rehabilitation, as did many of the paramilitaries who fought against him.

At today’s ceremony they sit across the room from one another, buffered by security guards. Their distance speaks volumes to the fragility of the country’s peace process.

The bulk of these former paramilitaries come from La Sierra, a hilltop neighbourhood whose dire poverty sits high above Medellin’s bright lights. In the 1980s, tired of being terrorized constantly by guerrillas, the young men of the neighbourhood created a paramilitary group to defend their families and homes. Other areas followed their example, leading to bloody wars between paramilitary groups for contentious territories, in addition to the wars they were already fighting against the guerrillas.

In 2003, the government of Colombia succeeded in convincing a few paramilitary leaders to demilitarize their groups. In exchange for impunity and rehabilitation, the paramilitaries agreed to lay down their arms and refrain from illegal activities.

The move from fighting to rehabilitation has not been easy; most have been fighting since they were adolescents. Diego joined the paramilitaries at 13. For him, rehabilitation means overcoming a decade of fighting, illiteracy and the lack of any employable skills.

In his past life, violence was glorified and Diego often bragged about the many people he had killed (he guesses the total is around nine). His first kill came just months after he joined the paramilitaries. Instructed by his colleagues, hands trembling, he pulled the trigger. “I thought it would be harder,” he admits. He’s already learned that in his new life, his reputation for killing won’t help feed his four children.

The program aims to ease the difficult journey of moving from a world of conflict to one of peace and stability by providing education, psychological therapy, job training and ongoing support for participants after they leave the program.

Despite their efforts, there is still much work to be done. While the government has made headway in diminishing the number of paramilitaries in the country, a few groups still persist, believing they can protect their neighbourhoods from guerrillas better than government soldiers. Aside from the few who escape or turn themselves in, the guerrillas refuse to negotiate with the government and they continue to terrorize citizens in parts of the country. For these citizens, massacres, executions, intimidations and fear remain an inescapable part of daily life.

But this is simply part of the understanding that the peace process is one of years and decades, not an overnight phenomenon. Nobody elucidates this better than the former fighters standing in front of me.

Each of them has spent the last three years fighting against their past and everything they have known to create a better Colombia for themselves and their children. Each of them epitomizes the slow, steady change sweeping this country.

Looking down from their graduation stage, they smile with unadulterated excitement about their accomplishments, and their audience echoes the excitement in the prospect of one day having a peaceful Colombia — finally.