These last couple of days have been rather uneventful, I would imagine, so not a lot to report. But of course, my mind goes in many interesting directions when I am travelling. I think it's because all my senses are usually on hyper alert during these times, which can also ruin my sleep for a while. Alonso, my host and very close friend and I were talking about this yesterday. The fact is, I would imagine that to some of you anyway, almost every facet of my trip could be interesting, for the simple reason that I m in a foreign county, a South American tropical country, with an incredible history and culture, and a global badass reputation.
Or to put it succinctly. Colombia is exotic for the simple reason that it is foreign, or other. Everything I see here, everyone I see and talk to, to me are fascinating, for the simple reason that they seem so different. But maybe not. it is for the same reason that people in Colombia exoticize Canada. I think what happens in my case is that, by spending a couple of months in a different country, I am learning to really see again the beautiful and scary details that are every bit as present in my own country, but so easy to miss or ignore while getting on with our lives.
Yes, the exotic factor. Especially in a tropical country. Think of lush tropical rain forests and mountain cloud forests, Beaches. Tropical birds and butterflies. Mountains. indigenous peoples. Not to forget the music, cumbia anyone? And the legacy of Spanish colonization that seems like it's never going to go away, along with the highly stratified social hierarchy and class system, racism, and the chronic presence and influence of the Roman Catholic Church. Factor in a passionate people, mostly friendly, warm and welcoming whose capacity to celebrate life seems to have no equal. Think of drug wars, eroticism, and the ever present machismo and toxic masculinity.
But try also to imagine, Gentle Reader, the absolute hard and grinding daily struggle in this country. The poverty that never goes away. The huge class inequalities and social injustice. Colombia has the reputation of being the most unequal country in Latin America. A government puppeteered by the mafia and drug cartels, a staggering democracy that is still too hobbled by corruption to be really anything close to what the people need. or how about neighbourhoods of extreme wealth, mansions and gleaming luxury condos and office towers and boutiques and high end malls overshadowing the rambling and jumbled together shacks of desperately poor people, who are feared and loathed by the middle class as dangerous criminals, but for the most part are simply languishing from extreme poverty and no hope of a better life.
People in this country really have to struggle just to get by. I think this is also why alcoholism and drug use are so rampant in Colombia. It's the constant stress of having to cope with corrupt governments and officials who are so manipulated and controlled by the mafia, the drug lords and the military, that there is very little room or emotional energy to consider the needs of the people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable.
And that, Gentle Reader, is my thumbnail sketch of this beautiful and horribly wounded country, full of the most amazing people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Colombia.
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