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Medellín, Colombia
9° 21' N 73° 37' W
Dec 26, 2005 02:22
Distance 0km

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Meditations on Colombia

Text written in: English

Christmas eve we went to a small town near the Finca, called Palermo. Its little more than an enormous church, which could seat double the entire population of the whole town,  at the top of a nice public square surronded by a few houses. Everybody was out cooking, eating, drinking, playing. Most notably there was a collie (the lassie dog) who was playing what seemed like a very fun game with the kids of Palermo. there was a small wall (about 2 ft high) that surronded the outside of the public square, and the dog would run up and down one side of the wall barking at the local kids who were on the other side of the wall waiting for the dog to run. Neither side seemed to be angry or screaming with malicious intent, and both had that mix of energy and excitement which made the game extraordinarily fun to watch. Overall, I was kind of jealous that I didn't have a game to play like that when I was young, because man did it look fun. After a beer in the square we walked around the town, and we saw pretty much that it was about a half a squre mile in size. The people seemed to be in good spirits, on account of the upcoming holidays, and were glad to see some gringos wandering about their town.

 

Overall I have really enjoyed the time in Colombia, and I have some observations about the country which I think might be interesting to some. The most striking thing is that Colombia is really nice for tourists in that nothing is being shoved down your throat, people dont seem to have any dislike for you, and its a stunningly beautiful country. It is, however, a place with a rough history and bad reputation and I found that many columbians were really interested in dispelling this from the heads of visitors. A few conversations started with the question: ¨isnt columbia beautiful?¨ or something similar, not that I'm not understanding about the insecurity. I am after all a little insecure about being an american abroad, as we tend to have a bad reputation in some parts of the world- the other thing I noticed was that Colombians seem to have less regaurd for personal safety than americans. For example, there was at least one time when I nearly shit my pants b/c of reckless driving (dont worry it wasnt any of our hosts), and the colombians in the car didnt seem the least bit bothered. I think this might have to do with the fact that about 10 years ago maybee longer, the country was steeped in such violence that those that have survived arent too worried about things like reckless driving. Who knows? just a guess, but at least one made with a little info.