Month: April 2018

Being away from Colombia for so long it’s one of the hardest things I have ever gone through. Not seeing my dad for the last three years, seeing pictures of my friends graduating without me, and missing out the wonderful food we serve in there; it has not been easy. Lately I have notice how I forget certain words in Spanish, most of the slangs that I used to say make no sense to me anymore. Whenever I talked with my dad on the phone, I notice how hard he tries to not express himself as he would regularly just in case I don’t understand a slang. Although I tried to connect with more Latinos here at Penn State, I am too busy with my academics. I basically gave up on my second semester and decided it was not worth my time.

In my work at Schreyer, I met Dr. Richard Stoller, the coordinator of academic of advising and international programs. He is really passionate about Colombia and when another staff member talk to him about me. We have talked more lately and last week he mentioned me about some students from Ibague, Colombia, coming here to State College. He asked me if I wanted to go to dinner with them and talk to them about my story.

It was last Monday at 6pm, I decided to not go to my Chemistry recitation class and attend the dinner. Of course, I was late to the dinner. I got there at like 6:15. I was so embarrassed because I always hate when people are late. Anyways, when I got there I just basically started talking to them and explaining whatever they wanted. I honestly planned to leave there by like 8pm and start doing homework. It didn’t turn that way, I ended up talking with 3 girls until 8:30 at the restaurant. It felt so good just talking Spanish with people I didn’t know. Their names are Juliana, Vanessa, and Alejandra. They are really funny although Alejandra is kinda sick for something that appeared in her eye (she is getting better tho). Anyways, it just feel like I was home again for a brief moment in time. Of course this didn’t last, we headed out to the snowy day in April.

The next day they asked me if I wanted to eat something with them. With no hesitation I agree to the invitation and head towards Five Guys. We again had a great time, just sharing stories and talking. On Thursday, their last day here in State College, we head to a hookah place in college avenue. As I’m writing this tonight, next to them, I’m sad they are going to leave and I’ll be here again with a few Colombians, but glad they remind me how Colombians really behave.

Some of you might know that the Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos (2010 to 2018) received a nobel peace prize on 2016. However, the way news portray the story it’s different from what my family told me.

Before explaining this, it is vital to explain why this subject is so delicate and to do so you have to understand the history of Colombia. A long time ago, before South America was divided into multiple countries, and slavery was still a thing, multiple groups of farmers were coming together in order to fight for justice. This was a really good thing at that time since it united people and it made a significant impact in history. However, as time went by and slavery was already abolished, some of these groups had no significance. Because of the lack of an ideal to fight for, the main purpose of this community was not justifiable anymore. They started to settle in the mountains, and many of them started to grow plants with the purpose of process them and sell them as drugs. As this business provided prolifics amounts of profit, they had to expand. This would mean more space and more people were needed. They decided to pick small towns that were nearby the mountains and take the children to work with them.

Furthermore, this means that all the adults were homeless and would have to move to the closer big city in order to survive (this is one of the reasons why there are so many homeless people in big cities like Bogota).The biggest problem with this was the conflict in within the country. The government could not allow them to keep doing that, therefore they decided to use the military to stop them. This was awful, Colombian citizens were fighting against their own people, and this conflict lasted for decades. The biggest of this group was called FARC which stands for revolutionary armed forces of Colombia.

Now, here comes Juan Manuel Santos into play. He made an agreement with this group which basically says that they would have to set free all the prisoners, retire from the land that does not belong to them and give all their weapons to the Colombian government. In theory this sounds wonderful, but in reality there were more conditions to it. Every single member from FARC would be forgiven from any crime made and will receive a monthly payment (which is higher than the minimum payment for regular citizens) for a couple of years. This is insane, in my personal opinion this should not be the way to solve the problems. In this year’s presidential election, one of the leaders from FARC was a candidate. This person was accused of raping, killing, molesting, and who knows how many other crimes. Is this really the peace Colombia is looking for? Is this the peace that Juan Manuel Santos brought upon us?