Author: Camilo Andres Rojas

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? 

Ok, I do not expect you to relate but just think if somebody ask you the following question: Where are you from?, for the sake of the arguments let’s say you answer, United States, which the other person follows with, ohhhh yeah, school shootings right?

I know it is something awful to talk about and should not even be incorporated in this example but it is something relatable. Because of series like Narcos in Netflix, people get the wrong impression about Colombia. If you have been following this blog, you can easily tell that there is way more to it. I have always try to clarify the misconception of Pablo Escobar being everything Colombia is known for.

The story behind what he did is quite delicate and there are a lot of versions to it, I am going to relate the one that was told to me by my parents and my interpretations from the news. Pablo Escobar was a drug dealer from Medellin, Colombia. He became one of the most strong and known drug dealers in South, Central, and North America rapidly. In Colombia,it was said that he contributed a lot to Medellin, by donating money or just contributing by doing construction and improving the overall economy. On the other hand, he damaged a lot the people that were well settled. For instance, he once place a bomb in a newspaper company that had published an article about him. Multiple people die and many more were injured, because of actions like this, hate, and sadness was create it. Obviously there is much more to it, but it all goes back to him providing for his town and the poor people and the other side of the spectrum suffering in Colombia.

Surprisingly, many people think that he was a good person and only provided money for the people and that is why he got into drug dealer. I do not know where these stories come from, but it is not reality and people should be inform of it. Hopefully throughout this method I gave you some information about Colombia and know you know a little bit more of this imperfect yet beautiful and unique country

Colombia is mostly known at a market level for its flowers, which is weird if we take into account that everybody only knows Colombia either for its coffee or the netflix series “narcos”. There are multiple reasons why the flowers are so pretty in Colombia but I believe that the biggest one will be because it is located in the equator line. This means that there are not seasons, I know that means no snow and now leaves falling. Anyways, this tropical environment creates the perfect sediment for flowers to grow in. Also, since Colombia’s currency is relative cheap compared to the dollar, most of the market target places like this in order to obtain cheap and quality items.

In Colombia, as you may have heard of, there are multiple carnivals and festivals and one of the biggest is the Flower festival in Medellin. Personally I have never been in this festival but by the pictures you can tell how awesome it is.

This event happens every single August and every year its has been getting bigger. More people from all over the world hear about it and travel to experience it. This may be a problem when we take into account something I have not really talk in this blog, insecurity. Because of the difference in economic status find in every city, there are more thieves than expected found in crowded places. This mostly affect the tourists since they are not used to this kind of situations. On the other hand, when you live all your life in that environment you become more cautious and in theory this incident does not occur as often. It is a terrible issue and as I write more about it more unrealistic it seems but sadly it is the truth.

Of course I am not trying to dis-encourage anybody to travel to Colombia, I just think it is fair to point out all the good points as the bad points that this country has to offer. Talking back to the plants again, you may ask yourself: “why is this dude saying they are so cheap when roses and flowers are actually hella expensive”, well I honestly do not know. When I was back in Colombia, I could buy a dozen of roses for 2-5 dollars. From this article I read, it says that it is due to taxes and other fees. Anyways, this is a great festival that I hope I can go to one day and hopefully not worry about my personal stuff.

At this point, you all have probably heard somebody talking about Colombian coffee or have seen any company displaying this type of coffee in their beverages. In my personal opinion, when I was back in Colombia, coffee was not a big thing to me, it was sour and leave my breath smelling weird. Now that I have grow up, and college requires high amounts of coffee, I start appreciating more the Colombian coffee. Most of Colombian coffee is generated in the west department called Risaralda, and the capital Pereira is where most of the coffee is produced. Once I traveled to this place with my family, and it was amazing, most of their tourist attractions had to deal with coffee or really nice flowers.  Also, I had the opportunity of seeing all the coffee fields which are huge, entire miles square of coffee.

In Colombia we have the perspective that the best coffee is taken out to countries like United States and then we take the worse pieces. Now, I believe that hypothesis is not quite right, the coffee that I consume here in the United States is not in comparison with the one I had in Colombia. Of course there are more aspects to it that might affect it like different chemicals applied to it so it can last longer and not be affected in the flight. Another big aspect could be how the coffee is prepared, in Colombia there are a lot of baristas and we take a lot of pride into it. They know multiple techniques on how to prepare coffee and they are found in a lot of the coffee shops in Colombia, whereas here in United States I have never heard about a barista and that could be taken into account as well.

Another characteristic that could affect the taste of the coffee is the geography of Colombia and  how it is so beneficial all year long. Colombia is found in the equator line and because of it, there are no seasons found in this country. With this in mind, the highest places would be the coolest and the ones closer to sea level will be hotter. With this in mind, where the coffee is harvest (Pereira) is a zone that is at a midpoint in between the hotter and cooler. That characteristic provides the best temperature for coffee to mature and then have a really good flavor.

Honestly, now I appreciate way more Colombian coffee, or even coffee overall. I thought it was something simple but there is more effort put into it. Whenever I go to Colombia again, I will enjoy more the coffee they serve and be more thankful to it.

 

Alright, I have already mention the place I fell in love with and hopefully I clearly explained the reasons why is that. Now, I want to talk about a place that has interested me a lot. This department its called Chocó, it is located in the south west coast of Colombia. Okay, there is a lot we can talk about this place but unlike San Andres, it will not be from my own experience so in theory I will talk about people experiences and information I find online. with that said, I would like to start off by listing and describing the best tourist aspects of this place and afterwards I’ll give some insight in other aspects that not a lot of people know about.

1. The beaches of this coast are something phenomenal. The amazing landscapes that are presented in this area are described as unique.
2. Also, connected to the beaches, in Choco you can surf.
3. One of my favorites is the turtles that can be found in this place. During certain time in the year you can see how sea turtles go to lay their eggs in the beach
4. There are multiple carnivals that occur all year long so basically there are a lot of parties all the time.
5. We can find multiple caves in Choco that are perfect places for a peaceful swim.
6. One of the biggest reasons why Choco is such a touristic place is the humpback whales. During their migration they go to Colombia coasts and pass by the Choco, so close that you need to be away at least a mile from the beach to see them.

From people I know that has travel to Choco, I have seen the pictures of the beaches they have been to and they really are beautiful. They told me that the caves seem to be something from another world and that seeing those whales were an invaluable experience.

Now what I want to talk about is the other side of the spectrum. We see all this places being really beautiful for tourist and they are gorgeous, but is it like that throughout the country? Sadly, it is not. Poverty, hunger, and contamination cover a greater portion of the country. This is a problem that no one but the native people care about. Hopefully in the future, touristic companies won’t take advantage of these places and there is more equality among habitants and tourists.

 

As much as Colombians like soccer, we enjoy even more dancing salsa, or at least that’s what it’s said about us. At certain extent it is true, we really like this music style mostly because it’s been a tradition for us. However, in my experience in Colombia a lot of other styles are quite more often played in parties. Probably other styles such as bachata or reggaeton are becoming more and more popular with the new generations. Regardless of what I witnessed, salsa is part of our tradition, and something we are proud of. Since I was a kid, around 6 to 8 years, I remember going to family gatherings in where my aunts would make me dance with them and consequently I learned how to dance. To be honest, I never liked dancing with them, it was really uncomfortable but my mom would get mad if I was just sitting down so in other words I had to do it. Well, I do not want to be talking about my tragic experience dancing salsa but instead, I would like to present a group that surprised me last summer, Swing Latino. They performed in the world wide competition “World of Dance (WOD)” and got to the finals, sadly they did not win against Les Twins which is a group that I have a lot of respect for. Anyways, this dance crew comes from a city in Colombia called Cali. Cali is well known because of their amazing dancers that mostly perform salsa. Anyways, I was surprised by Swing Latino because most of the performers that were on WOD spoke English and were well known. Let me tell you that Swing Latino did not know English but they broke the language barrier and got to compete in the finals. This is one of their performances on WOD.

Another really fun thing that people do in Cali is the World Salsa Festival. In this festival, people from all over the world come to dance salsa. It doesn’t really matter your level or your performance as long as you are having fun, everybody will be okay with it. I have heard amazing things from it, hopefully one day I will be able to go there and experience it.

As you can tell from my blogs, Colombia might be more than what you think. In the upcoming blogs I would like to introduce more of the diversity that Colombia has which is not like United States diversity kind but more of a natural diversity including fauna and flora.

As I mentioned in my first blog, soccer its really big in Colombia and we take a lot of pride from it. Most of the parents involve their children in any sport to instill a healthy lifestyle in the kids mind. As part of an unofficial tradition, most of Colombian parents will involve their children into soccer, and most of the times the kids will enjoy it. I was the exception. Although my dad tried multiple times to get me more involved into the soccer world, I was never skilled enough to be happy with it. Because of that I decided to just watch the soccer and enjoy it from a different perspective. As I mention in a past blog, that was the reason of why I started playing sports like basketball or volleyball.

Now, you may ask yourself, how do you enjoy soccer by watching it? When I was a kid I didn’t understand the concept that well. However, as years went by I realized it was not about the soccer but about spending time with friends or family. With this acknowledge, soccer became really important for me as well, I was looking forward for every single Colombia game or even my school soccer team.

This became a habit of mine with my friends. We would go, crash at somebody’s place and watch the game and celebrate right after regardless of the result. I think that we celebrate after a game even if we lose because we know that our team gave the best and tried their hardest.

Every single time that the Colombian team has a soccer game, specially in Bogota we all wear the Colombian jersey. It is something really unique, and I have only experience this kind of feeling back in Colombia. In every single corner of the city there would be somebody wearing the jersey, this is just an example of how serious we are towards soccer in Colombia.

In the world cup 2014 Colombia got to be in the quarter finals but we lost against Brazil. Specifically, in this match there were certain injustices that were done by the referee to the Colombian team. I am not saying this just because that’s the team I was cheering but because they really were some obvious and stupid injustices. Regardless, that was the end for us in the world cup 2014. The majority of the team was really sad because of this result, however they’ve been practicing nonstop for the 2018 Russia world cup and I cannot wait to see how far we get this year.

I considered myself a traveler, I have visited multiple countries in my life and I plan to do in the future. But one of the places that caught my attention was not outside the country I was born in. An island with water as clear as the sky in a sunny day, people as kind as family, food as good as 5 stars restaurants, and the most important of them all music and smiles in every corner at night; this is the wonderful island named “San Andres”. San Andres is a Colombian coral island located in the Caribbean sea and it is highly known for its coral reefs. I visited San Andres when I was about 8 years and fell in love with it, so much that I convinced my mom to take me again there the year after.

Both of those years were the most enjoyable of my life. I was amazed by the beauty of this place, by the kindness of its people and of course the delicious food. Also, by being a relative small island you could do a lot of stuff in only one day which was amazing. I totally recommend this destination, you will not forget it and probably you will go there again…a couple times actually.

With that said, my favorite activity was diving, due to the clear water the experience gets 10 times better and it is not necessary to go deep to see the beautiful coral reefs. Also, there is this coast in the island that you can take bread and dive into the water and you will be surrounded by hundred of beautiful fishes. On the other hand, those fishes only want your bread and they will leave as soon as it is over so that is kinda sad.

Another fun activity with no sad part is basically a hole. Yes, I understand you may think I am crazy right now but there is more to it. Because this hole is connected to the ocean, when waves arrive to the coast the air is trapped in a cave right underneath this hole and as a consequence of the pressure, air comes through that hole and blows everything that surrounds it. This is really fun specially when you see it your first time because in my case, I never expected to see something like it and it was a wonderful experience.

Now, of course I was too young to go partying but still I would see my parents and siblings having so much fun that it literally spread out to myself and made me have really good times. If you ever visit San Andres island I promise you will not have anything else but fun and wonderful memories. It is the best place I have ever visited so far and I cannot wait to visit it again and this time have a different experience with the parties.

It’s hard to point out each of the wonders that are found in Colombia, just as the title of this blog reflects, they are innumerable. So I would like to start off by talking about the best and first 15 years of my life. I was born in Bogota which is found in the Cundinamarca state, and it is also the capital of Colombia.  I lived my first 2 years in my grandfather house with my family which consisted of my mother, father, sister, and brother.
My mom and dad wanted to move out of the city to a more peaceful and silent place. This is when they found a town just 20 minutes outside the city called “La Calera”. In there, we bought a house in which all my childhood memories are confined. Although I lived outside the city, my parents wanted me to have a really good education and that is why they enrolled me in a private school in the city. Although it was highly competitive, my parents thought it was a good idea for me to start in there from my first year.

In Colombia, school calendar is a bit different mainly because we do not have seasons. Instead of going from September to June, we go from January to December with vacation in June. Also, we don’t have the middle-high school division, we go from the first grade up to our senior year in the same school. Because of that, I was with the same classmates most of the time throughout my whole life. Which I think it’s really cool because you get to make great connections and have friends for basically your whole life.

As you may know, soccer is really big in Colombia and we take a lot of proud to it. However, I was always a big fan of it but never had the necessary skills to perform at the level I wanted. Regardless, of my failure I still supported the Colombian team whenever they were playing, whether it was a big or important game or a small and friendly game. That’s the main reason why I chose basketball and volleyball as my main hobbies.
Which explains why I spent most of my time practicing basketball and volleyball and playing for the school team. This after school activities were the highlight of any day, getting to spend time with my friends, improving my skills, and also doing physical activity; it was pretty much everything I could ask for. Furthermore, right after the practices me and my friends would usually go to the mall for a drink or most of the cases after a game against other schools we would celebrate and chill until 8-9pm.

Also, I had a lot of classes with the team members which made our friendship even bigger. I think that was a really important aspect since as you know more your teammates the performance in a game is going to be better. I notice this because when a new member came to the team and he was in other classes, it was really hard to understand his style and habits. Whereas, my friends I knew how they acted and what their habits which assimilated their style in basketball.

My routine was pretty simple and enjoyable. It lasted until I came to the United States on March 10th, 2015. I knew I was going to miss my lifestyle, my friends, even my dad who was not able to come along. Regardless, I am highly thankful for being born in Colombia, a country that I will never forget.