Home, the trip, and some more thoughts on community

We had a marvelous visit to Colombia.

The highlight of our nine day trip was surely our visit to my fiancee's family's finca (a ranch) in a remote corner of the Cesar department. From the start, the Colombian agent who handled our travel plans urged us not to go to the finca, saying that the roads we would have to take were very unsafe due to rebel and paramilitary activity, not to mention plain old crime. Nonetheless, we were anxious to make the trip. It was a calculated risk. We are not yet parents, my fiancee and I. If we had a small child, or others (besides Matilde the chinchilla, who weathered our absence well) to depend upon us, we might not have chosen to make this journey. As it was, we weighed the dangers and the rewards, and chose the rewards.

On Sunday the 8th, we flew from Bogota to Bucaramanga, a large and relatively prosperous city in the northeast. Upon arriving at the airport, we were met by a driver who had been hired to take on the four hour drive north to the city nearest to the finca, Aguachica. Despite our efforts to change his mind, he had insisted that driving to the finca itself would be too dangerous. We piled into a beat-up Mazda 323 and headed up the road.

We didn't see rebels. We didn't see paramilitary death squads. We did encounter danger, however, around every turn -- Colombian drivers are reckless and determined, to say the least. My fiancee and I simply chose to close our eyes a lot. I prayed constantly. Somehow, we avoided all collisions. We didn't avoid three military checkpoints on the drive up. At the last of these, I was asked to step out of the car, put my hands on the roof, and submit to a pat-down search. The soldiers who were searching me looked barely out of their teens, and from the looks on their faces, mine may have been the first American passport they had seen. (They had no idea, for instance, where the pertinent entry stamps might be found.) Honestly, I was trying hard not to laugh at them. As I got back into my car, I left them with a cheerful "ciao, gracias" that had the other occupants of the Mazda in near-hysterics. (The informal "ciao" is apparently not to be used when speaking with soldiers of the Colombian army. Who knew?)

Our four days on the finca were marvelous. The heat and the humidity (we were near the Magdalena river in sub-tropical conditions) was oppressive, but we soldiered on (though I spent most of my time in shorts, tennis shoes, sunscreen, bug spray, and not much else). I met dozens of members of my fiancee's extended family; one aunt had had 22 children and another had had 15. There was much laughter, talking, horse-back riding, and so forth. There was little sleep.

It's tempting for folks like me who've come back from trips like this to wax eloquent about the joys of the "simpler life." (I've taken some church youth groups to Mexico before on a couple of occasions; the American kids always come back rhapsodizing about the experience -- even while they usually complained throughout!) Though my fiancee's family was wealthy by local standards, their living conditions were very poor compared to those of affluent Americans. The small hardships we endured (no washing machines, no air conditioning, showering beneath a spigot) were brief. We could go along with these cheerfully because we knew how limited our time was. I'm under no illusion that we really experienced what life is like for the poor in rural Colombia. We didn't deal with being sick or injured; we didn't deal with any significant danger. We simply got a snapshot, albeit a colorful, exciting, and joyous one.

And though it is often said, I need to reiterate the truth about the importance of family ties in rural communities. I grew up seeing my cousins and extended family on holidays (brief times of great excitement). The dozens (literally) of children we met on the finca grow up surrounded by extended family. They have no shortage of playmates and helpers and friends. Most of them will live their lives surrounded by kin, rarely (unless they choose to move to Bogota to make money) traveling more than two dozen miles away from the land on which they were born. How can those of us who live wealthy and peripatetic lives in America and Europe not envy that? Both my near and extended families are stretched across a half-dozen states and two continents; I see my beloved brother and sisters once a year if not more infrequently due to these distances.

So many of us in the blogosphere write about community: how we have or don't have it, how we can find it, how we can strengthen it. But unlike those in rural Colombia (and countless traditional elsewheres) ours are usually communities of choice. Our churches are often not those of our parents -- they are places we have come to after years of searching and sifting for something that "feels right". Our networks of friends are often formed through accidents of geography or through shared activities (like my dear fellow runners). Few, if any of us, have all of our extended family of origin within five miles of us. Most of us, even if we love our families, wouldn't WANT to have them so close!

Look, I'm glad my parents didn't have 22 children. I'm glad I have the wealth and the freedom to make the choices that I do make. But I also recognize that with that wealth and that freedom come nearly invisible costs, the chief of which is the fracturing of family ties and the loss of stability that is found more fully elsewhere. I would not now choose to live on a finca. But if I had grown up on one as my fiancee's cousins have, I doubt I could ever move away to the big city to pursue my dreams without having an acute sense of loss.

Much to think about. For now, I'm going to catch up on more blogs!

Comments

[Ralph Luker]

Welcome home, Hugo. We missed you.

[ken]

Welcome back.

[Russell Arben Fox]

Nice thoughts on community and its consequences, Hugo. Welcome back.

[Lawrence Krubner]

"Most of them will live their lives surrounded by kin, rarely (unless they choose to move to Bogota to make money) traveling more than two dozen miles away from the land on which they were born. How can those of us who live wealthy and peripatetic lives in America and Europe not envy that?"

Maybe it's pointless for me to keep up with this theme, but I don't envy them. My friends are a community of choice, family is a community of fate. In my experience, the former is more reliable, at least given the life I've lead.