Colombia, the country I was born (1rst part)

Here I am, the first source of information to get in contact with my own country. I will say what is Colombia through my own experience of being a Colombian.

First I wanted to write another article about Colombia. One of those that would start saying that the country is located at the north of South America and that, even it is a very violent nation, still a nice place to visit and and that you can be sure you are not going to be shot in any street of the Colombian cities and beaches as much to stay away from dangerous areas.

I find easier to talk about other countries in such way, especially for the travelers literature in which one I have some works, for example in Fronteras de Papel of my Barcelona´s friends. I wrote some articles about Cambodia in Spanish, "Cruzando el país de la eterna sonrisa" and after they want me to write about Colombia. The petition was made several weeks ago and I still not to know how to write for them. The difference is that I am a foreigner in Cambodia and it makes easy to get a kind of distance from the country, like an observer (and a foreigner is an observer) of the country he is in. But Colombia is my Colombia. The feeling is not the same and I have to make an effort to talk in a way that seems neutral or witness of the reality of my nation.

Then I decided that I will talk about Colombia as my Colombia. I am going to do so telling my own story. If anybody wanted to pay a check on Colombia, he will do so through the eyes of a real Colombia in his life, in a compressed period of 38 years (1970 - 2008). When I think about that time, I understand that many things have happened in my country in those 38 years and that I came to live in one of the most difficult periods of our national history if I compare it with other times, at least I am falling in that saying of any former time is better.

Context

An evidence of how most Colombians look like. These boys of Ciudad Don Bosco in Medellín, are real Colombians.

Surely I do not have to tell you the geographical location of Colombia. However, such location is important to understand many things of my huge country. For example that even if it is a South American country, it has a big influence in the Caribbean and Central American regions. Thet half of the Colombian territory is a part of the Amazon jungles. That the Colombian Amazon jungles are practically underpopulated and they are a big natural reserve. That most Colombians live in the Andean region, the mountains, where there are the main cities and development. That Colombia is a multiracial and pluricultural nation made by indegenous, Afroamericans and Europeans. That my country has been in violent conflicts since the Independence from Spain in 1810. About this point, something that I will write after in my own version of the History of Colombia, I can say that since that year, 1810, there is not a single decade with any kind of political conflict in Colombia. That according with scholars, the origine of those political conflicts without end in Colombia, is the problem of land and equality in the Colombian society.[1]

This picture of my personal small globe is enough to show where is Colombia.

There will not be peace in my country, as long as there will be poverty and lack of a genuine land reform in the farms. The problem of displacement is not new in my country. It is not a new situation of our modern Colombian time. It is an old problem, most of the time silenced and repressed by different actors. For example, I am a son of displaced people of the 1960s and 1970s and it has been more than three decades ago.

But I do not want to centralize my paper only in the Colombian problems. That is not the idea. The objective is to appreciate the culture of a rich country. The invitation to know Colombia still open and only for a reason: what is nice in Colombia is its people and culture. If you like the way we talk Spanish, it is the way of my people, those Colombians of the popular cities, towns and countrysides. If you like our food, it is the food made by people like my mother, grandma and the great, beautiful and courageous women of my country. If you like our music, dance, poetry, literature... it is the art made by my countrymen, most of them coming from the simple people. That beautiful Colombia that you can see in pictures, feel in its music and others, it the country of almost 50 million of persons who have been classified as the most happy people of the world, even their problems.

Categories: Introduction - History of Colombia after 1970 - Knowing Medellín - Knowing Bogotá - Knowing Cartagena de Indias - Sport in Colombia - Culture and traditions in Colombia - Religion in Colombia - Colombian mentality - Science in Colombia - Literature in Colombia
Related readings: Laureano Gómez (In Spanish) -

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