Seven Years of Life

The other day I came home in a particularly stressed out, bad mood - blaming it 100% on my job. I'd spent the day going from meeting to meeting, talking about this project charter, and that working group, and hearing colleagues talk of "socializing ideas" with their supervisors for new projects that would inevitably just lead to more meetings. Taking one step sideways and three steps back.  The weeks lately have been devoid of that satisfactory feeling of taking something - anything! - from start to finish. Instead, it seems like I'm just spinning more and more plates. In short, I was pissy and longing for a job where I could just weed a pea patch somewhere for the next few years. I even spent the 35-minute bus ride home responding to emails on my work phone instead of reading the escapist novel I look forward to at the start and end of each day.   

Wah wah wah. 

That's the person I was when I arrived home.  What I wasn't expecting was that my husband would have dinner nearly in the oven, a favorite CD playing, and our digital photo frame on and flipping through the years of our lives, playing backdrop to the perfectly-set dining table. 

I decided not to be the grumpy bureaucrat and enjoy the evening instead. 
(But it was a hard decision.)

The following is how the night unfurled:  

After making our typical dinner table conversation about what we'd heard on NPR recently or how Paul Simon was one of our generation's best song writers - I turned my attention to the photo slide show playing on the sideboard.  We'd uploaded it with seven years' worth of photographs recently and it was displaying the pictures in a completely random order.

I started a game of "Can you remember where this photo was taken?" which got my husband to turn his chair around to face the screen and join in. As our normal dinner table is just the coffee table between the couch and TV at 7:30 when Jeopardy airs - this was a nice change of pace.  

It went something like this:

"Ooh - this was Bogota, our first Christmas when we realized that Colombia didn't do natural Christmas trees and the fake ones were too expensive and so we bought a landscape bush from the garden shop."  
"And decorated it!", topping it with the paper angel my step-daughter made years ago. We thumb-tacked a string of cardboard ornaments to the wall and called it our arbusto de navidad (Christmas bush).

"Maramureș!"
Another glimpse of Christmas, this one from 2016 when we traveled to the far northern reaches of Romania, along the Ukraine border to see the traditional winter festival in the town of Sighetu Marmaţiei.  The colors of this rug covering the front steps of a modest farm house caught my eye as we drove by and I asked my husband to pull off the road so I could snap a picture.  This gorgeous cat, sitting on its own piece of carpet, seemed perfectly suited to the snowy landscape, its fluffy tail curled around its front paws to stay warm.  Seeing these rugs relegated to outdoor use made me imagine how beautiful the good rugs inside the house must be.

"Oh, this was last summer, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland for our home leave. Chestertown - down at the neighborhood beach at sunset, and you with your pipe."
This one was pretty obvious to guess, and it took me right back to that confusing time where I was equal parts sad and stubborn about leaving Romania and excited to be "home" in an American summer time.  Happy to be back; sad that only one Tabby, Toby, had made it with us. Shocked at the price of things; relieved to see familiar sights.

"Too easy! Juarez as viewed from El Paso."  
True - and I remember the exact evening I took this photograph.  It was our first night in El Paso, staying at a interstate motel, upon seeing the blanket of lights below that would be our new home city for the next two years: Ciudad Juarez.  I can't say we were afraid to be crossing over the next day; it felt more like a badge of honor that we were going to live and work in this most feared city the very next day.  Turns out, we had an incredible two years in the dusty, wind-blown y muy fea city that made all the headlines for its violence. Instead, we found only friendship and kindness from everyone we met.  You can see the border here illuminated by the bright white lights following the course of the dry Rio Grande river bed and the big fence they call the border wall. To the left = El Paso, to the right = Juarez and all the "scariness" that we never saw.

"That little bastard! He was biting me!"
I'm sorry, but I still laugh seeing these pictures taken of my husband on his trip to Leticia, deep into the tri-border area between Colombia, Peru and Brazil.  His guide had taken him to meet some friends and this was one of their adolescent monkeys who was quite the nippy little bugger, circling my husband's legs as he tried to swat him away and the onlookers laughing.  Still wish I could've seen this one first hand. 
Sorry honey, but it's pretty damn funny.  

"That little village we found on the island of Milos in Greece. What was it called again?"
We took this trip for my Big-eth birthday to an island we'd never even heard of before.  We'd taken a day-long boat trip around the island on our first day which gave us great ideas of where we wanted to return by car later.  This village of Klima broke out of the usual white-with-blue scheme that is so typical in the Cyclades.  Many of the colored doorways along the narrow sidewalk were open to catch the sea breezes off the small harbor, giving us a glimpse into daily life in Klima that we would've missed being seen only from the passing boat. 

"I think this is my favorite picture of Dodger: a ole' cat in his basket."  
I took it in Juarez, in a pool of omnipresent sunlight that streamed through our screened and barred garden doors to illuminate his face.  He was so regal, so happy living there where his bones were warmed by the desert heat. The kitties loved our garden, too, with its 10 foot stone walls enclosing the yard and keeping them safe from everything but the sunlight, hot winds and a few dozen doves who visited our bird feeder to fill up on seed and torment three old cats. 

"That village on the road between Sibiu and Sighişoara!" 
This one wasn't too hard to guess; the Romanian interior of Transylvania still looks like the 1800s.  Or the 1700s.  We'd headed into the rolling hills in early spring, hence the freshly blooming trees, and stumbled upon this tiny town.  Actually, we'd pulled off the "highway" (one lane each way) to find some castle ruins and from that purview, spied this postcard village beneath.  I didn't even notice the guy repairing the church steeple until after I'd snapped the picture.  Totally spontaneous, it became one of my happiest and most content days in Romania. I'm surprised still we're not there. 

"Aguirre Spring, New Mexico!"
I'll never forget experiencing this sunrise one morning as we camped outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico.  I woke up well before my husband to catch the sunrise over the flat horizon of the White Sands Missile Range to our east and was not disappointed. Sitting in the still-fresh morning air, I watched the sun change the sky from pitch black with just a small orange ball on the horizon, to the flaming waves seen here.  Behind me, these colors were reflected on the craggy peaks of the Organ Mountains, highlighting the dark shadows of the rocky outcroppings with a brandy-colored glow. 

"Cartagena! The fruit lady in the walled old city."
This was taken when I was sent as part of the Embassy team to assist with the 2012 Summit of the Americas, hosted by Colombia.  If I go back to Cartagena, and I'd love to, it will never be the same as it was that week.  Because 45 presidents, ministers and prime ministers from nearly all the countries in the western hemisphere were in attendance (including our own President and Secretary of State), and security had closed off the entire walled city to allow only credentialed guests and employees in. The city police even moved all "undesireables" outside the walls... for just a few days. But street vendors remained, and I loved seeing this fruit basket woman.  I'm pretty sure she made more in selling photo ops with her wide smile and floral skirt than with the actual cut fruit. 

"Here!"
Nothing says Virginia to me more than a cardinal in full color plumage. I remember spotting him in Falls Church when we had a late-season snow day in March 2015 that cancelled FSI classes.  My husband and I trudged through the small woods near our temporary apartment, savoring the silence that comes with a good few inches of snow dampening the urban noise.  

Naturally, not all the photographs were that easy to figure out, and some brought back no memory at all.  Take this one for example: 

Yeah, clearly it's water at a beach somewhere... but that's as far as I could figure. 
I'll just imagine we were having fun. 

These days it is far too easy to get caught up in the drama that is the 24-hour BREAKING NEWS cycle, the politics, the often nonsensical bureaucracy, the stress of everything we do being VERY IMPORTANT so don't mess it up! combined with the lack of time or training to actually do it correctly. ("You're a Foreign Service Officer; we hired you for your judgement. Figure it out!" comes to mind.)

There's the waiting and wondering about what the next job, boss, language, or country will be like, and lack full control over one's life.  Trust me, it's very easy to start romanticizing a stable home with a garden to tend and a few favorite restaurants to visit with friends or family on the weekends.  Home improvement projects! Watching the seasons (the same set of seasons) pass in their proper order! Not having to hem and haw, unsure of how to respond, when someone asks, "So where are you all from?"  

However, seeing these glimpses of the past seven years of our lives revitalized an (withering) appreciation for my job and its inseparable lifestyle.  Because if we'd chosen not to get on this carousel seven years ago - I wouldn't know what New Year's Eve in Colombia looked like or that you're supposed to eat twelve grapes, walk around the block carrying your suitcase and wearing yellow underwear at midnight. 

I wouldn't know that Romanians are crazy for pickling and make their own wine from the grape vines that keep their arbored gardens cool during the long, hot Bucharest summer. 

And I certainly wouldn't have known the incredible pleasure of biting into a Crisostomo burrito while sitting on a dusty road-side picnic bench in downtown Juarez. 

Sure, had we stayed put in 2011, those seven years would have been filled with other memories - no doubt many of them wonderful. But for the time being, I guess I'm still okay with a few more years on this merry-go-round.  It's just good to look around and appreciate why we're doing it once in a while. 

A Picture's Worth...

Let me just say that A-100 is mentally exhausting. There comes a time when we all just need a smile, or at least something much less cranial. Therefore I've compiled an assortment of pictures to share with you that I hope will make someone out there chuckle or at least reduce a frown or two. I know they will for me...

Note: these pictures have nothing to do with the State Department, being an OMS, being a Consular Officer or A-100. For more serious stuff - you will just have to wait until something deeper inspires me to write. Or everyone's favorite Flag Day... that's coming up on August 17th!


Work-a-day footwear: Americana



Work-a-day footwear: Colombiana





The street sweepers keep Colombian roads and highways free of the hazards of dried leaves. They do this in traffic, during rush hour and don't seem bothered by the uncovered manholes they pass during the day. Priorities, right?



Impromptu rain hat or modern spin on (below) traditional headwear?

Brotherly kitty love

Brothers Schmothers - I love my scratcher!



A Cartagena bricklayer models his urban sombrero.

Anytime I felt bogged down in the busy-work of my day, all it took was a walk by the huge carved wall outside the Embassy to remind me what I was doing there and who I was working for. After a complaint session one night, Tim reminded me, "Do you need to go look at the wall again?"

Send off from Bogota - full moon rising over La Calera

Well I never...!

10 Things We Did Not Do While Living in Colombia:

1. Hire household help.

2. Get mugged, robbed, scammed, or otherwise made victims of crime.
     (Although we knew many people who were.)

3. See drugs or people doing drugs.
     (Do street people huffing fumes from paper bags count?)

4. Have a car accident.
    (Once again - we certainly saw enough of them!)

5. Get lost or nervous about where we were driving or use a GPS.
    (Two qualifications here: we only visited about 40% of Bogota and there were areas we specifically avoided, and while exploring new towns in the countryside, "lost" is only if you know where you need to go and end up elsewhere. We always liked the "surprises" of finding new towns.)

6. Meet or see Shakira, Juanes or Sofia Vergara.
   (But I did get a big wave and genuine smile from President Santos while in Cartagena!)

7. Have anyone say anything negative to us for our being Americans.

8. Stop being surprised that the flowers here bloom year-round!

9. Visit half of the amazing places we would have liked to.
    (Still on the list: Medellin, Cali, the Zona Cafetera, the islands of San Andres and Providencia and the peaks of Cocuy National Park.)

10. Go salsa dancing.
    (Yeah, this is probably a good thing. We're not known for our skills in this area.)

To quote the national tourist motto:

Colombia, el unico riesgo es que te quieras quedar.

Colombia, the only risk is wanting to stay.

   

4th of July from Colombia

We've packed out; the apartment is echoingly empty and we're living out of suitcases. The Tabbies' tower has been donated to animal shelter ADA where we still volunteer and all that's left is a week of work and two big Embassy 4th of July events - our first.

The first Independence Day celebration will be tomorrow (the 5th of July?) and I'll be in business dress working the event as the Ambassador hosts the Embassy's Colombian friends and contacts. I haven't done this before, but apparently we'll be briefed on the protocol of "pushing and pulling" en route to the event. No, it's not like a Japanese subway worker's duties, from what I understand, pushing and pulling means moving guests towards (and then later away) from the Ambassador to encourage a good mixture and discouraging one person from hogging all his time and conversation. Should be interesting; I'm practicing sentences in Spanish along the lines of, "..but have you seen the buffet?!"

Then this weekend will be the "community" 4th of July event which will be a more traditional family-style pic-nic gathering. The Community Liaison Office (CLO) who organizes these events first made it a pot-luck, with dishes divided by last names (we were side dishes). But later an announcement came out saying, "forget the potluck - just come!" I thought maybe that meant that they weren't getting enough RSVPs (I must admit, it was getting complicated thinking about what we could make and bring, and in what container, as we're living sans tupperware out of the Welcome Kit now) - but perhaps it's the opposite, and they sold so many tickets that they're now sporting the bill for the franks and beans? Who knows, but not having to make something palatable for hundreds and transport it in a zip loc bag is a relief.

But today is the actual 4th of July!
So I celebrated it in a true American fashion: I went to the dentist and got a haircut.
Woo-hoo.
It was a far cry from parades, BBQs and fireworks, but it was a day off work where the Colombians were still open for business, so I had to take advantage of the time. Colombia's Independence Day is July 20th and the Embassy will be closed in their honor. In fact, Embassy Bogota enjoys 22 local and American holidays per year, which is (I've been told) the second-greatest number for any US Mission abroad. Someone said we are topped only by a Mission somewhere in Eastern Europe. In fact, we also had Monday off for a local holiday for Saint Peter and Saint Paul. There were no processions to the church or colorful displays of saints or candles in windows, just quiet streets as people headed for the countryside for the "puente" (long weekend).

I hope the festive feeling comes tomorrow, because today has been just another mostly-overcast 64 degree day with buses flying by the apartment, businessmen and women in suits having lunch in the park nearby and the construction site on the next block fully operational. Heck, I'm even wearing beige. Perhaps we'll find some fireworks simulcast tonight on TV?

Nine days left in Bogota.
It's bittersweet to leave, but I'm ready for the next adventure. I hope our 4th of July events act as a nice send-off, offering a feeling of closure for this Colombian chapter.

Coming next: Tim goes to the Amazon and saying goodbye to the Big Brick City.

Relative Danger

It's a common refrain when I tell people that I live in Colombia:

"Really? Isn't it really dangerous there? Is it safe?"

And last year, when my husband and I told people we were joining the Foreign Service and were going to be posted anywhere in the world, many people responded with concern. Weren't we afraid for our safety in other countries?!

Isn't it a horrible irony then, to have a triple-homicide (with two more in critical care as I write this) in a cafe just four blocks from our family house in Seattle as we were getting ready to leave for a day of appointments. Followed by the same gunman taking the life of a women 30 minutes later as he stole her car to escape. This scene, coincidentally, was just blocks from my appointments. He later killed himself miles away as the police surrounded him.

These deaths bring the count to 20 murders in Seattle this year, where the yearly average is 26. It's only May.

And they say that Colombia is a danger post...

So, are we really safer inside our own borders?

Back to the familiar

Friday morning I headed out on my first R & R. The Embassy van pulled up in front of the building at 05:20 – ugh – and our doorman Francisco helped me drag my bag to the curb as I was barely dragging my own self. I took the front seat near the driver, and we started to make typical morning chit-chat. I told him I was leaving to visit family back in the States, to which he asked, “Extraña su tierra?”

I opened my mouth to answer, and then paused, started again and paused again. Do I miss my country? I thought that would be easy to answer, but as I gave it more than a moment’s thought, I couldn’t say definitively that I did or did not. In such a diverse nation like the US, we are accustomed to hearing people from all over the world talking about “in my country…” and longing for their familiar culture, music, food or just particular ways of being. So how should I answer that innocent question for the driver this morning?

I think I miss cultural fluency most. Being able to read a situation, whether it’s in the grocery store, at work or on the road, is a luxury that goes unnoticed until it’s gone. Also, having a shared sense of humor or frame of reference means that things don’t have to be explained and aren't so easily misunderstood; it can keep daily interactions with others lighthearted, easy, and comfortable.

I also miss a common understanding of “how things are done,” which sounds like cultural fluency, but here’s what I mean: There are certain things that people just DO or DON’T DO in American culture, and when someone crosses those lines – it’s apparent and they risk suffering the consequences either legally, criminally or through social scorn. For example, you just don’t slap your child in the face in the supermarket. I’m not saying that they do that in Colombia (quite the opposite, actually), but it’s an example. Living in another country one instantly notices these breaches of our own ingrained social norms, and I’ve caught myself thinking (and sometimes saying out loud), “WHAT?! You can’t just drive in the oncoming lanes! I don’t care how slow your lane is – you just don’t drive the wrong way in the other lane!” But here – you do; it’s simple efficiency.  If the lane next to you isn’t currently being used, why not pop across the ole’ double yellow and take advantage of it, right? So what if you’re on a curve on a windy mountain road. So what if it means that you arrive at the head of the traffic jam by passing 40 other cars and now you have to push back into line – it’s every man for themselves! Or, as the Colombians would say, “Que pena!”

“Que pena!” is the perfect example of a breach of a social norm that drives Americans living in Colombia batty. A common catch-all expression, it can mean, “Oh dear, I’m sorry!” in an honest way when someone can’t stop the elevator door in time for you to enter. It can mean, “Well then don’t park there next time and I won’t have to back my car into your headlight!” And, sadly, it also means, “Sucks to be you!” when it is the only apology offered from your upstairs neighbor whose housekeeper just used way too much water to wash the tile floor, causing your ceiling to fall in and your lights to blow out. 

Okay, I've got to say this: there is the utterly maddening habit Bogotanos have of stopping wherever they are for whatever reason, with complete disregard for whatever is behind them. This means a four-person-wide conversation in a narrow, busy hallway in the Embassy, or someone stopping to reach for a particular CD on the floor of their car while on the highway. Or my husband’s favorite – parking the shopping cart in the middle of the aisle (and leaving it there), to search for whatever it is you wanted, despite the fact that there are five people pushing their carts directly behind you.

So THAT’S what I miss about mi tierra. I miss what I’m used to. I miss the following of unspoken rules. I miss knowing how formal or casual to be in any given situation. I miss “common sense” that really is only common to one’s own culture. True, being surrounded with a whole new set of norms is at first interesting, sometimes jaw-dropping (“No! No! No! You simply CAN’T leave a manhole uncovered on a busy road!”), sometimes fun, and often frustrating. In nearly any country I can find American music, TV, movies, clothing, or food – that’s not what I miss. The part that can’t be duplicated to the same degree outside the borders is simply the comfort of one’s own social understanding. Even crossing into Canada, which on the surface seems to offer a barely discernible difference, there is a (subtly) distinct difference. I’m not saying that I only want the same – quite the contrary! But I can’t deny a certain guilty pleasure in enjoying the familiar that is relaxing and rejuvenating.

Perhaps that’s why they call it R&R!

Less Than an Hour Outside of Bogota...

Now that our time in Colombia has a much-sooner-than-expected end date, Tim and I are trying to cram in as many trips to our wish list destinations in our final months as we can. Colombia, the so-called "Land of Contrasts" has so much variety to offer visitors, it's hard to choose where to start. Should it be Leticia, in our little corner of the Amazon? The "Zona Cafetera" and the heart of the coffee-producing country? Perhaps Medellin, a city of parks, colorful birds darting about, a proper Metro system (which we aren't allowed to use) and great museums. Maybe El Cucuy National Park, an easy 11-hour drive from Bogota (sarcasm noted?) which I've heard described as the secret Andean gem of South America. Or there's the tropical island paradises of San Andres and Providencia. 


Unfortunately, each of our wish list spots involves an airplane and an overnight stay. And our movements are restricted by topography and security concerns. The Andes surround us, making driving more than a few hours outside of Bogota difficult at best. In fact, due to the infrastructural-challenges, shall we say, I've been told that it costs less for a cargo shipment to come from China to the west coast of Colombia, than for that very same shipment to get from that port to Bogota. 


Lest we forget that this is still a danger post, as there was a terrorist attack just 10 minutes south of our apartment last week that took the lives of the driver and bodyguard of a former Minister while his armored vehicle was stopped at a red light. The blast left dozens injured in a bus that was stopped alongside the motorcade. It was the first attack of this type in central Bogota for quite a while and was a rude reminder that there is still a very active and dangerous insurgency in the fringe Departments that occasionally spills over into our Big Brick City. 


So... after my lengthy preamble, I will say that we chose to head to the mountains above Bogota, to the area around the lovely town of Guasca. Despite the light rain that set in as we headed up La Calera to the mountain plateau above Bogota, and the steady overcast and 63 degrees that accompanied us throughout the day - it was just perfect. With a free map given to us by a friendly tourist-agency woman at her roadside booth, we decided to head off the paved road to find a nature preserve, a little cafe for lunch and then a historic chapel in the middle of the hills before ending our tour in the town of Guasca. We'd visited there before and were enchanted by the quiet and welcoming feel of the hillside town. 


Let me now give props to our Ford Ranger for carrying us up the rutted, pot-holed, slippery clay Andean dirt roads. And let me apologize to my liver and kidneys... it was quite a rough ride that infrequently let us hit second gear. But traveling at 6 mph let us see just how lovely this country is. 


The nature preserve folks turned out to be busy taking a group through their property, so we only stopped long enough to learn this. Next we headed across the hills to look for the cafe noted on the map. After getting "red barn" directions from a farmer alongside the road, ("He said we should look for the waterfall and then curve right." "Waterfall? I thought he said we'd come to a crossroads and go straight!" "The map doesn't show this road coming to a T-intersection! Now where?" "Are you sure this isn't someone's driveway? I think this looks like a driveway!"), we finally found the entrance to Cafe Huerta.  Created by a so-called "eccentric gringo" from Texas 20+ years ago, the cafe, bar, restaurant and inn was an amazing find! It felt as if we'd just stepped into a 19th century Irish cottage, with low-timbered ceilings, a coal-burning fire, fresh roses at every table and small-paned windows offering views into the central courtyard garden. We knew it was a good sign when we pulled into the driveway to see a chef buying fresh leeks and other vegetables from the back of a farmer's truck. I was figuring that lunch would be a quick soup or sandwich, but instead we had what amounted to an anniversary-or-special-occasion full lunch. It started with a small skillet of warm cornbread and a shared bowl of garden salad with homemade buttermilk dressing. After that I moved to a fillet of beef wrapped in bacon and soaking in a cream and blue cheese sauce (please don't tell my coronary system...). Mmm hmmm... As we left, we noticed the framed excerpt from "333 Places To Visit In Colombia Before You Die." 

Preparing to be stuffed!

Cafe Huerta Grounds

Dining Room - Cafe Huerta

Inside the Capilla

Capilla de Siecha

With full bellies, we headed back to the roads to look for the Capilla de Siecha. We found it standing in a manicured pasture overlooking the valley just below. Seconds after pulling the truck into the adjacent field, the caretaker appeared to greet us and request the $1 admission fee (for both of us). He told us the chapel dated to the 1600s and walked us through the perfectly white-washed interior and upstairs to a little balcony. His sheep were responsible for the tidiness of the pasture, and were still grazing with their lambs on the grounds. Next to the chapel were the ruins of another building of the same vintage. He said (something) about them taking off the roof and letting the place fall to ruin, but I didn't fully understand what he was telling us. And you reach a point where asking someone to explain it again in other words just gets tiring for the poor narrator.

The friendly caretaker and guide

Resident among the ruins

Finally we turned up towards Guasca, encountering a young boy and a very broken bicycle on the road. We offered him a ride home and tossed his bike in the back of the truck. We drove him (Andres) into the town and dropped him off where we figured he'd either get a walloping for accepting a ride from strangers, or nobody would believe him that the gringos with the blue license plates picked him up in their weird American camioneta and drove him home. 

After that it was time to head back to Bogota...

Cartagena in Color

On Friday the Ambassador called all of us who worked on the Summit of the Americas into one of our large conference rooms to have a wrap-up thank you session. We piled into the room and found tables and buckets of "toasting" material: a few wine bottles, bottles of beer, juice and soda. It was just a few weeks ago that we were in this same room for our final Summit countdown meeting, where he gave us a pep talk about how well the preparations were going; how important our roles were to properly represent the Embassy to Washington, and the US to our Colombian hosts and, of course, to the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Everything was still exciting and stressful in equal parts.

But yesterday, with all the answers  already in our heads as memories of "how it all went," the group was naturally more lighthearted, more relieved, and probably feeling pretty proud. We assembled with our chosen drinks and the Ambassador began to speak, starting by complimenting us on the work we all did on the President, the Secretary, a handful of CODELs and other cabinet-level Secretaries' visits. This was his seventh Presidential visit during his career, and he noted that this one was by far the smoothest... even with the "scandal." Because the Summit was, despite evidence to the contrary in most of the press, much, much more than just the Secret Service's shenanigans. It was our President and 30-something others talking, for great uninterrupted lengths of time, about matters that concern this entire hemisphere. It was about the incredible potential of Latin America to the US. It was our President, doing more listening than talking, learning about what Latin America is growing into. It was about granting land titles to Afro-Colombians; about bi-laterals, about tri-laterals, about women's entrepreneurship, about electrical interconnection for the entire hemisphere, about business opportunities for all of us, a bit about drugs and yes, even about "what are we going to do about Cuba?"

It was really exciting, and yeah, the shivers of pride to be here in the midst of it all came over me more than once.  For as much as it's easy to complain about the stress level in the preparations, the unending demands, the long hours, the wee hours, the last-second changes and, yes, the "scandal" - when it's all over and we can reflect on what was accomplished - it's certainly all worth it.

Without further sentimental babbling - I'll now wrap-up the subject in pictures:

Putting out the welcome flags

Cartagena fruit lady and her beautiful dress

Typical buildings in the old walled city

Now THAT'S a flower arrangement!

Local guys playing checkers



The pastel colors and flowering balconies are enchanting

Clock tower at entrance to the walled city

Batallion of women police from all over Colombia in Storm Trooper gear - way cool!

Look - it's the President arriving!

Tough, yes - but a lady at the same time

Row of artisan shops

Shadow cat

Beautiful details everywhere

The Four Green Fields - St Patrick's Day Out of Bogota

First - Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone out there!

 Today, in honor of St. Patrick's Day (and because it's the Saturday of a three-day weekend here), we headed out of the big brick sprawl and into the countryside to see some of Colombia's own green fields. On the drive out of Bogota, we listened to Irish traditional music and it got me thinking about the similarities between the two countries. Besides the obvious, the lush green landscape, I also thought of the histories of the two countries. The Irish speak of "The Troubles," and the Colombians of "La Violencia" - each a casual term for scars on their historical time lines. But today, as we rose out of the Sabana and over the mountain pass to the northwest of the city, past roadside grills, flower and fruit stands, cows in belly-high grass and small flocks of hens pecking in farmyards, the only thing "violent" that I could see was the way the Andean peaks burst from the valley floor in utterly vertical faces. The highway wound along curving cliff sides, and occasionally a portion of the road would be barricaded off after giving way to gravity and dropping off the side of the mountain. As we crested the pass and began descending towards the town of La Vega, the climate changed instantly. The green became more tropical and even over the music and the road noise, we could hear birdsong and could feel the humidity and warmth setting in. We dropped over 3000 feet in altitude and into the La Vega valley.

Once in the town, lined with stores selling inflatable pool toys and tourist hotels advertising swimming pools, we followed faded signs towards La Laguna El Tabacal. We'd read that it was a great spot for birdwatching and seeing all sorts of tropical flowers lakeside. The drive up to the laguna was only 7 kms, but the road hair pinned along the walls of the same mountain faces that we'd seen from the top of the pass. In one spot, an entire lane had given way and the other lane (the one we were on), was on its way to being undercut and washed away as well. The sign next to the gaping hole warned drivers  simply of, "Hundimiento" (dip, or sinking).  So  you can imagine what I was imagining when I rounded another corner and saw a sign that actually read "Peligro" (danger).  The road alternated between pavement and gravel many times, rising and dropping as it conformed to the unstable landscape, in places it appeared a pure miracle it still existed at all.

But the views were amazing!

We finally arrived at a pic-nic area with parking in a field for the laguna visitors. There were two mom-and-pop parillas (grills) offering the ubiquitous roasted chickens with criollo (baby) potatoes and sausages, plus a small camping area with somewhat soggy young campers cooking over their campfires. We ate our pic-nic lunch and bought the entry tickets and a little bag of fish food and headed up a stone-lined path for the lake. Immediately we could see brilliant yellow, red and blue birds flashing through the tree tops, and could hear cricket-like songs of tropical insects of some sort.

The Laguna El Tabacal is just a small lake filled with tilapia who swarm the lake edges, obviously well-used to the little paper bags the visitors bring full of fish-food pellets. We picked our way along the sides as far as we could until we came across an impassable rock wall and had to turn back. A light sprinkling rain started, but the tropical canopy was dense enough to keep us dry. We walked past bamboo groves (In Colombia? Yeah - I know, that's what I thought, too) and hillsides covered in massive philodendrons. Only two hours outside of Bogota, and a 100% difference in environment.

It was only fitting to spend St. Patrick's Day among the green fields (and in keeping with the day's patron saint - we thankfully saw no snakes).  I'll let the pictures below do the rest of the storytelling.

View from the road

Stems of tropical flowers

Laguna El Tabacal

Flower salesman

Lovely family and their puppies

Yeah - no kidding!

A new friend we met along the lake

NOT a snake!