Respect is the Key

FARC? Violence? What is that?

The author of The Colombian War describes coming back to Colombia as an experience where she is once again afraid of what she had forgotten when she left to the United States. Not only the news give her fear, but also her family member. Everyone tells her to be careful when going out on the street or more importantly, when leaving the city. This is the main reason she has such a hard time adapting to Colombia. She doesn't like the fact that you have you have to be in a state of alert the whole time.

The author's experience reminds me of what I experienced when I came to live in Colombia from the United States when I was five years old. I was a little kid. I certainly didn't truly understand the situation the country was going through. The only thing I knew was that there were some bad guys called guerrilleros that were very dangerous. Here in Bogota, my apartment building happened to be close to a forest that could be seen from the window of my room. At night, I would be scared that they would appear and do something bad to me. Of course, my mother would tell me that they lived in the jungle far away, and that they couldn't get where we were because our army was fighting them so that we could be safe. She was right! There was absolutely no risk that the FARC would reach Bogota and kill us. The army was actively fighting them in the jungle. But I had the mind of a little kid that just came from living in the US. The forest just made me scared. And the news my parents watched didn't help. It is a different situation when you are an adult. You know specifically which situations get you in danger and you think with a greater amount of logic. But for me it was the first time I was having a relatively realistic fear at night. Usually kids are afraid of the monster under the bed. The monster under the bed doesn't exist. Children are used to hear their parents tell them that what they fear is not real. But in my case, the FARC did exist. It was something real and for me as a little kid realizing it was something real made me even more scared of it. The only guarantee that I would be safe was my parent's reassurance that the FARC wouldn't get where I lived. 

At the time I arrived to live in Bogota in 2002, the daughter of the President of Colombia was a student at CNG. Not just taking into account that she was the daughter of the President, but also Colombia's situation at the time, it's not hard to believe that CNG looked like a military base. Seeing so many soldiers and people with guns all the time made me scared. I wasn't used to that. It took me some time to realize that those people I was so scared of were actually protecting the school from the FARC.  

Raised in a Different World

Colombia is a country that has always been characterized by its strikingly high social inequality. The gap between the rich and the poor is one of the highest in the world. This certainly means that being raised as an upper class child here is totally different than being raised as a middle or lower class child. There are many reasons for this which the author tells us and that me as a Colombian was able to connect and identify really well.

The author describes really well how the upper class society in this country works. In Barranquilla, se went to the American school there, the Karl Parrish School. She and her friends spoke the best English of anyone in Barranquilla, which was an instant sign of a high socioeconomic status. As in any unequal society, people from the American school would be called spoiled and too American. I can totally identify myself with this, being a student at CNG. Wearing the navy blue hoody with the CNG letters is more than just a uniform. It is a tag, a tag that indicates a high socioeconomic status. CNG is one of the most expensive schools in Colombia (if not the most expensive), CNG students speak the best English in the country, CNG students go to Miami and Europe in their vacations, CNG students are members of Bogota's most exclusive clubs, CNG students only eat American candy, and have all the commodities many kids in Colombia don't have. CNG students have the "you can hit me but my daddy will sue you" attitude. This why we are called spoiled, just how the author describes in Barranquilla.

Another thing that is characteristic of Colombia's upper class that the author describes really well is Miami. Miami is where all of Latin America's affluent people go to during their vacations to tan in the beach and spend hours in huge malls buying all their clothes. As she very well mentions, then people like to show off their Miami-bought clothes here in Bogota. That is another tag for status here in Colombia.

Apparently the author grew in a different situation than the rest of the people which today allows her to see the situation in the country from a different point of view.