Coffee Talk

Colombia is coffee territory. A cup with breakfast, at 10:00 am, after lunch, at 3:00 pm, and then maybe after dinner, Colombians drink an impressive amount of coffee. Not just because it grows in their backyards or keeps them going through long work days, but also because coffee breaks perfectly compliment their social culture. Yes, working is important, but staying up-to-date with family and friends is more important and so the excuse of going downstairs to the cafeteria for 15 minutes is the perfect way to gossip and discuss whatever is on their mind. (Larger companies even have a female employee whose job description is to carry trays of tinto around through the office at one-hour intervals so that the workers can stay sufficiently caffeinated.)

Although I don't drink much coffee because I am very sensitive to caffeine (realizing that this is a sin while living in Colombia--shouldn't I make an exception for their exceptional coffee?), I do accompany my friends for the conversations. (Or maybe it is because otherwise I would be left alone in the office... ) Either way, my two favorite coffee partners are Gilma and Felipe, who have the most interesting banter over their cups of java. I think several of the topics covered recently warrant a brief description here because they have increased my insight into politicized opinions that you can't read in the newspaper.

Colombian World Travelers: After an arduous process to get his U.S. visa, Felipe boarded a plane on Thursday for Chicago to attend a public health qualitative research conference at the University of Illinois, Champagne. About one in 22 Colombians get their visas approved by the U.S embassy in Bogota, seemingly on a random basis. Once they do get it though, it means that obtaining a visa for any other country is almost guaranteed.
Listening to people's dismay about being denied a visa to visit a sick family member abroad or frustrated that they can't take their child to Disneyworld for their birthday makes me realize how lucky I am to be a U.S. citizen. It's not just because I can easily move through international borders by flashing my passport, but because I can travel to other countries without being automatically discriminated against because of my nationality.
I have heard appalling stories from my friends of them getting mistreated in a range of countries just because of the negative international perception of Colombians. A Colombian woman traveling to the Netherlands to meet her fiance's family being detained for five days in a holding cell without bathing along with a Nigerian man (people scoff to think that anyone would consider them as disgraceful as a dirty African man). One of the most respected professors at the university being tortured and almost raped by immigration official in Panama because she brought in unprocessed coca, eventually released only because her husband was a cousin of a foreign minister in the Colombian government.
It is obvious that 'Colombian' is most often synonymous with 'drug lord,' and it frustrates me to see time and time again that the world is still so uneducated as to judge people based on stereotypes. But I almost feel guilty when I tell my hosts how easy it was for me to go to the Colombian consulate for an hour and live in the country for a year when my own natal land would reject their visit without hesitation.
But what Gilma told me is that this negative international reception of her country(wo)men means that not very many Colombians have a desire to leave their country. Why spend so much money on travel just to be treated poorly when they can be shown the respect they deserve by driving to a city a few hours away? She would prefer to avoid humiliation and miss out on life experiences than be made to feel guilty for her nationality.

Saving in Colombia: Not only is it hard for a Colombian to be approved for a foreign visa, but it is extremely difficult for an honest, educated worker to save up enough money to leave the country. Professors and doctors make just enough money to live comfortably in Medellin; paying for an apartment and take holidays to the coast with their families. The people who buy cars on finance work their entire lives to pay it off--worth it just to cruise around town and impress the ladies. I have friends who borrow money and take out loans just to find the $10,000 needed to go to English classes in the UK for a year...imagine what they would do to attend a 4-year college in the U.S!?!
And yet, many of the Rotarians and people with whom I have become friends here come from families that can afford international travel, two cars, and a house. I don't ever question the way in which they reached their economic standing (hey, old money still keeps Colombian families going), but I have heard some crazy stories of people quickly building up an economic empire based on lucrative, illegal businesses. One of Gilma's nephews worked in the shop his grandma ran out of their house along with other family members. Pretty soon they had earned enough money to buy a bus, and then a few taxis, and then an entire transportation company, and then a dairy plant in another department, and so on. When other aunts and cousins started raising eyebrows, the grandma told them that they just needed to work harder and save money. But any Colombian knows that working two honest jobs does not allow anyone to save enough to run that many businesses. If it really is so hard, imagine how appealing it would be to get involved in money laundering!

Government Exploitation: In the last post I explained the Uribe's recent abuse of power to make money off of poor Colombians. Felipe explained to me one day how all developed countries achieved success by exploiting other people; the U.S. had African slaves, the Europeans had serfdom, and the Spaniards had indigenous people. But because the indigenous population in Colombia was fairly small, and the imported African slaves only live along the coast, in order to compete in the current world markets the Colombian government has has to exploit its own people. But although most Colombians live in poverty, they are too proud to admit that they are being used by the government to complain.
Both Gilma and Felipe claimed that Colombians don't live in as dire poverty as in most other countries where people are surviving off the same meager income. They bathe once or twice a day and so always smell nice, keep their houses from looking decrepit by painting them every Christmastime, turn a one-story shack into a two-story bungalow after working a few years, hang flowers from their eves, and value education. I think that this mostly has to do with the abundance of natural resources in Colombia; they get more rain than almost any other country, can grow their own food in a small plot next to their lean-to, and look at beautiful landscapes to ease their pain. But cultural pride could play a small part...
Anyway, as in a lot of countries that suffer from corruption, the people grow poorer as the politicians and people with power grow richer. In Colombia it has dangerous to consider how the government has abused the people's rights because of the precarious and polarized nature of Colombian politics. Anyone who starts questioning their situation and becomes a humanitarian sides with the liberal leftist cause, which is then automatically considered to be equivalent to a guerrilla sympathizer, which is then considered anti-Uribista and thus puts the person's life in danger. Although the country has become more democratic than it was at the height of the civil war, those who do not subscribe to dominant politics are still considered to be a social risk. Understandably, the country is still combating against various armed forces controlling the drug war, but when will Colombia guarantee its citizens their deserved human rights?