Greywings being naturally, me and my partner, Hanski, both retired and
living the best years of our lives, he feeding dragons and me feeding
dreams. Life is good, though, at the village of Marma, in the
municipality of Älvkarleby, northern Upplands Province on the the Dala
River.
It's almost time, now. This trip begins tomorrow, at 3:30 in Marma, as
we will be heading for Arlanda, carpark at parking house number 22,
pre-paid for three weeks. The flight goes at 7:10 a.m to Heathrow and
then to Newark and we should be getting to Miami around 9 p.m; we'll
sleep at the airport hotel and will continue our trip next morning to
Bogotá and Cali, getting to Cali around 15:00 pm. with the pickup booked
with the hotel people.
Right now I'm doing the last-minute packing and planning: I've got most
of my stuff together and Hanski's stuff as well: gifts take up a lot of
space in the suitcases, but that's ok, we'll need extra room on the way
back for items purchased in Florida.
I got a message to my cell phone as we were pulling out from the driveway in Marma, at 3 A.M, getting on the way to the airport:. It said " Now is a good time to start your trip. You have 1 hour and 7 minutes to Arlanda Airport and your flight leaves at 7:10 am." #They" knew where I was, how long it takes to drive to the airport, how much earlier we're supposed to be there prior to our flight...."
This time in Colombia, it was much about showing Hanski around and getting a bit out of the city. While Cali is still my "love city" in many ways, the rising temperatures and the traffic chaos have made it less attractive and of course, we, the greywings, living up in the vicinity of the Polar Circle have grown accustomed to lower temperatures and refreshing breeze. The bottom line is that Cali is not the same place where I landed first time 46 years before and I'm not 22 any longer.
Hanski hates to travel. He doesn't mind short trips in a car and driving is not a problem. We drive up to Haparanda, in Swedish Lapland to visit his sister once a year, he drives most of the time, no problem at all, in spite of the long haul, 10 hours or more in the car, with two or three short breaks. But to get him in an airplane is another story....
He says traveling for him only makes sense to go to visit, to see people he cares about, not for anything else. Scenery, foreign people, culture, those things he can see on TV. It's quite frustrating for me, who loves everything new, the trip, the road itself, the changing landscapes, different cultures, people, the mountains and the sea, the music, the smells and sounds and tastes of a new place...
This was to be a combined get-together-with-my-peeps and exploring a new horizon for Hanski journey to my past but not into his future ...or mine.
Originally, I had planned to take him to Coffee Theme Park in Armenia, but my niece Ana and her Italian husband Marco backed out of this plan; they had been there before and their money was running low. It became a day trip to Silvia, to see the guambianos and enjoy the cool climate up in the Cauca mountains.
I had a lot of nice memories about driving up to Silvia with my in-laws, with my husband and children when they were small, with our friends, Hugo and Marlene and their boys. It had always been one of my favorite spots ("my strawberry patch" as they say in Swedish) and it had been out of reach for 20 years now due to guerrilla activity in the central cordillera and Cauca valley, with excursions to the Panamerican Highway which runs through the Valley and is the only way of reaching this indigenous town and settlement in its high valley of 2600 meters above sea leavel.
So, I gave our old friends and transport providers Alex and Diana a call. Yes, they were available to take us up there and wanted to go themselves too.
Alex drove the van, with Diana up front, Hanski and me in the front row, Juan Manuel, Ana Cecilia and Marco in the back. We stopped somewhere (Santander de Quilichao?) for a cup of coffee and rest room visit.
This wa also when we saw a huge dead hog being transported in the back of motor bike. The driver could not figure out why we were taking pictures of him and his hog....crazy tourists.
The small towns south of Cali hadn't changed a lot. The only difference now was heavy military presence on the road, especially when crossing The Cauca River, driving into Cauca Province and at the entrance and exit of villages and towns. Young country boys with wide grins and big guns on their shoulders gave us thumbs up for road safety further ahead, we acknowledged the gesture by giving them thumbs up as well.
The Panamerican highway is well-maintained and broader than what I remembered and sugarcane grows still, but some lowlands had wetmarks and ponds and we were wondering if rice was grown in the flooded fields.
After Mondomo and getting closer to Piendamó where the road to Silvia separates from Panamaerican Highway that runs on towards Popayán, Pasto and the Ecuadorian border the mountains started getting nearer and the terrain started rising. Piendamó is already a bit hilly and the way to Silvia was not easy to find; we had to stop and ask several times. The town was a chaos, with markets on the streets, road work and crowsa of country people swarming around; short, stocky paeces most of them; this is the country where Clelia, my in-laws lifetime housekeeper was born and was sent as a very young girl to work as a maid in Cali..
After Piendamó we hit the hills, seriously. The road was still in good condition, paved all the way and even if there were some places where there had been recent landslides and erosion, the most dangerous spots had some protection against falling rocks and mud in form of built barriers. We started to get glimpses of those fantastic hillside farms and cattle that we couldn't figure out: did the cows have shorter legs on one side or how dis they keep their balance on the steep mountainside pastures? There was little traffic and the day was clear, leaving the roadside gorges and chasms in full view and climbing over the mountain pass we saw the town of the Guambiano people in its high valley at the altitude of 2640 meters above sea level.
At this point, it feels like you have left the dust and the heat of Cali far, far behind. It's another world up here. The breeze is cool, even daytime and the air has this invigorating fragrance that is a blend of wild mountain herbs and the heady scent of eucalyptus
The Guambiano people have their settlements in this area and since the new constitution was signed they have a certain amount of autonomy in their resguardo and in Silvia. The mayor of Silvia is always a guambiano and they have three permanent seats in the Congress.
"Guambiano or Misak are an indigenous people of the department of Cauca in Colombia.[1][2] Their language is also known as Guambiano or as one of the Coconucan languages.
The majority lives in the western part of the Colombian Andes range
(Cordillera). Some people can be also found in Huila Department.
The Misak society is mainly patriarchal and agriculture is the base
of their economy. Coffee, cassava, potatoes, beans, cabbage among are
the main products cultivated by them.
The Guambiano/ Misak people are known for their traditional clothing:
blue scarf (worn as a sarong, rectangular ponchos and hat for the men;
black skirt, solid color top, blue scarf and hat for the women."
"Cultura
Para los misak, la tierra es la Madre. La base de su economía es la agricultura Sus principales cultivos son maíz, papa, café, ulluco, frijol, repollo y habas.
Su autoridad principal es el Cabildo Mayor de Guambía, en Silvia. Los
grupos domésticos patrilocales son la base de la organización social.
Practican la endogamia étnica y la exogamia veredal (de la comuidad local).
Su pensamiento es dual, basado en oposiciones como sol-luna, masculino-femenino. El mөrөpik
es el curandero guambiano, es escogido entre niños con disposición y
educado para intermediar con los espíritus. Realiza la ceremonia de
limpieza llamada pishimarөp.
El traje tradicional del hombre es una falda corta azul que envuelven
alrededor de la cintura, dos ruanas rectangulares y sombrero. Las
mujeres llevan falda negra, blusa de un sólo color y pañolón azul de
lana.
Lengua
Hablan su propia lengua, el wampi-misamerawan o wam, que está estrechamente relacionada con las lenguas Totoró (hablada en el municipio de tal nombre) y Kokonuco (extinta) y ha sido clasificada dentro de la familia de lenguas barbacoanas. Tiene cinco fonemas vocálicos y 17 consonánticos, entre los cuales se destacan como peculiaridad, las consonantes retroflejas.
" from Wikipedia.
As this was not a market day there were not so many tribal people in town. We drove ahead, later on, towards the their settlement in Pueblito, but turned back at the trout fishing facilities, because the road was in bad condition and I felt sorry for Alex and Diana and didn't want to to wreck their van.
On a typical market day, the town is crowded with guambianos in their traditional garb, selling their wares, produce and woven items. They raise sheep and make ponchos, bags,garments from the wool. We went into several shops around the main square and were told to watch out for the Otavalos from Ecuador disguising as guambians. A friendly lady showed us the weaving technique they use.
After selling their merchandise the women visit friends or relatives and then return to the settlements, on foot or sometimes on bikes. The men stay a while longer, buy some aguardiente and commune with their ancestors until they fall asleep on the park benches on the main square, sometimes three or four sleeping guambiano men to a bench. It doesn't take a lot of firewater to make them fall asleep, as they have a very low tolerance for alcohol.
They send their children to study in universities and schools in the provincial capital, Popayan, less than 50 km. away and after they graduate they are expected to return to serve the community. As guambianos practice endogamy (they marry only other guambianos, but not from the same settlement or village) the 20 000 people strong community has maintained a unique homogenuity and has mixed with the predominantly Paez people of the Cauca Province only nominally.
The main square had changed somewhat: the old eucalyptus trees had been cut down and only a few were left standing. There were more colors, more paint, more benches for the old men to sit and drink their aguardiente but the main attraction was still the occasional tribespeople in their colourful clothes. We went into the church and since it was Holy Week the statues that make up the 12 pasos of the via dolorosa were exihibited inside: people went in and out all the time, young indigenous mother was explaining the passion of Christ to her young children; made me wonder how deep their catholicism really runs or how they combine the old and the new religion, the worship of Mother Earth (Mama Pacha) and the teachings of the Catholic Church. They seemed to be devoutedly both or perhaps it's just a veneer.
Taking a break. Breathing the cool mountain air.
Inside the church admiring the 12 pasos that later on that week were to be carried on the streets in a traditional procession.
After a visit to the hotel and a lunch we spent time by the river. This is where we used to picnic with our kids and friends, walk along and enjoy the greenery and bathe our feet and hands in the icy cold water of the Piendamó River. There was a guambian fishing and Hanski felt very tempted....there's trout in the stream. Later, we drove on towards the settlements (resguardo) but stopped half the way at a trout fishing facilitiy to watch peole, several of them guambians, fishing from the pond and here I also found a young woman selling trinkets; she also had the tiny bead bracelets to protect new-born babies from the Evil Eye. The bracelets had been "closed" with prayers and charged with protection. I bought two, similar bracelets for my friend Anne's grandchildren that will be born in a few months: twin girls who will wear them as a symbol binding them the cultural heritage of their father's country.
My good friend, Arja Toivonen, lived and painted Guambians here back in mid seventies and she also integrated with the community and learned much about them, their lifestyle, culture, religion. I had no opportunity to visit her Guambian friends at this time as time was pressing and we wanted to return to the city before nightfall. She made two beautiful videos about these people (in addition to a great number of strikingly descriptive, hauntingly impressive primitivist paintings that she has exposed in Finland, Sweden, Colombia and Ecuador and which hang exhibited at her summer home in Central Finland.)
I don't know why they would call Silvia "The Switzerland of Colombia". It has a distinctive air of authencity and to me, it's perhaps not unique, but very distinctive in its mix of indigenous culture and breathtaking scenery.
I
My first year in Colombia was filled with self-doubt. I didn't know what I wanted; the only thing that kept me in one place at that time was my boyfriend, who I was to marry a couple of years later, my rock, my stability, my anchor. (Figure that now, 45 years later I still use the same formula in my relationships :). It works fine for me, I suppose.
At one time we even went and filled an application to emigrate to Canada, but they didn't want us there. I guess they had already too many young college dropouts already without us engrossing the numbers.
I was learning the language, but not fast enough, because I thought (and Fabian heartily agreed) that it would be good if we spoke English to each other. He had been studying to become an English teacher at ILCA (Instituto Linguistico Colombo Americano) at the Colombo after dropping out from university as industrial engineer at the Universidad Tecnologiga de Pereira. Back in Cali from rainy, noisy party town Pereira he had dated a couple of gringas and got interested in becoming an English teacher. He spoke fairly good English at the time we met, but needed more practice with his woulds and shoulds so it became a lot "I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail, yes I would....."
But yes, I was picking up the language slowly but surely, at work and shopping (Fabian would not go in the women's clothing store to help me buy underwear ...), visiting his parents at San Fernando. and that first Christmas in Cali, when my brother went on a hunting safari with his new friends (Colombians) to the llanos and shot a farmer's prized breeding pig; I was abandoned and miserable in the apartment in Juanambú. We had moved from the three-bedroom flat behind Sears where you could hear the winds wailing like folks was out there dying ....
to a two-bedroom mini-flat just a few blocks from Colombo, up the hillside. It was a long climb and good for young poor people (like us) or rich old people (like our German landlord and landlady). It was a lovely neighborhood, very affluent and the houses with stone fronts were surrounded by gardens and protected by surrounding walls with broken glass set on the top to slow down prowlers. The nights were perfumed by fragrant, night-blooming flowers and bushes and the gardens and patios homes for colibries and other tiny birds that flew in and out in huge flocks.
Christmas Eve 1970 I was alone in that tiny flat and I wasn't a happy camper. Alone, the very first time, at Christmas, very far away from home and feeling lonely and homesick, I accepted happily to spend that Christmas at my boyfriend's house with his parents and family in San Fernando. That was my first sancocho de gallina (I hated it), my first arroz con leche (it was ok) my first dulce desamargado (weird) but where was the pig? I learned to smile politely and say ....si gracias, muy rico, just not that hungry....
Getting to like the food was an ordeal. I lost a lot of weight, got amoebas from drinking tap water and missed my salt herring and boiled potatoes to no end. Fabian visited me every day after work and brought me a different tropical fruit. I liked the veggies, but not platanos, not for a long time. I liked the chicken, but not that Colombian passion of cooking everything, even the scrambled eggs, with lots of onion and tomato. I liked to visit the produce market and pick my own fruit and vegetables but I was still living in Juanambú with my brother and did actually very little cooking. That winter (I would still call that time of the year winter, Artie was dating a lot of local girls, often from poor barrios, and I was going steady with Fabián, eating out a lot, struggling with my Spanish and my amoebas. I was getting up very early in the morning and catching a bus to Yumbo on Calle 15 at 5 a.m. to be on time at the parrochial school I was teaching English.
Cali in those days was like a big town, the traffic was slower, people walked a lot, especially in the north of the town where I lived, the buses were always crowded and in bad shape, there were street kids, gamines, beggars and garbage pickers all over the place. I learned how to pick my way on the sidewalks downtown not to stumble on people lying there with festering wounds and flies buzzing around. I also learned how to look the other way, just like my fellow Colombians did. It's incredible how adaptable a young person is. I had never seen a beggar or street person before or somebody who had so serious medical problems that were not being taken care of. I gave money to everybody who asked, until I was rebuked severely and told not to do it.
II
1971 was a lovely year, I was 23 and a blonde gringa in a city where foreigners were not so common and looked like everybody wanted to be my friend. I was working from 4 to 6 hours a day, making just enough money to get by. I got treated for my amoebas, finally, and with the returning health my life was good. My brother started dating his students from the Colombo, among them was a pretty paisa girl (actually from Caldas, I think) Adela R. that he eventually married and took to live in the States with him. I was a good friend with Adela, a friendship that survived long past their divorce.
That year we also went to Juanchaco and Ladrilleros on Easter break, made trips to Silvia and Popayán with the Vegas in the dear old Guanabana (Chevy Bel-Air -54) and were part of the sports event that Cali still remembers, the Panamerican Games.
These were the early days of a new decade and things were on the move. I was, literally, taking my walk in the sun. The wheel had been set in motion, a choice had been made and could never been unmade. (I didn't know then that this was going to be my home for the next 12 years, had somebody told me that I would have laughed....no way, hell, I'm staying max a year, learn some Spanish and it's back to my uni).
There were a lot of young foreigners, mainly USAmericans, in Cali at that time. The war in Vietnam was still dragging on and many young men had chosen to move abroad instead of being drafted and sent to kill the yellow man and die in the swamps in South East Asia. My other brother, the one who had stayed in the States, had been drafted and eventually served a short period there, but that was yet to happen. At the time he was doing basic training and his wife was expecting their first child. The other young foreigners were Peace Corps volunteers; young men and women that have chosen to enlist to Peace Corps that was connected to JF Kennedy's Alliance For Progress program and had been had been sent to less developed countries to serve. Then you had your ordinary pot-smoking hippies...
In March 1961, President Kennedy proposed a ten-year plan for Latin America:
“
...we
propose to complete the revolution of the Americas, to build a
hemisphere where all men can hope for a suitable standard of living and
all can live out their lives in dignity and in freedom. To achieve this
goal political freedom must accompany material progress...Let us once
again transform the American Continent into a vast crucible of
revolutionary ideas and efforts, a tribute to the power of the creative
energies of free men and women, an example to all the world that liberty
and progress walk hand in hand. Let us once again awaken our American
revolution until it guides the struggles of people everywhere-not with
an imperialism of force or fear but the rule of courage and freedom and
hope for the future of man.[1]"
Finding a job in foreign city with no skills and no connections was never a piece of cake. The only option was to teach English, the only skill we had that was of some use to the local community. Not that I really qualified, for that either. Having majored in English Philology at the university I had a fairly good grasp of grammar, but my spoken English was still...well...piping hot from the oven ;) Eventually, I landed a part-time assignment at the Colombo, teaching in local schools. (These were the jobs nobody would touch with a ten-foot pole). I also started training at Bill Myer's place on Avenida Sexta A; not a job yet, but the elderly Argentinian loved his audience and took aspiring teachers to his training classes without a promise of a job. I think Victor Quintanilla was still director at the Colombo, where my brother had gotten a job. Our friends Bill and Kelsey got jobs at Meyer's that only hired native speakers.
With an income, albeit a very modest one, I felt like it might be able I'd stay the year out. I was still planning to travel back to Finland at that time. (I found a letter at the old farmhouse in Finland. It was written at that time and I was telling my parents about my job at the parochial school in Yumbo, catching a crowded bus at downtown Cali at a quarter to five in the morning and about the amoebas I got from drinking the tap water at the school. I wrote about my the kids, the different racial mix, the joys and difficulties and told them I would be home for for Christmas! Many, many Christmases were going to pass, before that...)
Time slipped out of focus when the red-eye flight of Ecuatoriana de Aviación, proceeding from Miami. having left at 00:30 with a stop at Panama in the dead of the night touched the runway at Palmaseca Airport in Palmira, Colombia, in 20th of August, 1970. Time and Place too, as a matter of fact. We walked down the steps emerging into a hazy dawn of the Valle del Cauca Province,. I was groggy from lack of sleep and the strain and stress of the tumultuous last weeks and a last minute decision to follow my brother down to Colombia instead of returning to Finland or trying to stay in USA and getting my situation there sorted out, perhaps by marriage or getting a student visa.
"
Yes. my brother had gotten himself
a job at Centro Colombo Americano and while still back in Florida
and preparing for his trip he asked me if I was going back to
Finland or follow him to Colombia and I said not Finland. He offered
to pay my ticket whichever way and I said yes, sure; Colombia here I
come. I barely knew where Colombia was located on the map but I knew
they spoke Spanish there and learning a new language sounded like a
fun thing to do. "I'm going to teach English". he said,
what could you possibly do there? "If you can teach English
certainly so can I"
"My future students are all
professional adults, doctors, lawyers, engineers...you're just a
little wisp of a girl, a college drop-out, almost a child still".
"Yes, but I can speak English, these people can't".
Naturally, it was an overstatement as my English as a Second
Language was piping fresh from the oven. But at 20 you think you are
invincible." (from a post in MangoBiche, my social network site I had a few years ago)
Cali, the seductress of the Valle, La Sultana, was just waking up to a new day, the sun had barely risen and the Lady of the Valle was streching and yawning still, not quite ready get cooking. The nightly mists were hanging over the cordillera (the western finger of the Andes) and the hazy morning air was inmpermeated by the heady aromas of sticky, sweet molasses from the sugar mills and smoke from the cane fires. The alienness of it all struck me and I remember thinking that I was walking into somebody else's dream, not my own. No, not my own.
There were dark, small people all over the place. After we cleared the immigration we took a taxi to downtown. My brother was the only one who spoke Spanish. So who were "we"? We were four people, my brother and me and a friend of my brothers and his girlfriend; they were the original group who had been planning this trip for a long time, I was a last minute addition to the group. Both men had been recently divorced from their Florida wives and wanted a fresh start, Why Colombia? I still don't know, perhaps because it was so close, a short flight straight down, going south.
We rented a room, just one room with four beds at Casa del Viajero, a hostel right in the middle of everything, on Avenida Sexta and Puente Ortiz, a short walk to downtown banking and shopping, to English Institutes concentrated on barrio Granada between the Cali River (Puente Ortiz) and a few blocks north (Avenida 22 North). The place was a dump, but they cleaned and changed sheets and towels every morning and there was a shower (a cold one) in the room; the toilets were down the hall. Next to our hotel there was a streetside cafeteria where we ate breakfast (scrambled eggs with tomato and onion) before going back in to sleep out our travel weariness.
Snoopy's on Avenida Sexta, Norte. Puente Ortiz and the very first pictures of me and latest flame, taken by a street photographer ;)
The next few days (eventually weeks) we spent in getting our bearings. We walked the downtown area with stately old buildings (The Alferez Real, Plaza de Cayzedo, Hotel Aristi, Edificio Botero, ate in small restaurants (my deep mistrust for mondongo and other dishes prepared from bovine offal dates back to these first days in Cali) but I had a hard time adjusting to local cuisine. I ate hotdogs at Snoopy's, a little hole-in- the wall fast food joint run by two Americans, Cliff and Nick. They played cool music and the place was crammed with young expats, mostly Americans, the majority of them English teachers employed by The Centro Colombo Americano, Meyer's (used to be located in a beautiful Republican house that was later demolished to build that god-awful Palacio Rosa.
(This is the continuation to "Hey, I'm Getting Married".
The ”house” part consisted of a
small hall that opened into a sizable living/dining room next to a a
small patio with stone paving and bars and net for roof. There was a
corridor through the house and on the right side there was a social
area restroom, a large kitchen, maid's quarters , clothes patio, two
bedrooms and a the main bathroom with a shower cabin and a large
water heater. The other water heaters were located in the kitchen and
in th back bedroom that gave out on Cra 43.
On the left hand side of the corridor
there were two bedrooms in continuation to the living(dining area and
the decorative patio.
The ”school” part of the house
consisted of a swimming pool, four rooms, lawn, garage and a
bathroom. We built a sandbox and brought in the slide, the wooden
furniture for the school classes in geometrical forms and bright
primary colours, the metallic desk and the swiveling stool, the file
cabinet and the copy machine. We had a secretary working part time, a
student from the institute whose name was Inés, with big brown
eyes, but she didn't stay long, we really neither needed nor could
afford to have a secretary.
The summers were always slow and lazy
in Cali. Unproductive, too. The pre-school setup that we had named
rather pompously ”Windsor School” at the insistence of our upper
class friends to find a neme that was both in English and associated
with high class and Europe. (Now, a lifetime later, I thing Hyacinth
Bucket School would've been funnier, or Onslow Academy for Spoiled
Little Brats). Anyway, Windsor School was on summer break from June
to the end August, leaving us the income earned teaching English at
Harris, which was also slow in the summer and the annual registration
and income for ”matriculas and materiales” that trickled in
slowly during the summer. People would come at any crazy time to
enroll their kids and we were conned a couple of times too; making
change for bad checks paying matricula for nonexistent kids. Living
right next to your business was both good and bad. At the beginning,
we had no privacy at all, people stopped by on Sundays, late in the
evenings to look at the school, to discuss teaching methods (I didn't
have the slightest idea of what they were talking about, but kept
reading my book ”Kindergarten in USA” and finding answers....or
making them up.) Once a lady stopped by to ask if we taught palmer
method...err???I THINK I said that we use updated, modern methods
which was probably the right answer anyway, since Palmer is a very
outdated handwriting style, lovely, but no kids nowadays in Europe
anyway can even read it nor can their parents.
The first couple of years we were
pretty much fumbling in the dark. Neither of us had any experience
with kids (except some English classes taught to age-integrated
children groups at Harris on Saturday mornings), were not especially
into children or child-rearing or pedagogy for that matter, we
considered ourselves language teachers , nothing else. I had just
turned 25, Fabián 27., both of us interrupted college careers behind
us, mine in English Philology and World History in Turku University
in Finland, he in Industrial Engineering at the Universidad
Tecnologica in Pereira. I was good at languages and writing, he was
good at math and drawing. None of us could sing or dance to save our
lives.
Working with kids had proved to be more
fun than what I had imagined. We played ”Ring-a-rang-a rosy” and
”London Bridge Is Falling Down” with the kids, taught them a
little English, read books, played with manipulative material, let
them draw, paint, work with playdough...nothing very horribly wrong
with that. The mistake I made was to learn Spanish too well, too fast
and as my Spanish became better, the amount of English I spoke to the
kids got less. Fabian drove the bus together with Luis Aulden, the
chauffer; we had purchased the second van at that time, the
black-and-white Transit that he drove all those years after too, The
amount of children increased and we started hiring more people.
That summer of 73 we met Eduardo Parra,
the Ibaguereño established in Bogotá and transferred to Cali
through mutual friends. He was looking for a place to stay, we had
room and needed the extra income. He moved in the extra bedroom next
to the clothes patio and we grew to be good friends. I used to invite
him on complimentary Sunday lunches, we watched Bruce Lee-movies
(”Enter The Dragon” ) with him. Somebody had told him he looked
a little like Bruce Lee and he was a fan forever, after that. Fabian
loved martial arts too and I liked everything at that time. Eduardo
worked as an accountant or something like that at the French
automobile franchise Simca (”Sim carro”) and drove company car,
getting his simca traded in in every two years and we got to drive it
when he was traveling.
A couple of his friends, two Bogotá
girls came to visit and we gave them room and board during the week
they were in Cali. That Christmas we went to Bogotá and spent a
week there and stayed at the house of the older girl and her family.
It was a lovely Christmas, Eduardo was with us in Bogotá and drove
us all around, on sightseeing, we went to the Gold Museum, the Salt
Cathedral in Zipaquirá, Simon Bolivar Museum, the National Museum,
Monserrate in the cable car, Laguna de la Guatavita where the myth of
the Eldorado has been said to have originated based on the custom of
the chibcha
rulers to be covered in gold dust and
taken on a royal float amidst the deep waters of the lake and being
dipped in the water shedding all that gold in the bottom of the lake
on his coronation day.
The original muisca village had been
flooded when the river was dammed and a new village for the people
had been constructed, in Spanish colonial style, very pretty but not
very authentic. I bought some handicrafts from the Indigenius
artisans before returning to Bogotá the same day.
We spent the New Year with the Bogotá
family we were staying with. We had home-made tamales and sabajon
that resembles eggnog, it's made with egg and aguardiente. This was
the first time I tasted non-valluno tamales; these were made with
rice stuffing and could not compare. Taking showers in Bogotá was an
adventure. The family had a tiny water heater for the shower and the
water was never hot, just tepid and already cold when it hit your
feet. It was cold at nights, just a few plus degrees, humid and
unpleasant, with no heating. People wore thick woollen ruanas over
their pyjamas for breakfast.
(Ruana is the Colombian poncho. Both
men and women wear them out in the country and in the small, cold
altiplano towns, Men's ruana has a hole in the middle and is often
dark-coloured, stripey or patterned, women's ruana is open front, in
bright colours and you wear it like a huge scarf with one end thrown
over your shoulder.)
Traffic in Bogotá was terrible, a
total chaos at that time. It doesn't look anything like that any
longer, with the transmilenio transport system and bikeways built
under Mockus' and Peñalosa administrations Bogotá became a modern
city, a transitable city. They haven't been able to do anything
about the lousy weather though. Cold and rainy at nights, mild and
rainy during the days, no real warmth due to the altitude, except for
short moments at midday sun and you need a jacket and an umbrella
every time you leave home.
With the premarital instruction sorted
out we concentrated on our wedding plans. The chapel was booked, the
paperwork sorted out, the wittnesses for the notary registration of
the marriage were to be my in-laws, the matron-of-honor a good friend
and her husband was to be the best man, I selected three bridesmaids,
two of them were my students and the third one was Adela Perez
Restrepo, engaged to my brother and soon to travel to USA to marry
him in Florida. The gown material was bought, the bouquet was
ordered, yellow roses and queen-of-the valley orchids, the cake, the
wedding invitations, all the small and big details that have to be
taken care of when having a formal church wedding.
Soon after we had told his family about
our wedding plans my future Mother-in-law paid me a visit. It was
cordial yet strained. I spoke enough Spanish now to carry a
conversation and we had been getting along quite well, but never got
close. She wanted to know my reasons for marrying her son. (This
scene is just like out of a tv soap opera or telenovela in Spanish)
Doña Cecilia: ” I just want to know
what are your purposes, exactly for taking away my youngest son from
the family”
Me: ”This is a love match, there are
no ulterior motives”
She:” Are you sure my son is capable
of supporting a family”
Me: ”Money is not the issue. I can
support myself”.” If there's going to be children at a later date
(no, I'm not pregnant) we'll both support them, of course.
She:” Are you planning to take my
youngest son away from Colombia, drag him with you to the other end
of the world where bears roam the streets?”
Me:”There are no bears in the cities,
except at the zoo in Finland”
”And no, we're planning to give
Colombia a try at least at the time being. We have not discussed
moving abroad at all.”
After she left I had an uncomfortable
feeling of not having convinced her at all.
The result of this visit was, however,
that the Doña Cecilia engaged herself fully to planning the wedding.
She took charge of the food and drink, mail wedding announcements and
invitations to family members in Bogotá and USA. The Vegas had
always been a small family, the paternal grandfather having moved to
Bogotá from Bucaramanga and most of the relatives from father's side
still living in Bogotá and Cundinamarca. My father-in-law was also
born in Bogotá. His father had married a valluna, Carmen Rivera, and
moved to Cali establishing a residence in one of the huge old houses
of El Peñon, El Charco del Burro, when it was just family houses,
before they built the hotels , high rises and restaurants there. He
had one brother living in Cali known to be a staunch communist and
two brothers in New York and the eldest son had also moved to USA
with his Caucana wife and living in Chicago.
Doña Cecilia was the illegitimate
daughter of Eva Brandt and (probably) some guy whose last name was
Orejuela. She was, in turn, the illegitimate daughter of Josefina
Brandt, daughter to a wealthy German landowner from Tuluá (Gustavo
Alvarez Gardeazabal mentions him in his book ”Los Condores No
Entierran Todos los Dias). The German had emigrated to America at the
beginning of the 18th century, escaping from the
interminable wars in Europe and established his hacienda amids the
lushest greenery of the valley of the Cauca River. He had two
children, a son and a daughter but had not registered the marriage to
the local criolla beauty and his children did not inherit him. The
son had gone to seas and was not heard of ever again, the daughter,
Josefina, had numerous children by different men and that's the
reason why some of the Brandts are quite European -looking (Doña
Cecilia had auburn hair, white complexion and hazel eyes, cousin Ana
Cecilia is a dark blonde, Fabian had stunning blue eyes and dark
complexion) and some are quite dark with black blood.
When the German died he was the sole
owner of huge stretches of cultivated land that could not be claimed
by anybody. Three Sundays in row a drummer parted from the cathedral
steps on the main town scare beating his drum throug the streets of
Tuluá shouting his message to anybody who thought himself to be
entitled to Señor Brandt's lands and posessions please present
themselves at the city hall, but nobody came and the fortune passed
to be the property of city of Tuluá. Illegitimate daughters
inherited nothing, even if they were recognized by their fathers and
carried their last names.
(This is the family story told by Doña
Cecilia herself, to me, a few years before she died. I have not been
able to verify any parts of it, but the racial mix seems to be about
right)
From Don Miguel's side it was all
creole mixed with altiplano indigenous blood, perhaps a drop or two
of Motilon Indian blood from the Santanderes. They were short and
stocky, round-faced and beady-eyed men, hard workers and honest to a
fault.
December 16th was a Saturday
and the first day of the Christmas break at work, we had a month off
until mid-January and we had little money so we didn't plan any
honeymoon, just a trip to a cold-climate hotel in Silvia over the
weekend.
Two days before the wedding the phone
rang and there was a female voice demanding to speak with Fabian. He
never admitted that he might have known the identity of the caller.
She begged and pleaded him not to marry the gringa; he would never be
happy with her, he should marry a local girl instead. I'm sure there
was much more that was said there that he decided not to tell me but
I let it be.
The wedding went very well, first at
the church where we arrived late because we were ”kidnapped” by
the matron of honour and the best man and given a tour of the city
while peole were waiting at the church. I thought it was quite silly
but they said it was customary....we were supposed to be late. I had
a white gown sown by a seamstress copied from a fashion magazine for
brides, a diadem with flowers and a half-veil and a short train to
my gown, Fabian had a rented smoking. Fabian had been at the church
at the break of dawn and received the Communion, it was to be a mixed
marriage with no eucaristia offered, We were wedded by the Canadian
priest, nobody had any objections, we read our vows from a book and
it all was filmed on super8 but whatever happened with that film I
have no idea.
The wedding reception was at our school
and we drank champagne, ate dinner and cake, danced and had a merry,
joyful party with 6 waiters and about 200 invited guests, half of
them from the English schools we worked at. I had invited all my
students since I had nobody from my family there.
We spent a few days in Silvia at the
tourist hotel there, I was longing for a change of temperature and
scenery and it was a lovely weekend, we took long walks on narrow
dirt roads, hiked a little cross country up the mountains and
following the river with the iciest water, there were ancient
eucalyptus trees that grew on its banks and the whole upcountry was
permeated by the fragrance of eucalyptus, wild herbs and
high-altitude grasses. We walked the dirt road at night, with the dim
town light far below and the skies were studded with uncountable
stars. I don't think I can walk those roads again, ever, without
fear, like we did back then, when there were no guerrilla up those
hills.
Back to town, we went right back to
work. Up at the blushing dawn, picked up children in our van all
around the northern barrios, near west and near south, kept them busy
for a few hours and then took them home. We had lunch around 12:30,
slept a siesta, took a shower and headed off to the Institute to
teach English in the evenings.
I was in the middle of an early
evening class when the secretary, Maria Cecilia, came to get me, my
in-laws needed to see me. Don Miguel had a telegram in his hand; my
dad had passed away. I mourned his passing with grief mixed with
guilt: I had known when I left my family and Finland that my father
was seriously ill and may not live long with the heart disease he
had. He had had his first coronary attack years ago and there had
been several others after that. He walked slowly, sat around a lot,
his tempered had mellowed, but he hadn't quit smoking. He would sneak
cigarettes when my Mum wasn't watching but he didn't drink much any
longer.
I considered going to his funeral but
decided against it. It was a long and expensive trip and we didn't
have the money for it. I figured that my presence at his graveside
would not bring any joy to him either, he was beyond that. My brother
from USA was going with his young son; together with my two sisters
they would have to be the support that my Mum needed at that time. I
mourned him thousands of miles away, on the other side of the globe,
in tropical Cali when he was lowered to his grave on a snowy March
afternoon 1973. My mum had said that he died happy about me having
settled down and gotten married; I guess he had worried about me
being alone so far away. My husband-to-be had written him a letter
asking for my hand; he had much appreciated that fine gesture, not
that he could have done much about it even if he had objected.
That winter we also had to move away
from the nice pool apartment. It was actually a good thing since the
place was not that well suited for our purpose for it had no green
grass or any yard at all, just huge rooms around a large pool and a
second floor with three bedrooms in a row and a bathroom with a
bathtub. We had sublet the second floor to Maria Cecilia, Maria
Cristina Harris' cousin and the secretary at the language institute
and her husband Freddy, who was much older, separated from the first
wife and sported glasses and a smallish mustache. They moved out
first and we started looking. We saw the ad for the Tequendama house
in the newspaper, El Pais, it was a rental agency (inmobiliaria) that
was managing it. The setup was perfect: in front of Tequendama park
with all the green area you could wish for for small children to play
in, quiet, residential neighbourhood and the property consisted of a
rectangular one-storey house. The owner had later purchased the lot
behind the house that gave out on the next street so it ran acoross
the block, with entrance at Cra. 42 B and the grarage at 43. The back
part consisted of a semi-open structure with a swimming pool, lawn,
garage, two bedrooms on ground level and staircase to an open-air
room like a roofed terrace and a bedroom and bathroom next to it. The
door in the middle could be closed and thus the job part isolated
from the home part. It had two separate telephone lines too, in one
word it was PERFECT!
We signed the contract at he agency's
office and that Tequendama house was going to be our home for the
next ten yers, perhaps the happiest time in my life, in hindsight.
It was nice to find out that not everything had gotten worse since the golden age of airplane traveling when the stewardesses presented nice menus with free drinks and a smile to even economy class passengers and were not pushing merchandise to you when you tried to take a nap in when crossing the Atlantic. Even if wi fi is NOT free it's available and you can also charge your cell phone during the flight. Also, you don't need to confirm and reconfirm your tickets any longer: now everything is done via e-mail and your travel agent or your airline feeds you with continuous information about your flight.
I got a message to my cell phone as we were pulling out from the driveway in Marma, at 3 A.M, getting on the way to the airport:. It said " Now is a good time to start your trip. You have 1 hour and 7 minutes to Arlanda Airport and your flight leaves at 7:10 am." #They" knew where I was, how long it takes to drive to the airport, how much earlier we're supposed to be there prior to our flight...." 
