Many Colombias

The street in front of the hotel where my morning run begins.

 Early Saturday morning I was reminded in two ways that I am in very different place from my home. When I unscrewed the lid on my water bottle this morning there was the sound of air rushing out of the space that had been last sealed in Winnipeg. Then, when I went outside to take a short run, I was surprised how difficult that was. Bogota is not only an eighth of the way around the world from Winnipeg; it is also several thousand feet higher.

From half way around the world, or even an eighth of the way around the world, a place can look simple, and uniform. As one moves closer subtle textures can begin to come into focus. Friday during one of our meetings someone said that there are many different Colombias. He was talking about the different regions of the country where the geography and access to the rest of the country can make them harder to connect to the rest of the country.

As I have been thinking about that today, I have noticed that there are a number of ways that Colombia’s diversity can be divided up. To begin with it is a very diverse country geographically. We saw this illustrated Saturday afternoon at the Bogota Botanic Garden. In the garden they have tried to show the different indigenous plants from the different regions of country from Amazonian Rainforest, costal tropics and Andean Mountains.

There is also a certain amount of ethnic diversity with Afro-Colombians, Indigenous peoples, Mestizo and European. Today we talked a bit about the economic stratification of society that seems to be clearly defined and codified. An MCC staff person here told us that there was a numbering system from one to six based on income that determined how much a person would pay for things like telephone and water. This stratification also pigeon-holds a person for their job and to an extent where they lived and what they had access to.

Related to this was the dividing line between the millions of people who are displaced in Colombia and those who are not. Displacement is not something that one shares with others, because there is a danger in this, but also because there is often a social stigma to being displaced. A displaced man talked about how his sons in their early 20s never socialize with their age peers because it is better not to have their situation of being displaced people known.

There is also a divide between rural and urban. This morning we met with two families who have been displaced from different parts of Colombia to Bogota. Both families have been classified as being at high risk of being victims for different reasons, and so they live a life in hiding. The two aspect of their stories common to both is that they reported the violence to the authorities, which put them at great risk, and second that they came from a rural area. One person said that here in Bogota, it looks like a safe place to live and work, but once one goes outside of the city, it is a different Colombia. It is a Colombia where various armed groups challenge the order and terrorize the people.

On this trip we will not see that diversity, but only hints of it in visits with families who come to see us, or in a beautiful botanical garden which tries to tell the story of a diverse place.

Wax Palm that grow in the high altitudes of the Bogota Botanical Garden

The rose garden at the Bogota Botanical Garden.

The Amazon room at the Bogota Botanical Garden