Buena Gente

A couple of "incidents" here in Colombian have really shown me the Colombian hospitality, and I am very impressed. These incidents could have given me a very bad first week here, but because of the wonderful nature of Colombian people, I had just the opposite. This may be the most amable peoples I have ever been in contact with.

Incident numero uno: Run-in with the traffic police.

Two American teachers here, a married couple named the Carpenters, just arrived from a mission trip in Ecuador. They have a car and decided to take me downtown to show me around my new city. Not 5 minutes into the trip we are pulled over, apparently today is a pique-plaque day. Pique-plaque is an attempt to keep traffic down in the city, and each license plate indicates which day is your pique-plaque day. (If it ends in a 1 or 2, no driving in the city on Monday. 3 or 4, no driving downtown Tuesday, etc...) Unbeknownst to them, it was their pique-plaque day. Come to find, their licenses and insurance had also expired over their two week mission in Ecuador and so they really had no business driving at all, let alone driving downtown on their pique-plaque day!!! My experience with South American police so far in my life has been this: avoid them at all costs becuase they will try to get as much American money from you as possible. Even though it was an honest mistake, I was waiting for them to threaten to throw us in jail, but they didnt. Not only did they not throw us in jail, they didn't give the Carpenters even one ticket! The explained the pique-plaque situation, which the Carpenters hadn't ever experienced before. They had us park the car, walk to the nearest insurance office and get insurance. The insurance wouldn't be valid until midnight that night, so they gave us a police escort home, so we wouldnt' have an accident, and told us not to drive again until at least midnight. I almost went into shock, it was so different from anything I had ever experienced. I don't even trust the 5-0 in the States, and here the Colombian police have done us a huge favor.

Incident numero dos: My flooded kitchen.

Another new experience of mine this week was renting a washing machine. When I asked my landlord where I could take my clothes to be washed, I was sure I misunderstood the concept. I knew I heard the words "come to my house" "rent" and "24 hours". I thought it must mean they would take my clothes and bring them back within 24 hours. A washing machine seems like a very heavy thing to be dragging around the city. But low and behold, yes, not only did they bring me a washing machine to hook up in my apartment, they brought it on a motorcycle. The gentlemen who brought it hooked it up and made sure it worked and left me to do my laundry. After two loads, I hung everything up to dry and went to read in bed. My big bro, Jeff, called me a little later and while I was on the phone with him, listening and drifting into a sleepy haze, my doorbell rang. And then it rang again. I got some clothes on and went to see who was there. The doorman, or guard, was standing there saying something I couldn't understand in my state of half-sleep. He was indicated something in the house so I stepped aside and he walked into my kitchen and turned the light on. It was flooded in there! I told Jeff I better call him back later. The doorman then began mopping my floor. I was very confused and trying to figure out what happened. I assumed the water must be dripping into someone else's apartment, which is why we wanted to get it mopped up right away. He must have seen how confused I was and showed me the hose on the washing machine and where the connection had cracked. (Apparently he had noticed right away what caused the flood.) I started to notice there wasn't just water all over my floor, but on the walls and all over the top and sides of the fridge too. But I didn't notice how the water could be leaking down to the next floor. I asked how he knew what happened, and he pointed to the window opposite the wall I had the washing machine hooked up to. In other words, my kitchen being flooded was not bothering any other tenants. It was really my problem once he got the water stopped (which he had shut off before I answered the door). I can't imagine a doorman in the States mopping my floor. He turned off the connection hose and wished me a good night sleep. My head was still spinning, I wasn't sure what had happened until I worked it all out in my head the next day.

These two stories are the strongest (but my no means the only) pieces of evidence I have to support my new claim: Colombians are the nicest people on earth. There are probably many reasons for this, but I think the biggest reason Colombians are so nice is to overcompensate for the bad press the country gets internationally. Not only are they not all kidnappers, guerillas, and drug traffickers, but the majority of Colombians are incredibly giving, caring, and helpful to foreigners.

I love it here.