I visited the beautiful country of Colombia once.

I was living in Florida at the time and had recently reattained communication with two childhood friends, a brother and a sister, whom I hadn’t seen in over 13 years.  Of the brother I recalled many challenges on the tennis courts, he had been instrumental in my tennis development in that few people my age court equal me on the courts back then.  Of the sister I had fewer memories yet they were fond ones, of a very long phone conversation, with many silences, many words meant to simply fill up space and keep us connected.  Soon after that conversation she, her brother, their family left the small arabian paradise which I continued to call home for many years.

So it was with great joy that contact with them was reestablished in the internet era.  Talk about a visit was easy and as one thing led to another that visit materialized and I decided to spend 10 days, and the entrance into the new year of 2006, with them in Bogota, Colombia.

The view which the general population of Americans has about Colombia is not a very … let’s say, it is a very biased view.  And I’ll also say that that view is not one that encourages the American people to visit that country (unless they fantazise about being kidnapped, shot, mugged…).  Yet, having travelled plenty, I was aware of how misguided some people’s views of alien countries can be and I very much looked forward to stepping off the plane onto South American soil.

The small event that stays in my mind and which I’m about to recount was just one of the many events lived during my stay.  It is a sweet-and-sour event yet in no way was this taste the main one to my trip or even the one I left with… but it is one that my mind keeps accessing for some reason.

It took place one sunny evening as I walked by myself along the streets of central Bogota.  The friends I was visiting had to work and with a simple map I was thoroughly enjoying taking my time and observing both the people and the city.  I was relaxed and attentive, at peace and alert, curious and street-smart, and thankfully so.  I eyed the food vendors, the old statues, the random soldier fully equipped with even granades…, the way people were dressed, their mood, the mood of the city.

In the center of this city is a “palacio”, a building of high importance, surrounded by strikingly new-looking fence only interrupted for small entries where two guards stood.  I was told that at the main gate one could see a changing of the guards which was particularly interesting for tourists.  And it was while I was making my way along that fence, coincidentally right in front of one of the guards, towards the front gate that the event in question occurred.

In my state of observant awareness I couldn’t help but notice a pretty, sweet-looking girl walking in the opposite direction, in my direction, and as we crossed our eyes met and I may have even hinted at a smile.  Our bodies crossed and not a second had passed when I hear her voice calling me.  Surprised and curious I turn around and smile as I see her smiling, and making her way slowly towards me.  What was she saying I am not sure; she asked my name perhaps, maybe asked how I was doing, or maybe it was “where are you from”, yes, that was it.  And as I observed this Colombian belle in a curious, interested, and reticent way my peripheral vision caught sight of the erect and stoic guard to my left who, with the most slight of movements, (undoubtedly enhanced by the fact that, as most guards, he was an image of unmoving alertness) rotated his head to one side and back.  The child who is yearning to go out to play and whose mother tells him/her “go ask your father”; that child now stands observing the fathers’ face for the slightest of signs.  The slightest of signs.  And at that moment my gut knew and it was like a cool wind swept through me awakening what was dreaming.

“Gracias, tengo que irme” to the persistent girl whose temperament was rapidly shifting to a darker cloud; “who broke my spell?” cried the evil witch Maleficent…

I turned my back and continued on not looking back once like a fish that just managed to squirm through the holes of the fisherman’s net and whose body says “just walking along”.