The first step in the visa application process is to download the form from the consulate website.
The next is to settle down to wait for the supporting documents to be sent from Colombia. But now they’ve arrived.
In the process I have learned a new Spanish word. It’s idoneidad, and it means fitness or suitability, as in “my suitability to carry out the tasks I’ll have in Colombia”.
The folk in Colombia are happy that I have idoneidad; hopefully the consul will agree.
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In a rare event, Colombia makes it into the main news headlines:
floods are causing mudslides and it’s still raining.
Meanwhile, I am about to begin the process of applying for a Colombian visa.
I’ve discovered that the word visa came into English via French
from the past participle of the Latin verb videre, to see.
The original idea was of a mark being made in your passport to prove it had been officially seen.
If only it were as simple as that now!
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This happened when I was in Colombia the last time:
I watch a lovely Iranian film called Children of Heaven.
It is a simple, sweet story about a brother and sister and a pair of lost shoes.
I spend the whole film tensing myself for something bad to happen, for someone to die, or be beaten or abused.
Later, I tell a Colombian friend about my reaction, and she says,
You’ve been in Colombia too long.
It’s spring in the northern hemisphere,
and every day brings fresh evidence of the victory of life over death:
flowers blossoming where there was once only frozen earth;
green buds on branches; lambs in fields.
A warm sun (what’s that bright thing in the sky?) reappears.
Medellín, Colombia, is known as the city of eternal spring,
and, while I love its lush vegetation and the wall-to-wall colour,
I know I’ll miss the yearly miracle of a Scottish spring.
