Last quote from Ospina (except for the link in the square brackets which is my contribution):

We have to escape from this model of a country where a disgraceful ruling class has always treated its people as interlopers and as a consequence has built a country where nobody, not even they, could live in peace. A country where you can’t take your eye off your luggage for a second, where misplacing a child for a moment produces unspeakable anxiety, where if somebody doesn’t turn up a few hours after they were meant to, you have to start thinking the worst, where, for an indigenous or black person to be appreciated by the powers that be, they have to accomplish the greatest feats imaginable [like be a world-class athlete], where there is deadly danger at the edge of every highway, where many think that to trust in others is to take a risk.

Sometimes I bump into a genial older gentleman at the gym and this week we got chatting. The conversation went something like this:

Older gentleman: So what is it you’re involved with?

Me: A project to train churches on the Coast to look after the children in their communities.

OG: Oh, very good. And you’re teaching them values, good things like that?

Me: Yes, that they have value, that their lives have a purpose.

OG (Without missing a beat) You’re naturally blond, aren’t you?

Me: No, this is more or less my natural colour.

OG: Oh, you should dye your hair blond. Light eyes and blond hair, you’d look lovely.

Me: I don’t think I could cope with the extra attention in the streets.

OG: Oh, you should do it.

Me: Maybe one day.

More truth from William Ospina in his book Pa’ Que Se Acabe la Vaina:

The first impression of Colombia that travellers have is of a sweet, hospitable and happy nation, so warm that sometimes they can’t believe it, and it’s difficult for them to accept the truth of this story of accumulated tragedies and misfortunes that only someone who knows it is capable of describing. The country always shows a deceptive surface, not necessarily out of hypocrisy but out of a stubborn necessity to convince itself that things aren’t going badly.