Last December, when I chose to come to
Colombia for this six week rotation, I could not have imagined that attending a
35th high school reunion would be part of the experience. But somehow, through the natural course of
hospitality and invitations that I have come to appreciate so much here, that’s
exactly where I ended up this weekend.
It started with the invitation to the finca. A finca is a farm. For Colombians, this could be an actual productive
farm, and there are certainly many in the region. A finca is also the word used to refer to a country/weekend home, and
it seems that many middle and upper class Colombian families have the good fortune
to have a finca. Visits to the finca are usually a family affair, and families here are large and
close knit. As a Colombian you will socialize often with your extended family,
and will spend many holiday weekends together, often at the finca. It also seems to be tradition to
invite visitors along to the finca.
This past weekend was a holiday weekend, which seems to happen often in
Colombia. I asked several people what the holiday was, and none of them seemed
to know, but just that Monday was a holiday, and so it was a good weekend to go
away. Clara, Jaime’s wife, invited me to
her family finca, outside of the city
of Manizales, and I enthusiastically accepted.
Manizales is about 3-4 hours north of Cali,
halfway between Cali and Medellin. Along
the way, you will come across many actual fincas,
regions known for growing one item. The sugar cane region, the maize region,
the pineapple region, and finally, the coffee region, the Zona Cafeteria, one
of Colombia’s most famous regions. In the sugar cane region, massive and
endless fields of sugar cane end at large processing plants, ingenios, where they make sugar, a cane
liquor called Aguardiente, and sweet, creamy sugar cane candies. The longest
and largest trucks I have ever seen, hauling trailers and trailers full of
sugar cane, chug along slowly back and forth along the main roads. In the
pineapple region, there are fruit stands where you can easily pull off into the
side of the main road, have them load a few pineapples into your trunk, and
hand you a cup of freshly sliced pineapple through the window. Up in the hills,
in the coffee region, you can admire the beautiful coffee plants, planted every
which way along the hillsides, and then stop at a rest stop atop a mountain,
and sip a fresh coffee, a tinto,
while taking in the green hills around you.
This lovely, fruit filled and green drive
brought me to the city of Manizales, in the mountains, sometimes even above the
clouds. A small city, a university town, a city with the coolest public
transportation I have ever seen. Where else can you take a cable car up and
down the mountain, as part of the regular public transit system? Hanging there, over the entire city,
mountainside and valley, I wanted to stay in the cable car and just keep going
around and around, up and down. The original cable car in Manizales was built
to transport coffee down the mountain. There are still some remnants of the
original wires going over downtown. Manizales seems kind of like Seattle, often
cool and rainy, and it definitely did rain while I was there, a torrential
downpour made little rivers in the narrow streets. But the sun came out just in
time for a stop on the promenade that runs along the edge of the mountain. As I
indulged in an oblea, a Colombian treat of very thin, almost crispy crepe/waffle
like dough with a caramel-like spread between the two layers, I looked out at
the clouds, at the green mountains, and to the valley below, towards the finca where I was headed.
Clara’s finca
goes by the official name of El Limonar. It says so on the front gate, the
linens in the house are all embroidered with it, and if you order delivery from
the little town, all you need to say is, “deliver to El Limonar” and they’ll
know where to go. It’s located about 45
minutes down the mountain from Manizales, in a little village which seems to be
nothing but fincas. The town clears
out during the week. Unlike the rainy and cool top of the mountain, it is hot
down there. Perfect weather for lounging by the pool all morning. Together with
Clara, her two brothers, one sister, their children, three dogs, some roosters
and chickens, we passed a lovely weekend. Weekend highlights:
-Attending Clara’s brothers’ 35th high school reunion: Yes, somehow I got invited to this too, which
was happening right down the road from the finca. I spent the afternoon and
evening, socializing, dancing, and dining with the class of 1978. Everybody
seemed quite happy to dance with me, despite my poor sense of salsa rhythm and some
tried to speak with me in English. Awkward moment of the evening was when one
of the classmates, who had since become a politician and wrote a book about his
life, was trying to sell copies of his book up on stage in front of everybody
(Come on, you know you want a copy, pretty please??)
-Watching the Miss Colombia pageant (otherwise known as La Reina) on TV with Clara’s sister. Despite being dressed up in some ridiculous
regional traditional costumes, Colombian woman are definitely beautiful.
-Being rudely woken up from my peaceful afternoon nap, lounging in the hammock
on the back porch, by a rooster squawking right next to me. He flew from the
ground floor all the way up the second floor balcony, and decided to start cock
a doodle doing at 3 pm, ongoing, for 30 minutes. Nearly jumped out of my
hammock.
-Being part of a Colombian family. How amazing to be welcomed in like that, and
to be treated as one of their own. For all the good and bad and quirkiness of
any family, how special is it to count on weekends like this.
Foothills leading to Manizales, the beginning of the coffee region
Scenic point along the road with Clara and her cousin
The finca, El Limonar
Produce stands along the road
El Limonar
The rooster who woke me up
View from the back porch
One last snippet of the weekend worth
mentioning was the stop we made on the way home. Clara wanted to stop at a friend’s house to
see the progress of some construction that had been happening. This house is
located in one of the poorer neighborhoods in Cali, a neighborhood unlike one I
had seen thus far, but one that I imagined must exist somewhere. Narrow
streets, with barely enough room for one car to drive through, lined with very small,
one and two story simple homes. The main, intersecting streets bustled with
traffic and small tiendas, and drainage canals down the middle of the street
formed a river of sorts, with rickety wooden planks placed over them to cross
in places. Fewer trees than other parts of Cali, dustier. The police had
cordoned off a section of one street where there had been a shooting, and Clara
took the opportunity to tell me about gangs in Cali. Despite all of this, there
was running water, and electricity, and most of the roads were at least
somewhat paved. I thought back to the compounds of Lusaka, the makeshift houses
with corrugated roofs and no doors, the muddy dirt roads, the barefoot
children. This wasn’t quite that.
Back in Cali, the strike goes on. It’s been
nine days now that the public hospitals all over the country have been without
residents and with hardly any doctors. There was another march and protest today, organized by the residents. At the hospital, the medicine wards have almost emptied
out, as they aren’t admitting new patients. The emergency room is emptier in
some ways, but those who really need a hospital bed are stuck down there
waiting for days longer than they normally would. Surgeries have come to almost
a standstill, with only those most emergent happening. The HIV clinic was
cancelled last week, I wonder where those patients got their medication
refills? In contrast, at the city’s numerous small, private hospitals, which do
not serve any patients with state insurance, several of which I have visited
with the infectious disease attending over the past week, life has continued as
usual. The sick continue the usual journey through emergency room, ward/ICU and
hopefully better and home. They continue to ask for consults regarding
toxoplasmosis, post-operative peritonitis, liver abscesses and multi-resistant
gram negative organisms (Is it just me or does BLEE sound so much funnier than
ESBL? Some things just sound funnier in Spanish.) How
striking that the people being most affected by this strike are those that are
sickest and most in need of this healthcare? Although I suppose that’s the
point the striking healthcare workers are trying to make. Tomorrow the professors (attendings) are
having at meeting at Universitario del Valle to discuss the strike and next
steps. I hope they make some good
choices.
Beginning of the residents' march, as seen from the 9th floor of Hospital Uribe. If you can't tell, that's a large white coat they are carrying at the beginning of the march.
