Where are you from?

What I have learned as a traveler is that you are not only a person discovering the world, but you become an ambassador of your culture, your people, your country and its stereotypes as well. It brings you the responsibility to invite others to get to know more about it.

I am from Colombia, a country full of stereotypes. Yes, I think you know already what I am talking about.

To hear people making jokes about cocaine, drug dealers, kidnappings, or wait hours at the airport while they over check my Colombian passport and my previous travels, or facing the reality that many friends have been deported or have gotten a visa negation, is now part of my daily life as a traveler. But I also have decided to take the positive approach and explain to the people what is the reality behind all of this.

I have learned it now, although it was not easy at the first time.

It was an American that asked me if was true that the Colombian cocaine was the best in the world and you can find it in every corner in my country, I just reacted violently and said that he should reply to me in the other way around, since the United States is the main cocaine market for the Colombian drug dealers.

Actually, Colombia still is the world’ largest cultivator of coca, producing over the 50% of the total production (81,000ha), followed by Peru (56,100ha) and Bolivia (30,500ha). But what people don’t know is that only the 3% remains in Colombia, the largest markets are North America, followed by West and Central Europe and South America. (Source: The UN Offce on drugs and crime)

Coca leaf tea is not cocaine

In 2006, travelling to Poland my first travel to Europe to attend a international conference, me and my Colombian friends were asked to wait in a different line at the migration check in at the airport . We were carrying food, candies and other representative elements to show in a cultural exhibition.

The airport authorities were questioning if the liquor inside of the bottles was certainly Rum and if the corn white flour for making “arepas” –special Colombian dish- was actually food. And you cannot imagine how freak out I was trying to explain that the coca leaf tea is not cocaine.

Although coca leaf chewing is common only among the indigenous populations, the consumption of coca tea (mate de coca) is common among all sectors of society in the Andean countries, and is widely held to be beneficial to health, particularly in the high altitudes and to overcome fatigue, hunger, and thirst.

However, they passed our luggage and clothes through the X-ray many times just to make sure.

The negative impact

In the Czech Republic, I met a guy wearing a T-shirt with the legend “I am a Colombian drug trafficker”. It caused so much pain for me when he told me he was wearing it just for fun. For me, it means something completely different:

With 2 to 3 million displaced persons, Colombia presents the highest number of internally displaced people in the western hemisphere, and the second largest displaced population in the world after Sudan. Most of the displacement is related to the country's four-decade-long internal armed conflict, the most protracted in Latin America. This 'dirty war' is a complex conflict fought primarily between left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and Colombian armed forces. But it also involves drug traffickers, landowners, and other legal and illegal interests. (Source: UNHRC, the UN refugee Agency)

More than 40,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in Colombia as a result of this armed conflict since 1990 alone.

Geographically, Colombia is as big as Spain, Portugal and France all together and one of the most bio diverse countries in the planet, with a very fertile land. The same as we can increase the production of coffee, potato or corn, we can increase the coca production as well. But with a high demand and ilegal practices of trading, and illegal groups controlling the business, the production of coca is still a rentable possibility for many poor families in Colombia.

I do not deny what is happening internally in Colombia and its stereotypes, I can talk straight forward with every person in the world about them. Today, if you ask me if I recommend you to visit my country, without doubt I would say YES, I do.

Actually, I don’t see myself raising my family in any other country different than mine. Talking to my children about our reality and teaching them how to become our country the number one, the same as my parents did with me.

I recommend you to see yourself the country behind the stereotypes, the country moves by the passion of its kind, happy and good people. Discover Colombia through its heart. Don’t be afraid to see yourself the reality of this country and, how we Colombians say: the only risk is wanting to stay longer… maybe forever.

And now, I am asking you: WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
Which are the stereotypes of your country? Don’t you think is time to break them out?