The air was thick and sweet when we walked outside of the Santiago de Cali airport. Kristie and her divine mother Claudia, embraced us weary travelers with hugs, welcoming us to their homeland. After years of seeing, hearing, and feeling Colombia through Kristie, here I was — cradled in her country and experiencing it with my own senses.
The vast fields of Cali filled my eyes with green. Lush hillsides surrounded us everywhere, and the trees and weeds that cropped along them, flourished with the rainforest humidity. Although we were in the urban city, the houseplants breathed easy at Mami’s apartment in the Normandia neighborhood. Large Birds of Paradise blossomed in the living room.
The vibrancy of the surrounding green was a stark contrast to the wildfire-scape of Southern California.
One day, we followed the Rio Ponce outside of the city, towards the jungle below the mountain.
We hiked along the river’s edge, foraging flowers and staring at bending bamboo trunks. Out of the thick greens, a school emerged. When a staff member saw us curious travelers and answered our question about a certain plant, he asked us —Kristie translated— if we’d like a tour of the school. We agreed and entered a spectacular haven of Native Colombian history.
The teacher showed us the grounds where they take local kids affected by hard situations like drug violence and poverty, and educate them on native ways of nurturing and living off the land. Many of the students are of the Nasa people, indigenous Colombians of Valle del Cauca. Signs were translated in both Spanish and the Nasa language, classes were held in a bamboo structure, and gardens were enclosed all over the grounds. The teacher took us to one caged garden where orchids grew wild and rampant from bamboo bases.
I admired Kristie for her beautiful and effortless translations in the teacher’s storytelling of this community’s purpose.
We thanked him, hiked back to catch the last light, and at the end of the day, we hopped along the smooth stones and let the river slip between our fingers.
Every morning tasted like arepas con huevo and every day was filled with fresh coconut rice, plantains, and warm beans. We drank tropical cocktails over long dinners filled with laughter. While strolling down the cobblestoned streets of Cartagena we tried fruits that I had never heard of and don’t exist in the English language.
I tasted the Colombian climate in all of the produce I ate; in a salad it trickled out of the crisp of the lettuce, the juicy bite of the tomato, and the giant avocados. That salad, along with the refreshing crunch of a dressing made of diced onions and lime juice, with a side of tostones, rice cooked with a fresh coconut, and a freshly fried fish was my favorite meal (see below).
I saw a rainbow of Afro-Latinxs in Colombia. I gazed at their beauty, their familiarity, their purity.
In the jungle cafe alongside the Rio Ponce, the Afro-Colombian lady who made us fresh empanadas reminded me of my cousin Sherry who braids my hair. Her round face and bubbly brown eyes carried her identical expressions.
I found another cousin on the beach in Cartagena. He was peddling cocktails while the older teenager with him was pushing a makeshift bar cart behind in the sand. The younger boy was in his early teens, and while he poured half a bottle of rum into a pineapple for us, I noticed he had the same face as my little cousin Junior.
Here I was, 3,500 miles away from home, running into cousins along the way. That’s the African Diaspora.
I learned that Cartagena was Spanish America’s biggest slave port; The New Orleans of South America. We came from the same boats, but landed in different harbors.
Down the streets of The Walled City, groups of large Black women swayed their large hips down the cobblestone streets, balancing baskets of fruit on top of their heads. Their hair was wrapped in colorful garments that matched their dresses. One of these ladies parked on the side of the horse-and-buggy road, gave us a mamoncillo to try for the first time. She smiled as our eyes lit with delight at the grape-like fruit. Before we walked away, she looked Kristie in the eyes and in Spanish, told her to take care of us.
There was so much untouched African beauty in some Afro-Colombians, they looked like my ancestors preserved in a time capsule. I saw their rich dark skin and felt something akin to whitewashed, American-ized, and far removed from my deepest roots. But, like any moment of self-doubt, I’d catch myself in that mindset and shake it off.
Whenever I walked by the Afro-Colombian women, we exchanged a silent greeting that acknowledged each other’s presence. It felt like The Nod, but on a deeper level beyond language.
After some time living a continent away from Kristie, my soul sister from college, and months without seeing my other soul babes too, I was in their warmth. We drank wine into the late night, sharing our dreams, planning future ideal communes, discussing everything from the universe to the bean and laughing until the laughter squeezed our bellies.
I was at peace with my babes, and I was at peace traveling somewhere that already felt like home.
– Tyler
Tyler Nicole Boudreaux 