Colombia is so much like Turkey in many ways, perhaps more
so like Turkey of about 25 years ago. Its people’s warmth, need for no personal
space, respect and comfort with others, expressivity, hospitality,
appreciativeness, and more. At the end of all our work as I say good bye to
everybody, who has helped me in one way or another, one of the AFECTO staff, a
beautiful Mestiza responds to my “Muchas gracias por todos” with an “I love
you!” and she means it, I can tell from her eyes. Colombians along with Portuguese
are my most favorite people within all countries I had the chance to visit so far…
Miguel and Catalina have arranged a social program for me in
addition to the educational activities. The first evening they take me to
another colonial building, where one of their most favorite restaurants is
located. I see “roasted neck of lamb” on the menu. The English menu states
“ants” at the end of the description but Catalina is sure it is an error since
the Spanish menu doesn’t mention ants. Reassured I order it. We are deep into
conversation: One more thing I love about this couple is they are both extremely
intelligent and intellectual. Every time I get together with them, we always
find some deep philosophical topics to brain storm on. This is one of those
evenings.
Delicious roasted neck of lamb, Colombian style
At some point, I notice a change of expression on Catalina’s
face as if an end-of-the-world type of something is about to happen. I turn
to my left where Catalina’s gaze is fixed. The waiter has our food on his arms
and is slowly moving my plate to the table. Forgetting for a moment Catalina’s
horrified face, I look down at my plate with excitement. It looks delicious... But, wait a minute what is that? Oh my gosh, there are
vertically standing, almost in a dancing posture, black carpenter ants inserted
into my delicious looking “neck of lamb”. I bet the horror on Catalina’s face
has moved onto mine now. The English menu was right after all, to warn us
Gringos!
Resmiye the Anthropologist devouring a piece of meat topped with an ant: I find out it is crisply fried and tastes like potato chip.
Miguel starts telling us that eating these ants is a
delicacy in parts of Colombia and he wouldn’t mind exchanging dishes. No, I
want my “neck of lamb”, not so much the ants, but deep inside of me, a
benevolent voice tells me “Resmiye, if other people eat this and don’t die, why
can’t you? Can you wear your anthropologist hat?” With Catalina’s eyes growing
double their size, I reach one of the lovely ants dancing on top of the meat, and
put it in my mouth. Catalina is disgusted, Miguel is beside himself in his
roaring approving laughter. The ant tastes like potato chip, apparently it is
fried. I don’t really taste anything to make it delicacy and offer the rest of
the five fellow ants to Miguel, who devours them in one breath under Catalina’s
“eyew” emanating looks. Of course before removing the ants from my meat, we take
lots of pictures, with the ants on top of the dish, with me eating the one ant
and more. I text my plate to my family in Turkey, to some friends in the US and
my daughter. My brother texts me back with “You’ve done it, can’t eat anything
all day now!” My daughter, being the larger than life anthropologist she is,
sends me kudos…
A family in Colombia looking for ants to fry
Later on during the week, I will learn from one of the
colleagues I meet that when she was a child, her father would pay the kids to
get these particular ants that would come out only during a certain season.
They would remove the heads of the ants and fry them in bulk. I learn, too that if eaten in large
amounts, these ants are poisonous! Google tells me that these ants are called Hormigas Culonas, which translates to ‘Ants With A
Large Arse’. My ants didn’t have that large an ass really. They are only
available in the Santander region and can be collected only 1 or 2 days
out of the year, thus the rarity and the relatively high price tag (1 kg =
50-60000 COP= $15). No wonder, my friend’s father would send all the kids to
get as many of them as possible.
AFECTO organizes a national conference on child abuse prevention every year in Bogota
The second evening in Bogota, Miguel and Catalina very
graciously invite me to their house for dinner along with Isabel Cuadros and
her lovely husband Julio. Isabel is a veteran psychiatrist, who wears multiple
hats: She is the founding director of AFECTO, which is the major child abuse
prevention and education agency in Colombia; they have been organizing a
national child abuse conference bringing together all interested professionals
from all over Colombia and instructors from the USA and other countries.
Dr. Quadros is the central pole of child abuse prevention work in Colombia
Pretty much everybody that has done anything
on child abuse has gone through the “schooling” of AFECTO. She is a relentless
advocate on child abuse prevention not only in Colombia, but also all over
South America. She is a liaison between professionals working on child abuse
and governmental agencies. She is pretty much the international face of
Colombia in the field of child abuse prevention. I hope, she helps younger
colleagues to develop her competencies so that there are more people like her
to fill in her shoes, when she chooses to move to her farm in the countryside for
the next chapter of her life.
Dear Catalina prepared lovely dishes for us with lots of vegetables and non-meat elements. I love her soup, in fact both in Colombia and Peru, my favorite dishes will invariably be the variety of soups from potato soup to quinoa soup to corn soup and various combinations of all. We learn more about their youngest son’s trip to Canada. I personally congratulate them for feeling comfortable enough to send their 11 y/o son abroad on a school trip by himself. We all believe he will grow and learn enormously. Miguel and Catalina have a lady who helps them around the house every day, Enes, whom I had met in 2014. Not this time. Although our incomes are at quite variance between the US and Colombia, what our earnings can afford seems to be to Catalina’s benefit. My house is much smaller than theirs and I could never afford hiring a full time maid to work for me! Go figure…
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| A dinner gathering at Miguel and Catalina's house in 2014 |
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