Life in the mountains
A Colombian campesino’s commitment to place
He took off his hat and placed it on the table in front of him, beaming with pride as he looked down at the worn, multi-colored sombrero. “It was a great deal, and it protects me from the sun,” he explained. The hat was synthetic straw, white with purple, yellow, and orange stripes decorating its wide brim.
I was sitting at the Mirador de Cristo Rey in Jardín, Antioquia, when the campesino, owner and proprietor of the adjoining café, approached me.
After a highly-anticipated, once-in-a-lifetime family trip to Cuba, I felt weighed down by the need to write it all down. I needed to put pen to paper, or rather, fingers to keyboard, and try to make sense of what had just happened. But I didn’t want to do it from the cold, emptiness of my Bogotá apartment in January. That’s how I found myself in Jardín.
When the campesino sat next to me, I was sipping on an ice cold Club Colombia beer, recovering from the long, steep journey up to the mirador. This didn’t deter him. He sat down and proceeded to tell me about his life.
He was born in Jardín. He had tried to live elsewhere several times but always seemed to find his way back. “I love it here,” he said, unassumingly. He spends every day working on top of the mountain that overlooks the scenic town and the even more scenic panoramic landscape. He has called it home for the entirety of his long life.
Many years ago, when he tried to live somewhere else, he went South to the Cauca region to work on a coffee farm. After almost a year away, investigating options for buying his own land, he drifted Northward and back to Jardín. He couldn’t stay away. Another time, later in his adult life, he considered buying land a few towns over, where there seemed to be potential for a larger crop. Much to his surprise, a kind third party warned him against the purchase — the seller was making an unfair offer. Without making a fuss, he took this as a sign and went back home. There was no taking him out of Jardín.
For several decades now, the campesino has had his farm in Jardín. The Mirador de Cristo Rey extends down to a large tract of land where he grows coffee, avocados, oranges, and more. Though he admits that they are a lot of work, he also has several cattle. They graze on his fields of grass and produce the milk for his delicious homemade queso.
Before I knew it, talk of cheese had us eating piping hot buñuelos, deep fried balls of cheese dough. He grinned with pride as I bit into crunchy, outside and chewy inside of my favorite Colombian fried treat. Knowing that the man sitting next to me had raised the cattle that had produced the milk that had been made into the cheese that I was currently eating seemed unfathomable. I’m not used to living in a world in which I know exactly where my food comes from. In this case, it was the fruit of this family’s labor. Not only was the campesino responsible for the cattle and the cheese, his daughters, who also worked at the café, were responsible for making the actual confections.
When one of his daughters brought over the buñuelos, she flashed me a knowing smile. She knew her father was talking my ear off. Luckily, as someone who relishes in the stories and wisdom of those who have lived long lives, I was enjoying every minute of it.
As he sipped on his agua aromatica, a natural tea blend of fresh Andean herbs, the campesino pointed over the horizon, to the town beyond Jardín’s limits, Andes. Andes is the big city, comparatively. It’s where many of Jardín’s campesinos have to go to buy supplies or to negotiate business.
One of the last times he was there, he was reminded of why he’s never left his town. In Jardín, he feels safe. He couldn’t say the same for Andes. In Andes, farmers and laborers cut loose from the week’s work by downing glass after glass of beer between bottles of aguardiente at the town’s many watering holes. One afternoon, when partaking in some aguardiente himself, the campesino saw a young man drop a small wad of cash. As he got up to rescue the cash and return it to its owner, two fellow bar patrons beat him to the task. Instead of returning it, the two men made a b-line to the bar to buy themselves another round. “It was terrible,” the campesino said. He told me this story with such disdain in his eyes — he was truly hurt by the lack of honesty he saw in those other men. As he pivoted back to Jardín, his gaze softened.
“I want to stay here and keep cultivating my crops, but I also have another thing I would like to do. I want to raise trout,” he said, pointing out, down the mountain and into a crevice of green just on the edge of town.
Though I can’t be sure, the campesino seems to be well into his seventies. He still works his own land, tends his own cattle and chats up his own tourists. Now, he wants to spend his last days raising trout.
When I got up to pay for my buñuelo, the campesino laughed and shrugged it off.
“It’s on me. Enjoy whatever it is that you’re doing,” he said to me. Cryptic, I thought, but wise.
Words to live by this 2020 and beyond: enjoy whatever it is that you’re doing.
