This is my first entry not only for this blog but a blog of any kind. An Engineer with an inherent mistrust of technology, hence I’m not an Engineer any longer. Since the realization back in 2005, give or take a few days, that my time in Seville had a expiry date, I have been looking for the next destination of interest, the only clear criteria being that the country be part of the Hispanic world. Having passed through the existential angst associated with language acquisition, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna watch what Spanish I have fade away in an altogether different foreign clime.

My interest in Colombia was initially peaked in conversations some years ago with Juan and Rebecca, both teachers at the same language institute as myself in Seville. They had lived in Bogota for a while and were both very effusive in its praise, a country of vast environmental contrasts, combined with an open and generous people enthusiastic to present their country in a more favorable light. Of course, Colombia has a dark side symbolised most vividly by Cocaine wars, Pablo Escobar, FARC and the occasional kidnapping. However, to define a country by a few isolated incidents and personalities would be as misplaced as to assume London was off limits during the IRA years. Without wishing to sound flippant, in the reality that I can recall most people simply got on with their lives, the conflict representing little more than the minor frustration of delay as disposal experts vaporised the latest abandoned rucksack. The reticence of people to visit a country because of its poor public image seems, with a few notable exceptions, more than a good enough reason to go there and find out for yourself. Just don’t go trekking in the jungle..

So anyway, there I was in my first week of Uni and who should turn up but Joni and Patrick from Sweden. No, I’d never heard of them either but they’d come specially to describe their research on education in developing countries, their particular location of interest being, you guessed it……. Colombia. Now I’m not one to get all esoteric and make cliched references to the twisted finger of fate, however it did seem remarkably provident given my aforementioned dilemma. Needless to say as Pauline proffered the opportunity to do my research in Cali (the 3rd City), I cut her off in mid sentence. The tickets have been purchased and I’m gonna have to sharpen up on my Salsa moves and naturally my Spanish for what promises to be a most excellent adventure.