Imagine that the crazy Michigan Militia was not just the bunch of nutbags that produced Timothy McVeigh, but an organized guerrilla group that had taken control over the whole state of Michigan.

Then imagine that a presidential hopeful, and even though I want to use Hilary but I do not find her as eloquent or as loved as maybe Obama is, is kidnapped for 7 years. Then imagine the U.S. military rescuing the presidential candidate along with 14 other people that had been kidnapped without firing a single shot. That is what happened yesterday in Colombia. No big Hollywood production with a Rambo mowing over rebels left and right, just a well planned operation were everyone left alive.

Que Viva Colombia, Que viva la Libertad!

When I say that I miss home, I refer to Chicago the most. That is where I have spent most of my time as a reasoning being. Even though I spent my childhood in Colombian, most of my forming years were spent in the U.S.

While that makes me very American in some of my thinking and the way I approach things, I never forget my heritage or where I come from. When I came home every night from school, I remember that Colombian food was always on the table. The weekend barbecues always had Colombian music playing in the background, and it was even here in the U.S. that my Mom taught me how to really dance Salsa and Merengue.

I am Colombian, that is where my roots are and it has been five years since I have been back to my country.

The first time I took a trip back I had to go visit the grave of my best friend who died in a tragic car accident. The last time I took a trip down, my Grandpa was sick… this time he is no longer with us and I will most likely go visit his grave. That was one of my biggest fears about going back, that people would have changed so much or just not be with us anymore.

Life is about that, it is about that change. Two of my closest friends are pregnant right now and the cycle of life begins once again. Our families seem to shrink and grow with every passing year, and life continues its course.

I am not nostalgic, I am very excited about the trip I am about to take to Colombia in the coming months. I am visiting my country of origin with my wife, someone that happens to be from the same city I am from, someone that I met here in North America but with the same South American roots I have. I get to meet her family for the first time and make my family instantly double.

I admire the people that move away and come back to the place they were born, I even admire those that stay right where they started. I feel a kinship with those that have moved away and had to adopt other ways of living, because it is not an easy thing to do. The world alien bothered me at first when I moved to the U.S. but slowly but surely it felt very fitting to what I experienced when I got here. I am not an American and not an alien anymore, but I still hold my days as a non English speaker close to my heart.

Even though Kansas City is slowly becoming our new home faster than any other place I have been, I still say I am from Chicago or Colombia. Having great friends come into my life make that transition to calling this place home a lot easier… at the same time harder to leave if we ever chose to do that in our (my - my wife thinks she is a penguin) quest to live with no snow.

I am missing home, I am missing Colombia, partly because my little escape place has been taken way… but mostly because I cannot way to be back there to see so many people that I have not seen in a long time… it has been more than 15 years since I saw some of my classmates… even 20 when you count the grade school ones.

I have been laughing at Stuff White People Like for like a month now. The site is pretty hilarious and IMHO very well written. I would give you some of my favorite posts, but I think it is worth just reading several of them if you have the chance. Reading that site has made me think of one of the first essays I wrote in my first English class. People that do not associate with other races miss a lot. So after a weird conversation with a couple of Mexicans I decided to write, Stuff White People Miss.

To most people in the US, Mexico is just a dirt down south of the border where you can go see a donkey show. It is also the place everyone runs to when the law is on your tail. Some more sophisticated individuals have actually travelled to our friend to the south and been to Cancun or Puerto Vallarta and think it is an awesome vacation destination and they could totally see themselves living there. What people don’t realize is that the country is huge and it has many different groups of people. Just like the people on the coasts look at midwesterners, people from the capital aka Chilangos look at the rest of Mexico.

One little known fact about hispanics is that overall people from different countries have stereotypes about each other. It goes from the joke that Colombians are just drug dealers to the point of not associating with each other because of their country of origin. When living in Chicago I was told a reason Puerto Ricans do not like Mexicans is because they come to work for lower wages, Puerto Ricans being American citizens take that very personally because someone in their family might have lost a job in the past. Mexican people are not the bad guys of this post, but they do seem to be center stage. I think it is mostly because it is the predominant country of origin that people think of when you say hispanic.

We buy calling cards to make calls to Colombia. It is cheaper than have a plan through a phone carrier still. It is almost a fun trading card game to see which one will give you more actual time when you are making a phone call. I ask the attendant at the store which one is working better recently and most of the time he will have a suggestion.

While waiting in line to buy my card a group of Chilangos was in front of me. They kept on looking back and later I found out that I looked a lot like one of their brothers… not sure if that was true or not. I am not sure why but they thought I was from Guadalajara. I took it as a compliment because the people from Guadalajara I have met have been pretty nice, but I am not sure it could have been an insult. They were young and were just being very open about what they said. I corrected them and told them I was from Colombia and this is when the difference between white people and hispanics begin.

Even the most ignorant person in the US has seen a couple of movies that tells them that Colombians are the drug dealers of the movie world. Just like the Russians are the nuclear arms dealers and the British are the cunning villains. Colombians worst representation comes from Scarface where they are portrayed as savages that want to use a chainsaw on Al Pacino.

The hispanic world has a “better” source for information, Telemundo. There Colombians are painted as violent kidnappers that will kill you if you look at them wrong. While it is true that Colombia has its issues and it is dealing with the FARC, most of its people is very removed from kidnappers, murderers and drug dealers.

The Chilangos took a couple of steps back almost looking scared and started joking about how they should be careful or they would get kidnapped. It was half joking, half kind of ignorant behaviour but I did not do much more than just smile. They confirmed they were Chilangos and told me I look a lot like one of their brothers.

Its funny when people put all of hispanics or even every Mexican into one stereotype box. Even within Colombian there are many cities and we are not all alike. If you like, or dislike me it means nothing when you talk to another Colombian. Even though we might have a lot of values in common, we could also have nothing in common. I just would love for people to drop the labels and start looking at people in an individual basis, but I guess that is still kind of a crazy dream at this point.

On a little side note, I want to say that if you read this blog and have defensive goggles take them off. I would never want to say something to put down anyone, including a whole country, unless I was trying to entice some thinking. I am glad that I am making some people mad about what I say, but then I realize that they are completely missing the point. When I post about humor not being present in every day life, most missed that I was able to find it with my close friends… is it better to get it from a stranger or from your buddies? not sure, my point was simply find it!

I have been curious about role playing for a while. Even though I had a previous experience, this past weekend was the first time that I actually played the Serenity game.

I ended up finding a local gamer, who is also a blogger, also a food lover and cook, also into martial arts, also into plenty of other things that I like. We met a couple of months ago during lunch and had a great conversation but busy schedules had prevented us from getting together more than during just social calls. We had met each other’s wifes and this weekend we both blocked out Saturday night to do dinner and hopefully start a game.

After a wonderful dinner at a local Indian restaurant we had not visited, review of that to come in yelp, we were invaded by puppies. Btw, if you are in the KC area and want a puppy come we can direct you the right way. In any case, after we had settled for the night Bea and I embarked on our first role playing experience. I have to admit that I was surprised that Bea wanted to do it, but super excited she got into it. I might go into details on another post, but I want to concentrate and maybe make sense of the title of the post.

Growing up in Colombia I was familiar with “Cuenteros” known here as storytellers. I have actually been told by many of my friends that when I tell an anecdote I go into too much detail, some like it, some don’t. The first storyteller in my life was my Grandfather who would sit and tell me about growing up, or the army or his job. He would always tell me little details that later became part of the story and I loved every single moment.

The closest thing that I have found to storytellers in the US have been comedians. They are the only people that I have seen that transport an audience with words, sometimes simply to their own lives but just from a different point of view.

Role playing games reminded me of storytelling. As the story developed and the people playing started to build a story I felt very excited. I had missed oral story telling a lot, and now I had found a place where I could not just hear it but be a part of building a fantasy world. The more I thought about it, there more I wanted other people to be there so the story could take other turns and other characters could come into play. While storytelling and role playing are a lot different, I find the similarities enticing and cannot wait to get another night of gaming going.

English Version.

Ser inmigrante es una de las cosas mas difíciles que me ha tocado vivir en esta vida. Gracias a Dios estoy casado con una Colombiana y no tengo que lidiar con las diferencias culturales en mi casa como lo he tenido que hacer en el pasado, pero de todas maneras termino siendo alguien que no es ni de aquí ni de allá.

Cuando llega el momento de ser aceptado por una cultura, uno tiene que sacrificar algunas cosas. Una de las cosas que me toco sacrificar por mucho tiempo fue mi sentido de humor. El sarcasmo de los americanos es mucho mas negro que el de los colombianos y la recocha no es lo mismo. Este tipo de humor es solo usado entre amigos cercanos y uno no interactúa con personas particulares a ese nivel en ningún momento. En Colombia si alguien se tropieza la persona mas cercana diría, huy le movieron el piso, pero acá si uno dice lo mismo lo miran a uno como si uno no tuviera respeto. En Colombia esa clase de humor se utiliza para despejar el aire y vivir la vida un poco mas liviana, acá todas las relaciones se manejan a un nivel mas seco.

Ese fue uno de los cambios que le hacen sentir a uno mas solo en este país. Uno se aísla totalmente de los demás porque en realidad hasta para pedir permiso en un supermercado cuando estan pasando con el carro, parece que les cuesta trabajo abrir la boca a la gente, y cuando lo hacen es en un tono afanado y sin nada de cortesía. Yo creo que en Colombia estar listo con frases que uno conoce para muchas situaciones lo mantiene a uno conectado con la gente. Uno ya sabe que al momento que le pase algo inesperado alguien estará ahí rompiéndome el silencio con algún chiste acerca de la situación. Eso hace que uno le mire la cara a la vida de una manera un poco distinta.

Gracias a Dios he sido capaz de hacer de las personas alrededor mío mis amigos. En el trabajo hay varias personas las cuales están listos a cualquier momento de burlarse si yo con torpe que soy me llevo algo por delante, y aunque paresca tonto es algo necesario que le digan a uno al momento que uno tumbe cualquier cosa, “se lo empaco? o se lo lleva así?”

English Version » Read the rest of the entry..

Today, I am leaving early from work to march for something I really believe in… stop the FARC. For more info, visit my wife’s site.

*** UPDATE ***

Check out the flickr group (No More FARC) we created and bellow is a little video we shot there.

Everyone loves comfort food, warm handmade tortillas, cornmeal, sweet potato. My comfort foot favorite meal is called Bandeja Paisa. This dish coming from the mountains of Colombia like our coffee is a common theme on most authentic restaurants all over this country. I have had it in Chicago and Miami and now the best on can be had right here in KC.

Downtown Kansas City, Kansas there is a little Colombian restaurant called El Rincon Colombiano. It was were I had my first meal as a Kansas City resident and I still have the friends I made that first day… actually thanks to them I have met many more. The restaurant has been newly renovated under a new owner. He was actually somewhat of the star of the piece the Pitch wrote some years back.

The Bandeja Paisa is the equivalent of what many Americans think of when they see a plate with turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce and stuffing. While in the US we only get that dish combination once a year, imagine getting that kind of comfort food every time you go to a restaurant in a distant land.

Aldemar who was the waiter mentioned in the 2005 pitch review of the restaurant, greeted us now wearing the hat of owner operator. In the kitchen there was now a new cook and I was exited but cautious with my expectations. This is the only Colombian restaurant here and if they changed things too much I was going to be disappointed. To my surprise, the Bandeja Paisa was the best one I have had since I was probably back in Colombia.

There was enough meat on my plate to induce a food coma, I kind of feel like I am still recuperating from the meat intake. My only complaint about the place before was that the steak always lacked a little bit of juiciness, and I would ask to get my bandeja with pork instead of beef. This time I actually got a bandeja and none of the things that make it up needed to be substituted. Every single piece was delicious.

A bandeja paisa is composed of rice an beans as a base, the red beans are cooked with Colombian flavor and rice that is plain white but has a flavor that is hard to describe. The meal than start climbing in calories and mouth watered with the delicious arepa , fried plantain and avocado. However the star of the meal is all the protein, a fried egg, a nice and crispy chicharron, a very lean piece of steak and a Colombian sausage. To round the meal up you can order a tropical fruit juice.

This not a meal for the calorie counter but for one that wants to try a little taste of Colombia. I can tell you that you will not regret trying this meal. I seriously think that the 10-15 bucks you spend at this little place will give you a better meal than any of the big fancy chains all over the city. If you are ever downtown KCK, go down a couple of blocks south on Minnesota on 6th street and you will find one of KC’s hidden great eateries.