CAMPO FAMILY!

NOTE: Please read "Mogotes or Bust! Parts 1 & 2" BEFORE you read this if you haven't already!

Hello again, friends and family!  As most of you probably gathered from my pictures on Facebook, I  made a second trip back to Mogotes last weekend (the 18th-20th) in which I was fortunate to meet my entire extended (biological) family.

Welcome sign my sisters made me

It all began Thursday the 16th when Jeni went down to La Terminal to try and buy our tickets in advance for Friday evening.  Since it was a puente (holiday) weekend we thought we should buy in advance just in case things were to sell out.  Well, while I'm meeting with our new landlord to sign the lease on our new apartment, I get a call from Jeni saying that none of the buslines would sell her tickets in advance.  Only one possibly could but they only accepted cash (and Jeni could only pay with a credit card). So, since she gets out early on Fridays, she tried going to the Copetran office (one of the buslines that goes to the Santander region) in the north to buy tickets for that evening so she wouldn't have to go all the way back down to the terminal.  But they said "Sorry, we're sold out!"  Grrrrrr. So much for trying to plan ahead! 

Me, Flor, Martha, Janeth, Juan Pablo

Anywho, so we got up early on Saturday to try and get to the terminal at a decent hour and hopefully get on a bus that same day.  We did get tickets for a 9:30am bus out of Bogotá, which I calculated would get us to San Gil with plenty of time to get on one of the later afternoon buses to Mogotes.  From our last trip, we figured the trip would take 6 hours and probably a maximum of 8 and we were pretty sure the last bus from San Gil to Mogotes left at 6pm even though the schedule said there was one at 7pm (but if you remember from my last post "Mogotes or Bust! Part 2" we were almost stranded in the campo when the 7pm bus never showed up...and Rosa Delia told me that it actually did end up coming about 5 minutes after we hopped on the truck. Of course, Murphy's law!) so we were aiming for the 6pm bus just to be safe.  Well, it turns out we had drivers who were taking their merry old time (not going lightening speed for once?  SHOCKING!) and who also made a 30 minute pit-stop for lunch when we still had about 1 1/2 hours to get to San Gil.  Sooooo, long story short we made it to San Gil just in time (5:45pm) to buy seats on the 6pm bus to Mogotes.  And on the bus we met one of my sisters, Janeth, and her son, Wilson David (2), who were coming from Bucaramanga.  She said we were welcome to stay at the house but Jeni and I had already made reservations at the hotel in Mogotes.  So we went straight to the hotel, ate some delicious arepas con queso, salchipapa (sliced hot dog with french fries), drank a cerveza, and not much later went to bed.

Uncle Miguel

Sunday morning I got up early to get on one of the morning San Gil buses which would drop me in the campo (Jeni stayed in Mogotes because she had a lot of work to get done for school and to give me time alone with my family). I got to my mother's house around 8:30am and immediately met my sister Martha (20) who is the mother of the neice I met on the last trip (Maryury Valentina).  Wilson David and my Aunt Maria's daughter, Soraya (6 or 7), were also there, and Rosa Delia.  For about an our or so we hung out just chatting until more people slowly starting coming.  First to show up next was my Uncle Juan and one of his teenage sons or my cousin, William (his other son, Henry, could not make it). Both of them gave me a huge hug when they met me but were rather shy and didn't talk much.  Not 30 minutes had gone by when they invited me down to the neighbor's house which is also a tienda where they bought me a beer and we sat and talked with the neighbors and other random people who came in to buy stuff.  While we were there, one of the San Gil-Mogotes buses drove by with another bunch of my family who had gone to do some food shopping in Mogotes.  So we walked back up to the house and my sister Janeth (who I had met the night before) was there along with my Tía Maria (who lives in Bogotá also).  Tía Maria gave me a humongous hug and also started crying when she met me, saying it was incredible that I had found them and that she never would have imagined meeting me, etc.

Celebrating Rosa Delia's birthday

Once all the initial excitement died down a bit, the women (of course...grrrr) started preparing the lunch. A bit later my brother, Juan Pablo (30), showed up with a birthday cake in tow because we were also celebrating Rosa Delia's birthday on the 24th. Juan Pablo could not stop hugging me!  Not long after he arrived, my Uncle Miguel showed up and he also kept hugging me and saying he could not believe I was there.  It was a little awkward when we first met because I felt like he was going to make out with me, but that's just typical Latinos invading your private space and since I'm family, the space bubble is completely non-existent, jaja!  Anywho, so once all the men were there we took another trip down to the tienda, this time with some of the women in tow (thank God, so I wouldn't be the only one!) where we bought another round of beers and eventually brought an entire crate back up to the house with us (a crate has about 30 or so).  The only person yet to arrive was my 19 year-old sister Flor.  She finally showed up around 3pm with her two small boys in tow, Bryan and Junior.  Finally the entire family was together and we sat around eating lunch and drinking beer and chatting and me showing them pictures of my family and friends back in the U.S.

In the early afternoon some of us took naps while others made trips back to the tienda to buy snacks and more beer.  At some point my Uncle Miguel and brother Juan Pablo brought out a bottle of whiskey (yuck!) and started taking shots and kept asking if I wanted a shot.  But I hate whiskey and I can't really drink beer anymore because of my gluten sensitivity but I didn't want to be rude so, yes, yours truly had a couple of beers and maybe a shot or too of whiskey (ewwwwwww!!!).  Anywho, so around 5pm it was time to celebrate the birthday girl.  So we brought out the cake and my siblings had gotten her presents (and I gave her a Fernando Botero painting) and had cake, some sparkling sweet wine type drink (yuck!), and sat around chatting. Oh Colombians and their love for sweet things, jajajaja!

My nieces and nephews

Well, after another trip down to the neighbor's and a trip up the street to visit Flor's mother-in-law, it was about time to get ready for bed. It was only 7:30pm.  Wow.  Well, my brother Juan Pablo was already passed out from drinking too much around 6:45 and my other uncle Juan and his son William had left an hour or so before.  So the women hauled some extra mattresses from the neighbor's house and set them up on the floor in the living room for Juan Pablo, the children, Rosa Delia and Janeth, and had the beds for me, Martha and Maryury, my Tia Maria,Soraya and Uncle Miguel had his own bedroom.  And yes, I was in bed at 7:30 for the first time since I was probably 6 years old. Jajajajaja!  And it was DAAAARRRKKKKK!  Going to the bathroom required me to try not to stumble over ten people and walk outside in the pitch black, no street-light campo to go down the patio to the bathroom.  And when it was raining, I was pretty much peeing in the rain because the roof of the bathroom (and the roof of the house in general is made of straw and bamboo).  Hilarious.  Reminded me so much of Peace Corps. Well, needless to say, I could not fall asleep until at least 9 or ten.  Mostly everyone fell asleep within the hour so I was all by myself in the pitch black room (except for Martha and Maryury's heaving breathing in the other bed) freaking out because there was no window open (I need air circulating at all times) and no easy escape to the bathroom or outside.  Also, the blankets on my bed were wool which itches me so I felt like I had a billion bugs crawling on me.  All in all, I think I did get like 5 bug bites during the night, so not too bad.  But the worse was pobre Wilson David and his horrendous cough waking everyone up a few times throughout the night.  I think I had just fallen asleep around 9 or 10 or so and probably like 20 minutes later he starts hacking away and throwing up in the living room.  And he did it again around 2am.  By 2 am I thought I had been in bed forever and was ready to get up! But nope.  Luckily I fell back asleep.  And then it was time to wake up at 6:30am!

Me, Rosa Delia, Tia Maria and my cousin Soraya

So awake I was at 6:30am (which is the time I normally wake up now anyways to go get ready for school but, really?  On a festivo?).  And up and about everyone was, showering, getting dressed, preparing breakfast and....drinking. Again.  Oh my, Tio Miguel came out of his room with a beer in one hand and a cup of guarapo (a local fermented drink of water and panela aka brown sugar) and Juan Pablo immediately went to the fridge to get a beer and a bottle of wine. Of course they offered me some, but I do NOT drink that early in the morning.  Hell, I can't even eat that early in the morning.  While they drank, my sister Janeth and Tia Maria got ready to leave because they had to head back to Bucaramanga and Bogota, respectively, pretty early. They left on the 8:30am bus back to San Gil so we said our goodbyes and that we'd keep in touch, etc.  I had a good simple breakfast of a fried egg, a nice potato soup and some bread served with hot chocolate and black coffee.  Jeni came around 9:30am from Mogotes and when she got there, Tio Miguel tried to "make-out" with her too, jajaja, and she was served a piece of birthday cake, a beer, and a cup of Hipinto, the regional soda that is much like Postobon (our favorite thing on earth!  NOT) for breakfast. But of course, one can't be rude...I have never been one to turn down anything anybody in a Latin American country has ever offered me.  So of course, Jeni ate and drank it all!  And yes, I joined her and my uncle and brother in having a beer at 10am.  Wow.  I guess in the campo it's beer thirty at all times.  Well, so we sat around for a bit talking. Jeni showed my remaining sisters, Martha and Flor, and Rosa Delia and my uncle and brother her pictures of her family and friends in the US.  And Flor straightened my hair at some point while we sat around talking about life and other stuff until it was time for Jeni and I to head back to Bogotá. So we quickly ate a delicious lunch of boiled chicken, rice, pasta, yuca, potato soup (four carbs!) and a salad made of cabbage and different fruits and waited for the 12:30pm bus to San Gil with the remaining family members standing there with us along the side of the road, saying our goodbyes and exchanging information and trying to figure out when I could come back for the next visit.

All in all, it was a great weekend and I really enjoyed being able to meet the rest of my mother's side of the family and my siblings.  Now what is left is to find some of my father's relatives as well as to make contact with the rest of the Soler family, the family in Mogotes that took me in for the two years before my adoptive parents came down to get me. I think they can also help me determine whether or not Rosa Delia is, in fact, my biological mother, since I still have not had the courage to ask about getting a DNA test done (nor do I know where in Bogotá I can have the test done and how much it will cost, etc).  So I'm thinking that if there is a puente in November, that will give me time to try and get some more information on the Soler family, perhaps locate the lawyer who helped my parents with the adoption, and even contact some of my father's relatives before I make another trip back to Mogotes.

It's all still really unbelievable to me.  Everyone who has been a part of this and the people here who I've told all of this to and/or who have read my blog think it's like a telenovela.  It really does feel like it.  I still pinch myself everyday to see if this is true.  And I guess I can't rest completely until I know 100% that this is biologically my family.  I think it is but I still have a lot of work ahead of me.  Wish me luck and stay posted for more updates!

P.S. I am moving this Saturday!  My new address for anyone who wants to know will be Carrera 73b #146f-50, Interior 12, Apt. 201, Bogotá, Colombia.