Victoria, our tour guide in Santa Marta, Columbia, wanted us to know where she stood.  “I love Columbia, but I don’t love Columbus. We do not celebrate Columbus Day. Why would we celebrate THAT man who stole our land, killed many of us and enslaved the rest.  On October 12 we celebrate a day of ethnic and indigenous diversity.” She shrugs and adds “And yet the country is called Columbia.”  We’re not in Santo Domingo anymore.

I always take what tour guides say with a pinch of salt that I can throw over my shoulder, so I checked Victoria’s claim about Columbus Day.  In 1892 Columbia declared October 12 a national holiday honoring “Columbus, the Admiral of the Ocean Seas.”  But two decades later (1913) the holiday became “Dia de la Raza” Day of the Races, acknowledging all the races in Spanish speaking countries that combined to make Latin American Culture. 

In 2021 the holiday was rebranded “The Day of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity.”  The proclamation translates: “Acknowledging the resilience of indigenous and Afro-descended communities who have preserved their traditions despite historical challenges.” Cumbia represents both preservation and combining of cultures.

Cumbia, the national music of Columbia, is the reason we took this tour. I wanted to hear Cumbia live but we were in port only during the day and the music scene is at night.  This tour offered a special morning performance of cumbia, along with dance lessons.

I first became interested in Cumbia when Charles Mingus released his album “Cumbia Jazz Fusion.”  As a community radio DJ I played the album and found more traditional cumbia to play alongside it. I thought the word “cumbia” must have been a contraction of Columbia (Cumbia).  But there are two other theories.  Victoria said the name comes from an indigenous word Cumbi, meaning “murmuring noise” in the Tupi-Grarani language.  Some musicologists say it is from “cumbe” the Bantu infinitive “to dance,” the same root as the word “samba.” Wikipedia says there is controversy over the etymology of the word.

The dance and music reflect the merging of African, indigenous and Spanish cultures.  Cumbia may have been what the politicians had in mind when they repurposed the Columbus Day holiday.  The music was born on the Caribbean coast of South America but has spread throughout the Americas.  In the dance man and a woman dance but do not touch.  In the original interpretation the man was black, the woman indigenous.  He’s trying to make an amorous conquest. She’s flirting, flaring her skirt.  At the end he puts his hat on the woman’s head.  It symbolizes the merger of two cultures into a new one.   The music is hot and goes well with salsa.

The performance and dance lessons are in a courtyard on the edge of the old town.  Mostly the women in our group participated in the lessons, line dancing or dancing with each other.  The original meaning of the dance was kind of lost.

Before the music we walked from the docks to the café along the Malecon (seaside walk).

After the music we had a walking tour of the old town.  Victoria, our guide, is opinionated on Columbia’s history and politics.  At the beginning she asked if any of us had been to Columbia.  Suzi and I raised our hands.

“Where?”

“Here in Santa Marta and Bogota.”

“When?”

“1972.” My memory was off, it was, as Suzi reminds me, 1970.

Victoria gave me a look that said, “were you crazy?”  but her voice said, “You must have been brave.”  That was the era when the cartels were growing and politicians were given the choice “plata o plomo,” “silver or lead.”  (“Take the bribe or I will shoot you.”) 

According to Victoria corruption and incompetence are the reasons Columbia has made little economic progress.  In her litany of malfeasance Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellin Cartel was “Just the cherry on top.”

On our walking tour, she said Santa Marta’s old town was not very interesting.  The 16^th century buildings were not cared for and so crumbled, their wooden balconies destroyed by termites.  They were replaced by concrete buildings designed to look old, and in this climate, they do age quickly. (One exception is the 18^th century cathedral from the colonial period, made of limestone block.)

She blamed the lack of care on political corruption and instability that initially came in the name of political stability.  From 1849 to 1899 liberals and conservatives alternated government every two years.  While this maintained a form of political stability the first year in power, the new leaders undid everything the opposition had done, in the second year they did their own thing, which was undid in the third year.  One of the changes undone was giving women the right to vote.  Women held that right that for one year in the 19^th century and wasn’t restored until the middle of the 20^th.  The period of revolving-door government ended with a civil war followed by low intensity conflict, corruption, the FARC rebels and finally that “cherry on top” Pablo Escobar and the drug wars. 

Victoria was a schoolteacher but now is a tour guide.  I think she does financially better at guiding.  She is fluent in French and English as well as Spanish.  She learned the languages to immigrate to Canada and settle in Quebec but “I got pregnant and that was that.” She sees hope in Columbia with economic progress and had decided to stay. 

She told us Santa Marta’s economy has three legs, tourism, agriculture and coal, which is mined near Santa Marta.  She is making her career in tourism and to encourage her advancement she passed around a QR Code that linked to a survey about her performance as a tour guide.  She coached us on the answers. “Be sure to tell them I mentioned a sustainable economy, that is very important.”  A teacher preparing for the test.

In a future post I’ll write more about coal.