Colombia, Roots trip

Lieve lezers,

Voordat ik naar Colombia afreisde heb ik veel geweldige mensen ontmoet in Venezuela en Ecuador. Mijn rootsreis kwam door verschillende redenen vaak ter sprake en ze waren toen erg geïnteresseerd in het verhaal. Ze waren erg benieuwd hoe het zou gaan voor mij en mijn broer. Ze vonden het erg bijzonder en wilden graag naderhand weten hoe het gegaan is met mijn familie. Omdat de meeste mensen geen Nederlander zijn ga ik mijn verhaal nu in het Engels verder doen, zodat iedereen kan meelezen hoe onze reis is geweest in een kort verhaaltje.


Dear Readers,

July 2013! Time to go to Colombia, a wish for quite a while.
Twenty-one years ago my brother and I were adopted from Colombia. We always have known that we have been adopted. So when we got older, we wanted to visit Colombia more and more. But at that time Colombia was not save enough. So whe had to wait. Years later I really wanted to go to Colombia and also wanted to find my biological familie. So my brother and I started a search together with our adoption organisation. They looked for us in Colombia for family. And then about 8 months later, they called us that they found our family. Our biological father, sister and three brothers. So now, one year later my brother and I traveled back to Colombia to meet our family. More family than we thought we would have!!

The day we arrived we arranged to meet the family somewhere. Almost one hour later then agreed, we saw them arriving. Wow, really strange in one way, in the other way really, really cool. There you are, suddenly standing face to face with your brother, sister, father, aunt and cousin. Luckily Facebook exists for us and it's the medium we used to speak with our family before our trip. So they weren’t complety strangers for us. After the first greeting we went into two taxi’s to go to the home of our brother. We had lunch there and also the presents were given. Very nice. We also looked at old pictures of our parents, especially from our mother. I can tell you that is very special to see pictures of your deceased mother. It became more and more special because everybody was impressed how much I looked the same as my mother. Juan looks a lot like one of our brothers, also really cool!
Our father is living underneath the house of my brother, this is also the place were we lived for a while when we were very young. You can imagine how special it was to hear those stories.
During the last few months I learned some Spanish and now I was able to use that! Sometimes the Spanish went oke, sometimes there was still a lanquage barrier. During that week we visited several parts of Medellin, by metro, by cable car, by bus and by taxi. Very very cool to see the place were you were born. Also we visited two other nice towns. And also we visited the place where our father works. He works as a clown during a kind of bull-fights. That is about as crazy as you can get, but still it was nice and funny to see him do his work.
Also we went to an aquarium and went to a science museum were kids can try stuff. That was very nice for the little cousins. Juan and I are suddenly also aunt and uncle. And this is how we are called now! A bit akward in the beginning. We did spend quite a bit of time in our brothers house. Our aunt, the sister of our mother lives with her children in the house next door. So normally we saw everybody everyday for a while, and that was very nice.
We also spend a lot of time to look for similarities. We looked at the fingers, the nose, the smile, everything! So I and my brother compared as much as possible with our brothers, father, sister, mother(from picters) and aunt.
Really really funny was my little niece, the daughter of my sister. She looks a lot like me at that age. In appearance but also in her behaviour. It was super to see the similarities!
Later that week we met an other brother with his two sons! Another special happening. He is the youngest in Colombia. We didn’t see him much because he had to work a lot. Unfortunately one of our brothers we didn’t see at all. He lives 400 km away and couldn’t come to Medellin due to the distance and due to his work.

This week we spend a lot of time with our family and did a lot of things together. We are very, very happy that we have met them and nothing will break the bond we have now!!
And we have now found out that we do not have our craziness of a stranger,haha! Our whole family is slightly eccentric.Which only makes it more easier for us to visit them and do things together.
We are very glad that we decided to take this step. So we could get to know our family and the place where we are born.
Now we will start saving money for the next trip!


Thank you for sympathizing with us, that made ​​us feel good!
I know everyone is very much interested in our story. It's quite a personal story, that’s the reason I wrote it this way. But I hope it gives you enough information about our roots trip.

Best Regards,

Luz / Lenny

And my Brother!!