Campervan Dispatches: Testing Bravery
Campervan Dispatches is a weekly blog about campervan travel, parenting on the road, and family dynamics when mom, dad, two daughters, and an old blind dog travel across South America for 10 months. The concept of the blog is to entertain and inspire readers to go out and get a campervan and fill it with a couple of daughters!
The wind is blowing hard so we put the kite back in the Rainbow.
Before kite time, there was “morning starters” writing exercises, followed by Elisa writing a book for papi, one of those 1-page books with pink dolphins. (If mommy is writing a book, then why can’t we all write books?) The next activity is the search for firewood. The windswept shores of Laguna Calima have just enough small pieces of wood for a windy campfire later tonight. The sisters put on their hats, grab a bag and look down the grassy shore. I wonder how far they would go before wanting to come back to the safety of the van and their parents.
“Go down the trail, cross that little stream, and when you get to the fence, turn right. You see that tree? Go to that tree and see if there is any wood below?”
Off they go, frighteningly excited to accomplish a mission. The tree is no more than 150 meters away.
The last time I tested their ability to fend for themselves was when I went to the bathroom in another campground, leaving them alone with Mino the dog. Ignacia found them curled up on a seat in the Rainbow, arms clasped, crying out of fear. Mino, in derelict of duty, was on the grass rolling around on his back. The firewood challenge will be better, I think, at least it puts them on the go.
I think I would rather test their bravery here on a quiet lake than down the street from our apartment. In Bogotá, my daughter never went searching for wood, let alone down the elevator to borrow sugar from the neighbors. There are just too many floors separating us from them. Since cities are less spacious, humans find it imperative to create variations of space among the rest of the city dwellers, from the use of delivery apps for everything you can imagine to the invisible walls of silence. Without a doubt, there are elements of mystery in living 15 families to a building, but we are less than motivated to knock on those doors.
Colombians are very protective of their children. There’s an agreed upon way of acting that when young children are around, they are too important and too precious to be left alone. I’m referring to those typical moms who over-watch their children on the playground and remind you to be careful at every misstep. These are the people whose blood pressure explodes when your child tries to climb the fence. And as Colombian children grow older they continue receiving extra layers of protection, sometimes physical, sometimes psychological.
It is a culture that cushions all interactions with an infinite number of demonstrations of love and respect, but is located in a country with millions of victims of violence and war. The juxtaposition proves that despite a pervasive bitterness, wrought with grief and grudge, Colombians obey an authentic vision of caring, and it’s everywhere, from their language to their rules. Perhaps it makes sense that those who have felt the pang of fear of death react and become overprotective. Love comes in many forms.
My daughters come back after only a few minutes. The stream was a bigger obstacle than planned, so I send them in a new direction.
“Keep your eyes to the ground, and just keep walking. You never know what you’re going to find.”
Originally published at https://nicoparco.com on June 25, 2019.
