In the lands of the coffee, from the book, Searching for treasures
Highway Puebla – Cuatla, Puebla, Mexico
“Do you know what a bambuco is, neighbor? You who come from distant lands where people have other manners in their speech…”
“No, Jon Jairo. I’ve never heard that word before. Is it, perhaps, some kind of food?”
“You are a bottomless pit, some kind of a bad-breed pig that eats you out of house and home, yet never fattens, as my dear mother loved to say!” Jon Jairo remarked, laughing merrily.
A bambuco is a popular dance. You can see how people dance the bambuco in the small towns and villages. The women dress flowing, colorful skirts, while the roosters dance around them, seeking some way in if you catch my meaning!”
Looking at Jean Marie’s expression, the man realized that his message hadn’t come through to him.
“Look here, friend. Those are the verses to a bambuco song by the name of The roads of Caldas. The author’s name is Luis Carlos González. He was a renowned poet from Pereira City, close to here, precisely where you got on the bus to get to Marsella. He wrote the verses to the song at the beginning of the past century. The point is that you were asking about the Antioquian colonization. Well then, look here. That man in a few words has elegantly expressed more than I could say to you in the whole afternoon!”
“Getting back to the point at hand, where we digressed almost losing the topic. Today, Villamaría es barely one more of the neighborhoods of Manizales City. This city is the beautiful capital of the Caldas Department we were just discussing. Back then, it was like all things, so different than today. To begin with, there were no cities at the time, you see, just small towns, villages, and settlements.”