At the time, Colombia was a dangerous country. You wouldn’t have known by looking at it. The people were friendly and the environment didn’t appear menacing. Maybe it was the hotel’s printed warnings to tourists NOT go up to the nearside mountain vista because of robbers. Maybe it was the outrageous number guards in front of the Canadian consulate. Maybe it was all the warnings that everyone gave us about not wearing any jewelry while walking outside of the hotel. Maybe it was because the Canadians at the consulate told us they rarely left the consulate grounds and sent locals to do all their shopping. Whatever the reason, we decided that we would have to take the warnings seriously and most of the tour (at least in Bogotá) was spent traveling by bus from hotel to theatre and back to the hotel. I however was determined to get out of the hotel for a little shopping. I had my heart set on buying my husband Jacques an emerald which was his birthstone. It took a couple of days, but I finally talked Marcus into taking the trip with me. I had located a gem store a couple of kilometers away from the hotel. Ignoring the other dancers and the company manager, Marcus and I hailed a cab and took off. We had a great time. The gemologist had a store that resembled a prison lock-down cell. Once inside, he showed us hundreds of gems and gave us lessons in types and qualities – basically anything you would want to know about emeralds. Marcus and I made our purchases, he called us a cab and we went back to the hotel. After seeing that we had returned, unharmed and bearing gifts – the other dancers wanted to go too. The next day, Marcus and I arranged a couple of cabs and took the others back to the gemologist.
Bogotá is high in elevation. The air is thinner and it became a problem for many of the dancers to breathe especially during the performances. The solution was an oxygen tank (complete with a medical professional) that sat on one side of the backstage area. Any dancer who felt lightheaded or couldn’t breathe during the show took a little oxygen and continued. By the end of the show, the entire cast was exhausted. Dancers were slumped over their dressing tables or lying on the floor, waiting for their breath to come back. With the exception of three – Delia, Lorraine and me– who were (at the time) the three heaviest smokers in the company. The director came backstage to view the damage to the group and when she entered our dressing room she found the three of us calmly sitting in our chairs and smoking. I pointed out the irony to her. Up until this point, she had been nagging the three of us to stop smoking. She herself was an ex-smoker. After that night – she pretty much left us alone (with the occasional nudge to try to quit).
We arrived in Medellin and despite its reputation of being the center of the Colombian drug cartels; it didn’t seem as dangerous as Bogotá. We had no fear of venturing out onto the streets. Now some people are pretty smart when they travel and some people are just plain stupid. The key to traveling (especially in third world countries) is to blend in. True it is a bit harder to blend in some places (like being one of the few white people in Cameroon) but the main thing is to not flaunt the wealth of your native country. My tour clothes for South America and Africa were very different from the clothes that I took to Europe. Brown and earth tones, long sleeves, long skirts, cotton and cheap fibers. I traveled with a band-aid over my wedding ring. You would think that this was common sense but the company management didn’t take anything for granted and were always reminding us of the precautions we needed to take. Most people listened. Three didn’t. Lorraine, Hodge and Cosmo. Lorraine, Hodge and Cosmo were tough. They didn’t like anyone telling them what to do. They were arrogant, they didn’t care what anyone thought about them and they made sure that you knew that they didn’t care. The three of them dressed in defiance. Black tight pants, large belts with silver studs, mesh shirts that showed their skin. On the very first day that we were in Medellin, Lorraine, Hodge and Cosmo got picked up by the cops. You know – you don’t have to do anything to get picked up by the cops in a lot of countries. The rules we live by don’t apply worldwide. They’ve got the power and you don’t. It’s really that simple. The three of them were taken to the jail and roughed up a bit (shoved around and threatened). It took the company manager several hours to track down the right palms to grease before they were released but by the end of the day – they were back at the hotel. A lot more subdued and less defiant – I might add.