Hanging On by: Heather Poppen, Oil, 2018
Colombia. The coffee bean giant. The place my mother calls home. The summer destination I dreaded going to every year.
People say Colombia is a beautiful place. What they don’t tell you is that the bugs are twenty sizes too big and that the summer heat will leave you melting on the sidewalk. My little suburban heart couldn’t handle the giant roaches that constantly crawled through the windowsill. My limited grasp of the Spanish language also prevented me from venturing farther than my mother’s family home. I often battled with boredom.
In the summer before seventh grade, I assumed that my trip to Colombia would be the same as every year. I planned on camping out on the balcony and catching up on summer reading. One evening, my mother decided to take the entire family to my uncle’s coffee farm in the mountains. In all my visits to my mother’s homeland, I had never heard of or been to this place. My aunts and uncles sat around the table that night reminiscing about childhood memories on the farm. To me, it was an enigma that my family couldn’t stop talking about.
When the fateful day arrived, it began like any other, with a scorching heat and a longing to stay indoors. Before I could escape, a red old pick-up truck came rattling up the driveway. I remember turning to my mother in confusion.
“Where are the other cars?”
“What other cars?”
“This only has two seats. How are we all going to fit in there?”
“We sit in the back. Don’t worry, it’ll be fun.”
On that day I discovered how many people could truly fit in the back of a pick-up truck. Too many, in my opinion. I ended up sitting by the cooler in the corner trying to make myself as small as possible. When the truck lurched forward, throwing everyone off balance, I realized it would be a very long trip.
It had taken almost an hour to pass the village’s outer limits. Through the wooden planks that held us all in, I watched as we went further into the country. Street lights gave way to dirt paths. The lines of houses turned into lines of vegetation. Eventually, we made it to the more mountainous regions. Up, up, up we went. Through my little window of vision, I saw the nauseating heights and the absence of railings. One wrong shift of the truck and we could catapult into the green abyss.
Then, when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, drops of water fell on top of my head. The truck could go no further with the rain. Too slippery, my uncle warned. He then told us we’d have to walk the rest of way.
My mother, having always taken pride in being inventive, ripped the large leaves from a nearby plant. She held them out to the family and told us to use them as cover. I looked at her in disbelief when she told us this, but I used them just the same. With our bags and the clothes on our back we trekked up the mountain. The memory of wading through thick mud still stands clearly in my mind. If you sank too deep, you’d have to pull your feet out with your hands. My shoes were completely ruined.
The rain stopped by the time we made it there. The farmhouse stood in the midst of coffee and cacao plants. Its paint was peeling and it looked rundown. My mother and the rest of the family dispersed upon arriving. I stayed inside with one of my aunts and my sisters. I had never been much of an outdoors person. Or a leave-the-house person.
My aunt, however, was not satisfied with staying inside for long. She gathered us all together and told me and my sisters that she would be taking us to the orange groves. With that, we marched along the back of the farmhouse to see the orange trees. The walk was easier than the trek there, but it did have its surprises. No one told me that my uncle kept exotic animals on his farm. How did I figure this out? When I came face to face with a giant ostrich. Or emu. I couldn’t really tell the difference.
I remember its neck craned towards us and it stared at us with its black, beady eyes. I turned to my aunt.
“It won’t do anything, right?”
“No. Maybe.”
“What!”
“Just kidding! Let’s go.”
As we left the bird behind my gaze never faltered. I wasn’t even five feet yet, so I wasn’t taking any chances.
The orange groves were also a surprise. There were so many trees. They stretched across a steep hill and seemed to go on forever. After gaping at them for a while, my aunt told us to get her some oranges. I had no idea why she wanted them but I had decided to do it anyways. The problem was that I had no idea how. At first, I grabbed a branch and tried to reach the low hanging oranges. When that didn’t work I threw rocks at the trees. One of my sisters finally suggested that we climb up.
I thought of climbing them but they had moss and ants, a big no-no in my book. My sisters urged me on until I relented. It was three against one and they always made me do things first before doing it themselves. It was a difficult climb. I wrapped my arms around the trunk and tried to get on. I fell on almost all my attempts. When I did reach the top, I grabbed an orange triumphantly. My sisters cheered below. That is when I had a brilliant and mischievous idea. At least, it was brilliant in my twelve-year-old self’s mind. I gathered a bunch of oranges and tossed them at my unsuspecting sisters.
This was no small slight. Like any other children, they had to get revenge. My sisters ran around the bottom of the hill and grabbed and threw as many oranges as they could. Within a few minutes, it was an all-out orange throwing war. Oranges flew through the air and I watched as they bounced off my victims. My poor aunt was often a casualty but she just laughed it off. By the end, we were speckled with orange remnants. As I slid off the tree, my shirt was also covered with moss.
“Did you have fun?” my aunt asked with an almost knowing look on her face.
I looked at her as I stuffed oranges in my hat to take with me. Never in my time in Colombia did I think I would have an answer for that question. The most boring summer destination indeed.