I Feel Safer Living in Colombia Than in America

A Rant

Photo by Jacob Stone on Unsplash

Whenever I tell my friends or family back home that I feel safe living in Colombia, their eyes go so wide they might pop out of their skulls. They don’t, of course, but instead, they laugh and think it’s a joke.

Except I am not laughing; they continue to tell me about how they saw Escobar on Netflix or maybe the new Griselda.

I say, yea, yea, yea, and at the time those two were in power, Colombia was a very dangerous country.

First, I am not saying Colombia is not dangerous; there are still very dangerous areas. I, and almost every Colombian I know, will avoid those areas.

Well, except that is a lie.

Everyone says never to take a bus to cross the Ecuadorian/Colombian border, especially a night bus. Well, I have taken that exact night bus three or four times.

Guess what? Nothing happened.

I felt more endangered when I took the Greyhound from Erie, Pa., to Charlotte, NC, at night.

Photo by Danil Ilyasov on Unsplash

When I told my brother I could take the greyhound, he looked at me like I had lost my mind. I said, I have…