Talking About Colombia

I am not the target reader for Expat Chronicles, and if you are reading this on my blog you are also likely not a target reader for Expat Chronicles.

In Expat Chronicles, Colin blogs about back-alleys, drug-use, and prostitutes in Bogotá. He has no inhibitions to tell you about his coke-snorting and whore-mongering.

That is Colin’s right. He has not broken any Colombian or international laws by writing about his nightlife. There is a reason Freedom of Speech is the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and is considered one of the pillars of any democracy.

On two occasions, however, Colin has been interrogated by the DAS, Colombia’s equivalent of the FBI.

If you read Expat Chronicles closely, there is no indication the writer has any close links to cartels or money laundering or the management of brothels (and if he did, he surely would not be blogging in the open manner he does). Instead, the tone and the character in the pieces show a young man “finding himself” in a foreign country. His narrative voice is even quite strong at times.

Since Colin’s visits to the DAS, Expat Chronicles is about reggaeton, traffic jams, and the Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero, and the voice in the latest posts is of a shattered writer like someone has blown out the candle in his narrative. Writing is hard enough without letting someone take your light.