I have a trove of memories from the times I spent with Hilario Martinez in Colombia, the most vivid among them his reaction when I relayed news reports in 1975 that said some Americans were eating dog food. We were in a Chinese restaurant in Bogotá, and the image so contradicted Hilario’s preconceived notion of America as the Land o’ Plenty that he put his hands over his ears and shook his head “No!” while hunched over his plate slurping a single spaghetti noodle.
Hilario lived in the Barrio Simon Bolivar in the steaming Caribbean Coastal city of Barranquilla, Colombia, where I met him a year before and made him a partner in my nascent importing business — Steven C Imports. He and wife Teresa had six kids, ranging in age from 7 to 18. He drove a 28-year-old bus and earned about 200 pesos a day – $6 American – and spent as much time under the bus making repairs as he did in the seat driving, maybe more. Six bucks was nothing, even by mid-1970s economic standards. It was enough to buy two Colombian wall hangings, wholesale.
The Martinez home had concrete floors, lawn chairs for furniture, and three beds – the oldest son Marcos had his own, the three girls shared, and mom and dad slept with the two little boys on the other. All of the roads in the barrio were dirt, with ruts in places that resembled four-wheel trails in the Jackson County woods. The windows were shuttered, with no glass or screen.
For my purposes, Hilario was perfect. I needed someone to handle on-the-ground tasks that an importing business requires in the country of origin – purchasing the products, shepherding them through customs, and shipping them to the states.
Most importantly, I needed someone who was honest, as Colombia was notorious as a land of thieves. I traveled with the people, and they were always warning me of the dangers. Don’t drape your arm outside the bus, a stranger once admonished from across the aisle. They’ll cut off your fingers for your ring. A Venezuelan woman told me on a plane that the worst insult one South American could hurl at another was “Colombian!”
Hilario, I knew instinctively, was trustworthy. And I had no doubt he would prove a loyal, dependable colleague. Besides, the opportunity to uplift a poor, Third World family appealed to my naturally bleeding heart. Social conscience was as integral to my business plan as balancing revenues and expenditures, to a fault, actually. Plus, I adored Teresa and the kids, from oldest to youngest: Estella, Marcos, Luz, Patricia, Eduardo, and Ricardo. They called me Sr. Esteban. Hilario called me Sr. Heegssh.
Over the next two years, Hilario and I traveled together to the inland Coastal Region village of San Jacinto and the Andean cities of Bucaramanga and Bogotá, where we added leather bags and Amazon Indian basketry to our line of wall hanging imports.
But Barrio Simon Bolivar was my Colombian home, the source of my fondest remembrances.
Every morning began with Teresa cooking what I called huevos Colombianos, which were essentially scrambled eggs with onions and tomatoes. I don’t know what made them so delectable, but I can taste and smell them to this day. In the daylight, we’d take care of business or visit with neighbors and family in Barranquilla.
Evenings were my time to bask in Barranquilla. After dinners of rice, vegetables, and fresh chicken (from the back yard), I drank beer in the living room and honed my Spanish by trading stories with the family. Crowds would form outside the window and door, as neighbors clustered around to see and hear the long-haired gringo. Hilario regularly shooed them away, but within minutes children, quickly followed by adults, would reappear. It was an oft-repeated process.
I loved being the center of such attention and getting to know the barrio culture from the inside. The eldest Martinez children Estella and Marcos were exceptionally bright and curious. Luz and Patricia, ages 13 and 14, were full of the teen-girl spirit I came to relish many years later in my own daughters and granddaughter. Reinaldo and Ricardo were my first experience with little boys.
One excursion entailed an afternoon at a Rio Magdalena beach, made particularly memorable by the company of a comely young neighbor named Mayo, who was not shy about being photographed. Hilario said she often spoke disparagingly of Americans, but she liked me. I can’t say I was a big fan of the beach’s black sand, not to mention the rest room facilities. Newspaper, no toilet paper.
Barranquilla, Colombia, September 1974
After my experience with Victor and Colombian corruption in early August 1974, I had to borrow money and return a mere three weeks later to rebuild the operation. Hilario proved to be as reliable as I had hoped, and over the next 14 months we imported and sold more than 2,000 wall hangings, long distance, without my having to incur any travel expenses. Our retail customer base expanded to include fashionable boutiques, trendy import stores, and the large furniture outlet Kittle’s Furniture in Indianapoli. The bulk of our sales, however, came from a network of individuals, who bought wall hangings wholesale and sold them to friends and retail outlets.
About this time in the fall of 1974, I moved to a little, Depression-era shack on then Knight Ridge Road, six miles south of Bloomington, with a kitchen-window overlook of Lake Monroe and the Hoosier National Forest, with a relic outhouse about 30 feet outside my back door on the forest’s edge. The address, Route 3, Box 262A, would be home for for Steven C Imports. Letters, cards, and bales of wall hangings, wrapped in burlap bags, flowed between there and Barranquilla.
I returned to Colombia in October 1975, ready to expand our operations, with a new partner by my side, my girlfriend and soon-to-be wife Judy. She was an artist with impeccable taste and had moved in with me that summer. Our first destination was San Jacinto, where a network of artisans wove wall hangings specifically for us. At stores called Almacen El Tipico, No Hay Como Dios, Almacen el Popular and Casa de las Hamacas, we bought a variety of hand-crafted merchandise, including baskets, panchos, purses, sweaters, straw mats, carved gourds, and sandals.
Judy joined me on that and my final Colombian excursion in May 1976. We spent most of our time in Bucaramanga and Bogotá, where Hilario had family we could stay with for free.
It wasn’t until that last trip to Colombia that I truly understood the special nature of my time in the barrio afforded by mi familia Colombiana.
While waiting for a plane at the Barranquilla airport, I met some teachers from the local American school. When I told them where I stayed, their eyes bugged. They would never venture there on their own, they said. We traded contact information, and I promised to take them to the barrio upon my return. I was looking forward to it, but it never happened.
