Raising kids in Colombia

In a word "difficult", at best.  Frankly, no discipline exists in the schools, private and public, in Colombia.  Our daughter is ready to begin her 11th year (final year in Colombia) and it has been a real struggle.  We've lived in the same house but, she's attended three private and now one public "colegios".  Frankly, to my surprise, the public colegio seems to have more discipline and, oddly for a public colegio, has only 25 students per class.  Most public schools and colegios have upwards of 50 students per class... Impossible to maintain any control.  My wife drives her about 25 kilometers, each way, daily but, it's worth it.  It's a small colegio so, it's far less difficult to maintain control.  Nevertheless, classes are truly chaotic.

It's really surprising, the one private colegio, we thought would be really good for our daughter turned out to be the worst AND the most expensive.  If you're planning to move to Colombia, with children, I advise you to keep a very close eye on them and follow up with frequent visits.  Also, make a special effort to cultivate friendships and maintain contact with as many parents as possible.  Typically, the kids with the wealthiest parents are the ones involved in drugs.  There, I've said it... Drugs are a huge problem in Colombian schools, much more so than in most of North America.

I've commented on education in Colombia before so, I'll continue with raising children in general.  Preface this by saying, I love living in Colombia and am married to a lovely Colombiana.

We have a 16 year old daughter, which in itself is enough to create paranoia in any father.  We moved to La Ceja (near Rionegro, Antioquia), when she was in kindergarten (pre-escolar), primarily to get her into what was considered to be an excellent "colegio"... Maria Auxiliadora - all girls Catholic school.  Now, I'm not saying it's not a good colegio but, they have a very restrictive policy.  That is to say, the girls are very much discouraged from any sort of independent thinking and what the "profesora" says is always right.  Well, that lasted through the 3rd grade, when we moved her to a fairly new colegio, Acciscom.  That turned out to be a good move, until the owners lost their lease on the property and decided to buy their own property, which was way too expensive for them and some distance from town.  The result, over the next two years, they lost more than 60% of their students and couldn't attract new ones.  They went belly up.

So, we move our daughter to a somewhat prestigious colegio in Rionegro, called Anglo Espanol (sorry I have an English keyboard).  Well, it wasn't long before we discovered their were lots of kids from rich families, who weren't really all that interested in their kids daily lives.  Translation, "drugs" and lots of drug dealing on campus.

The dilemma for us was, now what?  As a general rule, the public colegios are incredibly over-populated, with 50 or more kids in a classroom.  The private colegios are already pretty much out of control, with kids spending more time paying attention to their cell phones that the profesora.  With 50 or more kids in a class, most of whom have absolutely no interest in studies and parents, who don't have the time or interest to participate in their kids lives, options are very limited.  Well, we searched and searched, until we found a small rural public colegio, with a good reputation.  We decided it couldn't be any more risky than keeping her in Anglo so, very near the end of the school year, we moved her to Colegio Domingo Savio, located about half way between Mall LLanogrande and Don Diego.  It's a long drive, twice daily, to drive her to school but, for our daughter, it's the best thing we ever did.  The colegio is uncharacteristically strict and the profesores are excellent and work with us almost daily to insure our daughter does as well as possible.  At last, with only one year remaining on her primary education, we're feeling a lot less pressure.

Now, so far as activities, the primary sport here is futbol.  For those in the USA, that's soccer.  That's mostly for the boys.  Although some girls participate in futbol, most are consumed with socializing and boys.  The problem down here is, parents, fathers in particular, don't really take the time to be with their children.  Although I've seen people fishing and boating (mostly rented row boats), I've never seen many parents taking much of an interest in their children's lives.  It's pretty much like up north, where you see parents enjoying life in the park with their kids but, it's just in commercials.

If you live near of Medellin, there are lots of places to visit and vacation.  Barbosa is a great place to get away for a long weekend on a finca, with a pool.  El Penol, has a huge lake, where you can swim, boat, fish, and play in water parks.  To the south, on the autopista (road to Bogota), you'll find Napoles, which is a huge estate, that belonged to the drug king Pablo Escobar.  His "hacienda" has been destroyed but, the place has been turned into a huge exotic animal park and has a great water park as well.  Going southwest, there's a small town called La Pintada, where it's always warm and you can lay by the pool and relax.  Between Medellin and La Pintada is Santa Barbara and many coffee plantations (and just small coffee farms) you can visit and see how coffee is grown and processed.  In the same general area is, northwest of La Pintada, are Venecia, Fredonia, Amaga and, several other small mountain towns and villages, you'll find quaint and interesting.  Everywhere, you'll find some of the friendliest people on the planet and there's always something for the kids to do and almost always involving water.  Note: Don't go into the water of the Rio Cauca.  It's horribly polluted.

There are also lots of places to visit up north, near Bucaramanga.  Barichara, where you can relax and respond to the alarm sounded to notify everyone, the ants are flying.  Everyone in town scampers to catch the flying insects, which are prepared in more ways than I can count, as a local delicacy.

Basically, just about everywhere you go, you'll find quaint colonial pueblos, where you're sure to find something interesting.  I've lived here for 12 years now, and have just scratched the surface of interesting places to visit.  It's a beautiful and friendly country to visit and you'll find something different at just about every curve in the mountainous roads.

So, bottom line is, raising your kids in Colombia is pretty much like anywhere else.  If you participate in their lives and make up your own activities, that keep you involved, you'll do great.  If you don't, don't be surprised at the results.  The upside is, if you're living here and get your support from up north, you probably have more time to spend with them.  Hopefully, that's one of the reasons you've decided to live in Colombia.

.....Thanks so much for this excellent post.