It is 11 am on a Monday morning and Jose has just gotten home from his eight hour flight from Colombia. He drags his duffel bag out of the taxi, opens the metal gate blocking the driveway, and fiddles with his keys until he finds the right one. He is greeted on all sides by the fake wood paneling which starts on the ground floor and goes all the way up to the third. The stairs squelch with every step he takes. A chorus of squelching voices follow him up the tight winding stairs. He reaches the top and stares over the balustrade at the door opposite his; He shares an attic with another guy. His roommate cleans incessantly and keeps the bathroom spotless. Jose is used to having women clean for him, wash his clothes, and keep the house tidy – his roommate doesn’t talk to him. His one and only shoe rack holds mud crusted work boots and ugly leather shoes. Wrappers litter the floor and a big blue laundry bag – filled to the brim  – lays across the top of the mini fridge like a dead body. Black handprints dot the white wall around his bedroom door. He turns the knob to his bedroom door, puts down his bags and falls asleep. In a few hours he will be rustling back down the stairs and slamming the door shut again.  

He has worked his whole life, doing overtime lesser mortals would shirk at. But even though his work ethic borders on religious, he makes no time to date. The fifty-seven year old pool is a tepid, stagnant bathwater of old hags and old geezers trying to keep their bodies intact. Jose desires romance but not if it gets in the way of his overtime hours. He settles for sex, tries dating and finds it economically wasteful. He pays for these dates, dragging himself out of bed, sprucing himself up to take these chicks out – and they are in their fifties! If he can get randy with these old hens through gift giving and outings – then he wants fresh ripe ass. But he is working class and can’t afford the women he wants to woo. They are out of his league and price range. He misses being young, walking the town and landing unassuming beauties. 

The only other option is travel. Not to places where his dollars are equivalent to said country’s currency but to places where American money can triple or quadruple due to the exchange rate. Men fly across oceans to reclaim their youth, to date with dignity, reassert their manhood, and to fleetingly pretend they aren’t old. Every wrinkle is less pronounced, every physical shortcoming is looked past, even bad breath is tolerated – men become gods. Jose doesn’t have to settle for picky middle-aged divorcees; leather worn harpies who wail out commands and nag your fucking head off. He can now afford prime meat. Grateful subservient women with taut bodies and pleasant manners who almost never defy his desires.

 The devaluation of the Colombia Peso has turned every traveler into a much richer version of themselves. This self-delusion gives these men the confidence to think they can pick out the one they want. But there is beauty in underdeveloped countries which exist outside the female form. There are red orchids which grow in the shrubbery often claimed by dog urine, and rigid palm trees breaking through sidewalks which never should have been there..and so many riverbeds glistening with the smoothest pebbles your feet will ever touch. The light and the sun are an afterthought to those who only want pleasure. The economy and these horny exploiters have turned our country into an easy lay. Every buck turns into four (Pesos) and this exchange rate makes it easier for older men to nab young Colombian girlfriends. Like Jose, there are thousands of men who sustain entire households for the sake of their vacation wives. Women who live far away and don’t need to do any chores to get money from their “husbands”. These women use their youth and beauty to attract travelers, who expressly visit third world countries like Colombia for good sex. While native Colombians struggle to make ends meet, expatriates and foreigners (usually men) pour into city streets bedding any woman who dares look their way. The high rates of hardship in daily living are due to inflation, lower purchasing power, and currency depreciation; Colombia has always struggled with poverty but this notoriety has made the country a modern day brothel – an exchange rate paradise.

For many women who are heads of household, holding onto these travelers is a viable lifeline. Without them, they and their families would sink. In its worst form, it is full blown prostitution with travelers seeking to exploit very young girls; However, in more benign cases, it is not just one and done. For most women these emotional attachments – one-sided and superficial as they may be – have the added bonus of usually ending in marriage. It is easy to dismiss these relationships as dirty old men looking for loose women but they are more complex than that. These men are lonely and these women are desperate – it is a delicate dance of wants and fears. Some girls recognize that marrying will save them from poverty, while the most vapid prefer to stay and live as third world queens. 

Diego is forty-five years old and divorced. The house he used to live in with his wife sold for a bundle and he used his part to buy a ritzy condominium in Santiago de Cali. He took a long hiatus with the money he got from the settlement, and spent time visiting his childhood home. The news of Diego’s arrival from the U.S. began to filter through the neighborhood. His flashy clothes, brand name shoes, and new apartment near the soccer stadium was an irresistible aphrodisiac. He had his pick of fertile females and made sure to pick young and pretty. A twenty-six year old black haired beauty won his affection and moved into Diego’s condo soon after. She got pregnant and Diego spent a few months gallivanting around with his son before his money ran out and he had to come back to work. She would live in the condo by herself while he was away and would come back whenever he was on vacation. But she could not stand to be alone and without consulting Diego, she sold everything, including the car and used that money to travel to Spain – baby in hand. She was impatient and preferred to live with her Mother than to wait on a visa. Diego seems unfazed by the situation. He is very happy to be a father again after having raised his twenty-three year old. 

Gustavo:

“Why didn’t you just fill out a K-1 visa and marry her here?,” I asked.

Diego:

“It is just easier for me to provide for her from here.”

Gustavo:

“Isn’t it just easier to meet women here?”

Diego:

“It is, I have some women here now but I wanted someone there while I was there and now I have a son with her, so I am tied to her.”

Gustavo:

“What are you going to do with all these other girls when she gets here?”

Diego:

“ I am not really worried about that, I will figure it out when it comes.”

When Diego got back from Colombia, he had no permanent residence. He had been living on a friend’s sofa, going to work and coming back at the end of the day. But he was starting to get restless, wanting company since he left his brand-new wife in Colombia. Diego reconnected with old girlfriends who were more than willing to share their bed with him. He would juggle a few women at the same time but they didn’t seem to mind or know the round-robin sex game Diego was playing. He was staying at many houses and decided he was tired of worrying about clothes and laundry. He went on an intense room hunt and found Jeronimo.

Jeronimo hates to pay full price for anything, including rent. Jeronimo is thrifty: he cuts sponges in half so they “last longer”, he carpools so his passengers can make up the gas money, and he eats corn bread with milk for dinner. He is fifty-nine, alone, and not your typical bachelor. He barely sleeps around and rarely leaves his house. He goes to sleep before 9 pm and wakes up at 5 in the morning Monday through Saturday. Jeronimo lives to work and loves nothing more than to lay down on his King sized bed after a long shift and watch the Colombian soccer league matches. He was married once but it didn’t work out. Jeronimo was immature, he could handle a dalliance but not a marriage and all the responsibilities which came with one. 

He always thought that a woman should work and not depend on their husband for everything. He hated being the one that had to slave away so that someone else could enjoy his money – it just wasn’t right to him. A relationship had to have emotional equity right down to the finances. He did not want to settle for the classic gender roles which made him the sole breadwinner while some girl stayed at home and fanned herself with his money. Despite his aversion to gathering dependents, Jeronimo has been courting a forty-two year old single mom in Santiago de Cali. 

Jeronimo met Brenda while she was still working in the States, before their situations changed. Jeronimo was deported and lived in Colombia for ten years, Brenda was eventually deported and they met again near the end of his sentence. His son’s petition went through and Jeronimo left the throes of Cali for the prosperous embrace America afforded him. Brenda kept busy while he was gone and had a daughter with a man she met. This new guy took off like a gun the moment her period didn’t arrive; She was used to working for her money in America and now here she was in Santiago de Cali with no job prospects and a kid on the way – her life sucked. 

A silver lining appeared by way of Brenda’s mother: a retired school teacher with her own house and a monthly pension which kept Brenda afloat. Jeronimo would take annual trips back to Cali to visit his ailing parents and while there, he reconnected with the desperate Brenda. She was a single Mom in a terrible economy with terrible job prospects, and an infant. 

From the first trip, Jeromimo was hooked. He brought Brenda around his parent’s house and his mother told her flat out, “You’re with my son for papers, right?”. This did not perturb Brenda, and she continued dating Jeronimo. He would travel as often as his job would allow –four to five weeks out of the year. He would send her monthly remittances of $400 which was enough to pay rent, utilities, groceries, even luxuries such as pre-school. Jeronimo wanted to marry Brenda and bring her back to the States to live with him. He entrusted her with planning the wedding: getting the birth certificates authenticated, finding a notary to perform the ceremony, and acquiring civil records. Jeronimo planned a honeymoon vacation to the San Andres islands in celebration of their union but the ceremony never happened. 

Brenda made no headway in gathering documents because she was content as she was. Jeronimo still took the vacation and they still enjoyed the island but he was furious. He felt played and he decided to cut off the purse strings. She begged and pleaded for him to change his mind. Her final request was for him to buy her a motorcycle. He ignored her for a month or two and she kept messaging him through Whatsapp. He was resentful but the sex was good and he probably couldn’t do any better than her. Her persistence paid off and she worked her way back into his good graces, one tit pic at a time. She had to bend a little but she was willing to play to get what she wanted. 

Jeronimo wanted to get married. He was tired of being alone and he found someone who enjoyed being at home as much as he did. Faced with this ultimatum, she caved and the next time he flew to Colombia, they got hitched — wedding dress and all. This gesture was all he needed to be her ATM forever. 

Since then, he has sent money to fix her house and provide for things Brenda needs for herself and her growing daughter. 

Gustavo: 

“Do you find it easier to date here or back in Colombia?”

Jeronimo:

“It is kind of the same thing to me. Latinas expect you to pick up the slack and they just want to stay at home while men go out to work. I don’t see a difference from dating women here or there.”

Gustavo:

“There is a prevalence of Colombian women that only get married to U.S. citizens for papers and once they are settled go their own way. Do you think that’s the case with you?”

Jeronimo:

“I mean there is always that chance but I don’t think that is the case for us. She makes me feel very special.”

Gustavo:

“What about what happened the first time you tried to get married and she was willing to take the honeymoon but did not want to go through with the actual ceremony?”

Jeronimo:

“I think she was just nervous —

Gustavo:

“If you stopped sending her money, would she even care about you?”

Jeronimo:

“ I … she can’t hurt me. I’m old and there is nothing she can do that will hurt me.