"Yes, I'm planning on going back within a year. It's getting worse and worse here, and the lifestyle, it's too crazy. Why do you think everyone drinks so much, or takes so much drugs? There's so much stress here, and people are making less and less. My mother is already back in Colombia. She's 75, you know. A few years ago, we pooled our money together and bought some land, but my brothers and sister are all married, and they don't want to go back, but I will."
"If they're married, their kids are too Americanized...'
"Yes, so they will not go back, but I will."
"And what will you do there?"
"Be a farmer. I know how to do that. I grew up doing that."
"That's amazing, man! I don't even know how to grow tomatoes."
"You can always learn! Here," and he gave me his phone number, "You can call me whenever, in two months, in two years, and I'll help you to buy land in Colombia."
That last bit is something one would say in a bar, a beer-fueled sort of exuberance or sentimentality, but still, I appreciate Nestor throwing me a life line, not that I have the cash or credit to buy real estate anywhere. In any case, the idea of leaping off this listing ship is gaining more traction all the time, with more Americans renouncing their citizenship than ever. For the rest of us, though, it would not be unwise to at least plot an escape route for when things get really nasty. For a while now, America has been the world's leading generator of refugees, so it's well practiced at terrifying or starving people into fleeing.
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