Cake Is Not Cocaine (Santafe de Bogota, Colombia)

This story tends to be a favorite so let's start here....



When I was about 20 years old (roughly 17 years ago) a friend of mine and I were moving down to Colombia, South America. We planned to live in the city of Villavicencio working with the family here in this picture. (I am 3rd from the left in a chair).



So. My friend went down to Colombia for a few months in the summer and I was to go down in October to tie up loose ends for a while and then we were to move down the following January.

While she was in Colombia that August it was her birthday. I got together a really simple box of things...like a t-shirt, snacks and etc to mail down for her birthday.

Well, at that time most packages were still going overseas by ship and took about 3 weeks. (and, yes, it's true we did not have Internet yet, email, cell phones etc! This was "real missions" with letters the only form of communication and they took weeks to arrive too. You could be dead a long time before your family found out! :) ) Anyway. The package did not arrive in time and come September the missionary down there (Bill) contacted me and asked what he should do with the package. I told him to just hang onto it and I would bring it back with me in October. Sounded reasonable to me.

October came along and I traveled on down to Colombia. When it came time to leave I put the battered little shoebox package into my carry on luggage, thinking my friend could open it when I got home. Better late than never, I mused.

Now, the Bogota airport, at the time, searched you and everything on you the minute you walked through the sliding doors from the street. Bill dropped me off at the door, waved and left me there. My Spanish was still very rusty but passable in normal situations. I walked through the door thinking nothing and placed my bags on the table to be opened and searched. They patted me down while they dug about and then pulled out my little shoebox gift.

Mr Aduana Man jerked his head up suspiciously and says in rapid Spanish what is this?
I promptly explained it was a birthday package I had sent my friend that did not arrive in time and I was taking it home for her to open.

He continued to look at me suspiciously and I thought whoa. I guess does look a little weird. An unopened package that had been mailed to a Colombian address and now was being carted back to the USA? Oh Jesus, help. I'm in trouble.

I was now starting to get a little nervous but then he asked if he could open it. I said yes of course, knowing there was nothing shady actually going on. Instead of opening it, however, he pulled a jackknife out of his pocket, stabs it into the side of the box and pulls it out....accompanied by white powdered looking something.

This is one of those moments in life when time goes into slow motion. I go into stark fear realizing what this looks like and thinking oh sweet Jesus! Why did I put in white Little Debbie Cakes? I am never going to see the light of day again while the customs man is yelling at me about smuggling cocaine out of the country.

I burst into tears and start rapidly (or a reasonable facsimile with my limited Spanish) explaining that it was CAKE for my friend's BIRTHDAY. He did not believe me and calls another man over. Now they are both accusing me of smuggling cocaine. I am crying, realizing that I am a very young girl alone in a Colombian airport and about to go to jail for smuggling drugs. This is not good. No one would ever even know what happened to me.

Now I am crying, praying and continuing to argue about cake -vs- cocaine and begging the Aduana to just taste it and you'll see. No go. Now a female (thank GOD) customs official with a dog comes over. I start explaining the whole story to her saying you're a girl. You understand. Surely you give cake to your friends on their birthdays.

By the grace and mercy of God she agreed to taste the white powdered stuff (i.e. - the absolutely pulverized little Debbie Cake that'd traveled 3 weeks in the cargo hold of a ship!) and started laughing as, lo and behold, it was cake after all! She gave some to the guys who also started laughing. I did not find this funny at all but hey, laughter is better than Colombian prison!

So, they let me go. And I must say that even though I am afraid to fly, I had never been so glad to get on a airplane. And to this day I do not mail Little Debbie Cakes.....