Colombians Have Very Little to be Happy About: So Why Are They?

When I was a teenager, everyone in my house would wake up around six. I would love the days when I was able to wake up ten or fifteen minutes before that.

I would get out of bed, walk out of my room, hide in a dark corner by the kitchen, and then wait until anyone would walk towards the kitchen to get their first glass of water.

While they were still rubbing their eyes, I would jump out and scream to scare them.

I don’t know why I loved these pranks so much. But I would take every opportunity I saw to play them.

Once, I waited for my sister, who was in her early teens, to fall asleep in her room. All the lights in the house were off.

I laid on my chest, and I military crawled into her room, making as much noise as possible so she knew someone was crawling next to her bed; then I grabbed her leg and violently shook it.

She tells me she can’t ever fall asleep in a room with an open door.

I’m a good big brother.

I don’t know why I loved these pranks so much. Maybe it was a family thing.

When my sister fell ill with a mysterious disease, she was very weak and she couldn’t hold anything down. Eventually, the doctor came to realize she had contracted hepatitis. I don’t know which letter of the alphabet came after her HEP, but it wasn’t the sexual one but the viral one you get in gross bathrooms. Or so she tells my mom.

She started her medications and responded well to them.

My aunt called her and said it was a shame she was doing better because she had just bought a beautiful black dress and had been looking for an opportunity to try it on.

Maybe it was a family thing.

Or maybe it was baked into the culture.

Colombia is no stranger to tragedy, violence, and unimaginable hardship. But Colombians are also some of the happiest people in the world, often recognized by their attitudes by the World Happiness Report next to countries who have actual things to be happy about.

Maybe the answer to that contradiction is in their dark humor. And that humor is represented by a weird holiday, “El Dia de los Inocentes.”

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