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Senor Humberto loaded the luggage in his pickup and took me directly to the Continental Hotel, where we were to be staying, for the month we were in Cali.
Senor Humberto looked very familiar, I had a sense of having seen this man before. Shortly after I had the call from IESC, Verna and I were watching a TV documentary, on South America. Cali, Colombia, was one of the locations where the filming was done, and one of the scenes was an interview with a man who owned a large plantation. He was mounted on a white horse and riding thru an orange grove. I suddenly realized, that the man sitting beside me was the man I had seen on the white horse, when I watched the TV documentary. For 4 weeks I was to ride beside this man. I was to have my own horse, and we would be carrying maps and instruments, designing a new irrigation system for his orange groves and rice fields.
Our conversation on the ride into Cali was to answer many questions that both of us had been asking. Humberto had been reluctant to accept my assistance. He had an unhappy experience with some U.S Government personnel who had been working with USAID. He said they would seldom get out in the field, they would just ride around and talk. My concern had been that I would have to work with a laborer or some one who would not be able to understand what I was trying to do. I was insisting on working with the owner or a responsible person in the field.
Senor Huberto's first question to me was, "Can you ride a horse?" My answer was, "I could ride a horse as early as I could write my name." It was good that I could ride a horse, because it was the only way to get to the irrigated fields. The first three hours on the plantation was spent in the saddle. I hadn't ridden a horse for 10 years, and when I dismounted, I staggered like a drunken sailor.
One of the interesting aspects of the assignmet [sic], was that we were housed in the Continental Hotel with 7 other IESC volunteers. All were working on diffenent [sic] projects. Dairy, Leather goods, House construction, clothing mfg., Grocery marketing, and ball point pen mfg. Each of us had our own counterpart, and mine was THE MAN ON THE WHITE HORSE.
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Metzger Memories
