Ingrid's effect on me

Now that the big news has settled down some, I can allow myself to express how delighted and emotional I got with the news of Ingrid Betancourt rescue. Not only because anyone that is freed from such an awful ordeal is cause for celebration, but, if possible, my elation was increased through her first press conference. Although I have tried to keep my head cold through the recent scandals of Chavez trying to play with the lives of hostages for his benefit, although I tried to put Ingrid on the same level as other hostages, although I thought that she was dumb enough to be caught to begin with, if you type "ingrid" as a key search for this blog you will find many long articles that put together betray my interest and sympathy for her cause and why so many of the things done by Chavez and the French seemed to me reckless.

If I can allow myself to self-quote, one day I could not resist to write the following line, intuiting that Ingrid knew what was going on:

I wonder if Ingrid is ever released alive if she will thank her mother for the delays she caused to her freedom as being such a convenient puppet of Chavez and theFARC...

Today Ingrid had her mother call Uribe to thank him for her freedom, showing her class, her understanding of the situation: she is nobody's fool.

Of course I also loved that Chavez got hit really hard today, and that he got hurt because of his own doing as he sought himself his trouble. But that is not what made me really happy today. Ingrid did speak in French, briefly, a few times. She managed to carry what it is to own the love for two countries in one's heart. Sometimes I have sensed that because I am also French some folks do question my love and loyalty for Venezuela (or France for that matter). There is such a thing as true love for the country, the one that brings us to heroics in the jungle to survive the unfairest of ordeals, or the one that drives some to more mundane matters such as writing a blog for 5 years to oppose people who we think are deliberately hurting our beloved country. People like Uribe, Ingrid, the male military nurse for the Goajira who saved Ingrid's life and was also rescued today or yours truly, we do love our country no matter from where we come and what other loves we might have.

And tonight after hearing Ingrid's fabulous words for someone coming out of what she endured, we saw real love for country, not the cheap variety that a certain revolution would have us embrace, a suspicious love that needs so many props to constantly try to prove itself. We are allowed to question whether people like the FARC and Chavez have any love left for their countries, assuming they ever had some which I am tempted to question.

-The end-