My Healing Journey (Part 1): One night on the rooftop

Remembering rape

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Note: This post is part of a seven-part series on a multi-decade journey with sexual trauma and healing. It contains sensitive information including detailed, graphic description of an event of sexual assault and trauma.

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His name was Jef. He was probably around 6-feet tall, with sandy blonde hair and a medium build. He was not a beefy guy, but also not slim.

I can’t remember exactly where we met. Somewhere in Colombia.

I was in my early 20’s, on a solo backpacking trip around South America. He was hanging out with a group of guys at the time: one American, one Australian and one Uruguayan. It felt easy and natural for me to tag along with the gang. Safety in numbers. It was helpful to be traveling with a native Spanish speaker, and by sharing expenses with the group, I could stretch my budget further.

We were all headed in a southerly direction. For a few weeks, we shared bus rides, bargained for room prices as a group, and bought groceries to make food together in communal kitchens. We were a flash mob family of ragtag travelers.

One of the guys even got the group of us invited to an extravagant party at a luxurious ranch somewhere in the hills outside Cali, Colombia. I was along for the ride, and pretty naive at the time. Now looking back, I think it’s likely that I was going to a party at the home of some wealthy Colombian drug-lord. I remember passing through metal detectors at the door, and I had to leave my bag behind to be allowed to enter.

But that’s not where it happened. The night of the Colombian drug-lord party came and went without incident. I was salsa dancing all night long with beautiful Latin men. It was one of the best nights of my life. I loved it, and I know I would never have dared to venture out on such an extreme experience traveling on my own.

As we continued to move south towards Ecuador, members of our little backpacker group started to peel off one by one — either because they wanted to stay longer in a place, or because they wanted to head off in another direction. By the time we arrived in Baños, it was just me and Jef who were left traveling together.