As A Little Girl Growing Up In Colombia May 2026

If there is one rule for a little girl in Colombia, it is that affection is not optional—it is the currency of existence. From the moment she wakes up, she is immersed in a culture of physical touch.

Greeting everyone in the room with a kiss on the cheek is not just a formality; it is mandatory. A Colombian girl learns early that she must greet tías, tíos, and neighbors with a warm "buenos días" and a kiss. This fosters a sense of community and belonging. She is rarely alone. She grows up surrounded by extended family, where cousins are often treated like siblings, and godparents (padrinos) play an active, authoritative role in her life.

Let me walk you through one Sunday.

At 7:00 AM: The church bells ring, but half the town is already at the market. I hold my father’s calloused hand. We walk past pyramids of lulos, marañones, and curuba. A woman with gold front teeth yells, “Mamey, mamey, pa’l amor de Dios!” At 10:00 AM: My cousin steps on my white zapatos escolares during a game of escondidas (hide and seek) behind the church. I cry. She offers me a bocadillo (guava paste) wrapped in a dried leaf. I stop crying. At 2:00 PM: The whole family gathers for bandeja paisa—beans, rice, chicharrón, morcilla, plantain, avocado, and a fried egg looking up at the sky. The adults drink club Colombia beer. The children drink Colombiana soda. There is no such thing as “kid food.” At 7:00 PM: My great-uncle pulls out a worn tiple (small Andean guitar). My great-aunt yells, “Ay, no otra vez el mismo vals!” But she sings anyway. We all do.

As a little girl growing up in Colombia, I didn’t have a phone, an iPad, or even a color TV for most of those years. But I had that. And that was everything.

To have grown up as a little girl growing up in Colombia is to carry a dual citizenship for life: one for the country on the map, and one for the country inside your bones. It is to know that joy and sorrow are not opposites but dance partners. It is to understand that the most revolutionary act is to laugh with your whole body after crying with your whole soul.

So if you meet a Colombian woman today—if she offers you coffee even if you said no, if she talks about her mom like she’s a saint, if she tears up at the sound of a tiple—now you know why. She was that little girl once.

And in many ways, she still is.

¿Tienes tu propia historia de crecer en Colombia? Compártela en los comentarios.

Colombia is a country of hyper-diverse geography, and as a little girl growing up in Colombia, your playground depended on which of the five regions you called home.

As a little girl growing up in Colombia, you were hyper-aware of danger, but not in the way foreign news reported it. The danger was los vidrios rotos (broken glass on top of walls), the scorpion hiding in your shoe, or setting the arepa on fire because you looked away for one second. The violence of the 80s and 90s was a shadow in the adult conversations, a lowered voice at the dinner table, a reason you couldn't walk to the tienda alone after 6 PM. But for a child, day-to-day survival was about pragmatic bravery.

If you’d like a version focused on a specific region (Andes, Caribbean coast, Amazon, Pacific, or an urban city like Bogotá or Medellín) or a particular era/year, I can provide a tailored snapshot.

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Growing up as a girl in Colombia is a sensory-rich journey where the boundaries between home, family, and celebration are beautifully blurred. It is a childhood built on the pillars of respeto (respect), educación (education), and an unshakable cohesión familiar (family cohesion). The Rhythm of the Home

Life often centers around a matriarchal heartbeat. Mothers and grandmothers are the primary nurturers, filling homes with the scent of home-cooked meals and passing down the secrets of traditional dishes like sancocho or empanadas. For a girl, daily life often starts early—sometimes as early as 5:30 a.m. to beat the traffic of cities like Bogotá, where school buses arrive before the sun is fully up. as a little girl growing up in colombia

Cultural differences: what is a typical Colombian family like?

The air in the patio always smelled like a battle between damp earth and frying plantains.

Being a girl in Colombia meant living in the rhythm of the afternoon downpour. At 3:00 PM, the sky would bruise purple, and suddenly, the corrugated tin roofs would begin their frantic drumming. We didn’t run inside; we stood under the eaves, watching the street turn into a brown river, launching paper boats that would inevitably drown by the corner.

Mornings were for the tinto. The grownups drank it black and bitter, but I got the café con leche—mostly milk, served in a heavy ceramic mug that warmed my palms. There was always a piece of salty queso campesino tucked into the bottom, waiting to be fished out, soft and squeaky, with a spoon.

Sunday was the heartbeat of the week. It was the sound of vallenato drifting from a neighbor’s open window, the accordion squeezing out stories of heartbreak that I was too young to understand but felt in my bones anyway. It was my grandmother’s hands, dusted in white cornmeal, shaping arepas with a rhythmic pat-pat-pat that sounded like a heartbeat.

The world felt loud and bright—the neon orange of a mamoncillo skin, the screech of the busetas weaving through traffic, and the constant, fierce reminder that family was the only anchor. We were taught to be "bien educadas," to greet every auntie with a kiss on the cheek, but our knees were always scraped from chasing shadows through the coffee trees or the dusty plazas.

It was a childhood of contrasts: the jagged peaks of the Andes against the softness of a crumbled buñuelo, and the knowledge that even if the world outside was complicated, the kitchen was always safe, always warm, and always smelled like home. If there is one rule for a little

Should we focus more on the sensory details of the food and landscape, or

The Rhythm of Childhood: Growing Up as a Girl in Colombia

To understand what it is like to grow up as a girl in Colombia is to understand a childhood lived in vibrant color, set to an incessant rhythm, and framed by a landscape that shifts from Andean peaks to Caribbean shores. It is a childhood defined by contradictions: the quiet safety of the family home versus the chaotic joy of the street; the deep seriousness of tradition versus the unbridled hilarity of daily life.

Here is an informative look at the traditions, values, and daily rhythms that shape a Colombian girl's upbringing.

Language in Colombia is sweet. A little girl quickly learns that she is not just "pretty"; she is linda, hermosa, rica, or tesoro.

Adults speak to children with a high degree of endearment. It is common to hear a mother refer to her daughter as "mami" or "mamita," and the girl in turn calls her mother "mamá" or "mami." This verbal affection builds high self-esteem and a strong sense of being cherished. However, it also comes with expectations. She is often taught to be polite, deferential, and agreeable—traits deeply rooted in the cultural value of buena gente (being good, kind people).