Manizales

Excerpts from White Tombs
He had learned about the meaning and importance of dreams as a young boy from Ofir, the maid, who worked for his parents in the house that sat on a steep hill in the Chipre neighborhood overlooking the city of Manizales, Colombia, 7,000 feet high in the Andes, in the shadow of the Nevado del Ruiz.

He remembered listening to the old black woman as he sat in the kitchen with the windows that faced the snow-covered volcano, the indoor air heavy with the smell of celery from the apio tea brewing on the stove.

The spire of the Cathedral de Manizales rose like a statue from the center of the city.