Lots of Words about Ingrid

For Spanish speakers (or, more precisely, readers) Gatopardo's profile of Ingrid Betancourt readjusting to society following her release from the Farc's custody is a great if uncomfortable read. A couple of things stand out: first, Betancourt has disappointed so many people from so many realms in the months since her reappearance. Part of that stems from the impossibility of her living up to the saintly picture of her that developed in the years with the Farc. But parts of the story suggest that her supporters long willfully overlooked unseemly episodes from her past.

They describe Betancourt as an idealist, a defender of the most advanced democratic values. Whereas in Colombia it is known that, for example, she had been a part of the so-called "conspirers", a group that in the middle of 1995 secretly met with Myles Frechette, the ambassador of the United States in Colombia, to ask him to approve a coup against [President Ernesto] Samper. "There exist two Ingrids. One is the character that she herself invented in her book, a species of heroin that confronts corruption and drug trafficking. The other is the real one, the one we know in Colombia, who wasn't anything more than a normal Congresswoman", [columnist María Jimena] Duzán tells me.

The other thing that jumped out at me was the frequency of the word "jungle" in the story. It's the second most important character, after Betancourt herself. It must appear a dozen times over the length of the piece.