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Interview with Peter on Colombia Reports

Hi everyone,

It was a bit impossible to have a website about Colombia without doing a serious, in depth and merciless interview with PHB boss Peter. So here goes.

http://colombiareports.com/dealing-with-colombia/97-culture/1811-deali...

Belgian Peter van Dijck started a small and simple website about Colombia when he was there in 1998. Ten years later, Poorbuthappy.com and its forum has become a leading authority for ex-pats, travelers and Colombians with hundreds of thousands visitors per month.

The website initially was a testing ground for the programming skills of Van Dijck and a way for him to publish his stories about a country that was still hardly known to travelers and -- a lot more than now -- had the image of being the guerrilla and drugs anarchy so happily portrayed in movies where Pablo Escobar was king.

"Back then, there was almost nothing about Colombia on the internet, so people liked my site, however simple it was. I put articles on it about my experiences in Colombia, about teaching English, about the culture and so on," van Dijck says now.

However humble the Belgian may be, his website has become impossible to ignore when looking for information on Colombia and is widely considered the most important website about the country, mostly because of the continuous contribution of its members.

Van Dijck introduced the forum on the website after leaving Colombia in 2000, making sure the website wouldn't cease to exist after its sole writer moved back to Belgium. The forum drew a community years before creating a community became a marketing hottie.

"Over the years I've moved many times, lived in London, New York, Belgium, had jobs, wrote a book, got married, had a baby. So many times I would lose sight of the site. Poorbuthappy would still be there, people would visit it, the forums would still run. I've often neglected it or almost forgotten about it," he explains.

It was the Colombia-loving community that kept the website alive when Van Dijck was busy slacking.

"I love the community. They talk about the craziest things (where else can you ask about Indian food in Medellin and actually get an answer?), and the forums are incredibly active. People get to know each other there, get inside information, get to express their love of the country," he says.

Van Dijck, also because he has a day job, a wife and a baby to attend, only wants limited control over the content of the site.

"I can't read every post, and I can't tell people what to post. I do my best to steer it in a direction that I'm happy with, a bit like a bartender. I welcome people, and try to make them feel at home. I also have some rules about things that are not allowed (racism, for example). But people talk about what they want, it's their life, their space," he says.

Because of the "lack" of control, the website has evolved the way it has involved. "People join, stay for a while, then leave. The same topics come back again and again (visa questions, for example), but new topics also always surface. I think of it like a bar: people come and go. There are regulars, and there are occasional visitors. In the end, I hope the basic feeling continues to be one of sharing," he explains.

Bartender van Dijck has ideas for the future, despite a chronical lack of time. "I only do this in my spare time, so I can only make little changes now and then. But over time, I'd like it to be a place for travelers and locals. That means information for travelers like hostels, it means different languages, it means everyone having their space. So lots of ideas. I hope that by it's 20th birthday, it will still be going strong: good information, lots of discussions, expats and travelers and locals talking all together, and fast, easy to use. That's my goal."

In the meantime, Van Dijck reluctantly admits "maybe" his website has changed the foreign perception of Colombia. "I don't know, maybe a few people have gotten more information. I don't think a website can change how people think, only other people can. But in the sense that the site has brought people together, yes, perhaps."