Farm life makes schooling less structured in rural Colombia than in the cities. A student’s failure to show up, or a decision to drop out early, would not cause school officials to investigate, as in the United States, Canada, or Europe. In contrast to Alcira, the accidental twins William and Wilber started school at age seven, because they walked with their teacher, Domidti, who lived relatively close by. But the family could not afford to keep William in school—until 2012 school in Colombia was free only for the first five years.12 This was a huge disappointment to William, who loved doing homework and did well at school. He was, of course, unaware that his true identical twin, Jorge, was a fairly serious student back in Bogotá and he would eventually attend college—living a life that they should have shared. Wilber, however, was not academically inclined and had to be nagged to complete his assignments. He was uninterested in going to school beyond the fifth grade, content to work on the family farm, then get a job on someone else’s farm, and eventually join the military.
Wilber’s attitude fit with Ana and Carmelo’s view that the lessons children learn at home are more important than what they learn at school. But William thought much differently and set his sights far beyond the few years of education that La Paz could offer. The family sometimes wondered about the source of his motivations and dreams—they certainly did not arise from any encouragement at home. Ana would have allowed him to go to school, but the family simply had no money for this purpose.
Book Learning
The La Paz school was a one-room structure attended by children who hiked several miles each way to get there. Class size was about thirty-seven and might mix children of the same or different ages. Students frequently had the same teacher for more than one grade. The school had no kitchen or cafeteria, so William and Wilber carried their lunch from home, wrapped in a plantain leaf. Few students continued past the fifth grade because of money issues, work responsibilities, and family values (like Ana and Carmelo, some parents believed that going to school was not as important as working hard). As expected, both brothers left school when they were eleven to work full time on their family’s farm. Many young boys eventually went to work on other properties to earn some money because working at home did not provide wages. Wilber worked on several nearby farms, but bouts of homesickness kept William close to home. Farm work did not come naturally to this sensitive, inquisitive boy who longed to go to school. Still, years of tending crops, lifting heavy equipment, and walking two hours each day to and from school added muscle and strength to his slight frame.
It was a hard life for both boys, but especially for William, who could not get the education he craved. This remains the greatest disappointment of his life, as it would be for anyone whose life circumstances prevent formal learning. But his regret is compounded many times over by the knowledge that a momentary oversight—an unfortunate mistake in the preemie nursery—cost him the education that would have been his. Nevertheless, William loved his La Paz family and accepted the fact that they could not afford to send him to school. His family did not have enough cash to even buy clothes—instead, they purchased cloth in town and paid a neighbor to make most of their clothing. Of course, they had to buy some things, such as overalls for heavy farm labor and high rubber boots for traversing the muddy hills. Costly shoes, dresses, and slacks were not necessities.
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William and Wilber’s brother Efrain is about four years older than Chelmo. Efrain is also a farmer and the father of two daughters, a one-year-old and an eleven-year-old; both live apart from him and have different mothers. Efrain is twenty years older than William and Wilber, so he was rarely at home after they were born, but he is close to them nonetheless. And Ana and Carmelo had two other older sons whose deaths left a lingering sadness in the family. Luis Angel died of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound when he was eighteen, and Israel died in the military when he was twenty-two. Some people in La Paz suspect Luis Angel’s death was a suicide, although analysis and reconstruction of events on that day make suicide unlikely. Israel stayed in the military largely because his mother had encouraged him to do so, which compounded her grief with guilt and regret. The heartbreaking loss of two sons, especially given the public nature of Luis’s accident, has made coping with their deaths extremely trying for Ana and Carmelo. William and Wilber are generally unaffected by these family tragedies because they never knew these brothers—the twins were only about four when Israel died and had not been born when Luis Angel passed away. But they visit their gravesites on occasion, wondering what these siblings might have been like. Surprisingly, neither twin mentioned how their siblings’ deaths affected how their parents treated them. Perhaps Ana’s special attention to William—sleeping with him until his early teenage years and allowing him to stay on the farm instead of taking a job with another farmer—was her way of making sure she wouldn’t lose another son. Most family members attributed the relationship of Ana and William to his sensitive and caring nature, but there may have been more to it.
Brothers at Odds
Throughout their lives William and Wilber have looked and acted nothing alike. Their extreme differences have elicited the surprise and confusion, as well as teasing and taunting, to which twins who are markedly different become accustomed. Their dislike of each other’s work attitudes, household habits, and relationships with girlfriends are at the center of their constant twin-on-twin combat. But despite their perpetual animosity, William and Wilber share a fierce family loyalty as brothers, a bond that was heightened, albeit briefly, during their dangerous stints in the military in 2008. They were in the same unit of ninety-two men and often at risk from guerilla attacks and the dangers of hidden landmines. As the soldier directing communications, William marched in position four, while Wilber stood fifteen or twenty places behind him. During these difficult times they stayed closely attuned to each other’s safety and well-being because of the mortal threats they faced. Wilber often caught up to his brother so they could march together. Once, on a nighttime march in the jungle south of Bolívar, Colombia, William heard Wilber whisper in his ear, “Be careful—may God watch over you.” William recalled: “You could see in Wilber’s face the love he had for me, but then he forgot about it.” Upon returning to civilian life they reverted instantly to their habitual bickering and badgering of one another.
Loyal feelings between accidental siblings, despite their clash of ideas and judgments, are not unusual. I also saw this in Gran Canaria, Spain, in 2010, in the case of the presumed fraternal twins Begoña and Beatriz. On an ordinary afternoon in December 2001 Begoña, a slim, dark-haired twenty-eight-year-old with a taste for fashion, entered the Las Arenas Shopping Mall in Las Palmas, the capital city of Gran Canaria. She wandered into Stradivarius, a popular clothing store chain for teenagers and young adults, and looked around for a while before purchasing a T-shirt. Suddenly, she was approached by a shop assistant who called her by the wrong name (Delia) and seemed puzzled when Begoña didn’t recognize her. That night the shop assistant phoned her friend, Delia’s mother, to complain that Delia had been rude to her and to find out why. But Delia hadn’t been to the mall that afternoon.
Several days passed. Begoña returned to the store to exchange the T-shirt for a larger size, only this time Beatriz, her presumed fraternal twin, was with her. The shop assistant spotted them in the fitting room and wanted to know why “Delia” hadn’t spoke to her the other day. Beatriz answered that her sister’s name was Begoña, not Delia, and that she, Beatriz, was Begoña’s twin sister. The assistant somewhat jokingly replied that Begoña had a real twin sister somewhere else. In fact, the resemblance of Begoña and Delia was so striking that the assistant arranged to have them meet later that day. She also observed that Beatriz looked a lot like one of Delia’s younger sisters. Beatriz didn’t know it at the time, but she and Delia had been switched at birth, so it made sense that Beatriz would resemble members of Delia’s family, to whom she was really related.
Th
e meeting took place in a coffee shop at the top of the Las Arenas Mall. Within minutes it was clear that Begoña and Delia were the real twins, because their similarities were so striking—hands, hair, nails, eating habits, and mannerisms. In fact, when Delia got her first glimpse of Begoña, she was shocked to see that they walked the same way, a gait that Delia describes as weird. The only major difference was that Delia had been diagnosed with leukemia when she was sixteen. Everyone grew increasingly uncomfortable as the truth became inescapable: Beatriz and Delia had been accidentally exchanged when all three were babies in the crowded preemie nursery of the Hospital Nuestra Señora el Pino (Our Lady of the Pine). Beatriz belonged to another family, which explained why she looked so different from her supposed twin, Begoña, and her other siblings. Delia also belonged to a different family, explaining why she looked like neither of her two sisters or anyone else in the family. Begoña was the only sister of the three who grew up where she belonged.
All three lives were about to change beyond recognition. Everyone knew it. Their personal and cultural identities were about to be shattered.13
One’s identity includes one’s goals, values, and beliefs in religious ideology, political leanings, family relationships, and friendship styles. The three young women experienced different, but drastic changes in how they viewed themselves and how others might see them. Suddenly, two were no longer twins and two had acquired a genetic duplicate. And two found themselves with a new set of parents and several new siblings. Cultural identity focuses on cultural values and practices and on how a person thinks about the group to which she or he belongs.14 The switched sisters had been raised in rather different environments—Beatriz in a lively city with lots of opportunities and Delia in the quiet countryside with few. Who each one was and where she belonged suddenly were called into question. Their parents also suffered, knowing they had raised someone else’s child.
Before everyone could fully accept what appeared to be true, DNA tests would have to confirm the genetic relatedness of Begoña and Delia, and the lack of relatedness of Begoña and Beatriz. Not surprisingly, Begoña and Delia proved to be genetically identical, whereas Beatriz was unrelated to both. All three finally understood why they had so little in common with their sibling’s interests and aspirations, and why their discussions rarely ended in agreement. But the two who had grown up as fraternal twin sisters were highly protective of one another.15 Begoña, the more extroverted and confident sister, protected and nurtured Beatriz, who suffered severely from learning that they were not really sisters—Beatriz also worried that their mother would reject her in favor of her real daughter, Delia. But Begoña made certain that their sisterly relationship did not change.
Studies show that the greater loyalty and allegiance we show toward close kin, relative to distant kin or nonkin, are most clearly revealed when something compromises their physical safety or threatens their life. People are more likely to assist close relatives in both ordinary situations (for example, when buying some items at a store) and life-or-death settings (such as saving a relative from a burning building), but the effect is especially strong when the life of a loved one is on the line. Researchers have offered different interpretations of this behavior that are not mutually exclusive. Developmental psychologists would attribute altruistic acts to immediate, everyday events and experiences, such as learned family kindness and devotion. Evolutionary researchers would additionally explain altruistic behavior with reference to such factors as promoting human functioning and survival. They would invoke the concept of inclusive fitness, the idea that because we share higher proportions of our genes with our parents, sisters, and brothers than with our nieces, nephews, and cousins, we are predisposed to benefit close family members whose survival gets our own genes into future generations. Of course, no one does genetic arithmetic in their heads when they act altruistically; they only behave as if they do. We tend to help people we have identified as close relatives, especially when we feel emotionally close to them. Helping close relatives, even at some cost to ourselves, brings us pleasure and happiness, feelings that most likely increase the probability of selfless acts.16
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Two flights above Carnes Finas de Colombia (Fine Meats of Colombia), the butcher shop in Bogotá where William worked until recently and where Wilber still works, is the small apartment that they still share. The hometown friend who hired them owns the butcher shop and the building. Leaving La Paz, where employment opportunities were few, opened up new opportunities for the brothers who were then in their early twenties. Leadership is a hallmark of William’s character, but he is mostly a clever, resourceful, and persistent mastermind. Moving to Bogotá also allowed William to enter a program for obtaining a high school equivalency diploma, the only one of his La Paz siblings to do so. He did this while working full time at the butcher shop, finishing the study program in November 2010, just before his twenty-second birthday.
Neither brother could know that accepting their friend’s job offer began a strange series of events that would lead to the most life-changing event of their young lives. One can also ask: What if the brothers had turned down the offer? They would never have known the consequences of that choice because everyone’s lives would have continued as before.
The brothers call their workplace a shop, but it is really a counter at the rear of La Gran Manzana (The Big Apple), a medium-size supermarket in the middle of a residential street packed with small businesses. To find it, you have to know the butcher shop is there because the big red apple over the bright green awning at the entrance overshadows the smaller picture of a cow that tells passersby that fresh meat is sold inside. The area behind the counter looks like a torture chamber with its collection of strange-looking metal machines for cutting up meat and bones. Sharp knives and electric blades are everywhere, intimidating to onlookers but handled expertly by the brothers clad in white aprons and surgical gloves. Dark blood stains are visible across the white-tiled walls and the floor.
The two would be unlikely business partners if they were not related, but working together and living together works for them. Like many people, they find it more comfortable to share their trade and home with a familiar, trusted sibling than a stranger or even a friend who is less well tested. This is true even when siblings’ work practices and lifestyles clash, and this is especially the case for William and Wilber. William’s relative lack of organization at home infuriates Wilber, who complains that William is always taking his things. Their cousin Brian, who worked in the shop part time while going to school, rolls his eyes when he describes the brother-brother conflicts that unfold on a continuous basis. Brian “often wondered how he could stand them—they fought every day for seven months.” What William and Wilber see as their usual relationship seems fiercely contentious and quite unpleasant to many people around them. They argue about everything, but that is because there is a side of William that only Wilber sees.
William’s childhood warmth and sensitivities became William’s civic-mindedness as an adult. When he learned that the office of the governor of Santander was donating its old computers to schools, William stepped in and took them to schoolhouses throughout La Paz. In October 2015 he stood for election to the La Paz city council, but lost by six votes. Reflecting on this loss, he believes he was too laid-back during his campaign, confident that the support he received would be enough but it wasn’t. Still, William will run for mayor one day to serve the people of his town. “What makes a politician is the will to work and the desire to help the people where you feel a sense of belonging,” he told me. Until early 2016 he was working twelve-hour days, seven days a week, as manager of the Bogotá butcher shop in order to support his mother and the rest of his family. He was also saving money to buy an apartment—and then his unfulfilled dream of getting an education became a realistic goal.
He was convinced that a law degree would better position him as a candidate and public servant in the future. Finding the right law school w
asn’t easy, but with a high school equivalency certificate and some assistance he checked out various law schools and enrolled at Bogotá’s Uniciencia in fall 2016. He was able to afford the tuition because he received financial assistance from La Paz’s current mayor. None of this would have happened if William had not met his identical twin brother, Jorge, who inspired and supported him like no one else—and as a college student gave William a glimpse of the professional man he could become. William loves his legal studies and might not have found the right school if he and Carlos, Wilber’s biological twin, had not formed their own relationship; in fact, Carlos accompanied William as he visited law schools. William’s devotion and friendliness to the people of La Paz will never change, as demonstrated by his assisting the mayor in a project for building roads allowing easier access to the remote regions of his former home. He spoke excitedly about the tree-cutting and laying of pavement that have already taken place.
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As the manager of the butcher shop, William made more money than Wilber, so William paid for Wilber’s food and rent—Wilber was his employee and moonlighted at other butcher shops around town. Now, since his brother’s enrollment in law school, Wilber is the new manager and has also become William’s benefactor. Still, the brothers continue to clash over how to run the shop. William believes that serving customers and developing good relationships with them come first, but Wilber insists that maintaining equipment and cleaning up are higher priorities. Of course, these responsibilities are related, but each brother has different preferences. Now that Wilber is in charge, he runs things his way, but William voices lots of opposing opinions.
In fact, their people skills at work and at play are diametrically opposed. William is customer oriented, Wilber is task oriented; William is messy, Wilber is neat. William dates a few women seriously, reflecting his characteristically kind and caring nature. He is sensitive to the feelings and needs of others, and while he enjoys attention from young women, he does not exploit that attention to personal advantage. Wilber dates more women less seriously, and he is passionate about all things female. He is more playful and flirty and, like his true identical brother, Carlos, is not above telling little white lies to hide his tracks if he doesn’t want to see a woman on a particular night. Had William and Wilber not ended up as accidental brothers, it is unlikely that they would ever have become friends. Yet, even as he complains, Wilber insists that he and William get along fine.
Accidental Brothers Page 4