Street Flattery

I have reached the point where if I go out and no one catcalls me, my day doesn't feel complete. I assume something must be wrong with the men, because of course, there can't possibly be anything wrong with me. That's the kind of arrogance I've developed in Colombia. I tell myself the poor guys I happend to walk by that day don't know how to appreciate true beauty. Yes, I pretend to be all offended and put-off because catcalls are degrading and I'm a modern feminist-type woman and all that; I give them dirty looks and roll my eyes and sigh to myself. But I can't lie; being told your are beautiful many times a day gives you a slightly dilusional (if temporary) sense of confidence and self-esteem. But then I remind myself that the only real requirement for getting catcalled is being a girl. And under 50.

Anway, aside from the Barbie Botero guy, there are a couple others who stand out in my mind.  For example, the would-be Vallenato singer who proudly sang to me that he liked his women bonitas y gorditas. For the non-Spanish speakers out there, Carlos Vives was telling me that he liked his women pretty and fat. That guy has a special place in my heart. Also, the guy who walked by me the other day, licked his lips and said to me -- with very serious bedroom eyes -- "Que exceso tan rico." I have come to terms with the fact that most catcalls I get inevitably include mention of my "Botero-like" proportions.

Then there are the poets, the ones who put their hats on their chest and recite a few lines of colonial-era poetry in your honor as you walk by. I find those to be the most endearing, as it is nice to inspire poetry, even if the same two lines are read to every other woman.  Perhaps the most common catcall is "Mamita, estas muy buena." Not particularly inspired or original, but what woman doesn't like to be told that she is a mamita and she is muy buena? But maybe my favorite is the simple, hola, complete with raised eyebrow and seductive smirk. Because those guys -- the hola guys -- are so confident that they barely need words in their game of seduction.

Height

I remembered today that back in the day, I thought that my American Uncle was incredibly tall.  I guess he was (is), in comparison with the rest of the family. Also, at the time, I was surrounded by three foot preschoolers, making him seem all the taller. But it turns out he´s only 5'7. It took me a while to figure out that height does not qualify one as a giant.

Clothes

Colombian people (in general) dress very nicely.  No going to the super market in sweatpants and flipflops anymore.

San Gil and Barichara

Spent a few days in San Gil with my blonde-haired sister, who might as well be Miss. America in small town Colombia. Or in all of Colombia. Blondes are a rare and highly pursued commodity here. Brunettes not so much.


Anyway, our hotel cost $15 a night and we had a private bathroom, balcony access and cable TV. For that price, you don’t mind sacrificing air conditioning and a hot shower. The hotel was run by a nice young woman who wore those light wash jeans with no pockets in the back, a white spaghetti top and a miraculous wonder bra. My style icon. If only I lived in a hot weather place. Alas, Bogota confines me to sweaters and scarves.

San Gil itself is not a particularly picturesque town and considering it's the ecotourism capital of Colombia, we did not expect that the air would smell like diesel. But my sister and I came to the consensus that if there is one smell that characterizes Latin America, it's diesel. (Mixed with fried food, perfume and cigarettes.) You can’t get away from it. Back in the U.S., I'd occasionally pick up the scent. I'd be walking along minding my own business when suddenly, I'd smell that most Latin American blend of aromas, that perfect mixture of gasoline, old woman's perfume, unfiltered cigarettes and a wonderful, dizzying aroma of fried baked goods. It had the power to transport me straight to the motherland, hitting me with a wave of nostalgia for a country I wasn't even born in and didn't grow up in.

But back in San Gil -- The town is very typical of Colombian small towns: A hodgepodge mix of slightly dilapidated colonial-style buildings, style-less 70's monstrosities, cobblestoned streets that suddenly turn into paved streets, far more pharmacies than seem necessary, too many motorcycles for comfort, and an attractive colonial church in a surprisingly intact plaza populated by old men with little to do (but who cling –unfailingly -- to an undying admiration of all things female). Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in a small town. It’s like living a Marquez or Amado novel. You see the gossipy fat woman who sells lottery tickets and cell phone minutes and never leaves her wooden stool, the good-looking town stud who fancies himself a Don Juan, the teenage girls who knowingly and frequntly walk by said Don Juan, the little kids in their school uniforms screaming and playing during recess and the town drunkard, asleep on the sidewalk with a bottle of aguardiente still in his hands at 3pm in the afternoon. I suppose the story of small towns is the same all over the world.

In the San Gil spirit of adventure, Tati and I decided to go white water rafting. Below you can see us in our rafting get-up. I think my life jacket made me look like a massive German woman named Bertha or Helga or something equally terrible, but as safety comes first, I had no choice but to accept my Bavarian lot in life. Because the river was so low, our outdoor adventure at times seemed more like still water drifting than white water rafting. But if you had seen our rafting team (composed of two slightly overweight and uncoordinated middle-aged moms, two slightly distracted and equally uncoordinated kids, one 90-pound, uninterested teenager, my sister and myself) you would understand that this group was not made for level 5 rapids. I do not think that our 15 year-old guide was impressed with his group of thrill-seekers. But for the equivalent of US$10, we got to enjoy a scenic 10k journey down the river (more like creek due to lack of rain), where we saw several iguanas, many rocks and plenty of trees. And unlike Montana where I happily volunteered to sit in the middle of the raft, I actually rowed this time.

Tati became el Lobster Humano by the end of the trip, serving as a reminder that sunscreen is very necessary when participating in tropical outdoor adventures…

A Day

To get an idea of the world that is Bogota, let me tell you about our (my sister, father and myself) day yesterday.


We started out by heading to Salerno, a diner cafe with cheap breakfast, good service and a nice ambiance, where we enjoyed omelets, caldo de costilla and pancakes. The place is slightly reminiscent of one of those old-time diners you still find in small town America, but with a mildly European flair. Demographics: middle class families getting together and old men reading the newspaper. If they had Wi-Fi, I'd do all my work there.

Afterwards, we took a cab to my grandmother's apartment in the north, where we had lunch, ate pastries at Guernika and sat around listening to Andre Rieu, Edith Piaf and Enrique Chia, commenting on how relaxing life in Colombia is and admiring the extensive nature of my grandmother's music collection. This went on for about...five hours.

Later that evening, long-lost cousin Jaime (ophthalmologist and music connoisseur who seemed to know everything about every country, including geography, culture and social programs, despite never having left Colombia) picked us up for dinner in La Zona G. We dined on shrimp, salad and coconut rice and chatted pleasantly about life. For those who don't know what the Zona G is, it's Bogota's upscale dining quarter, home to some of the city's best restaurants. I haven't been able to figure out if it's Zona G for Zona Gourmet or Zona Gastronomico. Both work.

So after a lovely, low-key day, we came home at night and my father, sister and I were standing outside on my balcony, commenting on the massiveness of Bogota, the direness of the far-off slums and the sad, long bus journeys that maids and security guards have to make to earn $15 a day. I assure my sister, a little nervous that the slums are not so far-off, that my area is perfectly safe and she has nothing to worry about. Not so true, I guess.

We go to bed and suddenly we hear something that sounds like an exploding tire or gun shot, and I go to the window and see half a dozen people going in and out of what looks like an abandoned office building a block away from my apartment. We can hear a man screaming in agony, the kind of screaming you only hear on news specials about people who've lost a loved one, and we can hear other male voices having a heated discussion. So I have to believe that what we heard was a gun shot. Having spent the first 22 years of my life in Centreville, where the only gunshots I ever heard were in the action movies my dad used to watch every night, it's surreal to have something like that make its way into my real life. I guess that growing up in the upper middle class suburban demographic I think I'm immune from the kind of things that happen in Southeast D.C.

The shot happened late at night off the main avenue on a street full of small, seedy bars (bares de mala muerte in Spanish) frequented by young, unemployed men with suspicious haircuts who start drinking after lunch, but still, it's a bit to close to home when you can hear someone get shot from your bedroom. I guess it brought me back to reality, that I am in Latin America -- not Centreville, where car and house doors can be left open without fear. Maybe the world has spent too much time focusing on empowering women and men have slipped through the cracks and now the focus needs to shift. It seems like men are always at the root of all problems. Maybe they are feeling un-empowered.

Villa de Leyva

My dad is visiting right now. I've discovered that in order to stay happy in Colombia, it's important to leave Bogota once in a while, get away from the clouds, sad pine mountains, pollution, chaotic architecture and big city atmosphere.

So we went to Villa de Leyva, a museum-like town full of white houses and green balconies. For the Virginians out there, Villa de Leyva channels a Middleburg feel.  Just replace the English colonial buildings and Arlington/Washingtonian contractor/government worker-types with Spanish colonial buildings and Bogota uppercrust city dwellers looking for a weekend getaway.  Lots of Bogotanos have built homes in the mountains around the city and you see more foreigners than almost anywhere else in Colombia, but you also still see your share of campesino grandmothers with nylon stockings, slippers, knee length blue or dark green skirts, a Bavarian-looking hat and ruana (shawl).

Above: The Villa de Leyva main plaza is massive; it becomes a market square on Saturdays, but with the lack of vendor stalls, plaza cafes or decorations of any kind, it looks unproportionally large considering it belongs to a small town.  It's like the Tiananmen Square of Colombian plazas (minus long history of violent protests.)

Above: My father and I enthusiastically signed up for this "mild," "beginners"  hike through the Villa de Leyva countryside, to the Paso del Angel, a narrow, six foot long strip of mountain with steep drop-offs on both sides.  After miraculously finishing the four hour hike, I realized that any aspiration of climbing Mt. Kilamanjaro are years of serious endurance work-outs away. There was a point where it hurt to breath and I wondered if it was possible to have a lung collapse at 25.  We were both very thankful that we signed up for the half day hike rather than the full day hike.

For any of you who've been to the Minho Province in northern Portugal, the Villa de Leyva surroundings look/feel a bit like that. Rural, windy, arid, mountainous, home to people with 400 years of history in the area who stay and do the best they can despite a difficult terrain and few opportunities (outside of tourism). I like comparisons to other places.  Maybe because I'm never completely happy being in only one place, so I like to imagine I'm somewhere else too.

Anyway, unlike much of Colombia, which is vegetated, tropical and almost exploding with color, shades of brown, dull green, yellow and orange characterizes the Villa de Leyva countryside.  Tomatoes are one of the only crops that grow successfully here, and long-periods of drought mean the creeks and waterfalls sometimes run dry. But within a 45-minute drive of town, you're suddenly in a humid, green forest with much more fertile land. It's always amazing to me how fast geography changes in Colombia.

Above: Myself, Don Parra and son on our hike.  Don Parra is a part-time construction worker, part-time guide and all-around nature expert with two kids and a nice little house a few miles outside Villa de Leyva.  Politics: Anti-Chavez, Pro-Uribe, anti-guerilla, pro American basis.

He told us a very sad story about Colombian agriculture, particularly tomatoes. Apparently, planting in greenhouses allows 3-4 harvests in the time normal planting produces one harvest, so all local farmers have now taken on the practice of growing tomatoes this way.  It's the only way the banks will give them a loan nowadays. Anyway, in order to grow greenhouse tomatoes, the tomatoes are given a specific chemical mix all day and night and the land they are planted on is left infertile within a few years due to overuse.  But there's not really anyone right now to stop the practice.  The small and medium tomatoes stay in Colombia; the extra large ones head to Canada and the United States.  Apparently, some of these chemicals have gotten in the rivers and creeks, causing mutations among the local people. So far for the theory of third world countries and a simpler, more innocent way of life that doesn't include pesticides or chemicals. It always comes down to supply and demand and from here on out, demand for agricultural goods will probably necessitate these kinds of practices.

In the second picture you can see Leonardo, Don Parra's son, crossing the Cruce del Angel.

Above: My dad enjoying our meal at the Gato Gris in Casa Quintero. 

T.V.

Everytime I look at my TV, I am overwhelmed with joy. I feel so grow-up making such a permanent purchase.

My little 14 inch LG has changed my life...

More Pictures

Above:  There are about a dozen Pacific seafood restaurants behind my apartment building.  All of them are the cafeteria-style, plastic chairs, no frills variety.  As you can see, no one is safe from graffiti in downtown Bogota.  The man sitting in front of the restaurant is selling avocados.

Above: I think I've mentioned these little makeshift wooden carts.  They sell cigarettes, gum, mints and sometimes lottery tickets and cell phone minutes. The owner of this cart wanted to know what newspaper I was with when I asked if I could take a picture of his cart.  I told him I was a tourist. He said he thought tourist liked to take pictures of La Candelaria or Monserrate, not street carts.

 

Above: The transcendental Sr. Valasquez, hard at work and the famous Rushdie/Tolstoy, reading an old magazine and the bible. The kind of face and expression you'll never forget. Unfortunately, I coudn't get the flash quite right.

Camera

I braved the less-than-pleasant backstreets of downtown Bogota this afternoon to buy my camera battery and charger.  I´m tired of always walking around, seeing things and wishing I had a camera.

Above: A sad-looking Bogota stray dog. One of thousands.  This one was in pretty good shape, though it looked a bit depressed. I guess I would be feeling pretty down as well if my home was a sad-looking doorstep.

Downtown Bogota is graffiti central. Most are political and some are pretty impressive. Nearly all are anti-Uribe. Agro Segura was a program that was supposed to help poor, rural farmers. Instead, most of the money went to wealthy land-owners and a former beauty queen. I still don´t exactly understand how or why the beauty queen ended up with the money, but it was a pretty big scandal a few months ago.

Above: Cuba Antigua Discoteca.  I´m not sure if it´s actually functioning as a bar or apartments or nothing at all, but anything having to do with Cuba intrigues me.  A good example of a formerly attractive but dying building.  You see a lot of those former glory-type buildings here. It´s part of what gives Bogota a melancholy, nostalgic feel, I think. A lot that could be done but more that goes to waste.

Above: A typical cheap lunch spot in the city center. At this kind of place you get beans, rice, beef, arepa and a drink for the equivalent of about US$2.50.

Above: Two shoe-shiners next to my apartment. I asked the man standing up if I could take his picture and he called his friend over to sit in the chair.  Then asked me for COL$10,000. Around La Octava, there are half a dozen shoe-shiners set-up against a decaying, graffitied wall. When all the seats are full of people getting their shoes shined, it´s an impressive sight; something out of a Charles Dickens novel.

The Price of Feta

A number of points.

1. ) Today I went to el Exito to buy some feta cheese. I've been in the mood for a Greek salad for the last couple of weeks and I thought it was time to be proactive and make things happen. So I get to the fancy cheese counter and a small jar of feta cheese costs the equivalent of US$15. There seem to be many goats in Colombia, so I don´t understand why it´s so expensive. I just can´t justify spending $15 on cheese...

2.) I work in a very bohemian sector of La Candelaria. In a small bed and breakfast right against the mountains near el Chorro de Quevedo, where Bogota was supposedly founded in the 1500s. After 7pm, the smell of marijuana takes over. I don´t even notice it anymore. One of my cousins explained to me that ever since Uribe took over and made the exporting of drugs more difficult, Colombians have taken it upon themselves to consume the surplus. I don´t know if this is true or not, but judging from the smell near my workplace, I wouldn´t be surprised.

Anyway, let me paint the picture of the sector where I work: Drugged out punks in tight pants and fedoras sitting with their punk rock girlfriends who almost always carry a Colombian mochila and are prone to piercings and tattoos. Half a dozen of these types sitting on the steps around the Chorro de Quevedo (fountain of Quevedo), which is currently in a sad state of abandonment. There are few things sadder than a fountain with no water. That is dire. Hippies with dreadlocks selling jewelry and playing the bongos -- on the weekends, they like to play from sunrise to sunrise. Strange daytime prayer sessions with participants dressed as if taking part in some sort of ancient Native American ritual. Tiny bars on cobblestoned streets playing reggae, serving cheap beer and aguardiente and frequented by lower class locals and staunchly anti-Uribista rich kids looking for something authentic and 'popular' where they can meet real Bogotanos. And of course, the European and Israeli backpacker crowd who stay at the many hostels around the Chorro de Quevedo.

So now, you can imagine me in the evenings, sitting in a nicely restored colonial building at the top of La Candelaria among all this folklore.

3.) When I was on my way to work today, I saw Rushdie-Tolstoy (the old man from the tailor shop) walking down Carrera 3. He had several old magazines in one hand and was wearing an old, over-sized gray suit jacket and blue suit pants. I think he wears it everyday but makes sure it is clean and ironed. He was still expressionless, his face one of those of undeterminable ethnicity. My favorite kind. He had such a bad limp that it probably took him hours to get wherever he was going. It made me sad. He is no longer just a tailor shop caricature of my imagination, but a real person with a severe leg problem. I wonder why it is that -- as far as I know -- only the Germans have an actual word for world sadness. Weltschmertz. You would think it´s a pretty wide-spread sentiment. But maybe the Germans are just more melancholy than the rest of us.

4.) They were blasting vallenatos from the Dunkin Donuts next to my apartment. I suppose it is nice to see that globalization doesn´t crush all elements of culture.

5.) When my dad and sister get here, I think I need to go somewhere a bit less somber and intense than Bogota for a few days. I think it´s an amazing city but it can get you down. There is too much of everything. Except order.

A New Year, An Improved Me.

According to the Maya, the world will end in 2012.  I hope this prediction is wrong because I have committed myself to a number of New Year's resolutions and I'd rather not make the effort toward self-perfection if all we have are a couple of years. 

Anyway, my resolutions:

1.)  Get organized. 
I just bought a 2010 agenda to start this process.  I also folded my clothes very nicely in my closet, made my bed, dusted my room and washed all my dirty dishes.  I think that is a good start considering it is only the second day of the new year. In addition, I plan to hire a maid to clean the places I'd rather not clean, such as the bathroom and the kitchen.  If only we had a vacuum...I do have to say, though, that I have gotten a bit more organized in the last few months, perhaps as a result of living with my compulsively organized grandmother for two months.

2.)   Eat healthier/Do exercise.
Perhaps the most popular among New Year's resolutions, so I don't feel particuarly orginal posting this one. But eating pizza and frappaccinos everyday may not get me much further than 2012 anyway, so it is time to start eating "good" things. The problem with living alone is that it's almost cheaper to eat out than cook and no matter how small a milk you buy, it always goes bad. But anyway, to get this resolution started, I just spent a record amount of money at my local grocery store and bought a bunch of fruits, vegtables and other healthy things. I was extremely disappointed to find that the grocery store closest to me does not sell feta cheese, balsamic vinegar or tilapia, but I can't use that as an excuse to eat out...

As for exercise, I am not yet sure how I plan to carry out this part of the plan. I don't want to join the gym, I don't particularly like jogging and group sports have never been my forte.  Well, my sports performance in general is sub par.  So if anyone has any suggestions on how I can start exercising in a fun way, it would be appreciated.

3.)   Be more social.
Life without my family and Rasha as my daily friend can be a little bit lonely.  I am on a mission to find a daily friend in Colombia.  So far, the only daily friend I have is the homeless guy who carries around a massive trashbag everyday, has not showered in at least a few months and sings Vallenatos to me everyday when I walk by. But this is not the kind of friend I am looking for.  I prefer this friend to have a house, be a girl and be able to communicate in a non-musical way.

In order to accomplish this, I will have to actual talk to and smile at people and attend social-type gatherings. I plan to start taking French classes in the next few weeks.  Maybe I can meet a daily friend there. Plus become trilingual which will make me seem very interesting and intelligent. Or maybe I will have to join activities like yoga or expat girls' night out events. 

Those are the resolutions I have come up with for now.  If anyone out there sees another area in which I'm lacking, feel free to inform me and attempts toward improvement will be made.

2010

I have a feeling 2010 will be a very good year.