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.