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.