Chillin in Bogotá

So I’ve been in Bogotá for almost a month and a half now. Life has changed again, as it seems to do in every country I'm in. In Venezuela I spent a lot of time in the car with my friends going to various places in the country, whereas here I’m relatively stationary. Well, that is, except for my daily circles. Some mornings I have an early English class, teaching some workers at a company that imports jewellery and other odds and ends from China. They’re pretty basic, about the level of my students in El Salvador, so I’m reusing a lot of lessons and modifying them. After the class it’s off to the non-profit, where I help with some basic office work, and last week, with translating some documents. The work is a good opportunity to meet people in the social justice field and to stay connected to the social work field. I don’t want to get caught up teaching English the whole time, not only out of career interests, but also because the more time I spend in an English-speaking environment, the less practice I get in Spanish. Anyhow, after the volunteer agency it’s off to another class, tutoring a Korean high school student who speaks more English than Spanish despite being here for a year, probably because he’s attending a bilingual school, where most of the classes are taught in English. Afterwards, I take the bus home and chill with my friends for a bit before getting some shut eye.

Still, despite having somewhat of a routine and actually working part time, there are new and surprising things every day. Bogotá is a huge city with plenty to do, and I’ve barely seen any of it. I met some other English teachers last week at a training, and we hung out all weekend. I managed to spend all of the money I made that week on food and alcohol. As with an earlier experience, I was exposed to the hideously anis-laden shot “Agua Ardiente,” which I’d pass on if it wasn’t so darn cheap (brings back memories of Mescal in Mexico, but at least that didn’t taste like crap). Agua ardiente is the drink of choice for many Colombians though, all you have to do is walk by one of the million tiendas-by-day bars-by-night and you’ll see a bunch of red-faced locals struggling to not fall over as they dance vallenato. And I hope I don’t sound derogatory, those are my favourite places. The owner pulls out a few plastic chairs from somewhere, puts them in front of the counter, and boom your little convenience store is a bar. Plug in the juke box and you’re golden. In any case, in my little adventures this weekend, I drank white wine from Chile, smoked my first Cuban cigar courtesy of a friend who is at this moment tryin to smuggle them past customs on his trip back to the US, practiced a little more salsa, found out that when you ask for a hot dog with “papa” you don’t get fries on the side but rather potato stix on the actual hot dog, and that you can bargain anywhere (¿Eso es el mínimo?), including on the bus.

The buses in general are an experience. I've bassically figured out the routes for my daily travels, but whenever I go to a new place I have to ask around. There is no formal system of course, and the buses come by with signs saying where they are going, but the letters are small and unorganized and they drive by fast. In general, they’re not quite as horribly crowded as the central American buses I took, but then again they’re almost as crowded. And the drivers are always full of surprises, many of them slamming on the breaks seemingly just for the pure pleasure of watching the old women fall all over the place. We hit a bump so big the other day that my head almost hit the ceiling, and I’m not exaggerating. The buses take forever to get across the city, so the other option, the Transmillenio, which has a lane all to itself in the city, is much faster. This is a little bit nicer but more crowded. A couple friends and I spent 2 hours on it by accident the other day as we were figuring out the stops. Taxis are expensive. Apparently it’s dangerous to get one off the street, but I haven’t had any problems yet. I was in more danger in the Cyber one day when a crazy dude ran in, pounded on the glass, and fired off a shot. He was either a really bad thief or a really bad assassin, cuz he didn’t get away with any money and no one got shot. Well there was one guy limpin afterwards so maybe he got shot in the leg, but he wasn’t bleeding. And the bullet case was laying on the ground, so maybe it was a blank, cuz it didn’t penetrate anything which I don’t understand. Most of us left after the incident, but there were a couple high school kids that stayed playing video games or whatever they were doing. Life continued on as usual a few minutes later.

Despite this incident, through which I learned how to “get down,” I’ve felt completely safe in the city. Not that there isn’t any danger, it’s a big city after all, and of course, Colombia has it’s special problems, including a forced displacement rate second only to Sudan, which is saying something. And there was a bomb threat warning recently. Supposedly the FARC was going to bomb a mall before October 2nd. I guess I’ll steer clear of them tonight, but it’s probably a fake, maybe even invented by the US embassy, I have my suspicions. But most of the violence tends to happen in the pueblos and rural areas, often with poor farmers getting stuck in the middle of the Colombian army, privately hired paramilitary assassins, guerrilla soldiers like the FARC, and drug traffickers if they don’t happen to be a member of one of the other three groups themselves. I met a woman last week who was telling me about how most of her family members had been murdered by paramilitaries and some by the FARC. I didn’t know what to say…how do you respond to someone who has had to go through such pain? What do I do knowing that my tax money probably helped pay for the bullets that went through her brothers’ heads?

In less macabre and completely unrelated news, the food is tasty, healthy, and cheap here. The arepas are bigger than in Venezuela and filled with gooey cheese, and the bread with the cheese worked into the dough is still a personal fav. The juices are fresh and amazing (although I still prefer the smoothies from Venezuela). But please, no more soup! Christ man the peeps down here eat a lot of soup! Just to shake things up I bought a jar of peanut butter last week and have rifled through most of it. Probably not great for my figure, but hey, I’m feelin a little flaco lately. Sometimes I don’t eat lunch, but stop by one of the million street vendors for some nuts with raisins (yeah, when I want some nuts I go to the guy on the corner, I know it sounds bad), some sliced up pineapple or papaya, an empanada, or any other number of fun little fried delicacies that compliment them. Speaking of people workin on the corner, the English place where I’m workin at just moved buildings, and situated themselves squarely next to one of the more popular hooker bars in the city, or so I’ve been told quite openly by my boss. Apparently the rich foreign execs go there, pick out their girl from a catalogue, who is then called up and earns more in a night than most people do in a month or maybe even half a year. I of course try to see what’s goin on inside as I walk past the front door, but it’s usually shut and they have some pretty heavy security outside. There’s no music and the windows are frosted over, pretty shady business.

Anyway, I think more interesting things have happened, but I should have written about them a couple weeks ago before I forgot. I’ve barely taken any pics, so I’ll have to do something touristy soon. For now, I’m off to by an avocado from the guy that sells them on the street, but only on Sundays, smother it with hot sauce, and try reading some Paulo Coelho in Spanish. I might give an English lesson to my friends tonight, and should probably think of an idea for my class tomorrow. For now, all’s good in Bogotá, if not in the rest of the world. ¿Qué me cuentas tú?