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| Feels like so long since I got here, lots of memories. Here’s an attempt to re-capture a few of them. We’ll start with the Children’s Crusade and see how much further we get.
I left yesterday a little later than I should have. From my place, it takes 45 minutes or so to get to la Universidad Nacional. I gave myself 40 minutes. I was meeting a friend a friend for lunch before class.
I took my customary Transmilenio. It’s a bus system that functions like an above ground metro, so it has to stop for traffic lights. 5 minutes in we were stopped at one of those, but I didn’t mind. I had grabbed a rare available seat and was comfortable. That’s why it took several minutes of sitting, staring out the window at the stopped traffic to finally realize: this wasn’t caused by a traffic light.
People started to stand up in their seats to try to see what was happening. I gradually noticed a sight I been looking at without comp rending. There were several, many, school kids standing in front of the vehicles heading the opposite way. Boys in their school uniforms, girls in pleated skirts. Many of the them were sitting in front of cars, including the massive Transmilenio busses. The children appeared to be taking things in shifts, taking sitting in front of massive piece of metal duty turns.
They were determined, so things got nasty, of course - large pimpled faced boys in riot gear struggling with puny school kids and the massive anti-riot tank thing the police have that sprays fire fighting pressure water.
I jumped off my bus, stationary as it was, and soon was in the chaos. “Hmm, doesn’t feel like a good idea.” I jumped badly at a loud, sharp noise. Just fire crackers or something.
I made to La Nacional, late for my lunch date, but victorious over anger (had to do with getting reimbursed for 1 Transmilenio ticket, but not 2). I’ve learned here: I will get angry. I just have to swallow it and wait for it to disappear.
See if you can figure out what parts of that were redacted and what was written months ago.
I gripped my pen tighter and resolved to sell the few pesos in my pocket as dearly as possible. The problem with taking the bus home back in the day was I rarely managed to jump off at just the right location. And it was night, and dark. And the wind was blowing.
There’s a dude ahead of me, suspicious looking. Bad sign, he’s stopped. He’s waiting. Oh boy. That’s an awful lonely place to wait for you girlfriend. Take a few more steps. Relief. There’s the girl. They’re kissing now. Whew. Thank you Eros. Guys with girlfriends aren’t threats. I’m a quick study these days. I scan the street at night and make judgments on the risk level of everyone I see. I’ve been fortunate for a long time now.
Klu Klux Klan are creepy, aside from ideology. Their costumes, their masks. Nameless, dark, silent, foreign.
Have you ever wondered how graffiti gets there? I used to. Now I know.
Under cover of night they do their tasks. We all wake up the next morning, scratching our heads. How did they manage to do it? The whole campus is covered with ideological protests. Dang. Time to re-paint, again. Nope, not the way it happened.
They came in force. Nobody said a word. Nobody really acknowledged their presence. Some of them worked, others stood guard. Occasionally I saw squads on the move, traversing the campus on some assignment. I’m not sure how they communicated. I heard no talking. Buckets of paint, all of them masked. Backpacks and shoes were covered with black plastic. Clothing was long sleeves.
I’ve got a cedula now, Colombian identity card. No more worries about id checks. I’m an English teacher. I take the taxi too much. I stay up too late. I’ve got a strange relationship with this host. She may have wooed me with my realizing it. To me the magic is subtle. Quite subtle.
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| I was accosted by a soldier today. He called to me as I rushed past him underground with other Bogotanos. I either pretended not to hear him or thought he was calling to somebody else. As he yelled after me, I decided to turn around. He jabbed his finger to his ear, can’t you hear? and motioned me toward his compatriot on the other side of the tunnel.
It’s a common occurrence here: police or military randomly pull lone males out of the crowd and ask to see their cedula, their photo I.D. card. I gave a what do you want? gesture to the military man. I’ve decided it’s best practice to be slightly ornery with armed reps of the state in Colombia. Don’t be too nice or they might mistake it for willingness to be exploited. I try not to give service with a smile to those who want to rifle through my things, pat me down or question me. He asked for my cedula and I told him in an exasperated voice, “Soy extranjero,” as I pulled cards out of wallet, looking for my driver’s license. The license always does the trick. It confuses officials and they want to get rid of me as quickly as possible so they won’t look foolish for not knowing how to read it. First my ATM card came out, then I felt laminated paper, a business card I‘d recently received. I simultaneously felt a bit of wondering panic - oh no, what could have happened to it; what will they do with me if I can’t produce photo I.D.? - as the soldier asked me, “How old are you?” He had to come up with some purpose for the random checkpoint, now that the white guy his buddy pulled out of the crowd had turned out to be a gringo. “Twenty-three,” He motioned me on quickly, both of us glad to be rid of each other.
I still had a lump in my throat when I arrived at my station. I pulled out my wallet, something I never do in public unless I must pay for something, and quickly found my driver’s license.
There was a bombing in Bogota a few days ago. Nobody knows who did it; news accounts only attribute it to “terrorism.” A Blockbuster Video was targeted, for the second time. A parking area was pretty well decimated; 2 people were killed, one of them, a girl, was a student at the British Council where I took my teaching English certificate. Since then, it has felt more like a country at war. The city has military posted every hundred yards or so in the busier areas and there seems to be an even heavier police presence. It felt reassuring to walk along a busy road at night and see military men with rifles. “You can’t trust anybody in Colombia,” a home owner told me three days ago.
Attention has since moved on and now the big news is FARC’s release of some hostages. The headline story of El Tiempo, Bogota’s major newspaper, is of an ex-governor who has been held for 8 years and is due to be released tomorrow morning. Now, his family and friends wait, says the newspaper.
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| As an English teacher in Colombia, you have 3 main options: work for a private institute, a highschool/elementary school (colegio) or a university. I´m in Colombia, and I´m looking for work.
The institutes send their people out to local businesses. You have to travel a lot because of that and you have a variety of teaching situations. You´re working in the for-profit environment, which I imagine changes the vibe a bit. Colegios run the gamut, from the private prestigous schools, to run-down, underfunded state schools. Private schools tend to pay more and have better reputations/resources than the public ones (the opposite of the U.S.). Universities seem like they´re the nicest option: nice salary and that rarified "higher education" work environment.
I´m in talks with an institute and a colegio these days and may take one of their offers in the next week or so.
It´s a shame I´m not more of a writer. I could write some funny and poignant passages about engineers who wear tight jeans and abercrombie/fitch, a sinking boat episode and Colombian fruit juice. Write me about any of those and I can fill you in on the details and provide anecdotes.
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As John McCain, said "Fight, fight, fight," all I could think of was Sean Connery in First Knight suddenly giving the command to Fight! as the enemies held the Camelot hostage. You don't need to take this into analogy, just enjoy the imagining McCain with Sean Connery's accent.
Well, the conventions are over. Now we can look forward to the debates, which I hope the candidates will treat with a little more respect than as just pre-packaged slogans and image. It'd be nice to get some real leadership ideas and policy stuff hashed out.
I think Obama's been making a good critique against the Republican speakers at the RNC - nobody is coming up with ideas or solutions to address the modern-day problems that Americans are facing. It's just the same old stuff being talked about - small government, low taxes, blah, blah, blah. It would be nice to see a bit more innovation coming from the Republican party. But maybe this lack of innovation is to be blamed on the strenuousness of campaigning - McCain had to do everything he could to survivive the primary and Obama barely beat Clinton.
I think Obama began to come up with something of a new idea with his post-partisanship ideas of everyone admitting that we were all Americans and had something to offer and then sitting down to come up with solutions to the nation's problems. The trouble with his approach, though, is that it seemed to end there. All of Obama's policies just seems to be the same old liberal Democrat ideas: this doesn't sit too well with me given how Washington D.C. politicians and beraucrats seem to handle our money. When we look at a corrupt and rich place like Washington D.C., sending them yet more money just doesn't seem to be the right idea. It seems like it would be a better idea to starve them out with less money to force them to cut fat and spur innovation. Isn't this what happens in businesses that see lower sales and schools that don't attract enough students?
Okay, good luck with these blog-unfriendly long paragraphs.
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| This is way too good to pass up.
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Multimedia/Player.aspx?guid=4426915d-c44b-4f57-a819-582fa267e2c4
My brief analysis of the election:
John McCain is a better candidate and conservatives have a bigger base, but the middle is disgruntled with Republican rule and inclined to back the democratic candidate.
John McCain, better candidate: McCain has stuck with his original message since the primary - an independent who bucks special interests and even his own party to stand on principle. He has no need to re-calibrate his message and do a general election pivot to the center and he has always demonstrated cross-over appeal. His campaign is the underdog campaign that keeps hitting its baskets anyway.
Obama, (wow, Obamam shows up as a miss-spelled word on Firefox; that's really something they should have updated by now, maybe I'm using an old version) in contrast, is still trying to define himself as a general election candidate. He won the primary with his energizing transformative message and by being more hard-line left than Hillary Clinton. Obama hasn't figured out yet how to talk to crowds that aren't "fired up and ready to go" i.e. highly enthusiastic supporters. He also seems to have moved past most of the post-partisan part of his message since last spring.
More of this may follow. But for now, I'll be watching the Republican Convention.
David
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