We had two doozies yesterday. It started out sunny, warm and calm in the morning with a flawlessly blue sky. I took my umbrella anyway, it is my Best Friend in Bogota. I met up with a friend and his wife in a coffee shop. They both want to improve their English so we had an enjoyable visit in Spanglish. They also helped confirm and expand on some of my impressions of the Colombian people. This country has had , like many Latin American countries, a troubled, turbulent and often violent history and the social inequality is still an ongoing legacy from Mama España (Momma Spain) when they wreaked havoc and pillage in this part of the world five hundred years ago. Even today, with things being relatively better and more opportunities a lot of Colombians have to struggle to keep their head above water. This also helps me understand and appreciate more what I sometimes judge to be poor social skills and inappropriate public behaviour here in Bogota. It is simply that people are very stressed here, being a big city, some are likely traumatized from the violence and social inequality, and really if you don´t have your family and loved ones around to look out for you and cover your ass then all you can say is ¨Stick a fork in me. I´m done!¨ I am of course always impressed with Latin Americans in general for their ability to soldier on laughing, singing and celebrating life regardless of the crap that gets handed their way. But surely there must also be a cost and I also suspect that the roots of denial sometimes run very deep with some people here. Still, I´d rather walk to the scafflod singing and laughing than live and survive to an old age crying and miserable.
Back to the storms. I didn´t get very far on my walk yesterday afternoon and the clouds were already gathering. It was just beginning to spit a little rain when I arrived in the snooty French cafe for my croissant and jam and time with my sketchbook when within ten minutes once again the heavens were torn asunder and that intense rain for which this region is famous came pelting down, with special effects of course, thunder and lightning. After about an hour or so it stopped and the sun came out and I went walking again. I felt the Spirit lead me in a specific direction and I realize now why this was happening. There was another storm, an even bigger one building and every time I wanted to either take a pleasant detour to explore or sit and rest on a bench I felt almost pulled straight ahead. I did take a different route back to my bed and breakfast which took me through one of those very interesting Latin American neighbourhoods that for years I saw in dreams before I began to explore this part of the world, and I do want to try to visit there for coffee some time while I´m here. The sky was again getting dark and there was thunder and lightning everywhere. I had very little time to get back to my bed and breakfast and not even my big golf umbrella was going to be much use against this kind of rain. I had to take a detour because of road work. The thunder was getting louder and the lightning more frequent. It was only spitting rain when I got back. Within a couple of minutes of being snug and safe inside my room the storm let loose it´s full fury. The earlier storm was the warm-up act. This was the big deal. I have never heard such thunder, seen so much lighting while sheltering from the drenching rain. I read for a while then sank into a drowsy slumber and after an hour or so the storm was again over.
I´m getting a lot of art done while I´m here and actually being very productive. You know, I´m on my third drawing now since I arrived here and I am really happy about the quality of my work. I have three pages left to fill in the sketchbook that I began on my first visit here last year. It feels like it´s going a little too fast so I am trying to spend a little more time reading. Next week I will be beginning my new sketchbok All for now.
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