I am in Medellin right now. We only had internet service installed this morning, so I haven't had internet access in a couple of days. I haven't missed it. We arrived late Thursday afternoon, a nine hour drive from Bogotá. The drive took us through some of the mountainous areas in Colombia. This is an astonishingly beautiful country.
I can't really say what my impression is so far of Medellin, as I haven't been here long enough to get a feel of the place. Decidedly different from Bogotá. A lot more trees, in the "nice" neighbourhoods, anyway, and people seem friendlier here. Also tremendous social and economic inequality, which I always find troubling when I'm in Latin America. This also feels a bit hypocritical, given our many social problems in Vancouver. But somehow this seems particularly entrenched in Colombia. And, really, we do tend to see other peoples' problems better than we can see our own, and especially if they happen to be the same problems. Of course, in Colombia, as in Vancouver, if you are not already wealthy, or at least comfortable, then you are really going to have to struggle in order to survive.
There are tons of itinerant vendors here, selling everything and sometimes getting in your face if you happen to standing or sitting still anywhere for longer than two minutes. When someone really gets in your face it can be hard not to be rude to them, especially if they are aggressive. After one mishap yesterday, today I made an extra effort to be kind while declining an offer from a street shoe-shiner, and this time it went a bit better. He was complaining bitterly about how hard it is to make a living, especially at his age and all I could do was sympathize and apologize. But I have also noticed that some Colombians can be very insistent and persuasive, and it can be a challenge balancing tact with firmness with some of them.
Medellin itself is the second largest city in Colombia. after Bogotá, with a population of two and a half million. It is set in a basin surrounded by mountains. This also tends to trap air pollution which is quite a problem here. The very poor neighbourhoods climb up the mountains on the north and the rich neighbourhoods climb up the mountains on the south. Worlds apart. We did spend time in a fancy mall in the rich area yesterday and at times it felt like I hadn't even left Canada. Later we were walking in an area that was not really poor, but working class. We stopped in a store for cold drinks at a sidewalk table and suddenly it felt like I was really in Colombia, with the local music, and folks hanging out together and, of course the dogs, off leash dogs everywhere. I don't know why, but a lot of well-off Colombians seem to me to be particularly arrogant. It could be because of their legacy as a very socially hierarchical, casteist kind of society, and I think that people in this country are still developing the kind of social conscience that we have long taken for granted here in Canada. I think also that because Colombia is a republic that got it's start with a revolutionary war, that you are going to find here some of the same kind of knee jerk patriotism for which the US is notorious. These kinds of democracies are always particularly vulnerable to militarism and to attaining fascist tendencies. Or to put it another way, Canadians respect their national flag while Americans, and maybe Colombians, too, seem to worship theirs.
Alonso and I are staying in an apartment that he owns here in Medellin. We have had to be innovative about furniture, etc, and next week he is moving here from Madrid, and all going well, we expect that I'll be visiting him here again next year, and that will give me a much better opportunity to get a sense of this strange city.
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