Bogota Journal: I'm Done

Well, almost done.  Since yesterday's drama everything seems a bit anticlimactic.  There seems to be a full house right now in the pension  There was no room at the two tables for breakfast so I had it in my room.  I didn't much feel like breakfasting with strangers today, anyway, since I'm still a bit shakey from yesterday's encounter but definitely feeling better and I'm actually writing this post in the usual noisy as a classroom full of grade eight boys ciber cafe without earplugs and I don't feel like going postal on everyone.  I've complained enough elsewhere about Colombians' love for noise and I think I've become a bt used to it.  Likewise the wild drivers.

There are two things I dread about breakfast with strangers in a hotel: one, that we have to sit together and, two that we don't sit together.  Still, I like the idea of the communal breakfast table and I really wish more establishments would do this.  I remember some very fond breakfasts at the Red Tree House in Mexico City and the interesting conversations and the new friendships that were made there because we all happened to be seated together and I really think this is better, especially for the solitary traveller.  On the other hand we all seem to travel for different reasons and a lot of tourists seem to have the same idea: entertainment, sight seeing and museums.  Nothing wrong with this really, but it is a very consumerist approach to tourism and my style of travel is still a bit of a rarety.  (What to you mean, you were here for a month and didn't visit the Salt Cathedral?  Not even the gold musem?  What happened, were you sick or something?)  Well, not really.  I am working on painting number eight (even though they're drawings they are painterly) I've met and interacted with tonnes of interesting people, made new friends and I walked everywhere.  I got to improve my Spanish, I learned about Bogota, Colombia and the people who live here and in spite of the  insipid architecture there is about this city a certain rough and fleeting beauty.

Will I return?  Still not sure.  Yesterday's encounter with the thug-in-a-suit has put a damper on things, for now anyway.  I am very well practiced at trauma management, both through my own experience of recovery and through my professional practice so I'm not terribly worried about myself.  I do feel legitimately frightened but not terrified and I am going to enjoy this my final day in Bogota.  No promises that this is my last post but if it is then I will see a lot of you very soon in Vancouver: so, lunch, anyone?   Coffee, dinner, a walk? I am looking forward to some pleasant face contact with all of you.

Bogota Journal: Danger

This just in.  I seem to have narrowly avoided being a crime statistic today.  I mentioned this morning that this city is full of idiots.   Well, some of these idiots are pretty dangerous.  The good news is there are also a lot of decent people here, like the lady I had a chat with in the grocery line this afternoon.

I was walking one of my usual routes this morning in the Zona Rosa near Parque 93 when an elderly gentleman approached me asking directions to a Christian book store.  I said I probably could't help him since I am just visiting. He asked from where and I said Canada.  Toronto? he asked.  No, Vancouver.  Then he mentioned that he has relatives who live in Vancouver.  This is when a ¨gentleman¨wearong a well cut suit and tie approached us and he also wanted to know where I'm from.  I said Canada.  He asked Toronto? and I replied Vancouver. He began to focus entirely on me and said that he suspects that both the Venezuelan and I might be carrying illegal drugs as he showed me his ¨police¨ id.  Then he wanted to see my passport which I was unwisely carrying with me.  Fortunately he gave it back.  He then touched my stomach with his hand and said he believed I was carrying drugs in my stomach and ordered me to come to his headquarters nearby for questioning.  I refused.  He insisted.  I resisted.  The Venezuelan chap walked away and so did I.  The ¨police officer¨apparently lost interest and walked away when he saw he was getting nowhere with me.  I continued as far as the snobby French cafe where I was going anyway, feeling quite shaken and paranoid and I was feeling, of course, hyper vigilent.  While enjoying coffee and croissant and working on a drawing I kept looking in the mirror as I heard someone new walk into the cafe.  When I left I took a different very long detour back, walking a zig zag route and watching my surroundings, let's say, very very carefully.

I got caught in a particularly vicious downpour on my way back to my pension and simply sat on the patio when I returned and stared out at this violent assault of nature.  Soon Andres came back and I was able to debrief with him about what happened.  He shares my view that this guy wasn't legit, that I had probably been targeted for some time and that I could have been in considerable danger.  So, that's the last I'm going into that area.  I'm spending the rest of today and tomorrow close to my pension.

Anybody reading this who prays, please remember me and pray for my safety, wellbeing and safe return to Vancouver Wednesday.

The rain has stopped by the way.

Bogota Journal: Ready To Leave

In forty-eight hours I will be up in the air.  I have been careful to not let the German Wings crash in the French Alps alarm me about flying.  I am no stranger to air travel and as I have already mentioned, but for certain douchebag airlines the experience of flying is usually enjoyable.  I am already packed.  I want to make sure that I can fit all the books I've bought into my luggage and that I leave nothing behind in a possible last minute panic. I can just fit everything in and it's going to be a bit heavy to drag everything on the Canada Line when I return so fortunately I have budgeted for a cab when I get off the plane.  I double checked this morning with Andres, the husband of the couple who own El Campobello where I have been staying to confirm that the lady driving me to the airport has been informed and someone will be up in the morning to see me off.  I explained to him that because I work in a rather bureaucratic health system that clear communication is very important to me.  Don't tell mom without also telling dad.

I am eager to get home.  Bogota has been an interesting novelty but the people here are mostly idiots, I'm afraid, and I will gladly trade them for the lesser (or more familiar?) idiocy that I live with in Vancouver.  I am not going to miss noisy internet cafes (there are some real imbeciles present here right now) nor out of control drivers.  I am also looking forward to the rich, dense, highly oxygenated air of Vancouver.  Don't get me wrong.  I am very glad to have made this trip and the minor inconveniences are a worthy trade off for what I have gained here.

I remember well my first two international trips: 1991 to Europe and 1994 to Costa Rica.  At that time I was living in a very dysfunctional intentional Christian community and when I was in England I wanted to settle there.  Likewise in Costa Rica.  When I returned home from both trips there were major problems waiting for me because the people I lived with were, shall I say, very prone to problems, both having them and creating them.  In the last seven years that I have travelled it has been very different.  As much as I enjoy visiting new and interesting places I now always look forward to coming home.  I live alone now, in a decent apartment in a secure and well managed building.  What a difference.  I also appreciate a lot more now what we have in Vancouver.  I don't think this is going to stop me from traveling.  I learn a lot with each trip that I would never learn by staying in Vancouver.  It's also great for my Spanish fluency.

I just started a newdrawing this morning, number eight, of a Colombian hummingbird.  It's called a violet tailed sylph:
Cute birdie, eh?

Bogota Journal... Palm Sunday

I am absent from church this Palm Sunday.  I have already explained why in earlier posts and it doesn´t bear repeating.  I did see a mass on the TV in my room this morning before breakfast.  It was actually very simple and very moving with a young woman with a beautiful clear voice and guitar providing the music instead of a choir.  Following breakfast I went walking in a neighbourhood nearby that I haven´t visited.  Nothing interesting to report.  There is a certain sameness about neighbourhoods in this city, but I´m still glad I went if for the simple reason that once I return home I should find myself regretting that I didn´t.

I did hole up for a couple of hours inside the snooty French cafe where I ate chocolate cake, drank two cups of coffee and bought another bag full of chocolate truffles soaked in rum to bring back to Vancouver with me.  That and five or six books in Spanish and two lavishly illustrated books of birds of Colombia including some of the most beautifully stellar species on this planet and yes, I intend to draw and paint all of them.  Staff in the French cafe and a neighbourhood cop who is apparently a friend of the establishment took interest in my artwork and we had a pleasant conversation in Spanish.

I was originally going to settle for just one bird book to bring home with me but when I saw this other one in the book store in Usaquen yesterday I was smitten.  I did not have enough Colombian funds with me to pay for it, so over sparkling mineral water and a decadent chocolate mousse dessert  called bomba de amor or love bomb in a local cafe I realized that I had plenty of American funds with me so on the advice of staff when I returned to the book store I went to a local cambio to exchange some of it for Colombian pesos and now I have not one but two more lavishly illustrated bird books to add to my personal library.

I have seen three people carrying palm branches today, likely obtained at church.  They all looked kind of grumby, by the way.

There is a light rain falling and it is a bit chilly so I kind of regret not wearing a sweater but I have with me mi mejor amigo en Bogota or my best friend in Bogota, namely my umbrella.

Yesterday I attended my last English conversation group here in Bogota.  I have really enjoyed participating in these sessions and it has been very rewarding meeting all these people here, getting to know them a bit and learning from them more about Colombia and their lives here.  One friend and I had a very interesting conversation on our way over to the group and he agrees with me that many Colombians are hobbled by apathy that comes from despair because the corruption in this country is still so widespread and I think everyone is weary and burnt out from the conflict, even if it is past.  But I also see many people here forging on ahead.  I only hope that they extend their ambition beyond simply making their own lives more economically prosperous and can also spearhead some positive social change here.  I hope to see also more of the same in Canada.

While in the cafe today I read part of a disturbing article about the local trade in captive wild animals.  They are for sale in one of the public squares in the southern and poorer part of Bogota, wild birds, especially macaws, ocelots, turtles and other species, all sick, malnourished and mistreated.  This is one of many examples of the kind of endemic corruption here.

What does it take to help a people acquire a moral compass.

Bogota Journal: Planet Bogota

I'm getting ready to go home.  Generally in these last few days I find myself disengaging from this place.  I feel this trip has served its purpose.  This morning I had breakfast early and left in a hurry so as not to run into the Canadian father and son act from Alberta.  When I meet other Canadians abroad and it is clear that we are at opposite ends of the spectrum the last thing I want is to get swallowed up in any political arguments and he, the father anyway, seems very strong in his opinions and his willingness to propogate them.  There were two red flags yesterday.  When I mentioned with positive intent that immigration is helping to evolve and develop our culture he replied that yes, soon we (that is, white people) will be a minority I sensed a racist and possible white supremist, so I kind of shut up.  Then he talked about young Somali immigrants committing crimes and becoming terrorists  and that maybe human rights shouldn't be so important, so I just kept my mouth shut and went along to avoid conflict (did I mention he used to be in the military?)  I did mention that all the Asian immigrants I know of in Vancouver seem to be decent law abiding people and left it there.

This city is one of the most architecturally uninspiring places I have ever visited.  Most of the heritage architecture, some of which is quite beautiful, is in the Candelaria district which for several reasons I am not able to get to. Everything else, almost, is made of the same brown bricks.  Very plain, box-like structures. You would think that they would try to paint some of them.

Bogota has many beautiful parks.

I have not had the opportunity to visit the really poor areas, which are many and sprawling.  The well-to-do neighbourhoods are generally clean, safe, and well landscaped.

The population is growing fast as more and more people come in from the countryside and small towns looking for work.  Many create their own work and the sidewalks are often crowded with beverage, food, snack, book, craft and trinket and umbrella vendors.  Then there are the itinerant shoe shine guys, or the luceros, often aggressive, old guys selling lottery tickets, waving them in your face, and of course there are beggars, often old men or old women and young mothers with babies.  Especially women seem to love fashion, the higher the heels the better.

I have been told that Bogota is becoming the major high tech and pharmaceutical centre in South America.

The public transit system leaves much to be desired. Besides the Transmilenio there are four or five different coloured buses that appear all to belong to competing companies.  Most of them belch out black clouds of diesel smoke which is great for air pollution.  In Bogota everyone wants to own their own car.  They feel powerful behind a steering wheel and invariably behave like selfish jerks.

This is a very competitive city where free enterprise is king.  Colombia boasts a strong and rising economy. I don't know what is available here regarding social services and programs and mental health services but they appear to be very scant.  Here we have another darling of the World Bank where everything will be hunky dory so long as they value generating wealth over human beings.  They really have it backwards.  Even if it means going into debt nothing is so important as investing in the wellbeing of the people.  The economy will follow.  And yes, I do know this from personal experience.

I would really like to see a growth in mental health services in Colombia.  This country is traumatized, by history, by endemic corruption, and by violence.  This has really become I think a culture of violence.  It is great to see Bogota rise out of this and move forward but they have to invest more in the mental health and wellbeing of the people, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized, even if it means having to rob Peter to pay Paul.  They can also borrow from Mary.

People here really need to wake out of their apathy.

Bogota Journal: Is That All There Is To Emeralds?

I saw my first Colombian emeralds yesterday.  I honestly wasn't looking for them but there is this high end mall I usually walk past and, hey, I usually walk past malls, but I was thinking, heck, I'm in Colombia, and there might be something interesting inside, so might as well, eh? So, there in this mall, was a gem store specializing in emeralds, all finely cut, polished and set in gold, of course.   I had a little glance at them and thought, well, they are pretty, but why the fuss?  They're only rocks, really.  Rocks stained in blood.  The conflict and bloodshed surrounding Colombian emeralds is legendary with children and wives of assassinated miners working now in the mines.  The president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, is trying to clean up the corruption and there are also ethically sourced emeralds being mined and marketed in Colombia, but it seems like a very slow and uphill battle here.  It staggers the imagination the huge monetary and social value projected onto these and other precious stones and the huge fallout because of this greed.  What does this say about us as a species?

The other day I saw two vultures at different times flying over the freeways.  In Vancouver I believe we call them real estate brokers.  They must have been in search of roadkill.  Even in the botanical gardens I wasn't much blessed with any exotic bird sightings.  The pretty ones are smart.  They stay hidden and out of view.  Speaking of which here is an image of the bird I am going to start drawing today.  It's called a golden tanagerIsn't he a beauty? They live in the Amazon region of Colombia and fortunately are still very common.

Yesterday I hung out in the rich area and worked up my nerve to sit and have coffee and draw on the terrace of a very fancy-shmancy cafe with Canadian prices.  I was afraid I would be kicked out for doing art there.  Instead the waiters warmly welcomed me and two of them, one especially, took a huge interest in my art and we had quite an extensive conversation so it looks as if I`m welcome back.  In the same district there are professional shoe shine guys who behave very unprofessionally and as in parts of Mexico even after I said no three times two of them chased after me.  Scary.

At breakfast this morning I just met a father and son act from Canada.  They live in Edmonton.  The dad would be in his forties, I think, his son in his early twenties.  It is a bit interesting talking to fellow Canadians after almost a month away from the country.  It is also a reminder of how different many Canadians are from each other.  I sensed a likely conservative voter and tried to take care to steer around potentially controversial subjects, and he sensing that I was likely a bit different from himwas doing the same.  Kind of a friendly dance on eggshells.

Bogota Journal: Botanical Garden And Various Neighbourhoods Across Bogota

I finally made it yesterday to el Jardin Botanico or the botanical garden.  It was about a four mile walk from my pension with constant heavy traffic and box stores.  Hardly an inspiring walk but good exercise and for a while, anyway, yesterday I did  have a bit of energy. The garden is big with an entrance fee of around  $1.50 Canadian or 2700 Colombian pesos. The landscaping is nice with several different sections.  It wasn't as quiet as I hoped given that a lot of people bring children there, among them groups from day care and school so I had to be a bit creative about finding some tranquility.  I stopped for a while in the cafe there then set out walking across Bogota, which isn't as wide from east to west as from north to south.  I passed the white tents of the Cirque de Soliel which is in town.  Then I proceeded through several middle and working class neighbourhoods.  Many were almost eerily quiet, given that everyone would be at work or school in the early afternoon.  There was nothing realy outstanding about the neighbourhoods.  Architecture in Bogota tends towards the insipid.  I was already running out of energy and by the time I got close to Parque 93 there was a huge downpour of rain that chased me into a cafe on Carrera 15, also a bakery called Nikolukas.

When I arived at the pension one of the owners was entertaining his friends from Switzerland on the patio.  They were all speaking French so even if I was welcome there would have been no point in joining them.  I was exhausted and had to close my windows and put in earplugs to block out their racket.  This morning they were were there again, I had my breakfast in my room because I wanted to avoid them.  It's one of these awkward or potenially awkward situtions that can happen when you are staying in a place where the owners also live.  Since it's their home they are not going to give a lot of priority or consideration to paying guests who are not personal friends or family.  It makes breakfast particularly uncomfortable because there are two tables, they are having their visit in French with the owners and I get to sit awkwardly close by as though I'm invisible.  It's humiliating and if they are made  bit uncomfortble by my avoiding them, big deal.

I am gradually going to bed and getting up earlier each mornng to prepare for my morning flight next Wednesday.  This has been an interesting and largely enjoyable time in Bogota but I am feeling quite eager to come home.

Bogota Journal: Why Bogota?

A coworker of mine asked me that question once at a staff meeting.  What really put me off was his tone and phrasing when I announced that I was going to Bogota. (Where's that?).  It's in Colombia, high in the Andes, 8500 feet above sea level, population of almost eight million.  So this coworker says, ¨Why do you want to go THERE?¨  He has a tendency of asking inappropriate questions and fortunately I see him only once a month.  But I simply replied ¨Long story¨ and as I expected it shut him up fast.

I have already written about the seven eagles I saw two weeks before I left for Bogota, of how they congregated mid air and all flew southeast in the direction of Colombia.  I also told you about my friend from Bogota whom I met in Vancouver just days after I decided last June that I was going to Bogota, and of how she put me in contact with her father who lives here and who, like his daughter, has become a great and close friend to me.  I also told you that after my work for years with a Colombian woman who came to Canada as a refugee, as well as other Colombians I have met and known in Vancouver, that I wanted to know more about this country, its culture and the way the traumas of war and conflict have impacted its people, and of the effects of the current renaissance that seems to be occurring here in Bogota.

I have also written about my desire to improve my Spanish while I'm here, and this seems to be already happening.  I have also been enjoying facilitating local Bogotanos who wish to practice and improve their English.  I have met some really great people here, regardless of some of my complaints about the public behaviour and questions about the collective maturity of Bogotanos.  For example, this morning in a park, one young Colombian lout tossed his snotty kleenex on the footpath, when there was already a garbage container in easy reach.  Of course I felt indignant and of course people in my dear beloved Vancouver don't do that and I had to refrain from yelling, ¨Señorito, perdiste de la basurera¨, or little sir, you missed the garbage can.

I have also written about Colombians' love of noise and lack of awareness of those impacted by their noise making.  I am currently wearing my orange little friends (earplugs) while writing this.  And of course there is the complete unawareness or indifference about body space.  A friend and I were seated in a cafe, tiny place and we eventually had to leave because after a while too many people were almost sitting on our laps.  I have nick-named the establishment ¨Culo en Cara¨or Ass in Face.

I was wanting to have more meaningful contact with the local Anglican church here in Bogota but there appear to be some obstacles.  Colombia, like many other Latin American countries, is a mono culture, and I discerned that there was an expectation in the church that I should attend the English service instead of the Spanish.  It doesn't seem to matter to these people that my Spanish is already very good and that I am actually here to improve my Spanish.  It's all fallen on deaf ears.  I have already written in a previous post about the obstacles to attending the English service, but really, I do not like this mentality here of everyone in their place so as a protest I have decided to boycott further church services while I am here.  Unfortunately there are some parties who may take this personally and could even withdraw their friendship but I have decided that I am not going to compromise my values to suit the local prejudice.

Yesterday in the snooty Fench cafe I was squatting and drawing as usual when I noticed the couple who own the place come in with very unpleasant faces and talking to the staff in very unpleasant voices.  Eventually I asked one of them, ¿Es usted la gerenta aqui? or are you the owner here.  She smiled and replied mas o menos (more or less) I proceeded to tell her, que su cafeteria encuentro como muy encantador y me gusta mucho estar aqui y los empleados, las mozas son muy buena gente ( I find your cafe very enchanting and I really enjoy being here and the staff, the ladies working here are really great) One of the staff heard me and gave me a warm smile.  A bit later that same twelve year old girl as last week came in to sell candy bars.  The staff tried to chase her out but I ignored them and paid for the candy bar, saying to the girl Soy cliente aqui y tengo derecho (I am a customer here and I have a right to do this).  As I was leaving, to placate the staff I bought a bag of very expensive truffles (almost twenty bucks Canadian)  When I brought them back to my room I mixed them in my big plastic nutrition jar.  I brought this with me from Canada, a mixture of trail mix, chocolate chips and cashews, to help supplement my diet while I'm here
in Bogota.  I have since kept adding odds and ends, M and M's, almonds, peanuts and raisins, and now these decadent truffles in the mix, intense chocolate soaked in rum!

This morning over breakfast I had an interesting chat with the husband of the couple who owns the pension where I am staying.  He is from Switzerland and lectures in the local public university about political science.  We had an interesting chat, all in Spanish (his first language is French) about social inequality in Bogota.  Because it's a public university he works in he said he gets students from a very wide range of socio-economic backgrounds and the classroom discussions often get very interesting and energetic.

Bogota Journal: Final Week

I am already feeling as though half of me is now back in Vancouver.  I always look forward to returning to ordinary life no matter how enchanting the vacation.  I finished drawing number five last night and this morning started number six.  It will portray two blue necked tanagers, native to Bogota:Nice looking bird, eh?  I was up early, at around 5:30 and turned on the TV for some Spanish practice.  Also, because everyone here is an early riser and the kitchen is right next to my room I thought that if they heard the TV they would be assured that I'm normal, since I really prefer the silence in the mornings.  I ended up shutting it off anyway because the big news item right now is the big plan crash yesterday in Europe and one week before a flight this is just something I don't want to hear about.  I seem to have lost all fear of flying, by the way, and except for the usual incovenience of flying economy class on a douchebag ailrline like United (or Air Canada for that matter) I quite enjoy being up in the air.  The only reason I get nervous about air crashes is very simple.  Yes, one is much more likely to die in a car accident than on a plane.  Statistics have bourne this out ad nauseum.  But the likelihood of actually surviving in a plane crash?  Let's not go there, but it usually means tits up for everyone.

Yesterday it rained like crazy in the afternoon.  I only got caught in some of it when I left the internet cafe and endured fourteen blocks of pounding rain till I got to the grocery store.  Then it lightened up for a while and just after I took shelter in  cafe it came pounding down again.  Of course the streets were flooded within minutes.

I am trying to vary my walking routes as much as possible.  Sometimes I come across some delightful surprises, in the form of a park or a beautiful leafy neighbourhood with elegant old houses.  Other times it's a bleak urban scape with lack lustre buildings and crappy pavement.  Ecploring a new city or town for me is always like creating new maps for my brain.

I always enjoy returning to my little room in the late afternoon.  It is a refuge.

Bogota Journal: el dia de San Pedro

This is a statutory holiday in Colombia. Even though not many Colombians, or should I say Bogotanos, appear to be active church goers the Catholic legacy remains strong and still defines in many ways Colombian society, as it does in many Latin American countries.  I am sitting on my hands waiting to see if any reforms that the current pope inaugurates could also have some lasting reverberations here.  I have previously mentioned that the whole Latin American culture and history and mentality has been largely defined by the Roman Catholicism of the Spanish Inquisition, a very degraded and corrupted form of Christianity prone to violence and exploitation and conversion by force.  This was the church of the Borgias and their patriarch who was then Pope Alexander VI had attained the papacy through bribes and connections, as well as fathering four illegitmate children, including Cesar and Lucretia.  Anyone who has read about them or seen the TV miniseries, the Borgias, can fill in the blanks.

Its been a quiet day so far, barring this noisy internet cafe where someone is talking very loud in German.  I always carry earplugs with me, my little orange friends.  My advice to anyone sensitive to noise is never travel without them.  The streets are largely deserted and almost everything, barring a few convenience stars, cafes and restaurants, is closed.  There are a lot of cyclists out on some streets and some of the parks are full of families.

Most of the Internet cafes in Bogota are closed today and I have had to again walk five miles to get to this one.  It isnt quite the ordeal that it may seem to be.  I sit to rest periodically on park benches and I spent nearly two hours working on a drawing in the snooty French cafe, which really isnt that snooty and the staff there are actually very pleasant and seem interested in my art.  When I travel I try to walk as much as possible.  Given my reduced budget, of course, I am making a necessity out of a virtue but it could be a lot worse.  I am not seeing the tourist Bogota but I am still seeing and learning a lot about this city.

I am quite certain I will have no need to return here.  The altitude is still hard to cope with.  I am here now because I feel called to be here and all the events that have occurred for me since arriving here have only confirmed that this is a necessary visit.  However I do think this will be my one and only visit here, unless I hear from God a distinct call to come to Bogota again, and I highly doubt this will happen.

Bogota Journal...English Coversation Group

First I apologize if the punctuation is a little poor on this entry. The keyboard for this internet cafe computer is a bit wonky.  I had to walk almost five miles to find an internet cafe that is open today, being Sunday and a long weekend.  Tomorrow is el dia de San Pedro or St. Peters Day in Colombia.  I have also had to cancel church because the person who was going to give me a ride got in touch too late to confirm with me.  She likely didnt realize that I do not have immediate internet access, so by the time I walk back to my pension, with the thin air and my tendency towards easy exhaustion here, I have had to cancel with her.  Maybe next Sunday but right now I am feeling a little bit, shall we say, disenchanted, question mark.

Quite frankly, I am counting the days till I return home.  Its been okay here but it is almost impossible to type a quiet email anywhere because Colombians dont seem to get that some people need a bit of quiet if they are going to write anything.

I had a very enlightening visit yesterday with the English Conversation Club, about Colombians in general and Bogotanos in particular.  It turns out that Colombian parents generally are very poor at disciplining their kids, which to me helps explain why I seem to encounter so many children walking around or driving around here in adult bodies.  They were never raised or taught to be respectful or considerate, in most cases.  Add to this the frightful legacy that has been left this country by the brutality of the Spanish invaders, the rigid and dictatorial social and political hierarchies, the widespread corruption, the narcotraficante warfare and the guerrilla warfare with FARC and the ongoing gulf, ever increasing, between rich and poor in this country, and is it any wonder that people simply remain terminally immature and irresponsible in order to cope.  The collective trauma in this country is noteworthy, to say the least. The Bogotanos I was talking to yesterday all express a sense of dispair and hopelessness about their country, which I think is tragic.  I really hope that people here can somehow rise above their sense of helplessness and can really begin to organize and work together for the good and improvement of their society.  I believe this is possible but it is going to take a lot of work for people here to rise above this state of demoralization and the paralyzing apathy that it causes..

They also told me why Bogotanos are such horrible drivers.  Here you do not have to pass a drivers exam to get a license.  Anyone who can get a car can drive it.  Yes, its that bad here.

But my day hasnt been all bad.  I had a great time in the snooty French cafe and Im making great progress with my new drawing.  Sundays are also wonderfully quiet here in Bogota and I intend to enjoy it.  I would also like to reinforce here that up close and personal, Colombians are wonderful people.

Bogota Journal: Sounds

Colombians are not quiet people.  They love noise. They love making  it, they love hearing it.  I would almost imgine that the vast majority of Colombians would be uncomfortable with silence and solitude.  This is a very social culture, but social within the limits of class and kinship. On the streets people move along singly, in pairs or in groups but always as though they and their companions are the only ones present.  Pedestrian and road courtesy are almost nonexistent here.

This morning my neighbourhood was serenaded by a broken car alarm.  Over and over again. Or maybe it was a bird I haven't yet seen.  These people are obsessed with security, which given the hard times they have been through would be understandable.  I would say the broken car alarm is the signature sound of Bogota.  The sirens are tolerable.  Unlike the police, ambulance and fire sirens in Vancouver, here they are not so shrill that you have to cover your ears.

The thin air remains for me a constant issue.  I take long walks in the city but I try to move slowly and when possible sit to rest on a park bench or in a cafe.  People one on one are often nice, often very pleasant but I think they find me a safe person being a foreigner and therefore not part of the social hierarchy here.  My art seems to be an ice breaker and often it gets people talking and vsiting if I'm drawing inside a cafe.

I wandered into a wealthy neighbourhood of brick Victorian style mansions in the Chapinero yesterday.  They seem to have been converted into a university campus with throngs of students everywhere.  Still, a very pleasant and leafy neighbourhood.

The ghost in my room, whom I have named Manuel, has been quiet lately, though I sometimes seem to feel his presence.

The birds around here are generally not much to look at.  The real beauties are out in the mountains and the jungles.  Around Bogota there is a robin-like bird, a bit larger than our robin and grey all over with bright yellow beak and feet.  It is quite unafraid of people and has a pleasant song, rather like our own robin.  There is also a local native dove that can be seen everywhere.  If I want to see hummingbirds or other dazzling bird life I would have to go further afield but this is not going to happen on this trip.  No regrets really, I have plenty to do here already.

Bogota Journal: Rain

The rainy season seems to have begun.  Yesterday it was constant from about 11 am and on.  Rather like Vancouver rain but at times very heavy.  My goal was to walk to a second hand bookstore, eventually, in Chapinero.  I stopped in the natural food cafe because the rain was getting even too heavy for my big fat umbrella so I harboured there with a coffee and spent an hour or so on a drawing.  I ended up having some pleasant conversations with a couple of other customers, one a mature man in a well cut suit and tie (they're not all snobs).  Nice people and a lot of people here seem to like my art.  I have always been a bit indifferent.  I feel sometimes like a fat little white duck that lays golden eggs.  Here comes another one QUACK!!!!! and then I kind of look at it, forget about it and get on with the business of laying another one.

I proceeded from there to Michel Patiserrie, the snooty French place, made myself comfy with coffee and croissant (you get tonnes of jam!), spent another hour with my current drawing (it's a golden headed quetzal, a native bird in Colombia.  Here's a google image. )

It´s almost finished and it's drawing number four here.  I'm hoping to complete maybe six in Bogota.  This for me is the real high point of being here, besides meeting some really great people.  I can devote hours every day to my art.  It's wonderful. After this I walked under rain the remaining distance to Chapinero, bought a couple of books and advised one of the staff or owner, perhaps, about resources for practicing English in Bogota, recommending to her Jorge's group that I have been participating in Saturdays.

The streets in this city, because of poor drainage, are converted with every rainfall into a network of lakes and rivers.  It was kind of fun going about in this weather and I was surprised by how much energy I had.  On the way back it was something different and the thin mountain air really got to me and I really had to drag my heiney back walking very slowly at times to Pasadena.  At least I got back alive.  I love oxygen.

Bogota Journal: Routine

Now that i'm in my third week in Bogota I would say that I feel quite at home.  I rise early in the mornings, at around 5:30 or 6, make my bed, shower, wash clothes by hand, clean the toilet and relax on my bed doing artwork, sometimes with Spanish CNN on.  At 8 I have breakfast, always  the same thing, fruit, scrambled eggs and  toast, coffee every other day.  Then I walk about a kilometre and a half to the cybercafe where I go online to write my lovely blog.  Then I often stop for coffee and a pastry in the area where I sit and work on a drawing.  Sometimes I stop at my pension on the way back, if I have bought some fruit at one of the local supermarkets, then I walk further south through the fashionable districts, stop in another cafe to do more artwork, then I make my way to a supermarket where I buy things at the salad bar to take back to my room for dinner, sometimes stopping in another cafe on the way back, usually if it's raining really hard, where I do more art work.  I usually return to my hotel room between 4:30 and 6, do my accounting to make sure I am within budget, eat, clean up my mess and then do more artwork while wathcing CNN (Spanish) or another news station, El Tiempo.  Some days I arrange to have coffee and a walk with one of my friends in Bogota.

I avoid the buses because they are generally crowded and uncomfortable and it is hard to find the proper card for other lines.  It also gets to be rather expensive after a while.  I think I already mentioned that my hosts in Bogota ambushed me with some unexpected expenses so that I have to pay extra each day for breakfast and internet.  Add to this the airport tax for Canadians only, likely revenge for when the Harper Conservative government enacted visas for Colombian visitors to Canada, and the soaring American dollar (the owners of my pension asked that I pay them in American dollars so at the end the cost of my stay soared by almost two hundred dollars.  Adding everything together I am spending five hundred dollars more than I anticipated for this trip, so, instead of taking cabs or the bus I walk everywhere.  It wears the crap out of me because of the lack of oxygen at this altitude but it's good exercise and I see actually a lot more, though I don't get to travel extensively across Bogota.  Less is more.

This might all seem frightfully boring to many of my readers but really I am having the time of my life.  I am makng new  friends here, have found a great Christian community in the local Anglican Church and I'm getting tonnes of artwork done.  On top of that I am resting well and enjoying opening my window and door to the beautiful garden every morning.  The opportunity of using my Spanish every day is also a plus.

I am not particularly bothered that my room is haunted, and yes, now I am absolutely certain of this.  The ghost appears to be friendly. Last night I noticed several peso coins falling out the right leg of my jeans.  There are no holes in my pockets, I checked and double checked.  Then when I recounted my coins since earlier doing my cash balance for the day I discovered fourteen hundred pesos extra, or around eighty cents Canadian.  This has never happened to me before anywhere and on top of the other odd happenings in my room since arriving here this is the only conclusion I can arrive at. I am living with a ghost.

Yesterday I splurged and bought a beautifully illustrated, and heavy as hell, book of birds of Colombia.  It was pricey, around eighty five bucks Canadian, but fully worth it and I already have ideas for future drawings.  This is my reward for saving money by walking everywhere.  Today I might buy some other books at a second had store in the Chapinero area.  Yesterday I stopped again at the snooty French bakery cafe, Michel Patisserie that my friend in Vancouver recommended to me.  The manager lady who seemed aloof and hostile the day before was this time very warm and friuendly and very interested in my art.  I guess you could say I've become a regular there.

Bogota Journal: Is There Such A Thing As A Typical Colombian?

I dunno.  Is there such a thing as a typical Canadian?  Probably.  We all like to pride ourselves for being individuals but we are also very much products of our environment.  Here are some things that I have heard about Colombians since arriving here:

1. They are very class conscious.  From my limited observation I would say this is true.  It is the unfortunate legacy of Mama España or Mother Spain.  It is so deepy ingrained in Colombians and I think generally in Latin Americans that it is like an incurable illness. Yesterday a friend and I had coffee in a very prestigious neighbourhood of Bogota, though to me it would have just been like an ordinary Vancouver area. While I was waiting for him in said cafe a girl of about twelve came in and placed a candy bar on each occupied table.  I and a couple of other patrons bought from her the candy bars.  The manager was wroth and tried to kick her out. nce my friend did arrive we went abut fifteen minutes before he was served, and only after I asked the manager to please get him something.  We both think this might have been her way of getting back at me for undermining her authority and being kind to the poor child selling the candy bars.

 If you belong to the social elite here you do not mix with your social inferiors.  They might work for you as staff or servants cleaning your toilet or mowing your lawn but you would never expect to be on terms that were anything but professional.  That's the generalization.  However when I'm out and about with a certain Bogotano friend who leads a secure middle class lifestyle he will talk to and fraternize with anyone.  He's a super frinedly guy. I am not saying that he doesn't make assumptions about social status but he tends to treat everyone alike.  I have also noticed in the English conversation club a fair diversity of people though this could be assumption on my part.  What I mean to say here is that observation and generalization don't always square with each other.

2. They tend to be insecure.  They need to be recognized and acknowledged and treated with respect or you are likely to lose them.  But isn't this true for everybody?  And who isn't at least a little bit insecure?  I know that if I walk into a social situation and someone actually stops to introduce me and help me feel comfortable then I am way more likely to stick around.

3. They are highly competive.  This does square with my observations.  Colombia has a highly competive capitalist economy and a weak social infrastructure.  It's eat or be eaten.  This likely shows in a lot of other areas: the way they drive for instance.  Also the way they behave in public.  Do not expect considerate treatment from strangers, at least while you are in Bogota, whether you are driving in traffic, walking on the sidewalk or, as I am trying to do right now, write something coherent in a noisy internet cafe where no one seems to be aware or even care that the person next to them might appreciate a little bit of quiet or space. (I never go out without my earplugs) It's like this everywhere.  The other day, in this same internet cafe an older woman next to me was getting help from the staff person on her computer.  So the old dear stood by the computer, meanwhile her butt pressing against my elbow.  Three times I asked her in polite Spanish for a little elbow room.  She pretended to not hear me and she wasn't deaf, by the way.  So I very lightly jabbed her with my crowded elbow and she did finally give me some room.  Not a word of apology or acknowledgement by the way.

On the other hand, when I tripped yesterday on some broken pavement a middle aged Bogotano very kindly asked if I was okay.

4. Colombians are passive agressive and do not like confrontation.  I'd say yes and no to this one.  In social situations they can be infuriatingly nice and agreeable without delivering but this so far has not been my experience but I've only been here for two weeks.

That said, I still prefer to shelve the stereotypes and take people as I find them.  Perhaps it's a bit easier for me because I'm a foreinger.  I still aver that despite some of the daily frustrations these are great people.  But aren't people great everywhere?  Maybe sometimes?  Okay now and then?  If you offer them money?

Friendship for sale!

Bogota Journal: Midway

I have now reached the halfway point of my visit here in Bogota.  I have been here now for sixteen days.  I leave for home in another sixteen days, April 1. I will begin my evaluation with the positives:

 1. The pension where I am staying.  Since the owners and I ironed out our differences at the very beginning it has been going extremely well.  I still suspect my room might be haunted, but the ghost, if there is one, seems to be friendly or at least benign.  Last night a Colombian coin of two hundred pesos fell out of my underwear.  I have absolutely no idea how it got there and like the rest of you if there was a coin inside my underwear I would certainly have felt it at some point during the day.  Usually I am the only guest staying here, it seems.  It is something lovely opening my windows and door to the lush tropical garden every morning.  The breakfasts are always good and substantial and sometimes, but not always, there is good conversation with one of the owners or staff.

2. My artistic output:  I have already finished three very good drawings and this morning during breakfast I started on number four.  I have made art a priority for this vacation and everywhere I can I will stop an hour or two inside a cafe to work on it.

3.  The climate: Despite the frequent rain, usually in the afternoons, it never gets too hot, often there are breezes and walking is pleasant and easy.

4.  Social contact:  I seem to have already made several new friends in Bogota and throughout the week there is someone to have coffee with or do an outing.  Not only are they lovely people but this is also a great way to learn about Colombia.

5.  Spanish immersion:  Need I say more?  I have cheated a bit this time.  I am reading one English language book here (Karen Armstrong's ¨Fields of Blood¨.  Read it if you haven't already!) as well as a novel in Spanish translation.  Some of the people I know here are anglophones so we speak in English and others are trying to improve their English so we do some language exchange.

6.  Good book stores

7.  Expenses: Almost everything here is relatively cheap and I am well within budget.

8.  I can drink the tap water and not get sick.

9.  Through a little ingenuity I am able to eat quite decently, being vegetarian in a city that doesn't provide a lot of options.

10. The neighbourhood where I am staying: Pasadena is quiet with lots of parks.  Great for contemplative walks.

11.  Decent coffee shops:  Through a lot of walking around and with help from my Bogotana friend, Alba, I have found some really nice places to park in.

12.  The Anglican church:  San Pablo Cathedral is a warm and welcoming Christian community and I enjoy worshipping and fellowshipping with them.

13.  Nature:  Such as it is, given that Bogota is a big city, but the mountains are really lovely, there are parks and flowers everywhere and I have also seen a few lovely birds in my travels.

And now the bad news:  Not really that horrible really   The altitude is an ongoing challenge and some days I still feel like a ninety year old man, sometimes ninety-five.  I find the absolute lack of consideration for others and an apparent lack of social contract in this society to be troubling as well.  The architecture, compared to Mexico is also kind of lacklustre.  I also find the evident fear in a lot of people a bit concerning but this is also understandable.  This city, and perhaps all of Colombia suffers from collective PTSD.  I have also found that many people here, once you get past their initial reserve, are really quite lovely.

Colombia, in my opinion, suffers much as many other Latin American countries.  They had a very rough beginning historically starting from Inquisition Spain in the Sixteenth Century and genocide and enslavement of the native peoples here and their history has been conflict and war and more conflict and more so is it any wonder that they have not succeeded in developing a better and healthier social infrastructure where everyone can be included.  Family is central to everything here which is both Colombia's great blessing and Colombia's great curse.

Bogota Journal: My Own Personal Ghost

It never ceases to amaze me how inconsiderate Bogotanos are.  I really notice this in the internet cafes.  As long as they can make their noise they are happy and don't even think of asking them politely to be quiet, or so it seems.  The culture here is very extroverted and very competitive and the social contract, outside of the family, seems almost nonexistent.  I am very grateful for my earplugs.  On the other hand many are very friendly and generous and there isn't enough they could do for you.

The relentless social darwinism seems to be the ruling element here though and people really struggle to stay alive and move forward.  In one of the busy intersections I have seen a couple of guys, one with very long dreadlocks juggling on top of their bikes during red lights.  The acrobatic skill this must take is amazing.  After one has done a turn balancing while standing on top of his mountain bike while juggling four pins he jumps back onto the pavement to collect donations from his captive audience.  These are things that tourists often delight in but the shadow side is in the desperation to survive and people having to take inventive measures to keep body and soul together.

I'm still wondering if my room is haunted.  The other morning I noticed that dirt had been tracked onto the throw rug by my bed.  It seemed odd because I am very careful not to wear my shoes in my room.  I brushed off the dirt from the rug and checked the bottoms of my shoes.  They were clean.  Last night as I was tucking myself into bed for a good read before turning out the light I noticed under the bedspread the plastic box that contains my earplugs. I know for a fact (well, almost) that I did not remove the earplugs from my shirt pocket and they could't have fallen out because I would have seen them before getting the bed ready.  Not that any of this is evidence of the paranormal and I'm certainly not spooked by any of this.  It is kind of entertaining though.

Bogota journal: This And That

It's been a routine weekend so far.  Yesterday I went for a walk in one of the adjoining wealthy suburbs. Each subdivision has security at the entrance and the houses are all uniformly ugly, row aupon row of brown brick shit houses.  One would imagine that to be wealthy in Bogota one would want to choose something a little more attractive but who knows, they could be palaces inside.  One of the guards wanted to know what I was doing there and I replied that I'm visiting from Canada and going for a walk.  He seemed okay with this.  It also helped that I left my switchblade and balaclava at home.

The English conversation club yesterday had a good turnout and I did what I could to help facilitate.  Concern was mentioned that I didn't talk very much and I explained that that was the point.  I already speak English well as my mother tongue.  I don't need the practice.  It's just as well because most of the participants seem to have fairly conservative values so I have to bite my tongue a lot.  Oh well, I'm just here for another two weeks so I'm sure I'll do okay.

At the Anglican cthedral they are trying to encourage me to go to the English service in the late afternoon but that kind of undermines the point of my being here, which is to work on my Spanish. I might check it out on my last Sunday here but no promises.

Today was a bad altitude day and my sea level lungs could barely hold out as I trudged the six and a half miles to the church service this morning. I'm feeling better this afternoon. Bogota is very quiet on Sundays.  Almost everything is closed and there is little traffic on the roads.  I stopped for coffee at a nearby cafe and again some people stopped to admire my work.  One fellow who has been in Bogota from Europe for the past year stopped to chat for a while.  He confirmed more or less my observations about a sense of collective PTSD in this city and described it as a jungle which is an apt metaphor I'd say.  There is a very darwinist mentality in this city.  As fascinating as my time here is I can't say I'll miss Bogota when I'm gone.  Doesn't mean I'm not coming back. Doesn't mean I am.

On the way home I saw my first hummingbird here at a bush full of yellow flowers.
Isn´t he a beauty?  I might draw him while I'm here. 

Bogota Journal: Travel And Identity

Last fall I was at a professional retreat with one of the mental health teams I work at.  In the afternoon they handed out little certificates to each staff member naming several qualities by which we are each known.  My certificate contained the words Artist, Traveller, Tenacious, and Resourceful.  It all kind of makes sense in a way.  To do well as an artist or a traveller one needs to be tenacious and resourceful.  They are both creative activities and they demand a lot.

I find that while travelling alone identity becomes particularly interesting.  I am in a foreign country with nothing or no one familiar to use as reference.  Everyone I meet is for the first time.  You can only make a first impression once, they say.  What I find interesting and refreshing is that no one can use anything from my past against me.  They see me as I am, now, without any baggage.  It is almost like reinventing myself.

Yesterday morning during breakfast on the patio I watched as a bright yellow hibiscus flower in the garden gradually bloomed and unfurled in the sun.  When I came back a couple of hours later it was in full splendour.  That's all it took.  Time in the sun, the warmth and light bidding it to unfold.

I think there is something about travelling solo that really helps me grow as a person.  It probably isn't for everyone.  Every time I return from one of these one month or longer excursions I feel a little bit renewed but also changed somehow.  I really believe that character and personality are not fixed concepts.  They are mutable and influenced and changed by our enviornment.  But I also believe just as strongly that there is a unique core truth that is essential to every human being.  Like the hibiscus unfurling in the sun.  All it needs is the DNA and nature does the rest.

I had a dream last night where I was carrying a blue cat on a train.  My mother had told me to hold onto that blue cat and not lose it, but to protect it.  Now it wasn't a Russian blue cat, it's fur was actually a lovely sky blue colour.  So I held it and carried it and when it was restless or seemed anxious I petted and stroked it.
I believe the cat represents my sense of identity and my need to nurture and protect this while in transit.  This might also be the reason why I am so intensely focussed on my art during this trip.  I seem to be doing very well and I am eager to show my work to everyone when I am back. Everyone in Vancouver, anyway.

I'm not really that interested in seeing a lot of Bogota, and really that just happens anyway during my walk-abouts.  The city, and its people, are really their own reward.  This is even more an interior journey than an outward one.  But the exterior is also kind of interesting.

I found myself wondering today if my room is haunted.  Twice I have discovered, first on one of the socks I was wearing, then this morning on my wash cloth a bright spot of magenta colour.  I have no idea where this could have come from.  There is nothing magenta in my room and I'm not carrying paints, and the coloured ball point pens I use in my art are always carefully capped.  Also this morning, while trying to open my door I found it jammed.  Then I looked down and noticed that in the lower part of it was bolted.  I never before noticed this bolt on my door.  Cue the theme to the Twilight Zone.

Bogota Journal: ¨There Is No Such Thing As Society¨´

Well, so said Dame Mararet Thatcher, who now is likely somewhere in hell roasting marshmallows with her best friend forever Augusto Pinochet.  Or maybe they're being barbecued together from the same pitch fork.
Neo-liberals roasting on an open fire.  But it´s nowhere near Christmas right now and really it could be that God is more merciful than I am and if I make it to heaven in the afterlife maybe I´ll even meet them there?  Who only knows and really it's quite enough work getting through this life without worrying about what comes after.  But here I digress.

 The fact of the matter is that there is indeed such a thing as society, or the perpetual gathering and interacting of persons.  I see this constantly here in Bogota. Yes, the social infrastructure here is more fragmented than what we are used to in Canada, and people here really have to struggle to survive.  In place of a strong social safety net (they do have one here but I don't think it's very strong) they have a stong family unit.  Actually one well educated professional I met here expressed surprise and bewilderment when I mentioned to her that I have never been married, never wanted to be, and never had kids, never wanted any, and this is actually quite normal and accepted in Canada where some fifty percent of the people live alone.  Not so in Colombia.  Like in other Latin American countries the family is central to everything.  If you are on your own then you are really on your own and God help you if you're in a jam.

Still, I find the people here, once they get over their initial reserve, incredibly warm and friendly.  And generous. I think that human selfishness is not the root of human nature though it certainly exists there.  I also believe that we are for the most part naturally generous and want to reach out and help and care for others.  Fear and a sense of helplessness often get in the way, as does living in a society, if you can call it that, that glorifies selfishness and individualism.  And if you happen to live in a country that has been traumatized by conflict and war then it's going to be all the harder and more complicated.

I spent yesterday with a friend who lives here.  We ended up visiting the park, Simon Bolivar and the nearby botanical gardens.  The park is big, but not really that impressive.  The trees are kind of small and scattered but the grass is so vividly green as to be almost blinding.  There is a lake with waterfowl and other birds and we saw an elegant white egret.  For the botanical garden there is a small entrance fee but it is more than worth it.  It is huge with towering trees and flowers and paths everywhere.  It is also a welcome refuge of silence from the relentless racket that is Bogota.

Later my friend and I went to his home where I met his two daughters, teen age and pre-teen.  It is a very humble place, small, with only the basics but clearly a loving home.  My friend told me that there is a coded hierarchy of social strata used to code neighbourhoods.  He lives in a poor area and said that it is a two.  One would be very poor.  Pasadena, where I am staying, he said would be a five or a six.  Six is at the very top.  This all strikes me as a bit odd.  My neighbourhood is nice and quite but nothing fancy and really not much different from a middle class or working class neighbourhood in Vancouver.  Yet, he calls Pasadena exclusive, which is a term that gives me pause.  Since this neighbourhood is exclusive, then by default it excludes anyone who cannot afford to live there.  And it is the same thing with a lovely house in an adjoining neighbourhood where I visited some folks last week.  A beautiful sumptuous home in a quiet, code six neighbourhood.  It isn't that much different in Vancouver, though, just not officially stratified.  For example we have the ostentatious palaces in Shaughnessy Heights and Southwest Marine Drive in Vancouver at one end of the scale and the Downtown Eastside (aka the poorest postal code in Canada) on the other.

That said, after our visit yesterday it is further reinforced to me that in Canada, compared to much of the world, we live like kings.  Even though we need to do a lot more to look after our own poor and homeless, and yes we do have the resources, just lack of political will, on the balance of things we have very little , apart from our horrible winters, to compain about.

Bogota Journal: Los Bogotanos: A Complex People

I am writing tomorrow`s entry today since I`ll be busy with a friend for a good part of the day tomorrow.  Following my daily sessions in one of the local internet cafes I met briefly with a friend on a street corner hoping we could have coffee together but it turns out he had other plans which is okay.  He strongly refused to allow me to repay him the money I owed him from dinner Saturday during the English conversation club.  It turns out that I underpaid my meal by around five bucks because I am still learning the currency and today he roundly refused my offer (insistence rather) of paying him back.  Such incredible generosity!

He left me at the cafe where I proceeded again with my current drawing when a mother and her university student daughter approched me, Again admiring my work and asking me questions about it.  Honestly this is getting a bit weird.  After I showed them my finished drawing the mother offered to buy it!  Well, I told her that it isn`t for sale, wisely I think, and I would like my friends in Vancouver to see it anyway.  But lovely, friendly and gracious people.

In the snootier neighbourhood of Zona G (or Zona T, I still get them confused) while waiting to cross the street I noticed a bus belch forth a huge cloud of black smoke.  I commented to the gentleman crossing the street from the other side (he was all decked out in a suit, likely works for a bank or in commerce or similar)
"Que humo negro se echa" or that`s some black cloud of smoke, eh?.  He kind of grunted and tried to ignore me.  Likewise while trying to squeeze by a couple of young women just ahead of me I excused myself in Spanish and got quite a frosty response.

My friend from Bogota has warned me that a lot of the local people will seem unfriendly because they´ve been traumatized by the violence of the recent past.  I agree with her.  I also think that there is something coded in the class system here.  With the women, I have noticed, very much like their counterparts in Vancouver, that the more make up they are wearing and the higher their heels, the snottier they are going to be.  Likewise the men.  The more expensive the suit and tie the less likely they are going to give you the time of day.

Now, I don`t want to make this into a crude generalization because I have also been very pleasantly surprised by people I`ve met here.  I think though that trauma could also play a role in heightening people`s reserve and suspicion of others.

And now I am off to dine in a restaurant called the Ugly American.

Bogota Journal: Another Visit To Usaquen

I needed a quiet day yesterday so I stayed a bit closer to my pension.  The neighbourhood where I am staying has a lovely network of parks which I explored a bit more yesterday morning.  The houses are quite plain and ordinary, usually white stucco behind iron gates and all joined together.  The gardens are particularly lovely with many tropical flowers, lots of bougainvillea and roses.  I stopped briefly at my pension.  The owner of the establishment has advised me that I carry all my valuables with me while my room is being cleaned as she isn´t sure how well the cleaner, who to me is a lovely, amiable lady, can be trusted. After I put my passport and excess cash back in my room I set out for Usaquen.

I was feeling really tired yesterday from the lack of oxygen and had to trudge the three miles to get there.  In case you´re wondering why I walked instead of take a cab, it`s quite simple.  I need the exercise, and this is likely the best way to get used to the high altitude.  I felt like a little old man of ninety.  I found a pleasant route along a river with landscaped park space and a path.  It is great getting away from traffic for a while, but still relatively easy to get run over if not extra careful.  The right hand turners are extremely reckless.

I stopped again in the snooty cafe and got out my sketchbook.  While working on the new drawing an entire family--an academic looking couple and their two adult kids--approached me to admire my work.  This is the second time this has happened in the two times I have been in this cafe.  It actually seems to happen almost everywhere I go in this city whenever I take out my sketchbook.  Rather a strange feeling this but I don´t want to get too used to it.  Swelled head syndrome you know and to put it frankly, as an artist I´m okay but nothing great.

Usaquen, as I previously mentioned is a quaint colonial village at the base of the mountain, more or less swallwed up by urban sprall and gentrification.  The restaurants are expensive, almost as pricey as what I´m used to in Vancouver.  The buildings and the narrow streets are lovely and there is a huge parking lot in the middle.  Oh, the irony.  Still, it´s tranquil and easy on the eyes and  a healthy break from the extreme traffic that seeems to crisscross this city at random.

When I returned to my room I was extremely exhausted.  Which is okay because it makes rest seem all the more precious.

I will try to write more in detail soon if I can.  This internet cafe is extremely busy and noisy this morning and I have observed that Colombians, like Mexicans, can be very noisy and not very conscious of people around them.   I see this among other things as a symptom too of the kind of collective ptsd that I have already mentioned, and this goes for Mexico and Colombia alike. Everyone out for themselves because survival and simply coping are something desperate and precious.

The fact of the matter is, when I set out from my pension this morning I decided that I am going to try to treat people here with the same consideration and care that I treat my clients.  I don´t think everyone here is necessarily ill, but this city has been through some brutal times.  This also brings to mind what I have come to see also as a collective sense of denial that Latinos have about mental  illness.  Many have claimed that there is practically no mental illness in their countries but if you use the standard of diagnosis that is common in North America then let me be the first to suggest that they are somewhat mistaken.

A Visit With The Bishop

I arrived at the diocesan office about ten minutes late, following a gruelling six and a half mile walk. What makes it gruelling is the high altitude and lack of oxygen.  The Anglican bishop is an amiable and very serious gentleman in his early sixties, very busy and very devoted to his duties and the people in the parish churches.  He seemed very open to some of the thoughts and impressions and concerns that I have about Colombia.  He also introduced me to his assistant, an American priest, Ted, who officiates the English language eucharist in the afternoons.  We spent nearly two hours together talking about a whole range of subjects.  The civil war in this country and its ramifications are an ongoing concern and preoccupation. I would like to spend my month here getting to know them and the people in the church.  They seemed particularly interested in and receptive to my art and also my occupation as a mental health peer support worker and I explained a bit about how the mental health services are structured in Vancouver.  I also expounded at length about some of my involvement with Latin American clients, almost all who came to Canada as refugees traumatized by conflict in their countries and how this has further informed my interest in Latin America, notably Colombia.  The bishop has on his desk a small calendar featuring incredibly beautiful art.  He said the paintings were done by disabled adults who can only paint using their mouths or their feet.  Heres the link: http://www.apbp.com.co/
Pretty amazing art, eh.

I am trying to get in as much time as I can with my artwork while Im here since I know that when I am back in Vancouver I wont have a lot of free time.  Its not always easy here in Bogota since decent cafes to sit in are not always easy to come by but I somehow manage.  I still feel a bit reluctant to do art in the parks as I still dont know the area that well and I dont want to feel too vulnerable, but maybe a bit later Ill try this.  I usually get back to my pension at around six or so and I spend most of the evening there in my room drawing and colouring while listening to Spanish, sometimes English, TV.  Ive been watching Spanish, sometimes English CNN a lot.  Despite their obviously conservative slant at least Im keeping somewhat informed about the world. It seems that the only thing they can blame the poor state of the Venezuelan economy is that its socialist.  But nothing in depth.  Its a favourite punching bag of theirs.  Here is a google image of a bird, Shining Honeycreeper, I just finished drawing:
Isnt he a beauty.  Here is an image of the bird I have just started, Paradise Tanager:


By the way, please excuse the poor punctuation on some of these posts.  I am working out of internet cafes and some of the keyboards are a bit wonky.

Not one single Bogotano who has seen my birds has known that they exist and are native to their own country.  I imagine that having more than one thousand bird species could be part of it, but also because the lack of itnerest many people here appear to have in their own natural splendour, but this is also a bit of a generalization I would think since there are also a lot of people here whom I so far havent met who are very knowledgeable and concerned with the natural environment. I am also aware that many people here work hard and long hours and dont have much time or energy left over to go trekking in the jungle.  A lot of them also like to spend their spare time drinking and partying.  The latino coping mechanism.

Bogota Journal: Random Bits

Myriam, the owner of the bed and breakfast has three guests now besides me, all friends of hers from Switzerland.  I imagine they must be paying her something though I`m sure my paying extra for breakfast could be subsidizing their stay. Not a big deal.  It`s still a bargain and they`re nice people, older, academic-ish.  With Myriam they always speak French though their English and Spanish is also acceptable and we communicate in Spanglish.

Ir`s cold this morning, Vancouver-cold and I`m bundled upa bit.  It will likely warm up at around midday.  I carry my big umbrella with me everywhere now.  I feel like a bit of a dork hauling it around in sunny weather but the rain can hit at any moment and when it hits it punches.  Hard.  I think I`m becoming a bit obsessive -compulsive about it.

Today I`m picking up my fresh fruit supplement at one of the local supermarkets: usually bananas and big tangerines.  The fruit plate I have with my breakfast is pretty good but since I`m eating in restaurants nearly everyday I still want to take care about my nutrition.  There`s an upscale supermarket chain here in Bogota called  Carrullo  It`s kind of like a Colombian Choices or Whole Paycheck (oops! I mean Whole Foods)  Yesterday while walking home I stopped in a Carrullo`s where I picked up a nice mix of stuff in their salad bar and later stuffed myself on a park bench surrounded by trees and tranquility.

The other day a friend and I were sitting in a cheap working class restaurant.  I couldn´t have anything there since it was all meat except for a plate of really good fruit.  My friend, a middle class Colombian, commented that the people in this restaurant are only interested in parying, dancing, drinking, using drugs.  I couldn´t resist the bait so I dropped a little conversation bomb.  It seems to me, I said, that what would really preoccupy them would be the need to survive.  Shut him right up!

I am enjoying greatly Karen Armstrongs book, Fields of Blood.  Right now Im reading the chapter about the beginning of the Renaissance and of how Pope Alexander VI gave Spain and Portugal permission to divide between them South America.  So the Portuguesse got Brazil and the Spanish almost everything else.  There is something key to this, I believe, to many of the contemporary and stubbornly persistent problems that seem to bedevil many Latin American countries.  I was only able to make the connection last night when I read about it.  Pope Alexander VI was also the famously corrupt and evil father of the Borgia clan.  He didnt have a Christian bone in his body and managed to gain the papacy through bribery and other dirty tricks.  He was the lynchpin, I would say, that drove an already corrupted and bloodied church to its deepest nadir and it was under his watch that the Conquistadores began their campaign of genocide that created Latin America.  To this day this legacy continues to repeat itself on Latin American countries and cultures. There is no surprise then that whole societies are often paralyzed and that change, when it happens, moves at a snails pace.  I have come to wonder if the famous Latino joie de vivre is really a collective coping mechanism in the face of the problems they have had to tolerate for generations due to a rigid, corrupt and often very cruel political religious socio economic hierarchy that to this day is often deaf and indiferent to the peoples calls for change.

When we were up at Monserrate the other day I noticed the stations of the cross along an outdoor path.  An indigenous looking woman was kneeled before one of them, barefoot and singing from a prayer book.

Bogota Journal: Interesting Encounters

Yesterday I went back to Usaquen where I sat in a rather uppity cafe with a bottle of sparkling mineral water and chocolate mousse cake.  Usaquen, I may have previously mentioned, Is a colonial village in north-eastern Bogota not too far from where I am staying.  As I was working on a drawing at my table I was approached by a very elegant couple.  They were intrigued by my art and we proceeded to talk for about half an hour or so in Spanish.  He, Jorge, is a journalist.  His companion, Doris, is an art agent.  They seem to really love my artwork and have expressed interest in meeting with me further and perhaps to look at networking with me in the future.  Of course all this is completely speculative and really I dont care if this happens or not but it would still be nice to have them both as friends.  They seemed concerned and interested as I told them about my interest in Bogota and my desire to further explore the idea of collective ptsd and how this relates to this city and the people who live here.  I also told them of my work in mental health rehab in Vancouver as a peer support worker and my own experience of recovery from ptsd.  On one hand this might have been too much information but it felt right at the time and I really dont care if this blows any further opprortunities with them or not regarding my art.

Later Jorge, my friend Albas dad, and I went to an English conversation group he helps coordinate in a cafe in a far away mall.  It wasnt really that far away, about three and a half miles but even though Im a seasoned walker, walking one mile at eighty-five hundred feet above sea level feels like walking three miles at sea level in Vancouver.  I had really a lovely time with this group and between mouthfuls of pasta we talked together mostly in English then in Spanish for a good two hours.  They all seem like decent and very interesting people and Im looking forward to seeing them next Saturday.

Today I visited the Anglican Cathedral, San Pablo, in the Chapinero district.  The people there are very welcoming, informal and real.  The bishop, Francisco Duque-Gomez, has taken a special interest in me and we are going to have coffee together tomorrow.  I walked there this morning from my pension in the Pasadena district.  Many of the streets are blocked off from traffic for cyclists and pedestrians which is a lovely change from the traffic choked carreras that I see here the rest of the week.  From my conversations with people here I get the impression that many Bogotanos want to live in a more progressive, greener and more equal city but it is very hard in some ways to mobilize this.  The lack of political will, and the corruption in high places seems to have paralysed a lot of people into a kind of restless apathy.

Following the service in the cathedral and after chatting with some people over coffee downstairs I went for coffee in a local cafe to put the finishing touches on my current drawing.  One of the baristas there took a special interest in my artwork and took a picture of my drawing.  He is a student from a small town nearby.  His name is Sergio and he is studying nursing.