City Of Fear

I don`t think I`ve mentioned yet how many houses and apartment buildings in Bogota are surrounded by electric wire.  I first noticed a couple of weeks ago when walking by the military base by el Rio Negro where the black vultures are.  Then I began to see it everywhere else.  I also find it curious that anyone who mentions the local poor and homeless is really afraid of them and believes them all to be violent dangerous criminals.  I don`t know how true or untrue this is but I suspect stigma on top of truth or truth filtered through and distorted by stigma..  If it is true that Colombia is the most unequal country in Latin America then I would imagine that there are problems on both sides.  The military seems to be particularly well off and prosperous in this country and I really wonder how much money that could go into generous and pro-active social reforms and programs gets swallowed for purposes of war and keeping the army rich and powerful.  It is really difficult anywhere in Latin America, outside of Costa Rica which dismantled their military forces in 1948, to imagine any solution that doesn`t involve violence given that violence is such a key factor in the history of Latin America, beginning with the horrific pillage and genocide begun by the Spanish in the 1500`s.

On TV the other night I listened while this fatuous Catholic priest tried to convince us that Colombia is founded and rooted in the principals of the Gospel of Christ.  I only wish I was hearing him in person for the pleasure of laughing in his smug sanctimonious face.  The Spanish imported a very corrupted aqnd degraded form of Christianity that glorified state and violence and except for a handful of enlightened and compassionate priests trying to defend the indigenous peoples, they were with the armed forces the greatest allies and contributors to genocide in the Americas.  Really, if what the churches (Anglican included) pass off as Christianity was for me the only evidence available of Jesus Christ and his message of love and forgiveness and reconciliation I would have become a confirmed atheist at a very early age.

Speaking of the churches yesterday, Good Friday, I came across in my neighbourhood a velvet upholstered (burgundy) kneeler with a sign of Christ on the Cross and words in Spanish saying Christ is crucified with two older women standing by. I guess they must have erected a friendly neighbourhood stations of the cross network in Pasadena.  There was no line up for the kneeler and no one kneeling there.

I unfortunately had to stand up my friends who had invited me to their apartment Friday, yesterday.  Thursday I was in the general area and tried to find their place without any success.  Not having a laptop or a phone or any phone or computer access in my bed and breakfast I have to rely on cybercafes for internet access and yesterday everything was closed.  So I have just emailed them an agonized apology and hope that we can still meet up this coming week while I`m still in Bogota.

I had a lovely time yesterday seated inside the Oma Cafe in the Bulevar mall where they seem to know me now.  I must have spent almost four hours there working on a drawing and sipping and nibbling.  A couple of staff and two customers really took interest in my art and the conversations were enjoyable.  This is also Colombians at their finest.  One to one they are fantastic people.  In groups in public, not exactly so.


This is an image of the bird I am painting, an orange throated sunangel hummingbird. I am taking a few liberties but it`s turning out really well.

On my way back to my pension in the late afternoon I was pleasantly surprised.  Walking through a quiet neighbourhood with a lot of nature I thought I saw a yellow blossom fly up into the tree it had fallen from (there are lots of these small trees in Bogota with clusters of bright yellow flowers).  I looked again and it was a yellow oriole.  Isn`t he a beauty?  I`m drawing this one next.