Loertscher Post-Dispatch: Special South of the Border Edition

Now that Rebecca has entered the blogosphere and resurrected the old Post-Dispatch,she has asked me to write some stuff about my adventures here in Colombia. I'm not doing anything exciting like some more famous visitors to Colombia have, like catching the wrong bus to Cartgena or following a treasure map to find a giant emerald. I spend most of my free time trying to decide what to fix for dinner, which doesn't make for very exciting copy. But for those who are intensely curious about what I'm up to (and I'm sure there are lots of you out there), here are a few tidbits.

Last night I was pretty fed up with cooking my own food so I was determined to go out. I decided to go back to the Mall where Mike took me the first night I was here, but after I left our building I realized that I had left my cell phone behind. Since that’s a force protection problem, I decided to go to “Pan Pa’ Ya,” a bakery chain that serves meal along with selling bread. I bought what they call “Calentado Mixto.” A calentado is basically a rice dish with cut up meat and vegetables, some kind of sauce, and a fried egg on top. It was really good, and it was pretty cheap.

Yesterday I put a lot of miles on my creaky old knees. I went for a 50-minute run first thing in the morning, and then I hiked up to the temple, which is a little farther away from my house than the Church. Walking to that part of town creates few difficulties. First of all, the FP rules still have me a little paranoid and I feel pretty exposed just walking around for an hour at a time. Second, there is a freeway (la Autopista) to cross, so you have to look for a landbridge of some sort. There are also some canals you have to get over, including one just south of the Temple that I didn’t notice before, so I had to hike for a while to find a bridge I could take over. By the time I finally made it to the Temple I was pretty tired out, but it was still a wonderful experience. Attending a Spanish session requires me to pay more attention just to keep up with what’s going on.

I’m beginning to feel a little more familiar with the city during the commute. As I have gotten more acclimated to running at 8500 feet above sea level, I’ve actually begun to notice that I run past some of the apartments where other people in my shuttle route live. Bogota is a big city, and there’s a lot going on. One of the first things I’ve noticed is that the economy seems to be doing pretty well. There are lots of people walking around and going to the shops along the road on most nights. There is also a lot of construction going on throughout the city. On my street alone they are building two new high rise apartment buildings. The one time I went to the mall it was a Thursday night and the place was crawling with people. It almost seems to me that the economy here is better than it is back in the U.S., or rather consumer confidence seems higher here than in the U.S.

One thing I’ve noticed about the city: Bogatanos seem to have a very
entrepreneurial spirit. For example, while most people curse the horrible rush hour traffic, some folks have realized that it presents economic opportunities and they take full advantage of it. Every day there are people outselling snacks, flowers, brooms, and puffy feather dusters to motorists stranded at busy intersections. One of our embassy drivers told me that they used to sell cigarettes that way, but a recent law made it illegal to cell cigs outside of the package.

Now that’s not too unusual for a big city; I’ve seen the same thing in D.C., and to a lesser extent in San Antonio (although panhandlers seem to dominate the market there). There are a few new business ideas in play here that I have not seen before, however. There are street performers as well. There’s a guy who juggles clubs while riding a unicycle. There are a couple of guys that do a dance routine while wearing matching MC Hammer pants. I also saw three guys spinning some sticks around while standing on each other’s shoulders, and they displayed an amazing amount of skill.

But my favorite so far are the self-appointed traffic cops that work for tips at some of the busiest intersections. Here’s the setup. Let’s say you’re at an intersection that is so congested that once the light changes you still can’t get through because the drivers coming down the other street are still in the middle of the road. Never fear, your ad hoc traffic cop is here. They stand in the middle of the road, basically daring other drivers to run them over, while they block traffic so some people can get through. These guys generally make traffic worse for everybody, but they do manage to get paid by the motorists they help out. That would never work in the states; the cops would come down on you like a ton of bricks. But these guys are making a few pesos at it, for now.