A day in my fake real Colombian life

Tuesday 27 October, 2009 


8.30am: Wake up. Luxuriate in bedroom. I have a gigantic room, balcony and ensuite to myself and after the way I've been living for the past nine months, this is luxury like I have never known. I am not living out of a backpack. My clothes are in a wardrobe. I am not subject to the whims and drunkenness of my loud, door-slamming light-switching 7 or 8 roomates at any given time, and being kept awake by someone's snoring is a thing of the past. Sigh. Life is good.

8.45am: SHIT! Late for university.

8.50am: Scurry around quiet enormous apartment getting ready. I live with five Colombian guys. Not that you would know it - the house is spotless, a far cry from my all-female den of iniquity in France. Here, everyone has their own food cupboard, sinks are divided and there is a comprehensive recycling and cohabitation system that works like a dream.

My flatmates are a diverse bunch: One artist/musician missing the fingers on his right hand (how does he play the guitar?), a telenovela actor, a chef-in-training, another musician, and a Metro guy. Oh, and Leche, the cat. I feel that she dislikes me. Perhaps she doesn't want to compete for alpha female. Whatever, human trumps cat.

9.10am: Get dressed. Discover that at some point over the last month, the cat has pissed in my pack. It stinks. Well played, cat.

9.15am: Walk to the metro. Am frustrated by the inability of Medellin's citizens to walk in anything resembling a straight line. My crowd-dodging skills have been on the up since moving here. Almost fall over a tiny woman who aggressively and suddenly swerves in front of me. The light turns red while I trip over my own feet. A city chicken bus is bearing down on me, tooting furiously.

9.25am: Arrive at the metro, out of breath. All the seats along the platform are taken so I slump down against the wall. "Excuse me señorita, you can't sit here," says a prepubescent guard. "I'm not allowed to sit?" I ask, incredulous. "No. Sitting is only permitted on seats." Unbelievable. I stand, leaning against the wall, and glare at him.

Medellin is deservedly proud of its gleaming metro, as shiny and new today as it was when it was inaugurated 15 years ago. Perhaps this has something to do with the squads of metro police whose jobs entail forbidding eating and drinking within the turnstiles (I was prevented from entering the metro with food more than once, when the guards eagle-eyed me as I gulped down breakfast so I could get on the train). Whatever, it makes the ride to school brief and pleasant. The train is too expensive for the majority of the city's residents: at $1 a ride, it costs as much as the Sydney bus. And given that the daily wage is $8, not many can afford it.

But its pretty... for the portion of the tracks that passes through the city the train is suspended like a monorail, giving a panoramic view of Medellin and its surrounding hills.

9.50am: Arrive at uni. Wrangle with security. No, I don't have a student card, they didn't give me one, I'm only here for a month, etc. "Where's your receipt for payment, then?" a vigilant old guard asks me, eyes narrowed. I wasn't aware that I needed to carry the receipt around with me. What's the big deal, I'm in your computer system, etc. I go through this every day, both upon arrival and departure. They take their jobs seriously.

10am: Spanish class. We are talking about malnutrition in Colombia. Apparently 50% of Colombians are currently going hungry every day. "A taxi driver told me that over by the stadium people are killing and eating whatever passes by," me teacher says. "It turned my stomach." Oh please, I scoff, surely that's some kind of urban legend. She shrugs. "I don't know. There is a whole level of society here of people who are completely lost. There is a dirty sub-level holding up society," she adds. "You know, they say that the mayor has cleaned things up here, and that is true, but it's like looking into a pool of water - its clear on the top but the bottom is murky, and trash is floating up to the surface."

My teacher is a wealthy Colombian married to an Englishman. She seems to be a common example of Colombians who have attained some level of wealth and are now afraid that their countrymen might take it away from them and have to guard it, always looking over their shoulders. She has a lot of empathy for the lower classes and does what she can, volunteering to teach English in poor schools, but neither does she want to lose what she has already obtained. That's natural.

11am: We move on from malnutrition to gangs. The city is experiencing a gang war because of the power vacuum left by the Office of Envigado gang that was recently dismantled. My teacher shivers. "I used to work at the school in the barrio," she says, referring to the outskirts of the city in the poorer neighborhoods of Medellin. "La Violencia here was terrible."

From 1995 to 2005 there was a similar power struggle that ravaged the city following the death of Pablo Escobar. "Kids at school would come up to me and show me their arms, and say 'profesora, look at this!' and there would be a bullet embedded in their skin. And then all the other kids would come over and say, 'profesora, that's nothing, look at this,' and they would show me where they were grazed by bullets from gunfights in their neighborhoods."

Every week she would call the roll. Where are Gustavo, Juan, Giovanni? "Profesora," the kids would call out, "he's gone." The children got caught in the crossfire of gangs. "I would get threatening phone calls all the time, telling me they didn't like my skirt, that my hair was too long. Once a guy stood outside the school looking at one of the teachers and I heard him say, 'I don't like that guy's shirt. If he's wearing it tomorrow, I'll kill him.' It was crazy. I stayed for as long as I could but then finally I had to leave." She spent five years living in the States and London before it was safe enough to come back.

But now the violence is increasing again. Political experts recently said that the dismantling of the Office of Envigado was a bad thing for city security, because at least before they controlled the other gangs and minimised killings. "It's like when a shark passes, all the other fish shrink away," my teacher says.

12.30pm: Walk home from the metro station. The crowd suddenly parts and a couple comes running through. They are followed by a man waving a rifle. I also stop to spectate, wondering if I will witness a shooting, but all three of them keep running. The crowd around me seems disappointed.

12.35pm: I walk up Avenida La Playa, which is dotted with men handing out fliers, like some kind of human obstacle course. Today I don't dodge them, but take a flier. I glance at it, and am delighted with what I find:

Angels of Love and Luck: Difficult love - lost hope? Constant fighting? Have you felt used or humiliated by your partner? Don't suffer any longer: know the truthful and powerful secret of the Angels of Love. RECUPERATE YOUR HAPPINESS! Experts in recovering lost and impossible loves.

I take a second flier. Awesome.

"Don't leave your job until you come to me. Don't put your feelings in the hands of just anyone. REGINA MENTALISTA. Have you visited many places and found no solution? Have you only wasted time and money? 25 years of experience in solving problems of love, luck, and business; curing sicknesses such as impotence and frigidity. Bring a photo, an item of clothing or hair from your partner. I guarantee 100% the return of your love in 3 days. They will prostrate themselves at your feet begging pardon. Consultation: $4.

I can't help but wonder what kind of pressure Regina Mentalista might feel compelled to put on a wayward partner for the princely sum she charges of $4. This is a country dominated by gangs, after all... The reality is probably even more frightening than anything I could imagine.

12.45pm: I am given another flier and the guy says to me, "Hey, are you looking for work?" I glance down. It is a business card for Zandaly Massages. "Discretion, comfort, and pleasure". The black and white photo says classy, and the girl's exposed vagina says business. Hmm. Flattered or insulted? I decide that it comes down to how much they'd be willing to pay.

1pm: Back at work, my boss and I look up Zandaly's website. We know they're classy because they have one. We enter the virtual sex shop and click on the product list. Bizarrely, instead of pictures of sex toys, as advertised, the website's gallery showcases "The Old Town of Montreal". Hmmmm. Kinky in ways I hadn't even imagined!

2pm: Work work work. Today's stories are about the President trying to change the Constitution for a second time to allow him a third term in office. Last time he changed the Constitution he bribed a bunch of senators to do so; that's how they roll. A senator has just finished her jail term - she was busted for working with paramilitaries. The rebels may or may not release some hostages, paramilitaries have admitted to more massacres and mass graves have been found. Barranquilla's Queen of Queens Pageant is on, Shakira may or may not have had plastic surgery and may or may not be engaged. All abortions have been suspended, and Tom Cruise may star in the film adaptation of last year's dramatic FARC hostage rescue.

4pm: My boss announces that we are going on an excursion to visit one of his favourite ladies. I am expecting a prostitute or at least a stripper.

4.20pm: We arrive at Doña Estelle's house. Estelle is a white-haired, sparkly-eyed saucepot of a woman, who leads us through her charmingly cluttered house, past a huge portrait of Jesus and into the kitchen where laundry hangs off every available surface.

"Ahh, you gonorrhea, you sweet little gonorrheito, where have you been, why haven't you come to see me?" She clucks around, making us coffee and swearing fondly at my boss.

"When's the last time you went to church?" he asks her. "That language is so fucking ugly."

"I go every Sunday, she says solemnly. Then she perks up. "Oh, I have to call my son and tell him that you're here!"

She dials as the smell of coffee wafts towards us from the stove. "Hello? Mi amor? Were you sleeping? Oh, I'm sorry for waking you, I just wanted to tell you who's here... guess! No you have to guess! Okay, I'll tell you: that son of a bitch Dutch! Yes! He's here! Okay my sweetheart, I have to go, bye!"

She quizzes my boss about his work, his women, his apartment. "You live with another son of a bitch Dutch?" she asks. I love this lady. She could be my boss's mother; those two are cut from the same cloth.

She brings us all a tinto, a very sweet black coffee that all Colombians drink. As we sit sipping, Giovanni comes in with a square of lawn in his hands, puts it into a plastic bag, and walks out again. Giovanni has five names that people calling the house might use. He works in mysterious ways.