As this visit to Colombia draws to a close,
I can’t help but reflect on how my impressions of the country have changed.
Whether the country itself has changed as much as my views and opinions is a
hard question to answer, but I believe there’s definitely a bit of both. Over
the past month or so the experiences that have made the strongest impression on
me have been small day trips to the towns around Bogotá.
The Bogotá sabana is a landscape of marked contrasts. Perched on top of the
rugged and unforgiving Andes, comfortably above the heat and humidity of the
tropical plains and forests, you’re met with a vast and fertile plateau that
extends as far as the eye can see. The flatter middle of the plateau is covered in all sorts of
fields and greenhouses, as the land is excellent for growing crops and flowers,
while the cold and dark green forests of the Andes mountain’s guard the Eastern
edge. On the west, in contrast, you can find the canyons, valleys and rivers
that dare descend the 2600 metres of altitude down into the warmth of the
tropics (and where we bogotanos like
to vacation when we get tired of our cold, 18 ºC days).
The cultural landscape offers just as stark
a contrast, the urban sprawl of a highly energetic city of 8 million (which has
been growing for 475 years) transitions quite quickly into the peacefulness of
country life. Not 40 km away from
the city I could already see the change, as towns would come to a halt at
sunset, from a moderately active day to a quiet and uneventful night. As I was
driving through the town I was surprised at the realization that, technically,
I could have been eating a hotdog Times Square in ten hours’ time, or drinking
wine under the Eiffel Tower in little less than a day.
Nevertheless, this reality is changing
rapidly. There are in fact a couple of towns right next to the city that are
becoming heavily populated, bringing both money and people to these areas. Features of North American suburbia are
starting to appear: what used to be a quaint restaurant with huge gardens is
now a mall with a paved parking lot, bright lights and an enormous burger
restaurant (yes, the one I said was awesome on my first ever post). Car
dealerships popped out of formerly empty fields, a farming supply warehouse
turned into a French patisserie (unless it’s now cool to feed horses chocolate
éclairs), and what used to be a small rural bakery is now part of a chain of
sterile looking 24 hour pharmacies-slash-convenience stores. Naturally, burgers, baguettes and
drive-thru drugstores all mean that people are getting more disposable income
and better working conditions, but it is still shocking to see how quickly the
overall feel has changed.
One of my most memorable experiences was on
my first weekend back, as my parents decided to take me to a Spanish restaurant
right outside the city as a double treat. I say double, firstly, because the
beauty of the region is always worth the traffic to get out of the city, and
secondly, because I have struggled to find good Spanish food in Montreal (I’d
be happy if anyone were to correct me!). The restaurant was not far away from
the city, but you could already feel the freshness of the air and see the
towering mountains covered by nothing but trees. It was a mixture between a
plant nursery and a Spanish restaurant, which also sold cupcakes. Yes, that
sounds very hipster but in Colombia we just call it magical realism and that makes it fine. Really! I promise. In any
case, the tapas were excellent and the fideuà I had was pretty damn good. Almost as good as the one I make. Nevertheless, the food was not what
caught my attention, but rather the scene that was unfolding next to me.
Right next to our table there was a group
of two families, they were happily chatting and discussing their last trips to
Spain and how they had eaten such and such in the different cities. One of the
families had a boy, around eight or nine, who was playing outside in the garden
with a girl. The boy had light skin, blond hair and was impeccably dressed; he
could’ve very well been in an Ikea catalogue, perhaps with a desk or bed with
an unpronounceable Swedish name. The girl looked a bit older than him, around
ten, and had darker skin and curly hair, she was fairly well dressed, but definitely
no brand names in her case. I saw that she lived in a small house uphill. Her
family worked for the restaurant, perhaps her mom worked in the kitchen and in
cleaning. The two kids were happily playing with a football, it was a really
nice day and you could tell that they were both enjoying being outside and were
genuinely happy to be playing with each other.
Then, the boy’s lunch arrived and he went
back into the restaurant.
The girl stayed outside, looking in through
the window.
I was then reminded that this (as the rest
of the country) was a landscape of social contrast.
What’s interesting is that this is not your
clichéd UN-diplomat-feasting-in-a-refugee-camp kind of scene; it was not a
story of gluttony and extreme poverty. The girl was not malnourished, or even
hungry; heck, it’s even possible that she’d get to eat from the restaurant’s
kitchen that night. This is neither a story of bare survival, this girl and her
family live in a place that is calm and safe and yet is close enough to the
city to benefit from its social programmes. Her mother has a formal job, which
means her family gets health insurance and other benefits. She can also benefit
from public school right until she graduates, as it was made completely free
just a few years ago. I even learned on this visit that the city has a whole
team dedicated to maintaining a database with the vaccination status of all
kids, if she’s missing shots, a team will go to her house to make sure she’s up to date in vaccines.
The thing is, that while she will probably
have the bare basics covered, she will almost certainly never see that boy again. They’ll go to different schools, the boy
to a private bilingual school, the girl to the local public school in her
neighbourhood. Sure, she’ll also be taught basic English, but the boy will have
native teachers and the ability to travel to Miami and Toronto, while she’ll
struggle to learn with a textbook. They will not go to the same hospitals, they
will not meet in the same supermarket, they will not party in the same areas of
the city, and they will never do any kind of shopping in the same place. As
long as they’re kids, they won’t meet on public transportation, and if they do
when they’re older and the boy is in university, you can bet they won’t be
travelling the same route.
The girl is much more fortunate than
children in other places of the country, with access to the social welfare I
mentioned (and let’s not forget the whole not-being-part-of-an-armed-conflict thing).
But as I said before, by virtue of their socioeconomic status, boy and girl
will never ever meet again. If you’ll
forgive me for getting political, that is why I firmly believe in investing
time, money and effort in high quality public services (from education, to cultural
and sporting events, to public transportation) so that both this boy and this
girl can have spaces where they will be happy to be and happy to meet each
other again.
