Colombia (First Week In Bogota)

Waking up early on Monday for me was a difficult proposition.  With everything swimming around inside my head, I had only gotten maybe two hours of sleep.  This is why routine is so important to me, and I have not gotten much of that the last four months.  But one thing is for certain.  My routine on the weekdays will involve me dragging myself out of bed at 8am no matter what time I go to sleep, and doing without a shower and breakfast.

Our “construction crew,” which consists of a new volunteer of Dominican descent (Ruth), the full-time construction coordinator (Christina), and me, walked to the bus stop, and then took a string of three busses to the construction site (La Florida)—total travel time was an hour and a half each way.  I had pretty much stood the entire time on the busses, as in Colombia and most machismo countries, it is a bit shameful to be sitting down when there are women and elders are standing.  But damn, I’m in that awkward stage where I am not exactly an elder, but I am no spring chicken either.  So when do I get priority seating? 

The last bus was particularly troublesome for me as it traveled along a very windy and bumpy road up a big hill, stopping every five seconds to pick up or drop off passengers.  Halfway through I felt very sick to the point where I needed to vomit, but there was no way I was going to do that as I did not want to cause a scene and didn’t want to be known as that loser Gringo that cannot hold his cookies.  Luckily a seat vacated, and I quickly sat in it, not really caring what gender was still standing.  The choice that this situation presented to me was either being perceived as being ungentlemanly or vomiting all over the place, so for everybody’s sake I chose the former.

Finally, and with much relief, we arrived at our destination.  La Florida is a somewhat dilapidated town with no paved roads and no running water.  You can say that there is a lot of opportunity for construction and renovation here.

Instead of running water, a water truck travels around the town, filling large 1000 liter tubs with what the claim as potable water, but I cannot imagine that it is very potable after sitting there for a week or two.  Mosquitos are obviously a problem there. 

After a short walk to the construction site, we met the construction foreman who quickly put us to work, hauling bags of cement and tile from a makeshift storage shed to the actual construction site, which appears to be a small school at the beginning stages of construction.  

Hauling bags of cement and tile, or really anything, is not my favorite construction task to do, but I will take that over painting or digging holes (both of which I have done on previous placements) any day.  Besides, this was just the preparation work for the more rewarding construction work that was ahead of us.

We were then tasked with sifting out all of the rocks from dirt in preparation of making cement, which as always on these projects, will be made manually (i.e., without a semi-automated cement mixer).  Invariably, making cement entails mixing the sand and dry cement by shoveling it back and forth between piles until it has a uniform consistency and color, creating a volcano with a crater from the mixed sand/cement, pouring water into the crater, and carefully shoveling the dry mix from the edges of the volcano into the crater, avoiding “lava” flows.  It is more of an art than a science, and is very similar to making baked goods.  

But making the cement would come later.  We had to help a Colombian worker haul bricks from the second floor onto the roof, where they would be neatly stacked.  We had a fairly good view of the town and surrounding areas from the roof.

  
I was thinking about going to the gym that night, but hauling cement, tile, and bricks for a couple hours was enough work out for me, and I was feeling it.

After hauling the bricks, it was lunchtime, but I spent most of the break in the bathroom, the only one being in the makeshift storage shed.  I have a lot of tolerance, but when I entered the bathroom, I knew it was going to be an adventure.  There was no toilet paper and no running water.  There was a barrel that was supposed to contain water, but that was empty.  When you got to go, you got to go, so I made the best of it.  Now I should know better that, when traveling in Latin American countries, you need to always carry toilet paper with you, and I had always wondered to myself what I would do if there were no toilet paper in the bathroom or on my person.  Admittedly, there have been a couple times in the US, where for some reason or another, there was no toilet paper in the bathroom, and I found myself picking through the waste basket for used toilet paper.  That is gross enough, but in Latin America, you are not supposed to flush toilet paper down the toilet to prevent clogging their basic sewage systems, but instead must dispose of it in the trash can.  So, anything that you find in the waste basket is going to have a little extra on it.  But again, you got to do what you got to do, so I picked through the wastebasket, and found the cleanest toilet paper and used that.  But my next issue was how to flush the toilet.  I scraped the bottom of the barrel for water, but it was virtually mud, so that wasn’t going to work.  I decided to vacate the bathroom at that point, and by divine intervention, or maybe the fact that the foreman realized that I was having toilet issues after being gone so long, the foreman showed up with a big bucket of water, which I promptly used to flush the toilet.  Disaster barely averted.

After lunch break, which for me was a few glasses of coca cola, we hauled the rest of the bricks up to the roof, and then made the cement. 

I was hoping to work with the cement that we had just made, but it was now quitting time.  So we vacated the construction site, and made our way back to home via the busses.  All total, it is a 6 ½ hour day, which for volunteering, is fairly long, especially since I still have my professional work to do.

After our project, Ruth and I decided to look for a gym.  I needed at least a one-month membership, and she is only going to be here for a week, so she was looking to pay per day.  Sunday, we had visited a very convenient and close by gym, which is part of a monopoly chain here in Bogota.  It was a nice gym, with fancy equipment and all manner of classes, but they wanted to charge me 65 bucks for a month after quoting me 45 bucks a month the previous day, and would not offer anything less than a month for Ruth.  So I looked online for an alternative gym, and found one a mile and a half away.  Not convenient, but out of principle, we would focus our efforts on that one.  We made the walk there, and it is a gym that only Rocky would love.  The equipment was very outdated, with the weight indications all worn off, and the weights were all mismatched, but they offered me a month membership for 20 bucks, and Ruth a week for 10 bucks.  Although time is money, and I would ultimately save money by going to the closer gym, I would rather give my money to this gym.  They certainly needed it.

The volunteer organization (Emerging Voices) has a weekly meeting at the volunteer house every Monday to discuss any issues and experiences that we have had during the week, as well as to do some ice-breaking activities as there is constantly an influx and efflux of volunteers.  One thing that was discussed was a new program that Emerging Voices is initiating, which involves visiting foreign prisoners, typically those that have been arrested for drug smuggling—the ones that you see on the show “Locked Up Abroad.”  It was decided that all of the volunteers would go the prison (not sure of the name) the next day (Tuesday).  So that is what we did. 

Although I had gotten a nice 6-hour sleep that night, I was still hurting, as that only amounts to 8 hours of sleep in two days.  I slept in as much as I could, and took a quick, but not nice, scalding hot/freezing cold shower (because there is nothing in between).  My hot showers, which is the only thing that I look forward to in the morning, were not so enjoyable as I could only stand under the water for 20 seconds at a time as the water turned from scalding hot to freezing cold, and then back to scalding.  

After not so nice shower, I met the other volunteers in the lobby at 8am, and we all took a taxi van to the prison (about an hour and a half).  Visiting hours at the prison are every Tuesday from 9-11am, so any delays would cut into the visiting time.  And there was a big delay.  After running the gauntlet of security measures, we finally got through the last security checkpoint, and were about to go into the prison yard, when we hit a major snag.  Apparently, they had to move some of the security personal from the yard to another one, so they did not have enough security to oversee the visitation.  By this time, it was well past 10am, so we had to leave the prison grounds without ever visiting a prisoner.  I did get this cool prison tattoo though . . .

I also got a little motivation from one of the inmates that I saw working inside the prison yard.  He probably had about 3 percent body fat, and was buffer than buff, but not the type of buff that you see in body building competitions, but the lean buff.  In addition to learning Spanish, my goal, timing willing, is to transform my fat into muscle.  

My mind also wandered to the thought of whether I could survive in being in this prison.  I would not only survive, but I would thrive, as you can easily pay off the guards for computers, internet access, and anything else that you need, and I certainly had the means to do that.  I could work out and work all day.  But being in prison would somewhat curtail my travel plans, so no bueno.

So my daily routine is now taking shape.  My volunteering commitment would be from 8am-230pm; shower; lunch; walk to the gym 1 1/2 miles away; walk 3 1/2 more miles to my soon to be favorite Starbucks in downtown Bogota . . .

I would then work there until 9pm, Uber back and have dinner, which consists of nutritious pseudo-left overs made at 2pm that day, and then do more work until I pass out.

Speaking of Ubers, and taxis in general, every culture has their little quirks, and here in Colombia, slamming car doors is a big no-no, and you will get reprimanded for it.  What is normal in the US, is considered very rude in Colombia.  You might as well spit in the driver’s face when you slam a car door.  Ruth and I have been sharing Ubers where ever we go, and she is a big door slammer, may be because she is from New York or because she is Dominican.  Maybe I slammed my door a little bit to, so perhaps I am just as guilty.  I have been focusing on not slamming car doors after I have exited a car, but have never really thought about not slamming the door after I have entered the car.  On our last Uber ride, apparently when we entered the car, we each slammed the door.  When we got out of the car, the driver told us not to slam the car door, so we ever so gently and gingerly, closed the door and gave it a good push to make sure it was completely closed.  I have a feeling my Uber rating is going to go down a bit here in Colombia.

So I have named the giant moth in my room “Pedro.”  Here is a picture of him again.  He is a bit shy, so he was hiding his face. 

He makes an excellent roommate, because he doesn’t talk much and pretty much lets me do my own thing.  However, when showing Pedro off to Ruth, I wondered out loud what I should feed him or her (I don’t know its gender for sure because I haven’t peaked between its legs).  Ruth told me that it eats clothes, which yea, I’ve heard that certain moths do eat clothes, but I don’t think this one does, and I would have to research what to feed moths.  Well, when I went downstairs with my blanket later that night to do some work on my computer, I noticed a rather sizeable hole in my blanket that I did not recall seeing the night before.  

On one hand, I was a little bummed that Pedro is eating my only source of warmth, but on the other hand, I was relieved that I do not have to find food for Pedro to eat.  I just hope that there is enough of my blanket left to get me through the remaining cold nights in Bogota.

The next couple days, we focused on painting activities at the construction site.  We first had to paint the ceiling on the first floor--not my favorite activity, but it had to be done.

The next day, I put a second coat on the first floor ceiling, and when I finished with that, I went to the second floor to help paint the ceiling there.

You have to be a bit careful when you are painting ceilings.  Not only do you get messy . . . 

. . . there is a risk that falling paint, which includes a bit of paint thinner, will get in your eyes.  The first time this happened to me, the paint hit the bottom of my left eye, just missing my eyeball.  It still burned as some of it splashed in my eye.  I shook it off, and kept painting.  But the second time this happened, the paint drop hit my right eyeball center mass, and that time, it burned like hell.  Christina and the foreman immediately flushed my eye flushed out with water, and even had to use paint thinner to wipe as much of the wet paint off around my eye.  This is me after removing the paint from my eye . . .

After that fiasco, Christina decided to call it a day.  The next day (Friday), Christina gave us the day off.  On the recommendation of Christina, Ruth and I decided to head to the Salt Cathedral in Zipquira, about 2 hours away via three busses (seems like everywhere you go here, you need three busses).  I would soon find out that Ruth was as geographically retarded as I was, so I trip back and forth was not as efficient as it could be.  It was the blind leading the blind, but it made the excursion more interesting.  Plus, being from the Dominican Republic, she was quite fluent in Spanish, and I much appreciated that.  Unlike other Spanish-speaking countries where most of the locals were better at English than I was at Spanish, here in Colombia, my Spanish is actually better than their English.  So basically, the locals here do not speak a lick of Spanish. 

I honestly did not know what to expect from the Salt Cathedral.  I have been in touristic salt mines before, and while they were interesting, there was nothing impressive about them.  We bought our tickets, and entered the cathedral and were immediately impressed with the light display, walking down a long tunnel, and knew this was a special kind of salt mine.

  











After excavating the salt from the mine, the minors sculpted their interpretation of the fourteen stations of the cross in various tunnels, as well as made other sculptures, and even actual chapels from the large cavities left behind.  Actual masses are held in these chapels today.

After our tour of the Salt Cathedral, we were to go on a miner's tour, which was supposed to simulate the experience of a typical miner, then go to the salt museum, and then the city tour.  However, Ruth had apparently lost the tickets while we were touring the Salt Cathedral.  She had asked one of the guys manning the miner's tour, and I am certain that he would have let us through, but his supervisor was standing behind him, and when he turned around to ask her if it was okay to let us through, she just pursed her lips and slowly shook her head.  Some people take their jobs just way to seriously, and given a little bit of authority, they will not be afraid to exercise it.

Ruth felt horrible, but for me, I had seen what I wanted to see.  Plus, I lose things all of the time, so I could not be angry with her.  In fact, I empathized with her as I found someone who loses things as easily as I do.

But undeterred, Ruth took it up to the next level and appealed to management through the ticket taker at the entrance of the Salt Cathedral.  They would not let us go on the miner's tour, but we were allowed to go into the salt museum and go on the city tour.  That was fine with me, and that is what we did.

We eventually made our way home, with the help of an Uber, as there was a mishap at the last bus station, where we entered the terminal through gate, and then somehow exited the terminal another gate, thereby wasting our tickets.

The next day (Saturday), Ruth flew back home.  Even though I had only known her a week, I was a bit bummed as I had lost both my construction buddy and my workout buddy, and full-time translator.  But that is the nature of this business.  People come and go all of the time.

During the week, a true-to-life human interest story had been developing with one of the volunteers (Lilly). She was born in Colombia and was adopted out to a family in the United States at birth.  She had not planned on doing this when she came to Colombia (really she just wanted to get into touch with her roots), but spontaneously decided to get in contact with her birth mother.  You can imagine this is huge deal.  She somehow she found her on Facebook, and discovered that she had an older brother and two younger sisters.  She decided to make the life altering decision to contact her birth mother with a well-thought out and deliberate letter through Facebook.  Her birth mother did not respond back for a couple days, which I can only imagine was nerve-wracking.  But Christina found the birth mother's phone number, and got in touch with her, telling her that someone was trying to get a hold of her.  Right away, the birth mother knew that it was Lilly.  Apparently, she had wanted to contact Lilly for years through the adoption agency (and apparently she does not check her Facebook account), but of course, the adoption agency was contractually obligated to not give her that information, so she was waiting all of these years for Lilly to contact her.  So, Lilly and her birth mother met on Saturday morning, and from what I heard, it was understandably quite the emotional experience.  It is an ongoing story, as her birth sisters and brother, as well as the birth mother's husband never knew of the adoption.  It had been a long-kept secret that is gradually being uncovered to this day.

On Saturday night, the founder and director (Monica) of Emerging Voices (the local volunteer organization) took us all out to dinner.  

Monica is seated to my right and Lilly is seated directly across from me

That night, after everyone had gone to bed, and I was downstairs doing work on my computer, I heard some crazy commotion upstairs--pretty much girls freaking out.  My heart sunk as I knew what it was.  When I had come home from dinner, Pedro was nowhere to be found in my room.  I do not know how many times I had told him not to leave my room as it was unsafe, but he apparently did not heed my warning.  I ran upstairs and knocked on the door.  When it was opened, there was Lilly, with her two outstretched hands, holding a crumpled paper towel carrying mortally wounded Pedro, and almost in tears, professing that she didn't mean to kill him. Pedro had been flying around in the room when the lights had turned off, as he had always done in my room.  I can vouch for the fact that Pedro sounded like a bat flying around, and had I not known that it was Pedro, I would have actually freaked out a little myself when he took fight in my room at night.  Well, when Lilly turned on the lights and saw Pedro, she attempted to capture him in a trash can, but instead spazzed out and crushed him.

So, I will now have to endure many lonely nights without Pedro.