Abuelitas Visit
Great times with the Abuelitas! In early June, both Kit and Margaret made a visit. We had a great time, and they got to see a lot of our life and friends here in Barranquilla.
There are lots of photos of regular life around here on the Coast that we don’t think to take pictures of anymore, so I think you’ll enjoy this batch of shots.
Bus Woes
Harry Potter´s Night Bus has got nothing on drivers in Barranquilla. Driving lanes are already more like suggestions, but buses take this concept to a whole other level because, after all, who is going to mess with a bus?
Generally I take all this in stride, and with some experience from my time in Guatemala, I figure that in the end it will all work out okay, and I will just get a little extra blood pumping and a relatively cheap roller coaster ride. Today was different. Today I was mad.
Perhaps some of it is because I am pregnant now, and falling down is not so much a viable option as it was just a few months ago. Perhaps it is because I have been riding the bus for about six months now and consider myself a fair connoisseur of both drivers and riding experiences. Whatever the cause, after the bus took off down our hill when I had but one foot in the door; narrowly missed hitting a motorcycle, car and who knows what else; and finally slammed on the brakes to avoid crashing into something else as we were moving toward the door (thus sending us reeling toward whatever we could grab to avoid falling), I lost it. I yelled at the bus driver, took the bus number, and plan to contact the bus line before the day is out.
Having calmed down a little I have also done some investigating about the way the bus system is set up here, and while there is not excuse for the poor treatment and safety of passengers, the system itself is not set up to expect much different. Let me explain…
Here (in Barranquilla at least) the bus system is privatized. The owners of the buses hire their drivers and those drivers have to get a certain number of passengers on their buses during their shift in order to pay the owners their quota. Bus routes are timed (not that there is a public schedule anywhere, or a map for that matter…but that woe is from another post), and there are various “control posts” to monitor that timing along the way. The issues then are these:
- Every person who enters the bus over the required number of passengers is money gained for the driver. Because drivers receive no salary as such, this is important. The problem is that it also leads to seriously over-jamming the bus.
- If a driver is late in their route, the owner levies a fine which essentially takes away all the money gained by any extra passengers. This means that if you are behind, you will do anything possible (including speed down our hill at breakneck speed) to make up your time because time literally equals money.
- An added difficulty comes with the fact that passengers can get on and off the bus anywhere they wish; there are no “set stops.” It is handy not to have to walk to a bus stop, but the trade off comes with the number of extra stops that get made, slowing the bus in route, and pushing the driver to make up time in other ways (like leaving the nice North American chick hanging on for dear life with only one foot in the door).
Again, there is no excuse for the lack of respect, safety, and security demonstrated by many drivers, but the system does nothing to help – and in fact, the system is set up produce these dangerous habits. If you read one of our recent posts, in many ways it feels like our drug policies here that expect poor farmers to give up more money (with less effort) while offering no infrastructure assistance and then pushing free trade so that any hope they have of legitimate business is pretty much crushed from the start. Participating in the drug trade is not a good choice, but the system is not set up to help.
My bus example is a simple one, and perhaps not so life and death (though I would have argued more about that this morning), but the deeper point about systems is important. The Bible talks about fighting powers and principalities, and part of that is about seeing that evil takes root not just in individual people and individual actions, but perhaps all the more so in the systems that get set up and in which we participate every day. I collaborate in a system that marks people for harm when I ride the bus and do not denounce the problem. I collaborate in a system that says blue USA passports get to travel more freely than maroon Colombian ones. I am a collaborator in systems of all sorts, and some of that is virtually unavoidable. The question is whether I will choose on any given day to be a collaborator in systems that I don´t have to be a part of – either good ones that are working toward love and justice and the proclamation of those gospel values, or bad ones that continue that use oppressive tactics to manipulate outcomes to my favor.
Sadly most days I don’t even think about it.
You Know You’ve Lived in Barranquilla for a While When…
So it has only been a little over 6 months, but I feel like a first crack at a top ten list is in order…
10. The waitresses at Crepes and Waffles seem to recognize you when they take your order.
9. Your calculus for a bus ride is whether the driver is going way the heck too fast, or just too fast.
8. You begin to haggle with taxi drivers over $1000 pesos (50 cents US).
7. Your concept of hot changes from uncomfortable to suffocating.
6. Your concept of cool looks a lot like hot used to look.
5. You consider wearing earplugs to tone down the volume at, well, everywhere (but maybe especially at church…)
4. It no longer seems odd that you have no need for your own songs or speakers to be able to listen to music inside your house.
3. You are able to sort out whether a taxi is honking to tell you to get out of the way or to offer to stop and give you a ride without even looking.
2. You begin to view “just a few ants” in your dry goods as extra protein.
1. You are no longer surprised, though continually grateful, for the kindness and generosity of all the people around you.
***
Just to keep you posted, Richard, Peanut, and I are headed to Brazil today for a mission personnel retreat (we lead a terrible life). We will continue posting on the blog while we are gone through the miracle of post-dating, but we might not manage to get the word out via Facebook. If you read this and post there, help us out, wouldja?
Carnavaaaaaaaaaal!
Whew! We survived it! Each year for the four days prior to the beginning of Lent, there is a celebration that lights up the entire city of Barranquilla. To be truthful, the music and preparations begin here at 12:01am on January 1st, but these past four days move things to a whole different level and do seem to live up to the reputation that Barranquilla’s Carnaval is the second largest in the world – second only to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
Here Carnaval is a festival of music and dancing with various parades as the main events each day. To be honest, Richard and I never made it to the largest, most traditional parades that happened on the Via 40. We have seen pictures of the street lined with stands (actually half the street was simply taken over by stands, cutting four-ish lanes of traffic down to two and making my neighbor’s commute an exercise in frustration), but watching from there is quite expensive at about $160,000 COP ($80 USD, or about half our rent). I assume that the larger floats and best organized dancers pass through the parades there, but I don’t have any pictures of them to show you.
We did have a taste of this grander experience a week or so ago when we went to the largest pre-Carnaval parade, the Guacherna, which ran down 44th Street. There the seats were only $5 USD a piece, but the queen danced through, and the costumes were – to sum it up in a word – fabulous. We do have some pictures from that evening here, but you can also see others if you go to Linda’s blog (a current accompanier) who wrote an excellent reflection about the fun and frustration one feels while watching the parades.
This past Sunday we did go to an official Carnaval parade, though it was a smaller, neighborhood parade on 21st Street. There will still throngs of people
in attendance with dancers and folks in costumes, but there was a decidedly less formal air. No seats to rent. No crowd control barriers lining the streets. No big floats with famous people on them. It was, as folks euphemistically say here, “más popular” — more “of the people” — a poor man’s version of the bigger, brighter parade going on further away.
I would imagine that the general gist of both parades was the same, but ours was more homespun. Perhaps it is sort of like the Dixie Classic Fair instead of the World’s Fair – you can have a great time at both, but you are definitely talking different leagues. For example, any music at our parade that was not live was likely to come from one or two speakers strapped to a wheelbarrow rather than a larger than life float. The trucks that rolled through were small delivery trucks advertising meat or milk, and the “prizes” thrown out at the crowd were foodstuffs like pasta and syrup.
But if there was a parade that was grander on the other side of town, there was 
not one that was more enjoyed. People dance and clapped, sprayed shaving cream and flung corn meal, wore costumes, sang, and cheered. The political commentary still shown through with figures dressed up as FARC leader “Tiro Fijo”, Hugo Chavez, Uncle Sam, and Osama bin Ladin. The violence people here take for granted was mocked with variations on images of death ranging from the grim reaper to beheaded corpses walking down the street. And always there was dancing – cumbia, mapalé, garabato, and more.
Some churches here preach that Carnaval is heathenistic and immoral, not unlike denunciations you are likely to hear about Mardi Gras or other large festival gatherings. The Presbyterian Church here certainly recognizes that people can make bad decisions in highly festive atmospheres, but they do not denounce participation on the face of it. Instead they see Carnaval as one more way to celebrate the good life God has given us — music, dancing, eating, and all. They know that our God is a God of joy and laughter who can delight in our joy as well as stand with us in our pain, and after all, the pain of Colombians just has to be balanced out with overabundant joy somewhere, doesn’t it?
What I can say for sure is that Carnaval is certainly quite a show, so go ahead and mark it on your calendar for next year and plan to come catch a glimpse of what celebrating can really look like.
Gol!!!
So some things about a Latin American futbol (soccer) game I expected — huge stadiums, excellent play, those loud horns sounding all the time. But just about everything else was way more than I expected. From the sheer celebration upon scoring (twice on Thursday’s game), to the absolute silence when the other team scored (also twice on Thursday), to the ecstatic energy of thousands of jumping, thumping, screaming, dancing, waving, jeering fans (and that was just for the national anthem…), the energy and excitement were possibly more than I could have ever imagined.
An official Juniorista, thanks to our neighbor At the game – Go Tiburones! (Sharks)
So our team is Athlético Junior, Barranquilla’s home team, and a pretty good one at that (only allowing for “pretty good” would have gotten me shot at the game). The game was the first round of the Copa Libertadores (an all South American tournament) against Team Racing (said RAH-sing) from Uruguay. It will continue until August, and the hopes (as always) are high. Sadly, much like those precious Cubs, Junior can often wrench defeat out of the jaws of victory. Still, we managed to gain the 2-2 tie in penalty time, which was pretty sweet, and left everyone feeling like an outright win. On to Montevideo!
(You can get quick updates on the 2010 Copa progress here.)
A Map, A Map, My Queendom for a Map!
I want to thank the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).
Yes, I occasionally had to ride the Blue Line in the presence of various bodily fluids from other passengers. Yes, I persist in decrying the so-called “heaters” on the platforms – a sad, shameful scam. Yes, I desperately wished the 91 bus would travel up Austin Blvd a little earlier Sunday mornings or that I didn’t have to go into the loop just to go back out to the airport, but at least I knew before I headed out on those routes what I ought to expect. And why did I know? Because the CTA provides a map.
I must say I never adequately appreciated the free, internet-available, bus-provided, El-posted route map until coming to Barranquilla. Here, there are no maps.
That is not to say, of course, that there are no buses (though indeed there are no trains). There are a ton of buses with very small placards that give you a hint of where they are going, but these are not so helpful if you have no idea where “El Vivero” is or what streets the “UniNorte” bus will actually take to arrive at North University. The only way to find out is to start asking questions.
You can ask questions of your neighbors, if you have ones that are as wonderful as ours are, and they will help you understand the buses that run right near your house. They will even stand outside with you until you finally learn to recognize that the orange bus coming toward you is not the orange bus you want, even though it looks virtually identical to the one you will get on shortly.
You can ask questions of people who are standing by the street and craning their necks out as if they can summon the bus by sheer force of will. They will generally help you, though you may not understand everything they tell you. They will at least make it clear if their bus won’t work for where you want to go.
And you can ask the bus driver himself (yes, always a him so far). This is a little trickier because you have to ask quickly enough to be able to get off again if this is not your bus, or you will end up riding the route around to where you started again (though this is a helpful way to figure out where the bus goes).
The main thing you learn is that you cannot get yourself from here to there alone. At every point you need help. It is humbling in many ways, but it is also a much more real version of our lives if we really examine them I think. I have always needed help getting myself from here to there, though some of that help I was given at birth with the privilege of being a white, upper-middle class, North American. Other help I have received from the hands of family, dear friends, and the guiding nudges of the Holy Spirit.
Knowing all that, as we are here in Barranquilla, I still clamor for a map. I want to know where I am going – when I get on the bus, and where to get off. But it simply doesn’t work that way here – on the buses or with most anything else. Instead everything requires trust, patience, vulnerability, courage, and faith…plus about $0.70.
First Barranquilla Photos
We haven’t had the camera out a lot around here, but here are a few of the shots from our days around Barranquilla.
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