Santandercito's senseless slaughter — senseless to me, anyway

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

I've long held the opinion that we'd have far more vegetarians in the world if we all had to kill our own animals.

Many of us like meat, but how many of us would be willing or able to slaughter the actual animal providing such fare? I'm pretty sure I'd struggle in any case. And I don't think I'm on my own in this.

Bloodletting: The site where Jairo breathed his last after receiving a fatal stab wound to the heart.

A load of bull

Even though I grew up and laboured on what effectively is a beef cattle farm, our family enterprise is but just the first step in the chain: the cows my father keeps have calves each year that, when they are around a year old, he sells to other farmers who then feed them to 'finish' them, i.e. once sufficiently meaty, have them sent to a factory to be killed for human consumption.

Thus, I was removed from the slaughter. There was no life-ending blood on my hands, not directly anyway.

The closest I came to delivering the fatal blow to one of our herd was when, on an extended visit to Ireland from Colombia, I helped my father take a bull calf to the local factory.

This young bull had contracted a disease that prevented my father from selling him in the normal way — some EU directive was at play, a bovine infection that Europe wanted to eradicate; hence the animal couldn't be sold as livestock to another farm. The young bull's meat, though, was considered fine for human consumption.

So he was locked away from the rest of the herd and fattened up until he was deemed ready for butchering. A few days after his date with destiny, his body was brought back to the family home in conveniently packaged portions and placed in a deep-freeze, to be eaten as our family saw fit.

'The savage nature of it is particularly disturbing. To stab somebody in the heart requires one to be face to face with the target. It also requires physical force to plunge the knife into the body of the victim; one really has to mean it.'

My normally omnivorous mother, who was effectively chief caterer to this bull during his isolation period, couldn't bring herself to eat his meat. The sight of it made her feel sick.

I had less of a connection with him, so I didn't feel as bad eating his flesh. Had I been charged with ending his life, though, there's a good chance he would have received a last-minute pardon. In fact, I felt rather uneasy just forcing him off the cattle trailer at the factory. The little bull, clearly smelling blood, did his best not to follow the path to his demise.

Bloodletting

I am, however, quite a queasy sort. The only time I was allowed to donate blood here in Colombia — see 'Your Irish blood's not wanted here' for more on why I now can't give blood — I became faint on seeing it flow through the tubes and into the adjacent bag. Indeed, the mere thought of it now is making me a little nauseous.

Others seem less bothered by blood. Just as well, or we'd have no one willing to work in the life-saving health sector. Less critically, and perhaps less benignly, we'd also have little to no meat to enjoy.

Unquestionably malignantly, on the other hand, there are those who have no problem with bloodletting for purely nefarious purposes; nothing revelatory in that, of course.

Mercifully, though, most of us will not have our lives brutally cut short at the hands of a crazed killer. Nor do many witness such an act.

Now while Colombia is somewhat more violent than my native Ireland, I like to reassure myself that, for the most part, the killings happen at a safe distance from me. And at that, these days, those who do the killings tend to focus their wrath on fellow Colombians; a case of taking the law into one's own hands in a country where the justice system frequently fails its less powerful citizens.

I still, more or less, believe that as a foreigner I'm less likely to be deliberately killed in Colombia. I can no longer say the same for killings occurring at a safe distance from me.

Brutal beast

At around five o'clock in the evening on Sunday 06 September 2026, the senseless, savage stabbing of Jairo Manuel Avilés Martínez, an acquaintance of mine, happened just a couple of metres in front of me. I had been the last person to chat with Jairo, apart from the man, another acquaintance — for legal reasons, I won't give his name here — who fatally thrust a six-inch knife into his heart. A brutal, cold-blooded, calculated assault, inflicted without warning.

Jairo's murder — for what else can it be but murder? — came just three months after the killing of another acquaintance of mine from Bogotá's Santandercito barrio. However, as I described in Mingling with Colombia's killers, this earlier homicide was gangland-related. It was, to put it crudely, strictly business. The young guy who was killed knew, forced or otherwise, that he was engaged in potentially deadly dealings.

From all that I can gather, Jairo's murder was nothing of the kind. His killer had some sort of a grudge, no more, no less.

The savage nature of it is particularly disturbing. To stab somebody in the heart requires one to be face to face with the target. It also requires physical force to plunge the knife into the body of the victim; one really has to mean it. It's certainly not for the queasy amongst us.

If I were told I had to kill somebody and I had to do it with either a knife or a gun, I'd choose the gun. At least one can put some distance between weapon and target with a gun; not so with a knife.

For sure, many of us at times get angry with our fellow humans to the point where malice aforethought may enter the mind. Some may even consider it more acceptable to do away with another person than an innocent animal. Yet few are capable of following through on these homicidal thoughts.

For most of us these days, the slaughter — be it of animals for consumption or humans because they are considered a threat — happens at a safe distance from our everyday lives. Let somebody else deal with those blood stains.
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Colombia's passive examination system

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

A few years ago, a Colombian ex — of sorts — asked me for some urgent help. She had an English exam to take for her university. If she didn't pass it, she wouldn't be able to graduate.

She had one slight problem, though. She had very little English. Well, she practically didn't speak the language at all.

'The exam must be passed; by somebody, it doesn't matter who.'

Not-very-testing times

Cue a couple of weeks of intense English classes dictated by me to get her up to scratch. That, of course, would have been the more righteous approach. What really happened? I took the exam for her. She still, rather pathetically, had a hold over me at the time. And she knew it. At least she did watch me answer the questions; I'll give her that much.

The way that text-only, multiple-choice exam was set up — fully online, unrecorded, and with a very loose student verification mechanism — it seemed as if the university didn't really care if it was taken by the student who was meant to take it.

In other words, it effectively encouraged cheating, particularly in a country where the overall level of English, as well as the desire to speak it, is low.

Around that time, I did write a piece, Colombian universities' English at all costs, questioning the requirement for a certain level of English in courses where knowledge of the language was far from essential.

'It's not that the student must pass the test. It's a case of — using, pertinently, English's passive voice — the test must be passed . . . by somebody, it doesn't matter who.'

But eight years or so have passed since that old flame asked for my assistance; plenty of time for the universities and language institutes to re-evaluate their procedures and amend them where necessary. Except, from my latest experience, they haven't.

Sound system

For one particular institute, in any case, the acceptance of cheating — or at least playing the system — is even more blatant than what I'd witnessed before.

Here's what happened: An 18-year-old who I've never met — he was given my contact details by a production assistant on a shoot in which I recently participated — asked me to take his test for him.

This time, however, it wasn't a text exam. It was an oral one. Yes, an interview via a Zoom call. Thing is, it can be done without using the camera. The examiner just wants to hear the student's voice.

Thus, with my, um, Mid-Atlantic English accent — or is it still a west of Ireland one? — I assumed the identity of this Bogotá native teenager.

Now, if the one conducting the interview — Laura, a Colombian, who was visible to me throughout the call — genuinely thought that I was an 18-year-old studying English as a foreign language, either she's not the sharpest examiner around or my level of English is not what I thought it was. Or maybe I'm just a good actor, although I made no effort to come across as a rookie learner of the language, as the guy for whom I took the test clearly is.

Perhaps, seeing as how it must have been obvious to Laura that it wasn't an 18-year-old Colombian answering her questions, the oral exam will be declared invalid.

However, from what I gather, it's an accepted practice in certain quarters.

In essence, it's not that the student must pass the test. It's a case of — using, pertinently, English's passive voice — 'The test must be passed — by somebody, it doesn't matter who.'

Deep fake

Yes, I could have declined to take it for this guy whom I've never met. For one, the payment I received for doing it won't tempt me to dine in an exclusive Bogotá restaurant. It's barely enough for a roasted whole chicken in my working-class barrio.

Yet, curiosity got the better of my mild moral objections to this rather innocent fraud. If I hadn't done it, somebody else would have, no doubt.

What's more, if the guy was more tech-savvy, he probably could have set up ChatGPT or the like to do it for him. I'm quite behind the curve when it comes to the use of Artificial Intelligence, but from what I've heard and read, it would be up to such a task. In fact, I imagine an AI version of the student would have been a far more convincing fake than me.

Thus, with AI's overhauling of innumerable areas of human competence, Colombia's passive examination system is perhaps a better reflection of the times than what's considered best practice in other places.
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Colombia's tienda trap

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

Whenever I'm back in Ireland, I make it my business to get some Marks and Spencer chocolate-chip cookies. They are, as far as I'm concerned, the best of their kind around. But while I find them truly delicious, I also know that I shouldn't over indulge in them. Too much of a good thing and all that.

A beer a day keeps the blues away, doesn't it?

So it's just as well that the nearest Marks and Spencer department store is a good distance away from my Irish base. Were there one nearby, I'd be tempted to make these scrumptious sweet treats a daily delight on visits to the land of my birth. Although the price of them these days does help to make one think twice before temptation tends to take over.

Indeed, the price of most things in Ireland gives me pause for thought. My Colombian pesos lose much weight in euro-land, notwithstanding the currency's strong performance during the last few months.

Not-so-dear beer

Back in Colombia, while the price of many staples continues to rise, this hasn't really been the case with beer, especially when one takes the steady increase in minimum wage into account. Compared with other products and socialising pursuits, beer is fairly competitively priced.

'Santandercito's at-times hedonistic haunts do put one's temperance to the test.'

In working-class barrios, such as my current abode of Santandercito in Bogotá's far north, one can get a 750 ml bottle of ordinary-but-fine Costeña — my tipple of choice these days — for 3,800 pesos, the equivalent of about one euro. In comparison, the price of a cinema ticket is around 20,000 pesos — over five times more expensive; a standard lunch in Bogotá, about three times more costly. In fact, Colombia is placed towards the top of the list for countries in the world with the most affordable beer.

So, when at a loose end of an evening and not wanting to be in one's quite cramped, shared place of residence — pretty much an everyday feeling — a couple of beers at the local tienda bar is an appealing option.

Yet, like the Marks and Spencer cookies, I know that it's not the healthiest consumption choice one can make. I do, though, only sporadically indulge in the cookies — that I'm only in Ireland every now and again is a significant help, of course.

In contrast, consuming Colombia's competitively priced beer is a far more regular occurrence. And while I'm usually disciplined in the art of moderate drinking, at times I go over my self-imposed limits. Santandercito's at-times hedonistic haunts do put one's temperance to the test.

I used to think that if I had my own well-equipped place, this tienda temptation would decrease significantly. But experience over the last couple of years has told me differently. I generally prefer to be in a public setting for most of the day — or at least out and about — and while panaderías serve their purpose during the daylight hours, by nightfall tiendas are more appealing.

Downwardly dining

That I can take to the tienda with such regularity is mostly due to the fact that I am single, childless and not an employee. Were any of these to change, then so would, most likely, my late-evening routine.

Right now, I don't see those conditions changing, not organically anyway. Thus, it leads me to sometimes think that I'll have to force the change.

In my recent mini-series on Dr Samuel Johnson, I noted how he advised that one should endeavour to 'smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.' Now, I'm not saying that there are no wise or relatively rich folk in Santandercito's tiendas. For one, intelligence comes in various forms. And there are a fair few in the barrio who seem financially comfortable.

It may be just the case that my current preferences are doing little to advance my cause. One slight problem is that I'm not sure what cause I should be advancing towards right now. It's like I'm caught in a trap. Colombia's tienda trap.
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