Bogotá's house of pain

We've all had our 'horror' stories when renting rooms, especially in shared accommodation — those of us who have to endure such things that is. In a (slowly) developing city such as Bogotá, less-than-positive experiences in this regard are, perhaps, more commonplace than in other places. Finding a decent abode at a reasonable price for what's on offer can be quite a chore.

'Can I have a wash & microwave dry, please?'

Indeed, in this day and age, some lodgings should never be made available for rent to the general public. What's more, some people just shouldn't be landlords/landladies. It's that second point that chiefly concerns us here.

Basically, in the early months of this year, this writer had the displeasure of renting a room from a woman who wants all the benefits of being a landlady but accepts pretty much none of the responsibilities.

Fair enough, it was always going to be a temporary solution, yet the initial trappings that came with the lofty monthly rent of $600,000 COP gradually disappeared during the rather painful two-month stay.

You had a table and chairs taken from the communal area, the place where we'd eat and work as there were no desks in the rooms (and who wants to eat food in a window-less room in any case?). This was done without prior warning, the house owner's standard practice as we came to learn.

She also left us without a washing machine for a number of days. A replacement was eventually installed, but one that was quite temperamental.

Despite numerous reminders, bathroom leaks went unfixed. All this at a time when the government was pleading — and continues to plead — conservation.

I managed to find alternative accommodation shortly after the communal table went AWOL. For my friend who also stayed there the agony continued for another month; and things got worse.

The landlady regularly promised to get another table and chairs, but such utterances were about as empty as her stomach is large — let's just say her girth is of some size.

The point of no return for my friend was the arrival of a couple from the Dominican Republic — who were put up in the garage — and the changes made around the house to accommodate them.

Apparently, the woman in that relationship is a hairdresser and obviously plans to start her profession from the garage-cum-studio apartment. 'Obviously' is used here because a sink for washing hair was installed in the kitchen (see photo above) — yes, in the communal kitchen where people prepare their meals, 'conveniently' placed beside the microwave. 'Would you like a wash and microwave dry today?' Wonderfully hygienic, that.

It's probably fair to say this isn't legal, but if it means the landlady earns some more money, that's the most important thing for her. To heck with standards and regulations.

It must be pointed out that the owner and her family also live in the house, on the second floor. The thing is, they rarely use the facilities as, get this, they own a hotel nearby and spend most of their time there. 

One can only hope that Casa Fratelly — the name of the hotel, one to avoid — is a little bit more organised and well-kept. Or maybe our esteemed landlady took lessons from the 'Basil Fawlty School of Hotel Management', and, um, 'improved' upon them.

Whatever the case, pity the poor soul who next takes up residence in Bogotá's house of pain.
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Recalling Ireland's 'terrible beauty'

For many occurrences in life, it is easy to be wise after the event. Yet, while this Sunday, 24 April marks the passing of 100 years since the start of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising, no one can say with any certainty what the men and women behind it should or should not have done. 

‘A terrible beauty is born’ is how the great Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, summed up the contrasting emotions of the time. In many ways, it continues to be viewed thus.

Knocking down the old structures to start anew. (Photo from Facebook.)

It's probably fair to say that had there been a national plebiscite at the time to rebel or not, the latter would have won the day. This is not to say that a majority on the island did not want a change in how the country was governed, more that past experiences of failed uprisings had surely left the populace sceptical that a new attempt would succeed. 

The lack of popular support and indifference that history records when the rising broke out suggest this. (On the democratic front, one can also point to the many occasions when the concerns of the Irish masses were ignored by their colonial masters.)

Yet, it didn't take long for that to change; vindication for the actions of the Rising’s leaders in a sense. However, their stated aim was to achieve an all-island republic; this, of course, did not happen and has not happened.

Taking into account the political developments at Westminster at the time, it seems that some sort of Home Rule would have been granted once World War One was over, with perhaps separate parliaments for both Dublin and Belfast, considering the vehement opposition to the idea in the north-east. 

In other words, something very similar to the agreement actually reached between Britain and Ireland in the years after 1916. Or it may have even led to a devolved parliament for a united Ireland, remaining part of the United Kingdom albeit.

Therefore, it could be suggested that the rising and subsequent guerrilla war were unnecessary. Moreover, these further deepened the north-south divide.

On the other hand, we can only assume that a solely political path would have led to Home Rule. Diplomacy had failed in the past, which led some to believe that a forceful ‘stick’ approach was needed to get any meaningful concessions from Britain.

It is in this light we have to judge the actions of those who carried out the 1916 Rising. They did what they felt was necessary at the time.

With the benefit of hindsight, you could argue, as some do, that it was the wrong move. 

Be that as it may, respect must be given to those who made what was for many akin to a suicidal attack on the forces of what they viewed as an oppressive regime.
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My true Bogotá love

Considering the, um, pop star-esque lifestyle I lead, I've been reluctant to get into a lasting relationship. You know, I'd lose a certain appeal (don’t laugh) if I was suddenly no longer 'on the market'.

However, it's time to come clean. To be honest, I had been trying to tell myself that this wasn't real love, it was all just a passing phase, but it's been obvious for some time now that this is not the case. In fact, it's well over two years since we started seeing each other and it's been as steady as the best of them.

Love is all around ...

It wasn't quite love at first sight, but things quickly got off the ground nonetheless. We've already got past that initial 'scaffolding building phase' and reached the point where we're now comfortable seeing each other much less than at first; a sign of a mature, real, trusting relationship that, something that's not easy to find, especially in a country where jealousy and insecurity are commonplace.

Now, she wouldn't be seen as the classiest in some people's eyes, but that's not a concern from my point of view. What's more, she's far from high maintenance — indeed, she's usually fairly generous, much more so than the average Colombiana, even with her limited resources (the very odd time she might ask me directly for money, but she's learning not to).

She has been a little improper with some of my expat mates — this is not to say she's unfriendly, it's just best if she only has to deal with no more than a couple of foreigners at any one time. 

She's also largely viewed in a bad light by those who may have never met her but have heard about her. But hey, who doesn't have a dark side? And love making one blind or impairing sound judgement this is not, I hasten to add. I just prefer to accentuate her positives, of which she has many.

It's not my style to make public declarations of love, yet my dearest La Perseverancia, you have been my Bogotá standard-bearer since we first accidentally crossed paths back in 2013. More reliable and understanding than any woman.

Regardless of what the future holds in store for us, you'll always have a special place in my heart.
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Stop! Don't bin that food!

So Colombians throw some 9.76 million tonnes of food in the rubbish bin each year. That's over 200 kilogrammes per person, if it were divided equally, which of course it isn't (witness the country's many homeless scavenging through bins as proof of that).

Un-egg-ceptable!

Obviously enough, such food waste isn't unique to here, it happens across the globe, especially and unsurprisingly among those who aren't staring at bare plates on a regular basis — lucky to have plates that they are. 

Yet it should hit home more in countries such as Colombia where the sight of malnourished and starving people is never too far away.

The thought of binning food brings me back to my younger days. When my siblings and I were reluctant to finish a meal we were given, our mother, in her bid to make us eat up, would say 'think of the starving children in Africa'. 

Although it was said in good faith, the strategy was pretty useless all the same. It wasn't like the already prepared food we didn't eat was going to be of any help to those starving in Africa and elsewhere. Indeed, as my brother used to cheekily say, he was refusing to eat as a symbolic gesture to those deprived.

It took a few years for us to truly understand the point of our mother's message, even if it wasn't and isn't of any practical help to the people actually in need of the food: we should be grateful that we have something to eat.

However, many of us appear not to be grateful going by the waste figures above.

Alongside immediately dumping good leftovers in the bin, you’ve got the commonplace practice of storing cooked food in the fridge or wherever with the idea of consuming it at a later date. 

In my experience, in my ongoing house-sharing years I've found that this rarely sees the light of day again — well, only when it's being dumped after acquiring some sort of new biological culture. Come on guys, give me the leftovers and I'll gladly scoff them down — save money and cooking time.

It must be pointed out here that when you're buying food only for yourself or just a few other adults, limiting waste is, or at least should be, a little easier. It gets somewhat trickier when you're feeding children, as I experienced when helping to look after my nephews last year. 

I had guidelines to follow but it was either a case of the less common 'we haven't enough' or the more usual 'we've too much/we don't want any more' (yet, funnily enough, there was always room for sugar-laden delights). After a while I just put on less for me, let the lads eat, and then take their leftovers, which would normally suffice.

It all pretty much aligns itself with my current practice of eating to hunger rather than the clock (breakfast excepted) and/or taking small portions; try to eat well, but not to excess.

Private food waste aside, it is in the public domain — fast food outlets, restaurants and the like — where, arguably, you have the biggest culprits in this regard. You can't blame the businesses in question entirely. 

If their customers leave behind grub, too "proud" to ask for a doggy bag as you'll often see, what can they do about it? Dishing out smaller portions is one solution anyway — that'd do a good few already well-fed people no harm at all.

The idea isn't that we should all return to a subsistence existence, although at our current consumption rates for a range of finite resources that mightn't be such a bad thing. It's more a case of being a little more efficient in both cooking and eating. 

A situation where we're binning perfectly good — or what once was perfectly good but was just left to waste — food should never arise.
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How the West is winning

A typical response by some, what you might call leftist types, to Isis-inspired terrorist attacks on the West is, after the perfunctory expressions of condolences, 'they (we) had it coming.'

There's a modicum of truth to that. Both overt and covert military operations by Western forces have killed many innocents in the Middle East down through the years, while they have often been poorly planned and with the wrong focus/aim. Thus, to say that some people in those parts hold resentment towards "us" is no grand revelation.

The Middle East's version of the Ku Klux Klan. Photo from Twitter.

Yet, considering the beliefs of the fundamentalists behind the Isis attacks (and some others), no reasons other than we don't subscribe to their way of thinking are needed to wage "holy war" against the infidels. Follow the path of Muhammad or be damned, there is no middle ground. If they were to get their way, they would return us to the Dark Ages.

In our liberal world, people are entitled to believe in whatever they want to, but they are equally expected to allow others to have the same freedom. It’s all about respect and tolerance. 

What's more — and Western sympathisers of Islamic fundamentalism ought to bear this in mind — secular values, human rights and democracy are generally seen as pillars in progressive societies. For Muslim extremists — as it tends to be for other extremists, too — none of those pillars is given any consideration.

So while we may be cynical, as many are and with some reason, towards Western, nay US, intentions in taking control of the Middle East, it's rather easy to be so from the comfort of a liberal, Western abode, even allowing for the odd terrorist attack and a few fundamentalists of some sort of creed in our own camp.

There was a time, when Christian Europe was in its Dark Ages, the Muslim world was leading the way in terms of mathematical, medical and scientific progress. However, instead of continued, enlightened progression, many Islamic states have been on a course of regression for the last few centuries — politically speaking if nothing else.

The hope must be that moderate, well-educated Muslims, those who align themselves with rational thought and scientific reasoning — that is to say not believing in some archaic warmongering rubbish in an old book — come to the fore.

Liberalism and what you might call Western values aren't about to capitulate just yet. 

Despite the extremists' efforts, the West is winning, so to put it. We must be careful, though, in such heightened times not to run to the extremes ourselves.
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Transmilenio's unholy guardians of the gates

There may be some pointlessness to the following; but hey, this blog is still ongoing so I might as well stick to the programme (I jest, kind of).

For writing about the etiquette deficit of Bogotá's Transmilenio users in the hope of bringing about positive change seems about as useful as those 'How's my driving?' stickers the city's buses and taxis display.

Good door-blocking guys, well done ...

This isn't the first time we've focused on the Transmilenio, but rather than another general vent about the system's many ills, here we'll take aim at just one aspect. It might be the start of a small step towards a brighter future — quite literally, if people just moved to the side.

As any regular user of Bogotá's big red buses will know, there exists a hugely annoying habit of commuters standing in front of the (at times) automatic exit and entry doors, the ones that open when a bus arrives that is, so that people can alight and embark. 

For the uninitiated, at any one station one stopping point can be used for several buses serving various destinations (the infrastructure isn't large enough to allow a separate stop for each route type).

Thus, you have people parked in the middle of these entry-exit points waiting for their particular bus to come along with no intention of getting on the one that has actually stopped, creating a big obstruction for passengers getting off as well as those wishing to get on. Outside of not-so-gentle pushing — which, get this, angers the statue-like, asinine obstructors — there's not much else you can do to get off or on.

Neither politely reminding these people that they're being hugely unhelpful nor getting angry and alerting them to their idiocy works; they just appear to be 'conscientious obstructors' and remain so until their awaited bus shows up.

In mitigation, many of the stations, especially the more popular ones, are simply not big enough to cope with the numbers. 

Yet even in quieter stations and/or at off-peak times the "dim-wittedness" of obscuring the doorways prevails. A case of every man/woman for him/herself, to heck with the rest. Such things are obviously not part of the 'world's friendliest nation' criteria.

One way to attempt a change in this malignant transport culture is to employ door handlers. These would stand at the doors preventing any passengers from occupying the sacred space in between arrivals. In advance of a bus coming they could announce which one it is (a quick glance up the street should suffice) so that intending passengers can line up and enter; after, of course, those on board have alighted.

(It must be said that at one of the newer stations, Museo Nacional, albeit one with more space and less traffic flow than others, I have seen a similar queuing system in operation, controlled by Transmilenio employees. At rush hour in the busier stations, the formation of those preordained queues would be problematic, though not impossible.)

Another potential solution, or at least an easing of things for those getting off, could be some sort of a double-door operation, one-way off, one-way on.

Failing that, a more radical departure is to implement a mechanism where flesh-piercing spikes would spring up around the door area as soon as a bus leaves. 'You've got to be cruel to be kind' as the saying goes.

Authorities are well aware issues exist with the Transmilenio; most massive public transport systems have flaws. Yet in Bogotá it appears they don't quite know where to apply the solution. 

A couple of years back women-only station doors were trialled. A nice thought, but not exactly tackling the issue at hand. Women idiotically clog up the doors as much as men, if not more so. It's a bit like dividing a bunch of starving people into gender-based groups and leaving it at that; no food, nothing. Great job.

Perhaps with public transport here the thinking is, in typical Colombian style, 'it gets the job done'. It might be light years away from efficient and comes with a good level of strife, but it works — kind of. And what's more, it's only for us ordinary folk, what else do we expect?

Right, point made; let's start witnessing the changes, not. Back to grinning and bearing it.
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The Spy Wednesday Agreement — ominous for Santos?

In conflict resolution, common practice in both academia and realpolitik is to compare different regions that have experienced or are experiencing violent problems. While no two conflicts are exactly the same, broadly speaking there is a common blueprint to follow to go from war to peace.

Dark days ahead for President Santos? (Photo from Facebook.)

In this regard, and as has been written about here before, Northern Ireland's peace process has provided Colombia with plenty of food for thought — in theory if nothing else. 

In fact, Holy Week has been chosen as the defining moment for Colombia's current peace talks, discussions that have been ongoing for three-and-a-half years. It may be just purely coincidental, but you could see it as a nod towards the agreement that signalled a new, more peaceful direction for Ireland, signed on Good Friday (Viernes Santo) 1998 and named after that historic day.

Yet even the day picked by the Colombian government, 23 March, in the English religious vernacular in any case, is somewhat ominous: Spy Wednesday. 

It might be a bit of a stretch to portray President Juan Manuel Santos as Jesus, but it's not stretching it to state that a grand betrayal of the peace deal he seems so desperate to sign may be on the cards; without any miraculous resurrection in the days, months and years to follow.

It comes back to one of those principal points in conflict resolution: that all parties involved see a greater benefit in a new way rather than continuing with the old.

If you look at the Northern Ireland situation in 1998, it's pretty fair to say that the agreement signed promised a better, more "legitimate" life ahead for the main protagonists involved and their cohorts. In contrast, and this has always been the issue, what brighter, legitimate future can be assured for Farc guerrillas should a permanent peace deal be signed?

For the movement's heads, things might improve somewhat; there may even be some political participation, despite the right-leaning nature of the Colombian electorate. 

Yet for the foot soldiers on the ground — and this applies for hard-pressed civilian Colombians, too — the money that can be made from underground activities such as illegal mining and narcotics is far more attractive than anything the state and its foreign helpers can provide.

On top of all this, even if Farc en masse accepted a final peace deal, there is still the question of the other, not-insignificant guerrilla group, ELN. It hasn't been privy to these exact talks, so there's a chance that its hand could be strengthened at the expense of the Colombian state, a process that has already started according to some reports.

Throw in a still present paramilitary element on the other side of the divide that also profits well from illegal trade and it's not difficult to see the huge problems with 'Santos' Peace', as some Colombians call it.

There aren't too many out there who still see this conflict as a simple 'guerrilla left' versus a government and military that are more right of centre, as its origins may have been. It's more complex than that. 

As long as large sums of "easier" money are to be made by illegal methods that neither the national government nor foreign powers seem capable of tackling, a meaningful, lasting peace for Colombia seems a long way off.

A bold new blueprint is needed for conflict resolution here, one that goes well beyond the country's borders.
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