Meddlin' in Medellín

Colombia has one of the highest Gini indices in the world, which means there are some very rich people and very poor people here.¹ In Bogotá, I saw a man whose skin was covered in a layer of grime, wearing a plastic bag with wholes ripped in it as a shirt, digging in a trashcan, to collected anything that could be recycled or reused: relatively clean napkins, empty plastic bottles, tin cans, and the like. I saw a man today in Medillín wearing two mismatched shoes, one with holes worn through the side, the other without laces; his skin was also coated in grit and dust. These are in the shadow of international corporate skyscrapers: SAP, Samsung, Bancolombia.

I’m currently sitting on the patio of a café,² and a young man walked by and stopped to say something to me. He wasn’t able to clearly form words (his voice was breathy and high-pitched, as if he had been screaming and had laryngitis) and his hands moved erratically and without controlled movements. I couldn’t hear what he said, but he held the palm of his hand out to me, then to his stomach; in the other hand he had some packets of something – candy, or his own food, or I don’t know what. Before I understood what he was asking for, I shook my head and said “no”; he smiled and moved on; as he was already away I realized that I really should have given him some cash.

Yesterday I arrived in Medellín and took a taxi in from the airport. The taximan said the cost would be 35 USD, and I tried to tell him that I only had 25 USD and was fresh out of COP; I thought he said that 25 USD would be fine. We arrived at the hostel and the truth came out. He was very kind enough to take me to an ATM to withdraw money; I took my passport, phone, and all my cards with me up to the ATM, but left my backpack and camera bag in the car with him: I felt it would be too much of a sign of distrust to take them with me. I did constantly look over my shoulder to make sure the car was still there as I was using the machine, and I had been texting my cousin Kathleen just so someone knew what was happening. I should have trusted them, but wikivoyage warned me against the paseo millonario, a scam where a seeming taxi picks you up and, once they have you in the car, fuck you up for your money. Everything, of course, turned out completely fine, and I gave the guy 120k COP (~30 USD) for his trouble.

Medellín has become very safe in the last years, as has Colombia as a whole. The sense I get, coming into the country for the first time from the outside, knowing almost nothing about the local history, and speaking essentially none of the language, is that the country has had a rough half millenium, from the arrival of the Spanish around 1500 ᴄᴇ, to the wars of independence and following instability in the early 19^th century, through the drug and guerrilla wars of the later 20^th century. The National Museum in Bogotá drove home how normal political violence became in the previous century and celebrated the relative stabilization of the last 25 years. The country seems one where people have tired of violence and desire order and stability. One hopes that the next half-millenium will be more peaceful than the previous one.

I saw the bus stop poster at the top of this post in Medellín today walking back to my hostel from Provenza, where I bought had lunch and bought a shirt. The text, translated, says “your childred need to feel safe; hug them; they’ll be better people.” The poster is posted by an office of the government of Medellín. Is that where a country begins to heal? At the level of parents hugging their children? I’ve been thinking a lot about spending time together in a family: my mother always insisted that we sit and eat dinner together; it drove he crazy that my step-father would get up and wash his plate as soon as he finished eating, or would prepare food for himself when he was hungry without regard to what the others were doing.

I’ve noticed that the USA, generally, rushes through its meals: we eat on the way to something, between other activities, as a biological necessity on the order of defecation; it is not something to be prolonged or treated as an occasion for socialization. There are, of course, economico-practical reasons for this, because we work too much and get paid too little, but this is also a cultural choice: Colombia is a much poorer country than the USA, but I have seen families at the table together for far longer than one would in the USA. There’s some social healing to be had here, for us USA-Americans: why are we rushing so much? Why can’t we take time to stop and, even if we can’t eat a whole meal together, just hug? I certainly need to feel safe, and wish my parents hugged me more than they did. Even if they were invested in eating together, hugging was much less common: I shake my father’s hand when I see him, and that’s the most physical touch we’ve had as long as I can remember. That’s my fucked family, though.

For now, I’ve got to be the one who hugs myself.