Are you being served?

---

Colombia was never really on the map in terms of my journey to South America but having heard such good things, being here felt somehow just right. Sitting in a little outdoor bar in the quiet town of Carpugana, there is a trickling of street folk milling around chatting whilst the famous Vallenato music seeps through the tepid swarmy night and heats the veins. I could not help but feel like a helpless moth being slowly drawn towards the fire somehow knowing but having no control over its desire to feel, to see and simply burn. My friend Claudio somehow acknowledges my reverie, raises his glass of Aguila beer, smiles and says "Welcome to Colombia!"

That was over two months ago, now im about 700KM north in a city called Barranquilla. Its big, noisy and polluted. There are no beautiful churches or fancy architecture and the town doesnt even get a mention in the South America Lonely Planet yet ive been here ever since and cannot say I regret a single minute.

There were several reasons for coming to Barranquilla, the first was that I heard that alot of amazingly beautiful amazonian women live here and really they like foreigners and also.. well I forgot the other reasons they arent that important anyway.

The Spanish here is not of a normal variety. The people tend to speak very fast and not only that they have a great deal of slang also to cut and shorten words as people often do in English. This was probably the biggest challenge for me here and one day sitting on the bus suddenly all the surrounding noise became clear and audible. It was no longer a mess of sound that externalised me and made me feel different, I could understand it and the sounds became something so great, it became language. Finally I felt as though I could understand and be part of it all rather than foreign and separate.

My friend Claudio has long departed back to Chile. He introduced me to some contacts here he knew to help me get some grounding. The hospitality of the people here is unimaginable. My friend Gustavo let us live in his office for a week, fed us and spent hours of his free time helping me find work here as an English teacher. A random person whom I was asking directions invited me to his home, gave me a hearty meal and also a big bottle of bourbon as a present! The reason behind this mentality baffled me for quite some time but its mostly due to how highly status is regarded in this society. Being a foreigner is normally considered to be rich and therefore treated with more respect. Service here is as prevalent as it probably was in the Roman times with guards outside every office and apartment block, muchachas or house maids presiding in most rich families homes and free home delivery from almost every corner store.

Everyone here seems to be on the run. The fruit sellers lugging around large fruit carts around town and the local mobile coffee brigade selling small expresso size coffee known here as tintos. It comes in several levels of taste ranging from toasted dirt to barely palatable but for 10 cents a cup im hooked! Also, the majority of the Artisans here carry around their bracelets and crafts on extended toilet rolls rushing around the city sweating, trying to sell and looking as though they are on crack, the reason being they are mostly all are. The main problem wïth everything being mobile is when you want to find something you want you cant. You just have to sit and wait till someone comes by and whistle them over. Good quality is another aspect Colombians here strive for. The food is excellent, especially in comparison to other American countries I have visited. The panaderias or bakery offer a wide selection of breads and pastries such as caramel filled donuts, honey and sour cheese bread as well as sugar topped apple crumbles all of which are baked fresh daily unlike other countries where stale bread is the order of the day. Different areas of Colombian gastronomical expertise comes in the form of comidas rapidas or fast food which involves mainly anything covered in corn batter and then frying the hell out of it in hot oil and call them Arepas.

Style and elegance are other common words in the Barranquilla dictionary with many people shelling out all their plata or savings on nice, trendy designer outfits mostly locally imported from Medellin, Colombia and literally no one but the desachables or homeless people wear shorts. This to me seemed quite absurd considering its hot, tropical, humid and over 30 degrees celcius day and night but seing as they dont let anyone into any bank or public institution without pants I had to get used to it.

Being a tropical city usually involves alot of rain during the wet season. The problem here being that somehow the ingenious engineers designed the streets so well that during any hard rain they become an enormous syphon that turns the streets into white water rapids that can take out cars and on occasion even buses. At this point homeless people come out with crates, planks and rocks to form makeshift bridges and charge 10 cents to cross them so you dont get your Gucci shoes wet. This is where I drew the line and exchanged the pants and shoes for shorts and flip flops. When there arent roads of rivers the sun is usually out and its hot and sweaty which makes one appear as though someone has thrown a bucket of water over you even after just a short walk. Still, its little to get upset about when you walk into the street side shop blaring with groovy latino salsa rhythms and you are greeted by a beautiful morena or dark girl dancing around the shop and asking "Can I be of service?" Most of these corner shops turn into disco bars by night selling beer and food and of course regular groceries, now thats what I call convenience!

If the local tienda party doesnt flip your switch there are plenty of great bars around with music and people dancing till dawn. The problem is if you are after any type of music apart from salsa, vallenato, meringue or bachata your out of luck. My idea was to learn salsa and luckily for me I found a girl to teach me called Jhohana. This turned out to be a difficult in the end due to her be always busy working, but I still got to learn how to dance Vallenato. Vallenato is a unique style of music only heard in the north of Colombia and Venezuela and consists of a usually an accordion accompanied by some outlandish vocals. Jhohana instrusts me that to dance Vallenato you need to grab your partner closely, move your feet around in a small circle and shake your hips like you fuck. Interesting instructions and I started to wonder if id been doing it wrong all these years, however after a bit of practice it is not that difficult to learn and I must admit that its the most intimate style of dance ive experienced and if your not hot from the balmy weather youll definitely be steaming after dancing Vallenato.

Unlike what most people would think Colombians in general do not like drugs and the majority of those taken here are by foreigners going on drug tours. The people here seem very healthy and most people dont even smoke cigarettes. It is true however, that in Barranquilla people like to party and drink. The festival here in February is a carnival with traditions that date back to the 19th century. It takes place for four days preceding Ash Wednesday. During the carnival the city of Barranquilla's normal activities are paralyzed because the city gets busy with street dances, musical and masquerade parades. Barranquilla's Carnival is reputed for being second in size to Rio de Janeiro's but is far less commercialized. The Barranquilla Carnival includes dances like the Spanish paloteo, African congo and indigenous mico y micas. Many styles of Colombian music are also performed, most prominently cumbia and instruments include drums and wind ensembles

Being in South America with a dwindling bank account is not fun. Such a great continent, so many places to see and no way of getting there the only remedy is work! I had been offered a job teaching English at a distinguished school and good salary but i needed to sign a one year contract and commitment is one word I still do not know the meaning of. I settled for private classes which meant searching for students, advertising by posting flyers and that ended up being a job in itself. Then there is the fun of dealing with students with a typical Latin American mentality which involved students showing up late if you were lucky or canceling fifteen minutes before class because there is a little rain out.

So now I am here, the final act, sipping on my tinto in the local bake shop admiring the scenery. Its vacation time and literally all my students have disappeared. With no money coming in I have decided to pull the plug. The curtains are being called and its time to say thanks and goodbye to all that played part in this curious comedy. The helpful government worker Gustavo. Jhohana Vanessa and Olga, the girls that taught me how to argue in Spanish. The photocopy man on the corner who calls me marx and the crazy baker lady who thinks I shouldnt be here and should be deported. Then theres me, the weird liberal foreigner who lives downtown instead of amongst the rich. I dont really know what was my part here, in such a conservative city I think how I could enjoyed it so much here being so different yet I guess its just two sides of the same coin. I taught some English, learnt alot of Spanish, danced, had loads of fun that was my part and I just hope I played it well.

---

Photos

Big sound system
In Barranquilla, the outdoor parties are common, and status being such a big drawcard many spend more money on sound system than on the car. This one is worth more than 10000 dollars.

Sweet seller at the beach
Las Flores, Barranquilla

Counterfeit Money
Somewhere along the line one of my students gave me a counterfeit bill that and I didnt realise. Which is the fake? At least its only worth around 5 dollars

Enamoradores
Lovers Statue one of the nicest I saw with man and womans hand bolted together. Ironically located in front of the red light district

Llamadas
These mobile phone guys are on every corner offering cheap calls, they have a phone for every possible network so you end up paying around 3 times less than phoning from your own phone.

Indepence Day Colombia
Showing off some guns

Arroyo
This is a a minor street flooding that occurs regularly