Orientation Week in Bogotá

Whew! Orientation week has been an exhausting and educational blast. Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the group of ETAs and research grantees woke at 7:30 am to get for breakfast at the Hotel Los Heroes, and then continued on to a 30-minute bus ride through the infamously congested morning rush hour of Bogotá toward the city center. The rendezvous point for the daytime seminar activities was the Hotel de La Opera in La Candelaria, Bogotá’s city center. There, the Fulbrighters poured coffee down our throats all morning with a force more potent than Iguazu Falls while we listened to a compelling series of presentations on everything from how to call a taxi in the major cities to the history of Colombia’s rebel movements to how to teach English vocabulary through picture drawing. Fulbright staff, both American and Colombian, US diplomats and attachés from the Embassy, and Professors from leading local universities delivered the talks that all of the grantees agreed were highly informative.

One talk that was particularly instructive and also particularly terrifying was Tuesday morning’s security briefing, which the Commission staff so compassionately happened to insist would be our very first in the series. Cole Dillon, Security Officer at the US Embassy in Bogotá, conveyed a Powerpoint describing Colombia’s many dangers and annoyances for foreigners and especially for Americans. (Of course, because this lecture was designed specifically for State Department employees, its instructions were rather exaggerated, and even at times stuffed with hyperbole, begging the Fulbrighters to be selective with how much salt they ingested with the commands.) A few of the standout points:

1) There are three armed counter-state groups in Colombia identified by the U.S. State Department as Foreign Terrorist Organizations:

a) The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC

b) The National Liberation Army, or the ELN

c) The United Self-Defense Forces, or AUC

…So if anyone is tempted to think that the only place to look for well-organized, politically motivated criminals of mass violence is in the caves of Afghanistan, they better start reconsidering!;

2) Never wave taxis off of the street, especially when traveling alone. Always call an officially certified taxi agency and have a taxi delivered. Always get the license plate of the taxi when you make the request, to identify the cab and make sure you don’t receive a fraud;

3) Avoid the “Counterfeit Currency” scam. This means be wary of men in suits in public areas who introduce themselves as special policemen reclaiming fraudulent banknotes. Especially praying on the totally naïve tourist, these men will take his/her real money, claiming it is fake, issue him/her a “receipt” to go claim official notes at some bank, and then be long gone laughing once the victim exits the bank with nothing to show, realizing they’ve just been swindled for perhaps hundreds of dollars;

4) Watch out for Scopalamine, a.k.a. “Burundanga,” a fast-acting, odorless, tasteless and incapacitating drug that is slipped by certain gangs into drinks in order to take full advantage of enemies, or just anyone. Burundanga, which totally inhibits memory formation, knocks the victim out for a full 24 hours, making everyday roofies or “date rape” in the States or Europe look like Barney holding hands with a toddler. Most frighteningly of all, some gangs will have Colombian women use it on foreign men, whose hearts are already so wound up and whose eyes are already so filled with stars at the sight of these beauties that they stand little chance. YIKES!

5) Never give personal information out over the phone, especially in self-protection from the “Llamada Millonaria” scam. In this trick, attackers collect personal information about one’s friend, significant other, or relative, and then call him or her claiming a ransom for the return of the supposedly kidnapped loved one. The catch: in almost 100 percent of cases, the call is merely an amateur bluff, and the other was never kidnapped in the first place!

Naturally, all of the grantees, only human, came away from this talk trembling a bit and half-jokingly wondering questions aloud such as, “did I really sign up for this!?” I wound up concluding, though, that any of these criminal gimmicks could occur in any big city in Brazil (likely twice as treacherously), and in any metro area in the US, for that matter. In any case, many of us needed about an hour after Mr. Dillon’s talk to allay our slight anxieties… Welcome to Colombia! Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture has recently launched a rebranding initiative, which boasts the slogan, “Colombia, the only risk is wanting to stay.” I’m going to assuage my fears and keep my head clear during these ten months by siding with this most recent motto…

A few other shining moments of the orientation seminar are worth mentioning. First is the lecture “Political History of Colombia,” delivered by Dr. Pedro Valenzuela, Professor of Comparative Politics and International Relations at the University of Pittsburgh, and Director of the graduate program in Conflict Resolution at the Universidad Javeriana. This guy is candid academic force that tells things exactly how it is. He revealed to the grantees the enormous amount of hearsay and unscientifically validated nonsense that goes into describing the decades-old state of civil war in Colombia. The major takeaway point of Dr. Valenzuela’s lecture was that it is very difficult, if not to say simply foolish, to attempt to place exclusive blame for the violence on either the rebel factions or the government. A more reasonable and informed approach, Dr. Valenzuela suggests, is to note that both sides, each ruthless, are largely responsible for the atrocities that fuel this conflict. If you haven’t heard of Dr. Valenzuela, look up his work, for the man is the truth.

The second was the Fulbright Commission Program Director Maria del Rosario Torres’ playful presentation, “Colombian Music, Culture, and Diversity.” Maria showcased various typical music styles from around Colombia, a country that I promise you will take on any medium-sized nation in terms of vigorous regional diversity. Some of the highlight example videos can be found here:

1. Cumbia (Baranquilla and the Caribbean coast): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i2viZ-xyAU

2. Champeta (Caribbean coast):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irDyLgXAC_Q

3. Tunja and the Central Andean region

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aId1h7DMABg

4. Cali and the Southwestern coast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-iCb40RvfE

5. Cumbia Paisa (Medellin and Antioquia District):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sroP5gFCuZY

(Note: these guys are really silly!)

ENJOY these jams!

…

On a less animated note, my first bitter taste of Colombian bureaucracy shook me on Wednesday afternoon, and took hold of my life by Thursday morning. The issue at hand: getting my first Fulbright monthly stipend into a secure and usable format before I leave to Medellín, so that I can travel at ease, pay rent upon arrival and live in peace. The challenge: doing so requires at least five steps that I can count, including, but certainly not limited to a) registering my student courtesy Visa (which on Thursday, mind you, was still pending) with the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), the equivalent of our Homeland Security Department, b) getting my blood tested for the application toward my cedula de extranjeria, the Colombian equivalent of a social security card, c) taking four more 3x4 cm (to be exact!) photos on a BLUE background (because the damn four that I took on a WHITE background on Monday are apparently worthless for this procedure!), d) going back to DAS to pay the fee for application toward my cedula, e) going to Colmena, a big local bank, to open my bank account and deposit my stipend check, only after receipt of my cedula. Now, as everyone who has spend thirty seconds in Latin America knows, this set of tasks, which might take three hours in Germany or Switzerland, could easily exhaust the useful hours of up to one week here in Colombia. But then, when I learned from Alexandra Moreno, the Commission Program Director, that issuance of the cedula requires a minimum of three days, my life really started spinning, Kansas tornado style. With this revelation, I realized that I faced the risk of the only apparently obvious option before my flight to Medellín on Friday: directly cash the check, which does not require the opening of an account, and travel with the equivalent of over one thousand dollars in cash on my person between the highways and airports of two cities that ten years ago were widely regarded as a couple of the most dangerous in the world. NERVEWRACKING! After four hours of biting nails in consideration of an alternative, I settled on the only sensible solution: cashing only enough of the money to pay rent upon arrival in Medellín—so as to avoid the possibility of a slash robbery which could turn into me becoming homeless for one month—and leave the remainder of the cash at the Fulbright Commission’s safe in Bogota, until later notice for deposit. A series of tense phone calls later, Alexandra and I had this arranged and with the Commission’s financial director. The result: I woke up at 8 am on Thursday morning to venture thirty blocks on Bogota’s Transmilenio bus-subway to the Commission, located downtown, to complete the transaction. Sol’s mantra to and from the Commission and the Bank, as per the US Embassy security briefing request: take off jewelry; dress simply; be nonchalant; shut the hell up and be quiet; don’t make yourself noticed! After all, the deed was done and I got the cash where it needed to be: hidden in my money belt, whereabouts constantly on my mind. But not without my fair share of hyperventilation!

There were brighter and more exhilarating moments. The week was not without its sightseeing and due exploration of the capital’s nightlife. On Thursday afternoon, the Fulbrighters ascended by cable trolley the mountains to the east of Bogota to Cerro de Monserrate, a mountaintop pilgrimage and worship area and vista point. From 3,152 meters (10,341 feet), one could reap stellar views all the way across the mammoth capital. Let me just say that Bogotá, perhaps the fifth largest city in Latin America (unless displaced from that spot by Lima), is HUMONGOUS, stretching as far as the eye can see until it hits the mountains. Boy oh boy, I love BIG! What is more, my fellow grantees and I had two nights out rumbeando (dancing energetically to salsa, cumbia, and reggaeton) in two of Bogota’s trendiest neighborhoods, Andino and Parque 93. To my utter shock, US$21 cocktails in the former certainly give NYC and London a run for their money! This left me wondering: where in God’s name does the concentrated wealth of Latin America’s second most unequal nation (after yours truly, Brazil), come from, anyway?

…So, I decided that I would continue on to Medellín, traditionally land of Colombia’s most notorious cocaine—and now, textile—lords, on Friday morning to find out. I went to sleep on Thursday night dreaming of my flight to Colombia’s proud “Silicon Valley” a city where the rich flaunt their goodies around similar to the way the tech-geeks of Palo Alto and Mountainview, CA shred boulevards in their Aston Martins and Bentleys. But also one where this advanced form of plastic abundantly fills something more than just computer chips—you do the guessing!