The Backyards

I wonder if I will ever have to wake up one morning and ask myself if the mountain beside my house is going to bury it. I don’t know if that will happen one day, but certainly it hasn’t happen until now.

For many people living in poor neighbourhoods of Soacha –a municipality southwest of Bogota– this is just one of the things they have to worry about on a daily basis. But there are other poverty-related issues: deficient infrastructure (or lack thereof), malnutrition, oh, and some guerrilla guys recruiting young people on the high part of the mountain.

I was invited to see what was being done there with funding from the Japan Cooperation Agency in order to build a proper containment wall and prevent the Divino Niño neighbourhood from being squashed by a giant rock or flooded by a mix of rain and sand.

The strip between the mountain and the neighbourhood is where the rest of the houses were built. People were evacuated to a safer place and their shanties were destroyed to build the wall.

Part of the demolished housing (if it can be called like that) can still be seen. Literally, it was a shithole. When in doubt, please refer to the picture.

Creepy girl laying by the toilet.

And her friend.

Two shifts are necessary to speed up the construction before the rainy season (which here is pretty much the whole year) hits harder.

Indeed…

“It’s not what you wear, but how you wear it”. I know. Helmets just enhance my big head, and I betray my cool exterior.

See the blackspot on the base of the monuntain? Shacks were built up to that point.

I definitely look more comfortable without it. Being the word fetishist I am, I point to the ‘tafilete’, which is Spanish for “the straps inside of a helmet” (I learnt that a couple of days ago). Just imagine how many times somebody uses that word during his life. Not that many, unless you’re an engineer or a scrabble freak.

Fuck graffiti artists. Fuck stencil and poor Banksy wannabes. Who needs paint spray cans when you can just apply a water-tranfer tattoo to a wall?

Not exactly wine and roses. But hats off to those who work there. They’re all from the neighbourhood and maybe this isn’t going to improve their lifes but –at least– it will help to keep it from deteriorarating.

Just another orange afternoon in Bogota.

The difference between being a fan of U2 and being a fan of Cabuya or Velandia y la Tigra is quite simple.

It’s obvious that U2 can fill dozens of stadiums. The actual difference is that none of you can meet Bono, the Edge, Adam or Larry under normal circumstances and even less hang out with them.

Not long ago I went bowling with DJ Trucha (that is “trout” in Spanish), member of the temporarily disbanded –hopefully- Cabuya and the sampler maestro of Velandia y la Tigra’s debut album. Velandia’s album (Once rasqas) is one of the best things in Colombian music right now. And I got a picture with him and Silvia.

I can’t remember Bono inviting me to his wedding. But I remember Silvias’s vividly.

Silvia Ospina is a dancer living in Germany, expert on the fine art of cooking lentils and having a lot of fun with minimum resources.

For those who know Colombia a little, let’s say that Silvia, Velandia and Trucha are from Santander, where there’s a good musical scene to keep your eyes on.

Books, arts o the contemplation of nature heighten the spirit. But pornography, due to its massive circulation on magazines and the internet is not considered a higher form of art. It empties and impoverishes the spirit.

However, pornography is a big form of contemplation.

That’s the reason why porn can become a great tool to heighten and improve the inner life of the human kind. Who says it is some rough male form of entertainment? Woman is the star here!. Some would accept that it is indeed a form of stardom, but in some degenerate way. Allow me to differ, but it is the opposite. Since woman is the star, she receives better salaries and public acknowledgement than her male colleagues. Just think of actress Jenna Jameson, who now is a big adult entertainment businesswoman and compare here with Ron Jeremy, the new laughing stock of a reality TV show where he shared so-called honour with Vanilla Ice, Ice baby.

Many women complain –with good reason- that they receive less money for doing the same job a man does (sometimes it’s 30% less) Not in porn, lasses! If you get naked in front of a camera, and rub, lick and moan, you’re likely to get at least the double a man gets! This is the true female revolution and not what the hairy feminists wanted for you in the 60’s. Any social struggle ends up meeting some big money issue (Marx knew it more than a century before Jenna Jameson), and porn is where the money is.

But there is an issue that is always overlooked when porn comes into discussion: its spiritual side.

Since porn impoverishes the human spirit (both the actors’ and the viewers’) it becomes an excellent way to prepare our hearts for bigger things. An empty heart is one that can be filled afterwards with all the great ideas and creations of human kind. An empty heart is never ashamed to make room for God and all his angels.

Porn also teaches us to be humble. Just a few lucky men can brag about having shared bed (or any other part of the house. Or the woods. Or the oficce. Or the nurse’s office. Or…) This situation teaches men to accept with joy and humility the average women that real life has put by their side. If porn turns some rude macho into a seraphic male, then, dear girls, there’s a lot to be thankful for.

It’s difficult to be sure if some of the Health & Safety advice and rules that you get from your training or the induction process at your new job will effectively save your life one of these days.

I’m really not sure if I will ever be exposed to a situation that is so dangerous that I will have to deal with explosives, car chases or other kind of stunts considered by the HR or the Security department.

If you’re ever in danger, here are some tips provided by the United Nations during your first days at your new job, no matter if you are in a road in Darfur or in an office in Bogota:

1. “Don’t try to imitate the driving techniques that you’ve seen on James Bond’s films”

2. “Never keep as a souvenir any part of a landmine or a piece of ammunition”

3. “If you ‘have to go’, do it on the road”

Thank me later and buy me a beer if anything of this keeps you alive some day.

On Saturday, Novemer 3rd 2007, Bogota suffered the worst hailstorm in 30 years. I was on the other side of town that day -where only a little rain fell. But my friend Pilar was kind enough to send me some images.

Near an underpass located on the centre of the city.

Same area, on the other side of the underpass.

There’s no snow in Bogota, so a hailstorm of this level is the closest thing we have to a winter landscape. This is a five-minute walk west from home. The big building on the back is one of the city’s main libraries. Next to it is the Simón Bolívar Park, where the first of three days of a big -and free- rock festival had to be cancelled.