| DAY 16: MAY 21, 2002 5:15 AM BOGOTA, COLOMBIA |
continuing from last.... DAY 12, May 17: Upon leaving the Christian bookstore I heard some good music sounding from not too far away, live music, many percussion instruments. I had to check this out. Sure enough a group of young adults playing on one side of Avenida Jimenez, a crowd already gathering around. I got a good position to watch them play, it wasnt that crowded, and I thoroughly enjoyed this! I think they were playing a kind of music from the Caribbean coast of Colombia. They were great. I dont know how long I stood there watching and listening. There was one gentleman from the crowd doing some kind of dance to the music. I can really appreciate that kind of freeness, or, unashamedness.... just letting loose in the street (granted, I dont deny the possibility that gentleman couldve been under some influence of alcohol...)... but I think you can get my drift. From there I went to the postcard shop, one that has like too many -- over 300! I decided to disoverwhelm myself (ok so that is strange English, ha) by looking only at ones of Bogota or places Ive already been to. YES, some of you will be receiving a postcard in the mail ;);) winkwink. Que mas? From there I went home to meet up with Tania. Tania had received invitation from a co-worker to a cultural music presentation for that night, to be held in a theatre in La Candelaria. The presentation was by a group called "Totolinche", which has been around 20 years already, the present group the children of the original group members. It is about a celebration of traditional / indigenous music and dance of Colombia, so you can imagine the array of instruments they play. For example, the first one they did they all had those, hm, i dont know the name... it has like two rows of wooden pipes, which are all fastened together, and each pipe has a different length, and you blow into different ones to sound different notes. Anyway, you know abuot eight people playing those, cool. And performing a kind of dance as well. All in all, I really really enjoyed the music, and it makes me want to move here and learn how to play a number of different instruments and be part of a band or something. We had to take off from there a little early to head to the north side to a restaurant where we had reservations, there would be performing a 5-guy band, four of them with guitars, one with percussion. They were celebrating their anniversary, i think 5 years. A style that might make you think of Simon {n{ Garfunkel perhaps. They were really good. I had not eaten the most of the day so I had a wonderful meal of teriyaki chicken, rice and cooked vegetables. It was a great night of music. THe only bummer of the evening was that I had decided to wear a pair of shoes that night which decided to give me blisters, arrgghh, so walking was not fun. ...One of the guys in the group, and his wife (known to Tania) are Christians, really wonderful couple, and they invited us to their church, Confraternidad, for Sunday. DAY 13, May 18: Tania works at a science and technology museum in Bogota called Maloka (you could check it out at www.maloka.org). It is a neat museum, very interesting, and educational. The museum works together with various schools in Bogota, and conducts a variety of different kinds of workshops for school children. My understanding is that Tania does some of this arranging. Since she finds herself in the office doing the behind-the-scenes work for these workshops, she had planned to go observe some of the workshops onsite (in the city) being conducted by fellow co-workers, to see how they were going. She invited me and at 9am we took the Transmilenio out to the very very south part of Bogota (remember in the south parts of Bogota are the poor barrios of the city, so this would give me an opportunity to see another of the contrasts of Bogota). We got off at the very last Transmilenio station (where the Transmilenio buses turn around to go northward to the other end of the city) and from there took another bus to the barrio near to the "park" area in which the workshops were, the ones she was going to observe. WELL! She had not informed me we would be climbing a mountain! Hehe. And I did not have any water with me... Up and up and up.. and yes this part does look distinct from downtown and north parts of Bogota. No more paved roads after a certain point, roads in bad conditions... I can only imagine what it must be like when they have big rains, as they had had in the weeks just before I came to Bogota. Houses under construction, bricks and such... some you see the first floor already established and the 2nd or 3rd still open and for the time being used as a patio or to hang laundry... A couple of guys at one point marking out dimensions on grass where they planned to build... Tania said she was not sure if this was illegal... She said a lot of this part was pretty new, likely 10 years old or never (for those of you who are unaware, due to problems and war in many parts of Colombia, too too many people in those parts / in the country were forced from their homes (displaced) and so the population of Bogota has increased by who knows how much in little time, as the "desplazados" (displaced ones) move to Bogota. So these are undoubtedly campesinos, people from the country, who are now making their home on the fringes of Bogota. Tania pointed out different small gardens or crops nearby existing homes there, which give an idea of perhaps what part those people came from -- they want to continue on with a similar kind of lifestyle here by their new place of residence (with their kind of agriculture, etc.) So, to you this sounds like the countryside, well, it is -- agriculture and such on the side of mountain, but it is yet Bogota, the city. ...Children... ...Transmilenio busride all the way to northside... ... (Sorry I will fill in the blanks when I can ;) ). |