certification

Sunday 19.6.2016

As with many days, we started our morning with a conversation about politics.  Jorge took Molly and I to Exito to talk about the coming day and discuss the intracacies of a favorite topic for non-Americans: how the hell did Donald Trump happen.  Jorge is a personal fan of Dr. Ben Carson and couldn’t understand how the most immoral person running for the “party of family values” was able to oust the nomination from what Jorge viewed were good people.  As with every conversation about Trump, we were able to offer the usual platitudes: our country is just that messed up, he really does represent the integrity and values of many Americans, and no one (himself and his staff included) thought he would get this far.  Molly and I are both Bernie Sanders supporters so the idea of Clinton winning the general election doesn’t fill us up with hope, but at least the world economy wouldn’t experience a shock due to a trade war with China.

The conversation turned to Colombian history.  Demagogues may be new to American politics, but they are the norm in a country torn apart by violence and extremist political factions.  In 1948, a tremendously popular presidential candidate was assassinated and the resulting partisan violence resulted in a civil war known ominously as La Violencia.  The remnants of the conservative and liberal parties resolved to create a National Front, where every four years the Presidency was exchanged between the two parties without the population having a say in who ran their country.

The FARC emerged as a result.  The left-wing organization originally numbered in the hundreds and consisted of organized farmers demanding agricultural reform and political representation.  As the National Front consistently left the FARC out of conversations, the organization gained popular support and began growing in size and strength.  By the 70’s, local paramilitary groups (similar to the Nicaraguan Contras, and sharing the same support from the US and CIA) began fighting the FARC.  And with the introduction of massive US-demand driven drug cartels, Colombia entered three decades of chaotic, multi-front civil strife which is only in the past decade subsiding.  A peace treaty was signed with the FARC several years ago and a referendum on allowing them to become a legitimate political party is taking place this year.

Jorge doesn’t support integration of the FARC, and for understandable reasons.  But the entire conversation was somewhat of a reflection on my home as well.  The dominance of the Republicans and the Democrats has continued for over 150 years, and while we vote between the two candidates for each party and in theory have the ability to elect someone from outside the parties, in effect we are left choosing between the lesser of two evils every four years.  Our National Front’s inability to address the issues that form of the core of both party’s constituency’s concerns has led to the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as responses to the state-enforced status quo.

Bring on the revolution.

Per Jorge’s recommendation, we used Medellin’s metro system to get to Arvi Park.  This is not a simple process.  As mentioned in the last post, Medellin has spent the last quarter century tirelessly connecting the pores and and most dangerous suburbs to the central city while investing heavily in community-building projects.  The metro is the oldest and most important of these projects.  It is remarkably cheap and constantly expanding; three months ago they added a street-level tram system that a resident can use on the same ticket she uses any of the 27 metro stops, two cable car lines scaling the sides of the valley, or any of the public buses for less than $1.  Watching Colombian children get excited to use the metro system is everything that is beautiful in this world.

But Arvi Park isn’t another one of Medellin’s two dozen city parks.  It is a national a forest, secluded from the city by a fourty minute cable car ride over the densest vegetation I have ever seen.  Molly and I enjoyed our six-person box as it swung over seemingly mile high trees the hid beyond the cliffs surrounding the city.  At Arvi, we spent an hour in the massive farmers market, home to exotic fruits and artisan jewelry and some much needed locally brewed craft beers.  Colombia has the largest number of birds on the planet owing to their remarkably diverse elevations and ecologists, and it seemed like every single species was joining us as we hiked through the Andean forest and marveled at the lush display of life.

We made our way back to Salsipudes (being able to give directions in a foreign language is a very satisfying experience) and slept through the afternoon rains that habitually visit Medellin.  At night, we had the smart idea to try to go to dinner during the national Medellin-Cartagena/Barranquilla end of the semester furbelows game, meaning that we watched an entire city wearing red and blue jerseys explode with energy as their home team won the match.  My plea from Cartagena was only reinforced: go to Colombia and stay for a futbol game.  You will not be disappointed.

Taxis draped in flags, honking until three in the morning, couldn’t stop us from passing out when we returned to Salsipuedes in the evening.  Medellin had once again given us something lovely to dream about.

Today we: 

– Breakfast with Jorge, conversation about FARC

  Resulting partisan vioy- Cable car up to Arvi Park

– returned to AirBNB, enjoyed sleepy afternoon

– got dinner, city exploded with local team win, struggled finding a taxi