Bogota calling

I’m so glad I decided to live here. Being sick made me realize how wonderful it is not to live alone, much as I like my space. Elizabeth has been awfully sweet, picking up soymilk and a movie for me yesterday, and just generally being a concerned friend. The neighborhood is great, too – I have rarely if ever felt unsafe, even late at night, because at almost any hour of the day or night one passes little old ladies walking their poodles dressed in fluffy sweaters. How’s that for an image of Bogotá???

In Bogotá there are six “strata” or classifications of neighborhoods: six is the ritziest, and 0 is the poorest of the poor. Most of Bogotá appears to me to be around Strato 3, which is middle class like the area where we live, but many of the Americans and international people we know live in Strato 6 neighborhoods. The party we went to Friday night was in one, and although we all agreed that we adored Silje’s apartment (owned by the Norwegian consulate, apparently), especially the gorgeous 16^th century whitewashed mission across the street, I’d much rather live in a neighborhood with some street life. This place is exactly what Jane Jacobs was talking about with the concept of eyes on the street. But even if I didn’t feel safer, I’d still prefer the social interaction, however slight, of a place like this, where every third door is a storefront, to a more sterile but technically beautiful upscale neighborhood. Here the Laundromat owner, the butcher, and the Internet café attendant all know and ask after their customers. Now that’s neighborhood life.

Today, however, I did have a slightly off-putting experience. I took a short walk to the park to get some air, then went over to the bakery and fruit store to pick up a few things for dinner. On my way home (all three blocks of it…) a man stopped upon passing me, pointed, and said “Europa sea, Europa sea, que se puede hacer...” I’m not sure exactly how to translate this, but I understood him to be saying, if you’re European, I guess you just are and there’s not much you can do about it. [!] He was fairly ordinary looking, and I wouldn’t have noticed him if not for this strange encounter. Maybe I should dye my hair…the thing is, I don’t generally stand out that much here, other than being able to see over heads in a crowd. There are plenty of people with my hair color and complexion – it’s not absolute most common look here – but still not that uncommon either. Ah well, I went to the butcher next, and he could be an uncle of mine with his grey hair and freckles. He asked after my cold and I felt better.

The Strato 0 and 1 neighborhoods are mostly on the south side of the city, with names like Ciudad Bolivar (for Simon Bolivar, would-be uniter of pan-America Latina). One aspect of my project will be to determine how successful a government that talks big about public participation has been at involving the citizenry of the informal developments in their administration. Bogotá has been experimenting with decentralized local government since the year 2000, when a number of smaller mayorships were formed, all to be appointed by the primary mayor of the city. The localities were made responsible for planning the use of a local development fund, supposedly with public input a priority. From what I’ve heard so far, though, there’s been more window dressing than actual involvement. I’m not sure yet how much of that is a simple economic statement (ie, people have to work much longer hours to support their families and therefore have no time for public meetings) how much the result of people being terrorized by the experiences that drove them to resettle on the outskirts of the capital city, and how much is the state’s responsibility.