Last night I saw a kitten fighting with a cardboard box. It was a tiny, dust-colored kitten, more fur than anything else. The box lid-flaps were folded shut and the kitten was sitting on top and boxing them. Its weight as it jumped caused the flaps to open and digest the kitten whole. After that, I just saw a bouncing box. The kitten continued fighting the box from the inside. It wasn’t clear to me whether this was its strategy from the beginning or if it was merely adjusting to the change in situation. A few more knocks from inside the box and the kitten’s head emerged. It clawed its way back on top of the box and lay resting for a moment, content in its victory. But gravity was on the side of the box, and once more the cat’s weight caused the top flaps to collapse and down into the belly of the box it fell again.
I felt like there was a life-lesson to be learned from that scene, but I was too tired to catch it. My eyes closed involuntarily and my head bobbed with the jerking bus.
Luckily, after falling asleep for a moment on the bus, my panic about missing my stop usually keeps me awake for the rest of the ride.
You see so much from the window of a bus. Especially late at night. The city is the dirtiest at night and the least appealing. Throughout the day, people drop their garbage carelessly on the ground and it accumulates in the streets. At night (and sometimes during the day) people pick through the trash looking for bottles, cans, and anything that can be recycled for cash. Last night, on the 20 minute bus ride I passed about 20 people who seemed to be living in the streets. There was one young person but most were older. All were as dirty as the streets. What do you think when you see homeless people? Do you wonder what THEY think about? Do you wonder how they view their situation, their world, OUR stares from inside the bus? When you see homeless people, what do you think? How do you feel? Most importantly: what do you do?
The reality of a country is never how you imagine it. I once picked up a travel book, and on the first page the author expressed how, when he finally got to a country he had been trying to visit for years, it was exactly as he had imagined it would be. I put the book down. There’s no way that was true and I wasn’t in the mood for fiction.
Cartagena, the city where I live is surprisingly developed. In certain ways. The major streets are paved and the buses and taxis (and motorcycle taxis) that fill the streets are usually nice. There are 6 cinemas that show new movies on the same day that they are released in the states. A lot of my students have internet in their homes. Personally I have WiFi. Most of the teachers have laptops. Is that what development is? Ease of life? The idea exists here that if you study hard, work hard, get an education, you can be successful and live the life you want. After 8 months here, I still don’t know how real that is. People talk about how jobs only exist for those with connections and that for an honest man it’s hard to get ahead. Every time I take a bus there’s an average of 4 people who jump on and try to sell their wares (bracelets, bananas, snacks, bags of water). Officially, those people are “self-employed.” Apparently it doesn’t matter that what they earn in a day keeps them well below the poverty line.
One day I did the math to see how much a man would earn if he sold the whole box of gum that he carried. I priced it at a bulk-food store and checked how many packages it contained. He would earn about $2.50 if he sold all 100 packages. On the bus that I was on, I was the only one who bought gum from him. He earned 2.5₵. The bus ride itself, if he had had to pay for it, would have cost him $0.75. A bag of water costs $0.25. Two-fifty doesn’t go far.
I’m sorry this blog is so scatterbrained. I’m still going to post it. It’s more than 2 weeks overdue as it is. Still, I hope that it helps you picture Colombia in a more concrete way. The unknown can never be exactly as you imagine it. No matter how clear the picture on the discovery channel.
