Home again.

I'm already back, but I think most of you know. My friend Yan pointed out to me today at lunch that it seems that I'm still in Colombia because I haven't posted anything about coming home. So yeah, I am back in Cerritos now, sitting here typing in sweltering heat. My house is always 5 degrees hotter inside than it is outside.

Not much culture shock coming back to L.A., but god, I will never be able to get used to the traffic in this city. I say this every time I leave for a little bit and then return, but seriously, there are more people in L.A. now than six months ago. There is traffic 24 hours a day. I am done. No more L.A. for me. Even taking the place in short spurts I am not sure I can stay sane.

So I think I won't be writing in this blog for a little bit, because even though stuff happens to me daily, it just won't be the same writing about my life here. I think I am a much more interesting person when I travel. Kind of a strange thing, but traveling lets you be someone else. I just haven't figured out how to make this other personality of mine stick. The stressed-out, materialistic personality always wins over eventually. Yay for California. Yay for the American work ethic.

Still here.

I changed my flight again. I`m coming home next Thursday now.

My friend`s mother died the other night. He and I were hanging out when he got a call to come home immediately. Nothing more than that. When we got to the hospital, they wouldn´t let the family in because all the hospitals were under a yellow alert, which is sort of similar to our orange alert. Uribe`s inauguration went by during the day without a stitch, much to everyone`s relief, but Bogota was still under a sort of quiet siege and the streets were empty. Here, in Colombia, only family members are allowed into hospitals as a rule. This night, when they wouldn`t even let his family in, we were livid. The guard was completely insensitive to the situation and refused to talk to the front desk from our cell phone. After 5 minutes they let only my friend`s dad in. And then finally us. We hurried to the intensive care wing where my friend`s mom had been lying unconscious for two days. They had already performed one operation but wanted to wait another 10 days for her body to become stronger in order to handle a triple bypass. Unfortunately she died only a day after her first operation.

I waited outside the room while they grieved for their mother. I cried too. What a horribly depressing thing and I have been lucky in my life to have only experienced one death that was close to me. I did really feel uncomfortable throughout the night... I didn`t know the family too well and this was such an intimate and personal moment. My friend had brought along a bottle of brandy and it was then i witnessed in person how some people deal with their pain. I stayed up the whole night with his dad and sister drinking Scotch at the house while they cried. Really uncomfortable.

The wake was yesterday and my friend asked me to be there. Again, a little uncomfortable for me but I got to finally meet his sweet mother. She looked beautiful, really peaceful. Her heart attack occured when she was at the salon getting her hair done, so in a way, she might have been preparing for her death. My friend and I joked about this.

I am deeply worried about my friend. He`s a young 25, on the cusp of 26, and his mother`s favorite son. His mother`s image in her younger years is tattooed over his heart and her maiden name tattooed vertically in old English font down the right side of his chest, so you can understand how close they were. I hope I have convinced him that taking his own life doesn`t make any sense at this point because contrary to what he thinks, his mother wouldn`t want him there with her, wherever she is now. He`d already been crying for days but when the death was finally realized, he sobbed for 15 minutes, slumped over his mother`s body. After that, he walked out of the room, head held tall and a bounce in his walk. ``My mother doesn`t like to see my cry, so I`m not going to anymore,`` he declared to me. During that night into the morning hours, his tears came in flash floods. Since then though, he`s been in shock, able to joke and greet friends and family members coming to pay respects with a bizarre and almost eerie joviality. After the wake yesterday we all got drunk at his friend`s house, me the least drunk of them all.

They`ve invited me to go with them to their finca, or farm, today or tomorrow, after the cremation. It will be for a few days. I am glad to not attend the cremation part of the death process because I don`t think I can deal with it, but moreover it is something appropriate only for the immediate family. The finca is a Colombian thing, to the middle class and higher, a country house outside the city. A vacation house of sorts. Theirs is in a small town and will be warmer than where I am now. And I hope I can provide more support to my friend, but someone, please tell me how...

Ma, I love you.

So far, so safe.

I have to make this one short because I am starving and whatever is actually open probably won`t be for much longer.

Things are eerily quiet today. As I write this, Uribe`s inauguration is going on behind closed doors. The entire place is dead and nothing is open. There is military everywhere you go in the city, standing in groups and trying to look useful, when everyone knows this is all just a show. When I went up north to the Usaquen neighborhood for their Sunday market we passed an army tank poised and ready to go on the side of the main road, with artillery hanging out like disembowled intestines. For the past two nights I have been comforting a friend whose mother had a heart attack and whose life is in a precarious position, but to get to him in the south the taxi had to go through some pretty sketchy areas because all the short routes were closed off. Getting back was the same. And it was all surreal because there was an amazing lightning storm happening in the north of the city, so it really did look like the entire city was being bombed.

Eat now.

La Bomba.

There was another bomb attack here, in Cali, in southern Colombia. Four cops died. People in Bogota are very nervous because this weekend is ``hot`` -- it`s a dangerous weekend to be out because of Monday`s upcoming ceremony in which President Uribe will be inaugurated into his second term. As a result he`s prohibited the selling of liquor starting Sunday into Monday. This is what they call ``ley seca`` here, or translated into ´´dry law.`` It`s usually used on election day to help control the population in case anything goes wrong or to make sure people don`t trade votes for liquor or ensure people go to the polls sober and grave or... I can`t get a single plausible reason for ley seca. Every person I talk to gives me a different reason for why we have ley seca. We had ley seca a few weeks ago, during a national holiday, and it pissed all of us off because we had to cancel a party at a club and basically stay inside because all the bars closed. In the end you can always find a liquor store to sell you beer or rum under the table, for a much inflated price of course.

So I admit I am a little nervous. I am only nervous because I know Colombians who are nervous. If they went about their usual day, I`d do the same. Yes, I did go shopping today, but the Zona Rosa commercial zone was noticeably more quiet than it should be for a weekend day. A few years ago, a grenade went off at the Bogota Beer Company, a hugely popular restaurant in Zona Rosa, at 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday night. It was packed. With ley seca in full effect, this probably won`t happen this weekend. But what does ley seca prevent in the long run? Nothing really. Because next week, when ley seca is over and people are back to filling up places like the Bogota Beer Company, another grenade could go off.

And I live only two blocks or so away from Plaza Bolivar, the place where all the important ceremonies take place, including this upcoming inauguration. In 2002, during Uribe`s initial swearing-in in a private ceremony because of the threat of attacks, the FARC guerilla group fired fricking MORTARS into the presidential palace nearby while all of this was going on and then they launched more into another neighborhood. Security means nothing when you`re dealing with the minds of rebel groups. Some other motars landed near the palace and killed people. All of this makes the states` constant orange or red alert status look like a game of Red Light, Green Light. We`ve already cancelled a Monday hike in La Calera in the surrounding hills of Bogota because FARC guerillas could likely be up there on that day, scheming. All of this seems surreal. I can`t imagine FARC staying quiet during the inauguration or the rest of that day. And the more I write this down I start to feel the scare.

I´m looking forward to Wednesday night, when I get home and hope to meet you guys at a bar somewhere. Will let you know the location as soon as I know.

The cars that go boom.

Colombia was bombed by the communist FARC the day before yesterday. The FARC are the country`s oldest guerilla group here in Colombia who operate basically everywhere but are concentrated in the south and northeast regions, where even the military avoids. There was one car bomb that exploded in Bogota, in a suburb, activated when three military cars drove past. One civilian died and a slew of others were hurt. FARC is reminding the presidency about their strong opinion again because it`s a few days before President Uribe`s inauguration for his new term and they want to sound off, literally, about what they think of him. I won`t go into the details of the politics here because they`re complicated but moreover, I`m not entirely educated on them, but Uribe is controversial because he is connected to the paramilitary group the AUC. The paramilitary group are comprised of mercenaries (i.e. gangsters and criminals) who were originally hired by drug lords to protect their land. Eventually they became a force to be reckoned with and Uribe, as part his winning presidential platform, promised that they`d be dismantled. It`s all b.s. because they still exist, it`s all just for show, people say. There`s graffiti all over the city declaring ´´Uribe paraco,´´ which is essentially ´´Uribe is a paramilitar.´´ The FARC killed his father in the´80s.

Bogota seems to be running normally. In fact, I hadn`t heard about the bombings until later that evening when Colleen sent me a link to a BBC story. I don`t expect the surprise bombs to stop but you have to go about your life. No one seems to have changed their routes or schedules as a result of these bombings. That`s Colombians for ya. They`ve been through so much they know how to deal with this. Everyone you meet here has been through something. In fact, Natalia and Amparo, were once tied up along with the other people in their housing complex by robbers. Gabriel`s been next to buildings in which bombs have gone off.

So things are normal, sorta. This morning I went with a guy here named John to his leather tanning factory in the deep south of Bogota. The south isn`t where you`d go as a tourist. It`s a working class area of the city and there are a lot of slums around, including the infamous Ciudad Bolivar. He showed Chris and me the different leathers they dye and create. I learned tons -- namely, it is friggin cheap for raw material here. Leather especially. We then went to a leather manufacturer of bags and jackets and got more information. Not sure how I will use it, but it`s good to know. It`s inspiring me to perhaps try out fashion design here. Bogota is ripe for this stuff and it`s in a place to really carve out a position as a cosmopolitan center enough to rival Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. People are experimenting more with fashion and are also spending money to live comfortably and look good. Which means Colombia is on the up. Yes, despite the bombings. I am even thinking of investing money here, in La Candelaria, perhaps in a hotel or something. The bombings make me pause and think, but seeing how this place is progressing and aware of its promise really convinces me.
Off to the grocery store now and to meet up with a friend, a chef at a very cool restaurant. I can`t wait to have tofu soup and Vietnamese anything though...

1 to 5.

I figured out there`s a ratio of sun to rain here. You have one day of sun and you pay for it with five days of miserable wetness. I`ve been camping out in front of the fireplace in the house for the last few days, so Californians watch out -- I can build a fire now.
I realized I haven`t written much about the daily rigaramole of things here. I get up in the morning, around 11 or 12 nowadays (after recovering from the night before usually) and depending on where I need to go, I´ll hop on the above-ground subway called TransMilenio or even more convenient and with more routes, the busetas. Busetas are essentially buses, but oftentimes they`re just glorified minivans stuffed with people. The destinations are written on a black placard in bright stenciled letters and suctioned-cup to the passenger window. You flag them down when they pass. There are no official bus stops for these things, so they stop on a dime at a second`s notice. The TransMilenio is Bogota`s pride and joy, but it`s a bitch to figure out because instead of subway cars, the system comprises buses that run in their own lanes but share the street with passenger cars. There can be up to 6 buses that stop on the same platform. They all go the same route, but don`t stop at all the stations. So you really have to know which one you need to get on. And when the doors open, there`s no sense or organization to entering or leaving. Everyone just fights to get on and off at the same time. In other places, the people exiting usually get the right of way. Not here. Odd.
The other day Gabriel and I went to Carrefour, a market with French origins I think but services all types of gastronimical tastes. Think of it as a Wal-Mart or Target mixed with Ralph`s and Trader Joe`s. You can find real baguettes here as well as decent wine, and of course some international fare. We had taken the buseta to get there and had to cross a bridge to reach the market. It was around 7 p.m., so there were people around. As we were walking toward the bridge, I saw a woman shaking and what looked like two men holding her in a malicious arm hold. One was behind her and the other in front. I thought she was getting robbed. As soon as I stopped in my tracks, I realized she was having an epileptic seizure. Gabriel was totally oblivious to the situation and I pointed her out and asked if we could go help her. Gabriel, you see, is part Swiss and has to serve two weeks a year or pay his way out of it if he`s not in the country. Rather than being part of the armed guards, he asked to be put in a position where he wouldn`t have to deal with guns. So they trained him to be a medic. He`s already helped a kid with a neverending bloody nose and countless times has helped people through bad trips at clubs. We ran over to the group and Gabriel went to work, instructing the two men to lay the woman down on the ground on her side. He bust out a pair of disposable chopsticks from his pocket that he had picked up from an international food fair we went to the previous weekend. We all pried her mouth open. The woman was clearly suffocating. When we had first gotten to her and lay her on the ground, her face was purple and blue from the lack of oxygen, and her eyes were rolling back and forth. Gabriel stuck one of the chopsticks horizontally in her mouth, so it would prevent her from swallowing her tongue and was also a method to give her some air in her desperate state. After a minute of all of us freaking out and people coming to see what was going on, her seizures stopped and she came to.
So that was a day in a superhero`s life I guess. When we got to Carrefour and got over our excitement of all the food we could buy, I stopped by the lunch meat area. I wanted turkey. So get this -- turkey breast, the decent kind, was almost $5 U.S. for 4 slices. I was shocked. Even the low-rate kind cost a pretty penny. We put it back when we found out we didn`t bring enough money. Sigh.
We had another incident while walking back near our place. A wild taxi driver, impatient with the evening traffic (one lane, one way), cut out of line and sidled his car at an incredible speed near the curb. He drove by us and into a puddle. You don`t need to know physics to understand that we got splashed. It had been raining all day so I don`t even want to think about what was steeping in that water. I got so pissed off and chased the taxi up a block. When I finally caught up to him near an intersection, I started screaming at him. He flinched at first and put his hands up over his face (quite funny actually). I punched his half-rolled-down window and he flinched again. It was probably a funny scene, me screaming at him in Spanish and English and him so flabbergasted and confused. ``Que paso?`` he kept asking me. Gabriel by this time had caught up to me and told him why we were so mad. In the end, I`m sure the taxi driver had a good laugh about it too, but Gabriel warned me that taxi drivers here in Bogota carry guns. I`m an idiot about these things so it`s made me fearless.
We had a party yesterday at the house and when I finally woke up this morning to clean, I found white all fricking over the house. As if it had snowed inside the house. I swept and in the trash it all went.

Spelunking.

This is b.s. You guys are suffering 90-plus heat in California while I suffer 45 degrees as soon as the sun goes down. I was in the boho neighborhood of La Macarena a few hours ago eating a mediocre hamburger (god, I miss In n Out) when it started pouring. As usual, I left my rain jacket at home. The restaurant called a taxi for me but the wait was too long, and by that time anyway the rain ceased. Screw this. I can`t stand the consistently overcast and cold weather here, but I can`t stand all-sun-all-year as well. Sao Paulo beckons louder. With the micro climate in La Candelaria, you are guaranteed sprinkles at least for a third of the day. I`m fighting depression because of this, and my melatonin is lacking more and more every day too. Yea, Chris, you`re right, I`m weak. I totally admit it.
OK, enough of the complaining about the weather. Growing up in California has made me into a spoiled brat. Now I understand why people who live through seasons of snowstorms and tornados are happier. You live in California too long, with all that bloody sun, and you take it for granted. You find stupid things to complain about, like what to do with your life. But when you don`t have el sol, you enjoy life all the more when it actually shows its face.
This morning I got up to the sound of squawking. The parrot was freaking out downstairs and I was trying to ignore it and pulled the covers over my head. Eventually I did get up and went outside to see why it was yelling so loud. The thing practically attacked me. I opened the door to the courtyard and he -- his name is Bonjour, believe it or not -- marched toward me, clipped wings and all. I told him to stop while I backed away. Bonjour hopped up onto the ledge that separates the inside of the house from the outside and before I could find something to swing at him, he was already inside the kitchen, squawking as if they were his last. ´´Hey, I don`t think you`re allowed in the house,`` I tried to reason with him. The dog and parrot in the house only understand French, and I couldn`t remember quick enough some words to keep the cantankerous bird at bay. Ah-ha, I thought, I bet he`s hungry. Bonjour`s main source of nutrition are salted peanuts, so I went on a hunt for the rotund bits. Couldn´t find them. Meanwhile, Bonjour looked poised to attack my feet. I led him outside and quickly shut the door while he looked awkwardly on. Finally, I found the nuts! Truimphant, I showed a few to Bonjour and he was immediately placated. Goddamn bird. If you`re a tropical bird whose wings are clipped and the weather is cold all the time, you`d sympathize with his manner.
Since we`ve moved into the house, we have visitors all day long. I don`t mind it so much, but I do miss a quiet night at home. Life here is much more social, and for an antisocial person like me, it gets hard sometimes to adapt. A really good thing though, that has come out of this besides making new friends -- my French is coming back to me. Some days I hear more French than Spanish.
Another great discovery I`ve made -- all the McDonald`s here carry the old apple pies. I can`t believe I have been traveling here for six months without knowing this until two days ago. You know, the ones with the bubbly crust they stopped making that way in the early ´90s. I have been eating 1 or 2 pies a day since. I`m sick of Americans who complain that they refuse to eat at McDonald`s because it goes against their ``ethics.`` McDonald`s wouldn`t be around if people didn´t spend their money on it. So rather than blaming McDonald`s, why not blame the people who patronize the business, right?
It´s going to be 5 soon, my favorite time of the day because it means it`s coffee and brownie time. I`ve found the best chocolate chip cookie at a place called Criterion -- one of my top 3 cookies I`d say, and I have moved my focus to brownies. Tea time gives me the excuse to experiment, for the sake of the public, of course. Imagine how many terrible brownies I`ve had to eat so far in the name of sharing with Bogota the place to get the best and most authentic brownie. I`ve had brownies that are actually cake in disguise, brownies that have the same chewiness as gum, brownies that have the flavor of plastic or some other melted, toxic, manmade product, brownies that crumble like brittle teeth because they`re so old and stale... all in the name of preserving the identity of the brownie. It`s a hard job, oh boy.