Bogotá and Broke
“That I’d accidentally asked for cocaine instead appeared, judging by the horrified look on the waitress’s face, to be a misstep. It wasn’t that kind of place.”
I arrived in Bogotá at the end of May 2006. My arrival in Colombia had been inevitable since Italia ’90 and USA ’94 burnished the image of El Cole in my young mind. To boot there was Carlos Valderrama. Faustino Asprilla. Freddy Rincon. Rene Higuita. They were exotic names with exotic looks and the country - encapsulated by the sight of El Cole dangling like a madman from the stands and flapping his giant yellow, blue and red wings was as far removed from the genteel streets of Fair Oak as one could get.[1] Colombia was a country I had to visit.
I arrived with six months under my belt living in Mexico and Cuba. Though I picked up Spanish faster than most, I’d had, of course, made inevitable faux pas along the way; not least, when I insisted on having a cappuccino con coca. I was in a small cafe near San Angel in Mexico City and , up until then, had not enjoyed the Mexican custom of sprinkling canela - cinnamon - on top of a capuccino. I was used to chocolate. And so, confident in my abilities, I brazenly asked for, or so I thought, chocolate. Cocoa. That I’d accidentally asked for cocaine instead appeared, judging by the horrified look on the waitress’s face, to be a misstep. It wasn’t that kind of place.
El Cole: The crazy birdman of Colombia football. What teenager wouldn’t become enamoured by the sight of football fans like this? To read more about el Cole, click here
It was make or break for me when I arrived in Bogotá. Not with just learning the language. My whole South American trip was in jeopardy. Prior to starting my epic journey to Latin America I saved just shy of $2,000. For nearly the entirety of my stay in Mexico I was with a family in DF. I had friends also whom I stayed with and relied on for food. Rich friends. The kind of rich Mexicans who are either at risk of being kidnapped or are themselves the ones who organise the kidnapping. I was never sure. One of them, Rodrigo, sells plastic for a living and is responsible for most of the pollution in the world’s oceans. Even so, my funds were severely depleted. Two months in Cuba had been crushingly expensive. I was fraught with worry that Colombia would be a trip cut short; that I’d have to leave without experiencing it properly.
I’d intended to stay in Colombia for at least one year and, to do that, I knew I’d probably teach. Being the kind of backpacker who just heads off on a whim it can, on occasion, be a curse too. Teaching English was all well and good but it isn’t the kind of job one picks up on the basis of being one of the world’s foremost backpackers. Potential employers would probably want evidence I could do it. I’d baulked at the price of doing a TEFL course in England or Australia. So I tried to wing it. I visited a Kaplan school somewhere near San Patricio in Bogotá’s north and inquired about teaching positions. But guess what? Seems being English and the holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree wasn’t enough.[2] They wanted a teaching qualification. As I was leaving the building, however, a woman who’d been paying close attention to my conversation with the manager of Kaplan approached at the exit.
“Take it but don’t hurt me,” I said, thrusting my wallet in her hands.
When I opened my eyes the woman was looking at me with a bemused expression and passed me back my wallet. Perhaps I was a tad hasty. She introduced herself as Salome and was a student at Kaplan. She was dressed in tight stonewash jeans, heels, and faded blue blouse.[3] She was about 40 years old and spoke good but stilted English with a heavy rolo accent. It turns out she wanted an English tutor for her 12-year old son and was willing to pay COL$20,000 per hour. Like visiting a supermarket on an empty stomach, I wasn’t thinking rationally. To my cash-strapped mind it seemed I’d hit the jackpot. Who needed TEFL? Salome scribbled her address on a Kaplan-headed piece of paper and I agreed to go to her house the next evening.
As I walked to Salome’s house it occurred to me I was about to enter the home of a stranger in Bogotá. No one knew where I was going. Still, I was set to earn a cool COL$40,000 for two hours work. The possibility of Salome and her family keeping me in captivity for years or harvesting my organs was a risk I was willing to take. The house was in Pasadena, a few blocks west of the Kaplan school. The street was lined with single storey brick homes, their boundaries squared off to the street by walled off driveways and security doors. Above, criss-crossing the street from house to house like a giant fishing trawler net were power lines, stretching haphazardly in all directions. When I knocked on the door to Salome’s home I was greeted by her husband, Juan David, who beckoned me warmly into the home.
I was woefully out of depth during the one-on-one tuition I gave to their son, Juan Pablo. He showed me his homework and I chatted with him, rightly correcting him on every mistake he made. Afterwards I was invited to stay for dinner, where we ate in the garage which was converted into a sparse dining room. I’d barely eaten all day and was famished, but before I could reach for my spoon Salome (to my left) and Juan David (to my right) grabbed my hands and, in a homely circle, invited/forced me to say grace. It was awkward. I tried to explain that, at best, the closest I come to worship is when the Patagonia sale magazine comes out. They didn’t understand. I settled for squirming in my seat and saying, ‘Por favor, Juan David. I insist, Es tu casa.’
They smiled warmly and shut their eyes and prayed. I kept my eyes open as I always do in these situations, to observe the ritual. Juan Pablo had his eyes open too so I raised my eyebrow in a conspiratorial manner, as if to say ‘que loco sus padres’. But Juan Pablo stared back blankly and then shut his eyes.
Though we departed on good terms, I can only assume Juan Pablo reported me to his parents for being a heretic. Salome didn’t call me again.
The prospect of living off private tutorials no longer seemed as alluring and I was left with two options: spend my remaining money on a teaching course in the hope of securing employment longterm, or live frugally and stay in Colombia for as long as I could until my money eventually, and inevitably, ran dry. Even optimistically I couldn’t see my funds lasting a month. I’d left a Colombian girlfriend back in Australia and part of me wanted to return there to see what would happen. Part of me knew, however, that it would never be the same. It never is once you’ve left. So I decided to gamble my money on getting a teaching qualification. Not just any qualification either. After some belated, but decisive, research on the best course to do I opted for the Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA). [4] It was, to my mind, the one that most guaranteed me a job.
The course began on 13th June 2006 and would last five weeks. Luckily my accommodation was sorted for the course’s duration. For the first three weeks in Bogotá I stayed with the friend of a friend and her two flatmates in north Bogotá. It was a typical red brick apartment building, with smallish rooms and no hot water. [5] I slept on a single mattress on the floor of an alcove which lead on to a balcony. For whatever reason the friend of a friend and I didn’t particularly get along. It’s like the sometimes. There was no connection between us. And so, feeling uncomfortable there, I called in another favour. My ex-girlfriend had a friend called Jenny and, before I arrived in Colombia, let me know that I could stay with her father and his new wife in Bogotá. Things were looking up.
[1] In Fair Oak the only splash of colour was the vomit decorating the pavement outside the Old George on a Friday and Saturday and Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday night.
[2] Back in the 1950s that type of qualification was enough to get a job in the British Secret Service. It helped if you graduated from Eton, of course.
[3] Colombia’s original constitution was created in the 1800s. The most recent one is the Colombian Constitution of 1991 which, presumably, was updated to include a requirement for its womenfolk to all wear tight-fitting denim. There can be no other reason I can think of for why the women of Colombia all dress the same.
[4] It was the most expensive by far and so, I reasoned, the best.
[5] Bogotá has a year-round average daytime temperature of around 18 degrees centigrade. Nighttimes are cool. As a hardened backpacker I wholeheartedly bought into Orwell’s observations about tramps in England: that they refused to take hot showers when available because they believed it weakened the constitution (Down and Out in Paris and in London). That said, I felt deeply for the plight of these Colombians who, even though white and middle-class, had surely already suffered enough without the indignity of having to bathe in frigid water.