Bogotá Hospitality
“Any Westerner visiting Colombia will know that Colombians treat the English and the Americans better than they treat their own. On weekends they took me out, driving to places like Boyocá or nearer by. Partly, it could be argued, because we’re seen as ‘exotic’.”
Anyone familiar with Colombia will mention the hospitality. They are some of the most welcoming people I’ve ever encountered. As a backpacker, however, I’m fascinated by the shades of grey. How people can be both friendly and hospitable AND bigoted and classist and racist. Though none of us are any one thing, these contradictions in behaviour were never so apparent to me as in Colombia.
It was mid-June 2006 and I was one week into the Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults course - the qualification I needed to find a teaching job in Colombia. Throughout the five week CELTA course I stayed with Gilberto and Ana Lucia in Bogotá. It was awkward but I was penniless and so I didn’t have much choice. Gilberto was the father of Yessica, who was the friend of my ex-girlfriend. I wasn’t particularly close to Yessica but she had made the offer before I arrived in Bogotá and I was, well, desperate. This was five-weeks of free accommodation that I couldn’t turn down.
Gilberto and Ana Lucia’s was a typical Colombian love story. He met his first wife Olga in his home town of Cali when they were both young. They had two beautiful daughters together. As the daughters grew up, however, Gilberto traded Olga in for a younger, newer model. Ana Lucia. Gilberto would have been mid-fifties when I came to stay. He was about five-foot seven, with jet black balding hair and an impressively luxurious moustache.[1] He had a large bulbous nose and mischievous glint in his eye. Ana Lucia was late-twenties. She was a five-foot two Barbie doll with curly blond hair and dressed, always, in a sky-blue velour tracksuit. They were married earlier in 2006 and had been together for not much longer. I was essentially crashing their honeymoon period. But they took me in and treated me with kindness, as is the Colombian way.
For middle-class Colombians there are two types of decor they go for in their homes. Their fincas will be decked out in rustic furniture made from guadua or a heavier wood. These farmhouses would often be sparse. On the other hand, their city homes - where they lived 99 per cent of their lives - were filled to the brim with modern shiny tat made from chrome, marble, plastic or glass. I was one month into my Colombian life and I’d experienced homes in the three big cities - Bogotá, Medellin and Cali - when I realised every dining table I’d eaten off of had been made of glass. Gilberto’s apartment was the least classy place yet. Picture Tony Montana’s mansion in Scarface, then fit all that shit into an apartment.
Still I could hardly complain.
Also staying there was Mariana, Yessica’s younger sister. She was 19-years old and I’d met her a few weeks before when I was visiting Cali. Mariana had a husky voice and casual beauty which she took for granted. Knowing Yessica and having now met the mum, Olga, it was clear theirs was a gene pool that would require careful tending to if things weren’t to blow out of proportion. For now, however, Mariana was in her prime. We caught the same Avianca flight back to Bogotá where, mid-flight, she’d looked at me with her sultry brown eyes and thrust out her chest.
‘Te gusta mis tetas?’
She wore a tight-fitting white t-shirt with a swooping v-neck, which barely contained her breasts. It had taken all my will-power not to stare at them but now she was inviting me to do just that. I was so close I could practically hear the echo from the deep chasm of her cleavage.
‘Por supuesto,’ I said casually, like women always asked me to assess their chests.
Mariana explained that she had only had them done two months ago and that they were still hard. They would, she assured me, drop down and look more natural with time. I nodded with knowing authority.
So that was Mariana. Sleeping in the room next to me. Ana Lucia was another matter entirely. Ana Lucia was besotted with Gilberto and, together, they would kiss and cuddle on the leather sofa as though Mariana and I were not there. They had bizarrely strange tastes in films and insisted we watch the Jason Statham double-bill of The Transporter and Transporter 2 at every availability. Then they’d go to their room, which was filled with a king-size bed and an equally large flatscreen TV and speakers. For some reason their door would always be left ajar and, as I walked by during the night I would always catch a glimpse of the latest porno they were watching. Statham and porn.
It goes without saying then that I tried to spend as little time there as possible. From 7am until 8pm I was studying at the British Council. I’d often have a drink with one of the other students afterwards to delay my return. If I did go back I would go out for dinner or to a club with Mariana.
Like I said, I couldn’t fault their hospitality. In the Colombian tradition, they were warm and friendly. To me. Any Westerner visiting Colombia will know that Colombians treat the English and the Americans better than they treat their own. On weekends they took me out, driving to places like Boyocá or nearer by. Partly, it could be argued, because we’re seen as ‘exotic’. Mostly, I suspected, it’s down to status. In a country used to mostly negative press and still, in 2006, unused to tourists, a native English speaker - even a penniless vagabundo - was to be sanctified. It was upsetting then to see their ugly side. In Cali, at her mum’s house, Mariana treated the maid like dirt. Ordering her to fix her a drink or fetch her laptop without so much as a please. Mariana’s face was full of disdain. She couldn’t help that she was spoiled but she could help the way she behaved, and she didn’t. Then there was the racism. The Germany 2006 World Cup kicked off on 9 June and I watched a couple of games with Gilberto and Ana Lucia at the apartment. One of the matches was South Korea v Togo. Asia v Africa. It was like cooking bacon in front of a hipster who has gone vegan because he thinks it the cool thing to do. On the surface Gilberto would bemoan the pobrecitos living on the streets, who were mostly - but not always - afro-colombianos. A native of Valle de Cauca, it was he who first told me the myth I would hear frequently from white people in Cali. That the city, a disorganised mess [2], used to be the most beautiful city in Colombia until, they lamented, the black folk migrated there from the coastal city of Buenaventura and caused Cali to somehow deteriorate.[3] If that story wasn’t enough, Gilberto’s behaviour throughout the match confirmed his bias, as he cackled maniacally at any mistake made by either team, but seemed especially amused by any mistake made by Togo.
“Ay, pobre negrito,” he guffawed at one point when one of the Togolese players scuffed a kick. Ana Lucia chuckled too. Any close up on a Togolese player provoked similar laughter.
Obviously I tutted loudly or simply ignored the comment. If I had any integrity I would have rebuked them and moved elsewhere. But I liked having free rent. Plus, Mariana would often walk around the living room in nothing but her underwear.
[1] The kind of moustache you only see on Latin men.
[2] True in 2006 anyway.
[3] Carlitos’s journals from Cali will come later.
[4] Often to the chastisement of her father Gilberto, who would remind her I was a guest. There wasn’t a tactful way for me to tell him I didn’t mind.