my last few days in santiago were fun... i had a barbeque with a bunch of friends. and then went to jose luis's house. he's a composition major from mexico city. he showed me some of the stuff he's working on- super cool. I now have many invitations in the mexico city aread with food and tour guides.
I think juan and i leave medellin for girardot on sunday and from there go to bogota. colombia has been amazing. every time i'm in a car or bus i want to videotape out the window the whole time because it's such a trip seeing the quotidian goings-on.
We eat lots of meat all the time here... and everyone takes lots of showers... i can't convince juan that one shower a day and sometimes not changing pants is ok... he's trying to convert me to his latin ways. wearing cologne and tighter pants, maybe... but i draw the line at going to the 'hairdresser' and getting a pedicure. i'm still an hombre estadounidense!

I'm here in Medellin Colombia staying with Juan, who is a very good guide. Today we went with his mom to her work, which i think involves being the go-between for a big underwear company and people in super poor neighborhoods who sell it's products. it was amazing to see the neighborhood and meet some of the people there... i'll have to post photos and video of it, because it's hard to describe my impression of it. hm... i was excited to get back and write about my experience, but now i can't think of how to put it. I always like to think that i know about low standards of living in far-away countries and have a pretty accurate impression of it all, but every time i actually go to see this sort of thing first-hand it never ceases to leave a giant impression on me. A girl was walking me around her neighborhood while juan's mom was meeting with the girl's mom. I commented that there were a lot of huge vultures and she mentioned that a few years ago when there was a lot of gang violence there they'd come and eat the bodies of the murdered people left in the bushes. I was obviously shocked not only from this charming little anecdote, but also that it came so banally from a 15 year old. She also pointed at a ruined little shack directly behind us and said that the guy living there was tortured by a gang who then killed him and destroyed his house. Juan's mom's friend commented that all people from their class in medellin have had to witness a lot of heinous violence of this nature. She offhandedly mentioned some girl's body turning up in a bag by her house. Later, between chatting about today's soccer game, she told me about how her dad narrowly escaped being murdered by guerillas that killed her uncle and grandfather and how, when they first moved to medellin, her brother was murdered for refusing the join the neighborhood gang, who were later killed by police during a bank robbery. She said that she had almost met pablo escobar once because he was giving away houses to many empoverished people in the city. Juan's friend was telling me about how guerillas were trying to take her part of the city a few years back and helicopters came in the fight them... but she added that it wasn't really in her neighborhood, so it wasn't so bad.
During a few years in the late 80s early 90s, pablo escobar payed a huge sum to anyone who killed a police officer, and more money depending on his rank. For this reason, Juan's uncle, who has served many years as a high ranking officer, had to grow out his beard and go into hiding.
Right now the FARC is big in the news because one of their hostages, a lady who was kidnapped around 6 years ago during her presidential cadidacy, just turned in a video looking miserable, but alive in the jungle. Juan's cousin in Bogota told me that they have around 1,000 hostages out in the jungle. I was sort of surprised that the large figure, so he tried to reassure me, saying that, in comparison to colombia's population of 40 million, a thousand really isn't too many. I declined from replying that it's scary somebody would even consider the hostage population comparable to the entire population.
Everyone i talked to agreed that the new president, uribe, has been really hard on the guerillas and for this reason, it's possible for us to even enter neighborhoods like the one i visited today. Also, crime is supposedly down thanks to La Mano Negra, a sort of unofficial police force that kills criminals.
Nevertheless, the activites of the FARC and the reign of escobar don't hold a candle to the 'period of violence' of the 1940's and 50's, involving the right and left wing political parties having and all-out show-down. According to Juan's mom, there were so many dead that police would cut off the cadaver's heads and line them up in the park so friend's and family could come and see if their loved ones had turned up.
The city seems pretty safe now... i'm still cautious and everything, but everyone is super friendly and happy to meet me. They treat foreigners really well. Whereas in chile i'm sort of a rejected outsider, here it's not such a big deal that i'm from another country... sometimes people act sort of honored to meet me, which is weird... but generally i'm just treated like a family friend, rather than some sort of bizarre space alien.
Juan is a super good host. the first night i was here he took me out to a club and his girlfriend brought a friend to dance with me. Juan lends/forces upon me his clothes so that i conform to the latin style. He makes sure that i get to know the whole city... i've now hung out with various people from the social extremes.
I will write more later, but a friend's aunt just opened a restaurant and we're going to it's grand opening. hope all is well