Dangerous Colombia - Myth vs. (my) Reality

That Colombia has a reputation as being somewhat unsafe is to understate the impression I’ve gotten once people heard I was heading to a land, which according to various sources is run by drug-lords, paramilitaries, kidnappers and/or corrupt politicians. Throw in the unexpected statistics, like that Colombia is the most heavily land-mined country on the planet and it seems miraculous that I have survived thus far.

How dangerous is it really? I can only tell what I and people close to me have experienced.

In all honesty, Colombia is probably the most dangerous place I’ve been to, but contrary to what one could think this has nothing at all to do with the current actions of the FARC or the land mines. Instead it is the prevalence of arms and drugs that makes it necessary to take certain precautions when being in Colombia. For instance, we (almost) never stay in Agua Blanca (our “slum”) much after 2 p.m.

Considering the measures that we have taken, I have only been on edge on 4 occasions thus far. Considering that I on a daily basis am moving about in a part of Cali which 90% of the city spends their lives ignoring this is a low figure. To state the obvious: it is entirely possible to be safe in Colombia, you just need to know how.

However, safety doesn’t attract news stories, nor is it exciting material for a blog, hence to illuminate what those 4 scary instances entailed (and maybe scare my mom) here are some brief descriptions:

4) A night-time party in Charco Azul
As part of our networking efforts to get to know people from all parts of Agua Blanca (inhabitants ca. 700 000) we got an invitation to a neighbourhood party in a particularly notorious part. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but for some reason it was impossible to decline the invite and off we went. It turned out the street was full of music and children and we had a blast (though we really early).

3) Walking (with guide) in the “Invaciones”
As a rule, when Joni and I are walking around in the Agua Blanca we have a local person with us as a guide/facilitator. On one recent occasion I and my guide walked into a recently “settled” area (a.k.a. “Invaciones”). I was acting totally cool because I thought she knew most of the young men eyeing us, only later to hear that she was scared but found comfort in my relaxed demeanour.

2) “Ride of the Valkyries” into Retiro
The two best pieces of travel advice for anyone going some place exotic is to

a) Eat your malaria pills

b) Stay away from motorcycles

The last piece was ignored last week when we wanted to visit a school in the area called Retiro. All our contacts in Agua Blanca said that this was a very dangerous area and when they strongly suggested that we ride to the school on motorbikes, we agreed. Good thing that we did. Most parts of Agua Blanca have good pavement and the people on the streets are usually old ladies or small children. As we neared Retiro we noticed that the buildings were in a very dilapidated state and that on most corners 2-3 men in their late teens or early 20’s were hanging. Most of them only managed to catch a glimpse of us before we were gone. It felt almost like being in a war movie; zooming through the streets, reaching our destination, jumping off, calling in our rides when we wanted to leave, jumping back on as soon as they appeared and driving off in a different direction than we came. The adrenaline was pumping and the only thing missing was some Wanger turned up loud.

1) A visit to the Jail.
You are probably most scared when you are surprised by something, and neither I nor Joni expected that we would end up in the municipal jail when we were visiting the coordinator for the local schools. In fact, her office was at the back of the main municipal building and to get to it we were lead into and through the municipal jail. This was without a shadow of a doubt the scariest scene thus far in Colombia. Jail cells so stuffed that arms are sticking out, reaching for us as we walked by. A boy standing in a corner, shaking his legs intensely and screaming. This was the closest thing to Dante’s inferno I’ve ever been.

Needless to say, afterwards we counted our blessings and were overjoyed to be leading the lives we do, getting the chance to see such things but not having to suffer them. Some however are not so lucky, which is the topic of the next post.

The illustrative lack of school boys

From the previous post it should be clear that even though I sometimes am in highly unusual situations, the level of danger is under control. For the inhabitants of Agua Blanca, such easy tactics such as leaving the area shortly after lunch are not available, and the nights there are by all accounts terrible. One of your guides was robbed twice in a period of 3 days. A principal told us that when school starts on Mondays they often have to clear a corpse lying in front of the building. Some schoolchildren simply go to the nearest school (as apposed to a better one 50 meters away) because the danger implied by the extra distance.

The clearest indication that something is fundamentally wrong with the situation in Agua Blanca is that at every one of the schools we have visited girls make up about 2/3 of the pupils, and this ratio increases with the age groups. Boys from a very young age leave school and lead a different life, according to local sources, involving crime, drugs and death. Our guide/friend who was robbed was done so by a twelve-year old nervous kid with a gun. Suddenly professional robbers don’t seem so bad, or at least as dangerous. A university professor, who also runs social projects, told us about an armed gang called “Los Ochos” (The Eights), which has a (maximum!) age-limit of 8 years to be a member. To repeat: an armed gang of below nine-year olds!

The effects of this do not only show up in the classrooms. Statistics show that boys outnumber girls by 4-5% until the age of 10. Around there the boys begin to disappear so that by the time they reach 20 years of age the girls are 15% more numerous than the boys. A full 20 percent of the boys die during their adolescence. That is frightening statistic.

Turning Tragedy into Economic Theory

The situation described above is of course utterly tragic, but as chance would have it, if an economist like me think long enough about something, a theory/idea will in the end pop out.

I female Colombian friend pointed out to me that since there are so few men, a shortage of 10% across all age groups for Cali in total, this shifts the equilibrium (she did not use that term) in the marriage market. It is not obvious that a small disruption of supply (as in this case, 10 percent) should markedly change a market, but since most women who are looking for someone to marry are unlikely to accept any substitutes (whatever that may be) such a reduction does have a high impact. Economic theory then postulates that men will feel free to do things that they otherwise would expect to get punished for (cheating, being general idiots, etc) since many women would apparently prefer a moron husband than no husband at all.

This is not a new theory. I’ve heard it before in the context of societies after wars (USSR after WW2 or Britain after WW1) in which the ratio’s were even more skewed. I instead connected it to an idea pushed by Steven Pinker, that human society used to be much more violent. If that is the case and if I am allowed the assumption that men historically did most of the fighting and subsequent dying, then there would have been a constant lack of men. Could that fact explain while so many cultures have evolved macho tendencies? The exception that would prove this rule would of course be a country without war and the associated lack of men, which would then be markedly less macho. Does anybody see where I am going with this…?

Shaking things up

I wanted to update this blog about how my and Joni's field study is going, and to give brief glimpses into what other stuff I did during the last 6 weeks (omg, has it really been that long?). Stuff like, hiking trips in the mountain ranges, parties, excellent food and weekend excursions to Quito (you get the picture). Then, just as I am about to put these things into words I feel a tremble. And it is not my fingers trembling from all the exciting stuff, but the laptop, the table, the chair, the room and in fact the entire half of Colombia that is shaking.

My first EARTH QUAKE!

Rocking!

As things would have it, a 6.8-magnitude shake took place just outside of the coast, causing minor trembles across the Pacific parts of Colombia.

Since Cali was not very close nothing fell from the table, shelves or got damaged in any other way. Some friends of mine were however concerned, but I guess that's because they live in high-rises (I don't).

To calm things down, I recommend some nice Colombian music.