Coffee and transformations

How can you not visit a coffee farm when you are in Colombia?  It does not matter that I don't even drink coffee and I've already visited coffee farms in Kona and Central America.  When in Colombia ...  Besides, I heard that the countryside was beautiful.

So I took a tour to a small family owned coffee finca about an hour and a half drive southwest of Medellin.  There we learned the entire process from planting coffee trees to picking the red fruit to processing the beans.  After we were served an authentic Colombian lunch, we were taught how to judge the quality of coffee.  It is similar to wine tasting, complete with rinsing one's spoon between cups and spitting out the coffee so you can taste more.

The most interesting thing I learned about Colombian coffee is that the average Colombian does not know what good coffee is.  The best coffee is sold for export while Colombians are sold the coffee too low quality to sell.  In our taste test, Cup A scored only 10 on a scale of 100 and is the coffee sold to Colombians.  Cup B scored 85 and has won local competitions.

Today I was back walking around Medellin with another excellent young guide, Diometer.  Although the tour was named Barrio Transformation, Dio was not quite as optimistic about the transformation of Medellin as my previous guides were.  Dio insisted on telling us the official story and then the reality.

The barrio we explored is the somewhat oddly named Moravia, but it is clearly not Czech.  In Spanish the name vaguely means a place to live one's life, and apparently was a rest stop at the end of the line of the previous tram.  Rest stop?  Place to live?  It's a stretch.

Moravia used to be on the outskirts of Medellin and was created by two phenomena.  First, when Medellin had no trash service in the 1980's, Paisas used the lake that used to be in this area to dump garbage.  Second, the unrest in the countryside drove many farmers and rural people into the "safety" of the city.  But since they had no skills to earn a living in the city, they could not afford better housing.  So they settled on the mountain of garbage that had grown to over two hundred feet high, recycling whatever they could into building materials.



In the 2000's when Medellin was resurrecting itself, the government offered to give new apartments to the residents of the hill of garbage.  The residents accepted, moved to the new apartments, and lived happily ever after.  That is the official version.  But Dio told us that the reality is a little different.  Ninety percent of the residents did accept the new apartments but they are small and much farther north - on the current outskirts of the city.  The rest refused to move, either because they did not like the new apartments or because they were revolutionaries when they lived in the countryside and still don't trust the government.  So while the hill has been mostly transformed into a garden, hundreds of holdouts still live in shanties a few feet above the garbage dump.

Dio continued to walk us through the rest of Moravia, a bustling barrio that is not built on the garbage dump, always explaining the reality of life.  For example, every employee of a company has four percent of his salary deducted for medical care and the employer matches with another eight percent.  Those who are not employed receive free medical care.  What about those who are self employed or selling on the street?  Well, that's a problem.  Dio said that half the population does not pay into the system so it is collapsing on itself.  Those with private insurance get premium services and everyone else waits hours for service and is relegated to inferior rooms in the hospital.  Hmm... sounds familiar.

Employees also have four percent of their salaries withheld for retirement and another four percent for enforced savings that can only be used for purchasing or remodeling a house or paying for the university.  How is the money invested, I asked.  There's the rub, said Dio.  With widespread corruption in the government, the money is often just taken by public officials and Dio does not believe he will ever receive his retirement savings.  Hmmm.

Then Dio took us to a community center built with private funds that houses a music school and provides services to the children and families in the neighborhood.  We visited in the afternoon and many school children were there doing homework or just hanging out.  I may have found a place to volunteer.

Dio did not even bother with the reference to "he whose name cannot be spoken."  He assumed we had all read Harry Potter and just said, "I'll refer to him as Voldemort" without any segue.  We all followed.  He took us to a futbol pitch in the middle of Moravia and told us an interesting story.  At the height of the cartel violence, Voldemort (Pablo Escobar) went to a neighboring barrio disguised as a woman and invited the rival gang there to a futbol match.  The gang's leader agreed but only if the players were dressed as Escobar was that day.  So a famous game was played between two gangs with all of the players dressed as women.  The game was so popular that it is still played every year but the time and date are never announced.  These are gang members after all.  One day twenty men dressed as women show up at the field.  Word spreads through the barrio and everyone comes to watch.

We finished the tour at the hothouse on top of the hill.  Dio pointed out that a hothouse seems like an anomaly in this climate, but it is designed to collect rainwater and channel it back into misters over the plants.  Many of our roses on Valentine's Day come from Colombia.

I had already learned that there are still gangs in many of the barrios, and Dio told us that there was a something going on that day in Communa 13 where two gangs were fighting for control and the police were trying to get rid of both of them.  Interesting, since I had signed up for a graffiti tour of Communa 13 for the next day, a tour that was to show the transformation of that barrio.  So I was not completely surprised although I was disappointed the next day to learn that our scheduled tour was going to another neighborhood because Communa 13 was not safe.  I said I would be happy to wait till the next week to take the tour, but they said they didn't know if it would be safe in a week either.  So maybe Dio is right that the transformation of Medellin is far from complete.

The alternative tour was just okay but we did go to a part of the city that I had not yet seen.  I also had a chance to ride two more parts of the transportation system:  the tram (light rail) and then the cable car.  The latter is just like a ski lift with each gondola holding ten people.  It was a great way to get up the mountain but  I can't see that it is a very efficient way to move lots of people for commuting.

On my last day before classes start tomorrow, I spent the afternoon with an American expat, his Colombian wife, and their two sons age two and a half years and four months.  They took me to a crowded mall where we ate lunch in a crowded (Colombian) chain restaurant.  The mall and Communa 13 could not be more worlds apart.

Medellin Day Two

For weeks before I arrived in Medellin, the long-term weather forecast was the same every day:  thundershowers and rain.  But when I arrived, Medellin lived up to its nickname of the City of Eternal Spring.  The weather is perfect here - for me - although maybe a little to humid for most people.  It is 70 to 80 all day, mostly overcast, and seems to rain only at night and not for very long.  Perfect.  So when I realized I would not have to ride in the rain, I quickly booked a bike tour.

The company suggested a taxi to the start of the tour since the Metro would have involved a transfer and a long walk.  Taxis are cheap here and they told me it was a fifteen minute ride.  Hah!  From what I have seen already, traffic is terrible here in general, but we got stuck behind an accident so the fifteen minute ride took over an hour.  Fortunately, it turned out that I was the only one in the tour that day, and my guide, Moe, waited for me.  So off we went on my favorite kind of tour - just me with a young man younger than most of my children who was willing to go at my pace.  Even after starting forty five minutes late, the four hour bike tour took five hours.

Our first stop was the stadium where I had watched the futbol game last night.  It turns out that this is the premier sports complex for national caliber athletes in all sports.  I had noticed some gymnastics and volleyball last night, but they also have swimming pools, baseball, and a track and field stadium.  All of Colombia's serious athletes end up in this complex.

After an easy ride through the valley, Moe took me up our first hill to have a beautiful view of the city.  I had all my excuses ready - I haven't ridden much since the winter, the elevation here is over 6,000 feet, I didn't eat a good breakfast - so it was no surprise that I had to walk my bike most of the way up the hill.  And I was huffing and puffing from the walk.  But the view was worth it as I took my official Claremonster Riding in Medellin picture.

Moe was just as interesting and informative as Juan was yesterday.  Moe's father is Colombian and his mother Bolivian so he was born and raised in ... Boston.  Of course.  Solidly in the gig-economy millenial world (although he insisted he is too old to be a millenial) he has figured out a way to earn a living as a bike guide, augmenting his income with various contract work.  He has guided in Boston and Bolivia and now lives in Medellin with his wife and toddler son.  Stretching the four hour tour to five was not just because I am slow, but I was enjoying talking to Moe.

After riding down the hill, we rode to the other side of the Medellin River to the new science and technology area that Paisas are very proud of.  Next to the Innovation Center, complete with a high tech incubator, is an interactive science museum modeled after San Francisco's Exploratorium, a planetarium, and an aquarium.  Paisas are serious about creating safe, open spaces for families.



Next to that complex is the Botanical Gardens which is really the pride of Medellin.  Colombia is a huge country, larger than Germany, France, and Spain combined.  I had read before I came that it has more interior water (rivers and lakes) than the United States which I found incredible.  It also has ten percent of all of the plant species in the world, many of them on display in the Botanical Gardens.  The centerpiece of the gardens is the Orchideorama - a massive wooden structure designed to divert rainwater to the orchid displays, leaving the people dry, even when it is raining.





Moe explained to me that the city was investing in itself through a unique method.  Neighborhoods, and I think individual buildings, are assigned to a strata based on their socioeconomic class.  A municipal agency provides utilities - gas, electric, water, and TV/internet - to each building with different rates for each strata.  Thus strata 5 and 6, the wealthiest, essentially subsidize strata 1 and 2, the poorest.  In addition, the agency invests thirty percent of its revenues in developing new urban areas.  And if you live in strata 1 or 2, you can go to the science museums and other public places for free by showing your utility bill.  Also, there is free wi-fi in most of the city.

From the botanical garden Moe and I rode to the downtown area where we both had a unique experience.  Crossing a busy highway was an old man with no legs, no teeth, and only seven and a half fingers, riding in his wheelchair, and he asked Moe to give him a "tow."  I thought this was an every day experience for Moe, but he told me later that it had never happened before.  He was a bit nervous, and was trying so hard to keep the man steady.  Although there was lots of traffic of course, we were riding alone in the bus lane, so I had a good view.  I was really worried that the wheelchair was not designed for the speed we were riding and would keep going into an intersection when we stopped.  Although I am a cautious two hands on the handlebars rider, I could not resist pulling out my phone and taking a few pictures.  Moe was thrilled that I even got a short video but since I don't wear reading glasses when I ride, I have no idea how I did that.  I also have no idea if the video will work in this blog.

After a mile or so, the man thanked Moe profusely and left us.  Fortunately, he was holding on to Moe's book rack with the hand that had all five fingers.

At the beginning of the tour, Moe told me that we were to ride up two hills.  After four hours of flat riding, I thought he had decided to bag the last hill because I was such a slow rider, but no, he saved the best for last.  I rode (most of the way) up Nutibara Hill where there is a kitschy Paisa village reproduction and a great 360 degree view of the city.

We never stopped for lunch, so I really earned my dinner today.  After turning in my bike, I walked through the Laureles neighborhood and the sports complex to the Metro.  Rush hour on the Metro was not fun but taking a taxi in the horrible traffic did not sound like a great idea.  Back in El Poblado, my neighborhood, I ate in a good restaurant, and went back to my apartment.  No nightlife for me tonight.

First day in Medellin

I had a slightly confusing flight to Medellin from Washington, D.C.  I knew Medellin was on Eastern time, so I couldn't figure out why the time on my phone was an hour later than local time.  Duh!  They are on Eastern standard time here.  No need to switch to daylight savings time.  Since we are near the Equator, the sun rises at 5:30 every morning and sets at 6:30 every evening year round.

On Tuesday I figured out how to get to the Metro (only had to ask two people), buy a card with six tickets, and get myself to the free walking tour that I had booked.  Well worth it although, of course, nothing is free.  I can't say that the sights of downtown Medellin are all that impressive, but our guide, Juan, gave a wonderful history of the city and the area.  The political problems, including revolutionary and reactionary guerilla bands and militarias predate the 1980's by decades, laying a fertile ground for what happened then.  Juan talked about "that terrible monster" or "that horrible criminal" or paraphrased Harry Potter to call him "he whose name cannot be spoken."  He said that if he mentioned Pablo Escobar by name, a passing local might think Juan was glorifying Escobar and might pick a fight with him.

We saw the usual sights of a large city: the central squares, municipal buildings, train station, and markets.  Surprisingly, this is the first tour of a Latino city that I have ever taken that did not include a cathedral or church.  Juan did point out the outsides of a few neighborhood churches because he said that is where the "love providers" hang out.  Juan thought there was a connection between purchasing their services and then going to church.  Hmmm.  It also turns out that Colombia is the second leading destination for sex tourists after Thailand.  Disappointing.

The locals, who are called Paisas, are most proud of their famous sculptor, Fernando Botero, whose statues are, shall we say, disproportionate.  At Botero Square, we saw many of his sculptures which he has donated to the city.

Adam and Eve

Roman soldier

Juan's story was instructive.  He is from a wealthy family, so two of his uncles were kidnapped and held for ransom for more than a year.  He was only seven then, so not very aware of what was happening.  When he was fifteen, he was playing futbol with ten friends in the street when a gang member (that is way too innocuous a term for a murderous terrorist) rode up on a motorcycle and opened fire on the boys.  Juan was shot twice in the leg and four of his friends were killed.  No one knows why the shooting occurred.

No one who lived through that time has anything good to say about the so-called narco-terrorists, but the locals are very proud of the rebirth that their city has undergone.  Medellin sits in a valley with neighborhoods going up the hillsides on all sides.  Downtown is literally down in the center of the valley and the poorest neighborhoods are high on the hills and, in the past, had limited access to the center.  To revitalize the city, Medellin established a five part public transportation system that includes the Metro, express and local buses, and cable cars.  The latter go to the poor neighborhoods high on the hillsides to give people access to the city.  They also installed escalators on some of the hillsides for the same reason, and have built parks and libraries, creating safe public spaces.






The last stop on the tour was San Antonio Square where in 1995 someone placed dynamite under a Botero bird during a well-attended concert.  The explosion killed over thirty people and injured more than 200.  According to Juan, all of the various revolutionary groups and militias claimed credit as they all thought that killing civilians was an impressive accomplishment.  But for the city, it was the final straw - Pablo Escobar had been killed the previous year - and was the impetus for the city's transformation.  Botero refused to let the mayor take down the exploded bird, but created and donated another.  Placed next to each other, the exploded and intact birds are called the Birds of Peace.



I found out that the Colombian National Futbol team was playing tonight, so after a quick break, I got back on the Metro and joined the green shirted throng.  It wasn't a particularly good game, but the national team won 5 - 1, so the fans were happy.  I was sitting near the north bleachers where the hardcore fans stand, chant, and wave flags and their arms for hours before and during the game, accompanied by blaring music and drums.  I have to say, the show in the stands was better than the play on the field.