Peaceful day in Medellin

I was able to take the graffiti tour to Comuna 13 today that I couldn't last week.  It turns out the the problems in the barrio were the result of three rival gangs fighting, and the police were trying to arrest the leaders.  On Tuesday, Juancito, the leader of one of the gangs turned himself in to the police.  Apparently that was the smart thing for him to do - the gang would have killed him because the heat was on - so he decided to take his chances in jail.

The message of the tour was that Comuna 13 is completely safe for residents and tourists.  The residents are still upset that in 2006, government troops and police "invaded" the barrio and killed or disappeared people indiscriminately.  Although Comuna 13 is known as a violent place, the residents blame the government for the violence.  Yes, there are still gangs fighting over territory for drugs and arms, but the residents feel that they can stay out of it.

On the positive side, the government has put in much needed infrastructure for transportation since Comuna 13 was built on a hillside with only narrow pathways between houses.  Now there are escalators so you don't always have to take the stairs, ramps for motorcycles, and wide walkways were people can congregate.

The purple sign says:  A good example of care is to pick up your pet's poop.  Kind of ridiculous since no dogs are on leashes here.  They wander loose on the same pathways that the people do, so there is dog poop everywhere.  But it is a nice sentiment.

View of downtown from Comuna 13

View of Comuna 13.  Bricks hold down roofs.

Besides graffiti, our tour included a break dancing demonstration that our guide took part in.  At the end of the tour, he took us to Casa Kolacho, the nonprofit which the guide is associated with and which includes a school.  Silly me.  I heard school and assumed books and academics.  Casa Kolacho has a recording studio that is free to musicians in the neighborhood, and the school teaches children the four elements of hip hop:  art, dancing, dj, and singing.  The message is to rise up through hip hop.  Interesting.

Before we left, we had to "tag" a blank wall with spray paint - another new experience for me.  My tag is in the middle of the bottom.  I was trying to write GRC, but it looks more like GRT or CRT.  Hey, it was my first try.

The guide's shirt says:  yes, here there is love.

When the tour ended, I took a quick trip up the mountain on the cable car.  Amazing that this is part of the public transportation system which costs about seventy cents a ride.

 After the tour, I returned to downtown which was alive with weekend shoppers and strollers.  I even found a crafts market in one of the squares.  Then I decided to walk the several miles, mostly uphill, back to my neighborhood.  I hadn't gone very far when the main street was blocked by a large demonstration of some kind.  I couldn't tell what it was, so I walked over to a smaller parallel street.  As I was walking, a motorcycle came racing down the narrow street going way too fast, but that is pretty normal here.  Then a lot of people came running down the street.  All at once, all of the people strolling ran into the closest shop.  I had no idea what was going on, but I ducked into a shop with them.  It turned out to be a store that sold yarn.  We were packed into the small shop, and then someone closed the metal shutter.  I asked what had happened, but no one knew.  We just stood there hiding out.  I asked what the demonstration was about and someone said it had to do with smoking which I took to mean pot.

After about ten minutes, they opened the metal shutter and we went back out into the street, but not a minute later, people came running fast again.  I was more concerned about being trampled than anything else.  This time I made it into an Exito, the local Target, so at least I could walk around the huge store and I could see out the glass windows.  It seemed like people were walking normally outside, but they kept us inside for another fifteen or twenty minutes.  Within a minute after I got back outside a few people started running again, but I just kept going and things calmed down immediately.

I could see people walking on the main street so, thinking that I was past the demonstration, I went back there.  It turns out that I had joined a parade of pot smokers; you could get high just being in the crowd.  The demonstration itself was completely relaxed, so I still have no idea why everyone ran inside, and no one could tell me.  The newspaper article just says that there was a demonstration and that at some point some people were writing on a bus.  No mention of violence or any other disturbance.  The demonstrators were chanting:  no to narcotraffic and yes to self-cultivation.

Well, that was an interesting day in Comuna 13 and downtown Medellin.