Nena suggested that they find a public phone to call home, but Camilo and Jose thought that was stupid. “Aquí no hay teléfonos,” said Jose half laughing at her naïve suggestion. It was true. There were no public phones in poor barrios. It was assumed that poor people would vandalise them, so none were installed.
Slums and poor barrios were illegal because poverty was illegal.
The government’s priority was to discourage people from living in what was considered random urban settlements. An eyesore for Bogotanos who took pride in modern architecture and any new wealth brought by money laundering.
Each new politician elected in Colombia swore to remove slums from the big cities, finding new ways to invalidate the struggle of those who had no choice but to become urban slaves. The displaced were meant to feel unwelcomed and return to rural homes they no longer had.
Camilo, Jose y Nena were meanwhile discovering a vital force in the slums they hadn’t known to exist. These barrios survived and continued growing, perhaps to be validated eventually.
Survival relied on the rediscovery of problem-solving: electricity was stolen from cables running in random directions and at different heights, sometimes running next to washing lines or propped up by dead tree trunks before disappearing into the dark brick caves. The water coming from natural springs in the nearby mountains arrived through colourful hoses like rubber veins settled under overgrown grass, feeding cement containers that also collected rain and served as natural refrigerators for bottles of beer, coca-cola or milk.
The displaced had no choice but to join an endless circle of underpaid and often illegal jobs, but they quickly adopted the urban attitude of indifference toward others’ misery, and learned to avoid more danger than they could handle. Survival also relies on fear.
Nena was afraid that her friends might abandon her if they found a way to any road out of the slums and toward street buses they could ride home. Don Hugo drove her to school every morning because she was a girl. Boys like Camilo and Jose were taught independence by enduring the dangers of the city and the country from a very young age. She wasn’t that confident, and walking through these barrios would be even more dangerous if she were on her own.
“Sigamos caminando derecho,” said Nena, hopelessly looking at a distant corner that could mean they were near Los Mártires. Unable to phone home, she couldn’t ask her father to pick her up, and the prospect of the red-light district seemed inevitable and worse than the slums – even during the day. She thought of the girls she knew who had been abused or raped, or those pregnant teenagers who brought shame on their families. They were all “ruined” according to the males of the family; they were just prostitutes. Men said girls were raped and abused because of how they dressed, how they acted, how they smiled. If they were pregnant, it was their fault, and they would have to face the consequences on their own. Ever since she had started high school, she had tried to look and behave like a boy. She wasn’t taking any chances. No make-up, no pretty dresses. No boyfriends. She would find one when she left, maybe in Paris, surely somewhere in France. She would buy a ticket when she had saved enough money.
The red-light district could be avoided if streets were no longer blocked off. People living under the illusion of being middle class were, in reality, very close to the slums, but they hid dirty secrets behind corners and alleys to maintain a façade of comfort and imaginary social success. Thanks to this, politiciandrugtraffickers could continue claiming that drugs, crime and prostitution were under control in Bogota, and that the capital of the Country of the Sacred Heart, was made of a God-fearing Catholic population that respected the government and the church.
Hope was the most visible border between the slums and the “middle class” barrios. Those who believed themselves to be middle class, clung to their aspirations of wealth, buying their lives in instalments, borrowing money, selling trinkets and joining newly introduced credit clubs to believe they had more than they really did. They were the biggest fans of outdated TV series bought from American channels with Mexican dubbing, promising Spanish success with a different accent.
“Aquí si hay paso,” said Jose, looking down from a street corner connected to what looked like a passage away from the slums and into the city again, with painted houses, pavement and parked cars in the distance. Nena recognised Avenida 10 at the end of that street. They should be able to find a public phone there, even though it looked deserted.
They walked through the passageway in silence, relieved at the sight of a big avenue a few blocks away. House doors, wide open, revealed dark long corridors decorated with veils and paintings in golden frames. This was the edge of the red-light district. Services were camouflaged for a more distinguished clientele. Counting the women they could see inside these houses was morbid and interesting. Waiting for the heat of the afternoon to calm down, the women relaxed, cleaning their nails, their hair in rollers, taking naps and sitting by the windows, letting life pass. Like any other day, they were open for business and in fact, they expected additional clients that night: army men or scared public officials who had stayed behind the roadblocks. The political conflict is to be thanked for the additional cash the night would bring.
Nena thought about her grandfather, he probably knew many of these places. He met his drinking buddies in Los Mártires, the threshold barrio that hid the red-light district. Los Mártires was a neighbourhood of truck drivers and merchants living in small apartments and trading the produce arriving daily from the other side of the cordillera.
She would hear her drunk grandfather arriving home in the middle of the night, often beaten or robbed. His drinking buddies were maybe responsible for that, but they could also be the only reason he had not been kill when he went into those brothels and bars to feel like a macho. Leo claimed his buddies were loyal and worthy of all his trust. They were liberals, like him. Nena didn’t believe political alliances had any meaning.
There were more dangerous places too: the fancy cinemas in the north where the last car bomb exploded two days ago, or the National Library, by now probably a pile of rocks.
They reached Avenida 10. A mental count suggested 15 to 20 real prostitutes: an exotic sight not easy to witness anywhere else. They started to feel safer and somehow welcomed the sense of known dangers to the unknown ones in the slums. They needed to talk, to reach conclusions, after returning to this familiar territory.
(…to be continued…)
Transadaptation Volume 6 – Meaning? – Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted
January: A Regular Train Trip – Mateusz Tymoszewski (Poland)
February: Growing Up – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)
March: Mess – Veronika Groke (Austria)
April: The Roads We Take – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
May: Need – Nadia Silva Castro (Brazil)
June: “Next Sunshine” – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
July: Pandemic Love – Xiakun Li (China)
August: Planet Kyiv – Anastasiia Leonova (Ukraine)
September: Feeling like a Fool – Ulrike Bergmeister (Germany)
October: Stories of Outcast Souls – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
November: Ronaldinha – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
December: Aimlessly – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 5: Of Flowing Vicissitudes – Life Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2024)
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Left column (top to bottom): Bogota, Columbia – In Fontibon – David Gabric (Unsplash); Bogota, Columbia – The road through – Michael Schmid (Unsplash)
Top center: Bogota, Columbia – Downtown – Richardo Gomez Angel (Unsplash)
Bottom: Bogota, Columbia – Palacio de Justicia – Gabriel Leonardo Guerrero (Shutterstock)
Right column (top to bottom): Bogota, Columbia – Pare – Andres Gomez (Unsplash); Bogota, Columbia – Mountainside houses – Random Institute (Unsplash)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed