Greetings from Mykanos.
Whereas August was the month of wind and kites, September was the month of love and friendship, encompassing Colombia’s version of Valentine’s Day, ‘Dia de Amor y Amistad’ or ‘Love & Friendship Day’, which falls in the middle of the month, and as usually happens here, a one-day celebration is celebrated (and promoted) for the entire month.
It is the same with October, the month of ghosts and ghouls, courtesy of Halloween. Shops and restaurants and bars are bedecked in cobwebs and ghoulish masks, and when it finally gets near October 31, all sorts of people … serious businessmen and women, school kids, young trendies, yummy mummies and their kids … dress up as ghosts, devils, mummies, pirates, cowboys, robots, Arabs, corpses, monsters and everything else imaginable under the sun. Some of them even parade on stilts, although maybe the heels are just a bit higher for Halloween.
Our current horror story is the state and fate of Venezuela and the Venezuelans.
According to Venezuelan President Maduro, there is no crisis, it’s just hostile foreign propaganda and ‘fake news’, but one must treat his claim with some skepticism considering that more than one million Venezuelans have crossed the border just into Colombia, more than 3% of the country’s population.
They are everywhere. Most of the Rappi bicycle boys in Bogotá (Rappi being a messenger / delivery version of Uber) seem to Venezuelans, as do street vendors, buskers, car washers, waiters, cooks and bottle washers.
Here in Anserma they wash cars, sell fruit, do odd jobs and anything else that will raise some cash. Two boys had a particularly novel offer. Stationed in front of the Provedor, Anserma’s biggest supermarket, they were giving away huge bundles of Venezuelan Bolivars in exchange for Colombian money. The big bundles of notes were just for novelty value, as the current (sorry … then) exchange rate is/was 1,000 Bolivars = 1/7th of a Colombian Peso. As the smallest currency denomination here is a 50-peso coin you can imagine the disparity, and the consequent worthlessness of the piles of paper.
The smallest note here, currently being replaced by a coin, is worth 1,000 Colombian pesos, which, as I write this, equals 2,037,910,000 Bolivars. Anyway you get the idea.
But of course this would be claimed to be just more ‘fake news’ about what should be the richest country in the region, but instead is a disaster, with only the ruling elite, his cronies and their armed supporters being able to afford toothpaste or toilet paper.
Things are not so grim here, Gracias a Dios. We are now into the cosecha, picking coffee, and prices have risen a bit since my last letter so the season is not looking quite so disastrous. This is the first season since 2007 with Adriano in sole charge, Horacio having managed them ever since then. 2007 was our first season and our then administrator had left just before it started. Adriano did very well indeed, especially considering he had very little experience and only brother Fredy to help manage the operation. Eleven years on he is much wiser and more knowledgeable, so we should do better than just survive.
One thing he has been quick to identify and change is the somewhat suspect habit of some of our customers (particularly those who buy plantain from us) of giving tips to our workers, supposedly to thank them for their assistance but more likely to convince them to turn a blind eye when the buyer is taking advantage of the patron. For example, they might ‘mistakenly’ class some plantain as 2nd quality instead of 1st allowing the buyer to pay less. As Adriano told the buyers, our workers are paid to work for us and if they want to tip them they can just give it to us and we will pass it on. That way was there is no question as to where loyalties lay.
In mid-October I had to go to Bogotá to be in a television commercial for Bancolombia.
It was for their American Express Gold Card, and I was playing the part of an elderly tourist having an argument with his wife, while seated on a small bench in the airport concourse, with an unfortunate man dressed in grey sandwiched between us, cramped by a cranky me on one side and my wife talking to him nonstop on the other, while her large hat kept hitting him in the ear. He was the man who didn’t have the Bancolombia American Express Gold Card.
Meanwhile, the man who did have the Bancolombia American Express Gold Card, who was dressed in gold, was luxuriating in the VIP lounge, being served drinks by a glamorous hostess whose dress just covered her gorgeous behind, but only just.
In my other scene, the wife of the man in grey is in a bus, with me standing besides her, holding on to the overhead rail, looking fed up while being jiggled around as the bus shuddered on its way.
Meanwhile the wife of the man in gold, who has the card, is very comfortable, flying Business Class reading a magazine.
The message was clear. Have the Bancolombia American Express Gold Card and you are treated like a VIP. Otherwise you get to sit next to me.
As it happened, my ‘wife’ was older than me. How much older was difficult to determine as you can’t ask such things, but she quite fancied me and for once I felt like I was a toy boy.
Adriano picked me up at Pereira airport and we stopped for a dinner at La Virginia, the first town along the Pan American highway on the way to Anserma. It sits between the Rio Cauca, one of Colombia’s three great rivers, and the cane fields of the Valle de Risaralda, and is at the heart of the local sugar production.
They were having a fiesta that Sunday evening and the Parque Principal was awash with families, courting couples, old men playing dominoes, kids and adults on bicycles (La Virginia is very flat), pedlars, prostitutes and piss-artists. The music coming from a dozen nearby bars and cantinas was deafening. Local traders and artisans had sales booths set up under canopies around the margins of the parque, and police and soldiers patrolled it all just to make sure it stayed peaceful, although these days it is drunks that are likely to create the disturbance rather than the guerrillas of times past.
I got back to Mykanos in time for a visit by world-renowned author Hugh Thomson. He has written highly celebrated books on travelling in Mexico, Peru, and the Himalayas, as well as in and across the UK, but his track record in producing award-winning documentaries is just as impressive. In 1995 he produced one of my favourite music documentaries, the 10 part series ‘Dancing in the Street: A Rock & Roll History’ (entitled ‘Rock & Roll’ in the US).
This was his first trip to Colombia and we very much enjoyed giving him an insider’s insight into how coffee gets into his cup in the UK. He was a fascinating guest and we shared great sights, great jeep rides, great conversation and great dinners. He has threatened to come back with his girlfriend, an artist, so she and Adriano can do some sketching together. We hope they do.
That’s one of the great things about living here. Sharing it with people we like.
Love from him and me
Barry
