“So do you all agree that you are taking this trip at your own risk?” She had just described that we would be walking through some areas where we would want to be careful with our belongings, the “picky picky” she says and makes the universal hand motion for pickpockets.
We all agree, yes. We understand.
There are twelve of us circled around her. I know this because she counts us. Carolina will count us several times during the three hour “free” walking tour. She raises her red umbrella and puts on her red hat. “Has everyone been on a tour like this before?” We all nod our heads. It is a quiet group, mostly couples except myself and one other girl. She is from the Philippines and I say that I am from Mexico. My tour companions are from Switzerland, El Salvador, New Zealand, Colombia and Germany. Carolina is our Real Tours of Columbia tour guide. She is lovely, with a twinkle in her eye and great english, but with enough of an accent that you know that she worked hard to learn the language. She recounts becoming an au pair and living two years in Washington D.C. “I was transfixed by the snow,” she said. “We don’t have seasons here in Medellin, I thought it was amazing.” I imagine that she must be in her late 20’s or very early 30’s. She is studying economics at the University, it sounds like she might be getting a Master’s degree. I like her, she is easy to like.
“What do you know about Colombia?” she asks… “Wait, don’t tell me, I already know. You saw it on a TV show,” she says this as both a question and a statement. She wrinkles her nose and looks exasperated, but in a playful way. Then she gets serious again, “In Colombia we are not in agreement, there are those that love him, he built houses they say. There are those who hate him, he killed people I love, and there are those that see him as a pop-culture god. Some people say that they just can’t decide how they feel.” She uses her hands to demonstrate the mental process of weighing the pros and cons. Her face is open, not judgemental, but her words and message are precise, “but I must ask you – how many of your brothers, your uncles, your fathers must die for it to be worth the house? 250 houses were built by PE in those years. 38,000 people died,” she is quiet and practiced in delivering this. She notices a blank stare, covers her mic and mouths the name of the notorious narco robinhood, PABLO ESCOBAR. “On this tour I will never say his name, his full name. I am using a microphone to give a tour in a public place, most Colombians don’t speak English, but they know his name and they won’t know what I am saying. It is important to be careful. We are divided as a country on this, as we are divided on many things.”
We follow her dutifully. She walks quickly, she seems to know everyone.
We arrive at the iconic forest of lights at Plaza Cisneros. This expansive plaza was built in the 1920’s in an attempt to reclaim the downtown spaces and make them beautiful. It is daylight during our tour but she explains that the lights are in repair and they will not be lit later, “so don’t come in the evening to see them,” she repeats this warning again, “don’t come anywhere near this area after dark. This is a business area, the businesses are open until 6:30 but by 7:00 pm there will be no one in the street that you want to meet with. This is not the area for you,” she has made her point. Then she describes a colombian colloquialism, “Do you know what ‘dar papaya’ is?” She shows her cell phone held out on her hand and waves it around in front of her. I had heard it in another tour, it was about keeping anything of value out of sight. “Keep your cell phones in your bags and keep your bags in front of you as we walk through this next area,” she is clear and direct. She pulls her backpack around to the front of her as an example. We all do the same.
We walk through the main market streets where there are vendors and storefronts selling everything. Empanadas, underwear, fake adidas, shiny watches. It is a Tuesday afternoon but the streets are bustling with activity. It is hard to keep Carolina’s red hat in sight and still take in all of the action. It is very much like a busy downtown commerce strip in a big city in Mexico. I feel both at home but not, I am acutely aware of my purse as it bounces along in front of me. I step aside from the group for a moment to get a plastic cup of sliced mango, dressed with lime and extra tajine.
The area is sketchy and she acknowledges that time and again. The second oldest church is just behind where we are standing. It is painted a grubby white with green trimmed doors and is dwarfed by the high rises around. Also all around are prostitutes. At first I just thought that it was a rough looking crowd, but then she pointed it out. “You know we Catholics have a belief that if we confess our sins, we are free of them. So it’s okay to have the prostitutes line up along the back wall of the church, it makes it easy for everyone,” she says with a sly smile.
The entire tour is a conversation about the past and the present. She started the tour explaining to us that there were four periods in Colombian history; the Origin (indigenous people), Growth (coffee industry), Strategy(growing pains) and Transformation(the last 20 years). The period interestingly described as “strategy” is the one that we tourists are most familiar with. Medellin was the most violent city in the world in the 90’s and the media promoted visual imagery of that violence is hard to forget. The city and the country were caught up in a bloody civil war, the guerilla groups, the narcos, the paramilitary and the government – all yielding weapons and battling for power. “My mother said that she would go out for milk and wonder if she would return, many people never came home.” Carolina motioned to a place just a few meters from where we were standing. “Right here, someone threw a hand grenade and many people died. But look around, there is nothing to remind us of that.” She waves to a mural of the history of the city – Agriculture, conquerors, even businessmen but there is nothing about the violence. “In almost the same week, our new next president was gunned down in front of us as he was about to take office. P.E. he did it. A few days later 23,000 people were killed in a landslide on the mountain, but there is nothing, no monument, no visual history in this mural in front of us, nothing to remind us. We aren’t very good at history,” she says this and shrugs her shoulders as though she cares but there is nothing to be done. “We have a switch in our memory that we keep off, so that we can block out what is hard and move forward.” She describes these times, the recent ones where they forget the past, as the “transformation, a sort of collective choice to select the history that moves them toward a better future.
We wander through Botero Square and up towards the famous Medellin Metro, a symbol of the transformed city and the pride of every “paisa.” The Metro is already ten years old, but still spotlessly clean, no graffiti, a sharp contrast to the rest of the city. We are heading towards the main plaza in the old city, she settles us on some stairs to share more history and answer questions. A homeless woman stands in the back of our group and listens in, adding her own colorful cuentitos in spanish.
We find ourselves at the corner of a large square, we have finished the tour and she suggests that we can show our appreciation by wrapping our “tip” in a small paper and placing it in her backpack. There is some commotion across the plaza, someone is running, but now many people are running. It seems like they are running from something, some of them, but then others are running after someone. The commotion pushes through a crowd of bystanders like us and others seem to join in the sprint across the mostly empty plaza. Our attention is fixed on the action. It is hard to understand what is happening. “Let’s move – NOW!” Carolina commands us to follow her quickly behind the sculptures that we just looked at and back towards the stairs. The runners have reached the end of the plaza and are moving out of view towards a lighted tunnel-like shopping area. The sky is ominous with rain clouds and evening twilight makes it harder to see. There is a gunshot. Someone cries out and there is a collective yell in the crowd. She keeps us moving, we look at each other, keep silent and follow her. From our position in the plaza we can see that the commotion has concentrated just below our sightline at the entrance to the tunnel, but we can only see the crowd of people, some looking towards something or someone and others looking away.
We continue to follow Carolina. She gathers us up, counts us, but doesn’t seem fazed. She makes a joke at my eyes, wide open and worried. We are gathered around her, she takes a moment to settle us. “Here in Colombia we don’t like it when someone steals something. We chase them down and we yell to others to get him. When they catch him they surround them and kick him, I don’t like that.” In my head and surely that of everyone else was the question, and the gunshot? But this is her explanation of what we just witnessed. Colombian selective memory. She smiles, offers advice for places to go, “you can use the Metro, it will be easier to get to a restaurant for dinner” and she walks us to the shiny bright ticket line.
**It is important to note that this story reflects just a moment in time. I had an amazing three week experience in Colombia. The people were kind, even protective much like our tour guide. Even as this event transpired, although I was unnerved, I never felt in personal danger and I very much do suggest that you visit this beautiful country that is working so hard to start anew.