Fernando . .can you hear him?

I made a friend the other day walking the streets of Medellin. I had been walking all day and was feeling a little agitated by what I had seen as well as with not really talking to anyone about it when I saw a man in the park. He was sitting under a tree, dirty protecting himself from the wind by some cardboard. He was quite obviously someone who lives in the street. It´s not something I usually do but I was curious to know his story. How did he get to live on the street and how is his life there? So I approached him and said hello.

He was immediately very friendly although difficult to understand because his Spanish was rapid and my ear for it has not yet developed well enough to get as much as I would like from people´s stories, he was soon telling me his life story without me even really asking for it. He had respect for me and asked if it bothered me for him to smoke his crack with me there. He told his friends not to bother me and we chatted away for an hour and a half.

What did I gain from this conversation? He was a nice guy. He has a drug problem but he does not want to cause any harm to anyone else. He wants to get himself into a better life and likes to try to change the image of street people by not robbing polluting and trying to be productive with recycling garbage. He has had problems with his family and become isolated from them which he regrets. The life as a drug addict is not a good one according to him with the threat of violence from security officers and other street dwellers. He sleeps every five days and occasionally ventures out of the city to sleep in peace.

He gave me a small torch lacking a battery as a gift to remember him and we parted ways as friends. I hope some day he gets off the street, until then I hope he remains a good guy willing to spend some time to enlighten the world about his life.

Drugs?

The picture is a graffiti on many walls in Bogota it is a commentary on Bush sending money to spray Coca crops at the expense of many farmers health and livelihood. It's a controversial topic. Each droplet of poison from the plane falls with a $$$ symbol in it. It's all about money! "Adelante presidente!" means something like "Go President!"

I´m in Colombia! Finally I have made it to South America the destination that I was originally inspired to explore. I have 3 months left to see what I can before it´s back to Australia to begin the next chapter.

In Colombia I have been so far to Barranquilla the second biggest city of the country with around 3 million people, Cartagena a beach, colonial tourist town and Medellin another big city 14 hours from Cartagena. So far my impression is that they have greater inequality than those countries I have already visited. There are a small percentage of very rich and a bigger second tier of well off people before a lower class of unemployed and under-employed. The number of under employed is demonstrated by the millions living off selling in the streets. I think these semi-legal enterprises are even more numerous here than Mexico and make up a massive part of the economy. Now they are bringing in a new free trade agreement with the US as most countries of Central America have just signed these businesses are threatened by cheap imports and competition laws favouring multinational sellers. There are many people living in the streets in the three cities men, women and children.

The need for social reform is as clear as anywhere here with only 3% of the population having access to university and 70-80% completing primary school. Education is elite currently there are graffiti protests in Medellin about privatization of the technical college here which threatens to up costs and further limit opportunities. There is however a feel of wealth and prosperity, Christmas lights and advertisements about the new projects of the city and a very clean efficient metro system are symbolic of the people of Medellin. They have an obsession with superficial beauty while leaving the numerous homeless to excrete in the street for lack of free toilets. You can see the slum dwelling "basurera" (garbage people) from the pristine metro service that the people are so proud of. The metro itself excludes all poor people by cost and numerous police at every station. Order is maintained here by massive numbers and active presence of police and army along with a truce among drug traffickers in the city. (Formerly it was the city with the highest murder rate in the world.)

People here voted Uribe back into power recently for a large part on the basis that he aims to exterminate the guerrillas with whom the government has been fighting for the last 40 years with the help of US funding ($billions annually and the greatest recipient of US "aid" outside the middle east). The guerrilla forces begun fighting for social justice for the neglected people of the jungle under a socialist banner. They provided for these people and there own campaigning with drug money. Now most people say the war is just for who gets to export the coke, if the government succeeds in exterminating the rebel forces do you think the supply of drugs to the world will fall? Most experts on the situation don´t consider success of ending cocain availability a posibility. People are tired of the war and enjoy that now they are able to travel within and between cities with less fear of kidnappings or robbery. No doubt this is a good thing. The way it is being achieved is generally accredited to killing off the rebels and forcing them deeper into the jungle. History tells the story that this is not the way to achieve peace both here and abroad (Israel, Ireland etc.)

For now it seems that the people in need of a new government are content with the increased security. Uribe got around 60% of the vote with less than 50% participation. The movement of the left which has been going on in the jungle for over 40 years is now distant from the ideals of the poor in the cities. Some are looking to Venezuela with a socialist government making socialist reforms with envy while others think that the US support is Colombia´s way out of trouble and acting against them, as Chavez is doing, is not a way to get out of poverty.

From the hostel scene here and the few elite friends I have made here it seems that for tourists and the rich drugs are readily available and cheap. They seem equally accessible here as in other parts of Latin America I have been although here people are stopped and searched in the street more often making it more dangerous to carry them. There is someone with a machine gun in view constantly walking in the city, either police or private security. They harass the young and the homeless in the interests of security.

I´m looking forward now to a few days out of the cities somewhere on the way to Bogotá before making my way towards Venezuela.