REFLECTION 5: Bogotá/Ciudad Bolívar

Bogotá/Ciudad Bolívar


When you say that you work in Ciudad Bolívar in Bogotá, the response is what you might expect from a Chicagoan if you say 'I work in Inglewood on the south side', except an even more dramatic 'how could you go there? Are you nuts? A gringa in Ciudad Bolívar? I have never even been there.' type of look. Especially from those who rarely go south of El Centro. Ciudad Bolívar is a huge neighbourhood, and located inside of this big neighbourhood is this smaller neighbourhood of 'Arbolizadora Alta'. The Departamento de la Prosperidad Social (DPS) Batuta has a contract with the local 'Alcaldia' of this neighbourhood to work way up there. It's really way up in the mountains on the south side of the city: you have to take the transmilenio to the last stop, then take an 'alimentador' (other bus) to get way up the mountain. The commute is over an hour and a half-2 hours one way from Parkwey and, yep, it's a challenging neighbourhood. You pass parks with lots of shoes hanging from electric lines. Lots of boys and men playing soccer and drinking beer at roadside stands. Lots of people in a very small space. Lots of teen Moms. I saw taxi wheels and rim caps get robbed, I saw plenty of stray dogs, and kids who don't get too much to eat, who have dirty clothes, and families who are living really quite seriously on the edge (more on the edge than I have ever experienced before now). And the school where we rehearsed (after hours) was an urban war zone, quite comprable to the school I worked at in Inglewood. The teachers yelled, and the kids yelled, and the hallways and bathrooms were seriously lacking adult supervision. The bathrooms didn't ever have toilet paper in them, nor toilet seats and at night, it just got more intense. If I get lost going or coming from Ciudad Bolívar, or get off at the wrong bus stop, it's probably not such a good idea. Sure. I'll give it to you. It is dangerous. 

But not like on the south side of Chicago. I am not at risk of getting accidentally shot in a drive by, like in Inglewood. Nor do they bother me because I am white. (I was called a 'white bitch' by a kindergartener and later over the phone, by her mother, in Inglewood, Chicago). In fact, the kindness that I was shown once they got to know me is usually the other way around. Or at least it is like: 'We better not mess with the gringa because if we do, it'll be in headlines'. Usually more of intrigue. 'Why are you here?', they ask. The locals, after they knew that I was teaching their kids kind of looked out for me: they made sure I was on the right bus, brought me to the right corner, showed me how to ride the bus for 'mil' like the locals do, and really protected me. I didn't once feel threatened by someone I knew, nor did I feel at risk of anything more than getting my cell phone robbed from me on the street (which can really happen anywhere these days). It's a neighbourhood that is on the edge of the city, the edge of survival, the edge of the limits of everything. Of course it has it's challenges. Wouldn't you, if you were on the true edge at all times?

But the challenge of getting there, or working with challenging administration, of commuting such a long way in the black pollution of busetas, or even the small danger that I might be robbed on the street- it was way outweighed by the experience with the kids. 

Once again, KIDS: so full of life. So young and ready for anything. So resilient. So beautifully raw: introvertedly wide eyed cautious and highly inquisitive at the same time. The CB kids were not as supported to come to choir by the community, and by some other teachers at Batuta, so that made starting a choral program a bit more challenging. But overall, those sweet faces will remain with me for a long time. They wrote me kind notes, brought me a small piece of candy, and tried their very best when they showed up for rehearsal. Sure, some missed every other rehearsal- they had to take care of their little siblings at home, or their parents wouldn't let them come to rehearsal because they were doing poorly in school (the old 'I am going to ground you from music because you aren't doing well in math' when we all know that a child's participation in the fine arts is proven to raise test scores in the sciences and other 'core areas'.) But I had a blast with these students. They taught me more than I could have ever imagined walking in those doors- they really showed me a ton about who I am, about who I want to be as a teacher, and who I want to be as a person, and about how to connect with a population that you know nothing about and have so few things in common. They taught me how to see that we have many more things in common than not. 

We played together. We did a ton of team building exercises together. We learned from one another. And we sang quite a few concerts together:

- The Christmas Concert the very first semester I worked in Batuta (super sweet yet very out of tune!)
- The huge choir concert in Leon de Greiff where the poor things had to learn the Halleluja Chorus after being in choir for less than a year (pedagogically insane)
- Other small concerts for their community, families, etc. (really the best ever, should have done more of these!)
- Concert final at the church with the Choirs of Lisboa (solid, for a beginning choir, and beginning community, got good reviews, fun to join choirs)

In the end, the kids of Ciudad Bolívar are just like any other kids in the world- they deserve to be born in another part of the city, where the opportunities are far more immense and they don't get stuck in the cycle of poverty- where they can study, instead of go to work to pay for family expenses, and where the girls have higher expectations than only being a mother (not that that is a bad goal, but being the only goal at 11 years old is an issue). They deserve love from friends and adults and parents, and they really work hard, and deserve to get ahead because of this work ethic. But it's not that way all the time. Because they were born (or were displaced to) the south side of the capitol city of Colombia. 

Los niños de Ciudad Bolívar- les quiero mucho por siempre. Tienen un pedacito de mi corazón.