I got up at 4am and had great difficulty getting back to
sleep. I got up at 7am when Leonardo
showed up and we all had a cup of tinto.
I went back to bed at 8:30 finally getting up at 10:30.
It appears the Colombian Peso closed at 2,956 to the US
Dollar. At least, after falling for
weeks, it went up again.
I forgot to mention, yesterday I saw an older man in a
Chicago White sox hat (looked new) and a young man in a Chicago Bears jacket.
I finished Nelson DeMille’s 432 page Night Fall and downloaded his 483 page Wild Fire.
I guess I posted yesterday’s activities too quickly as I
also forgot to mention I checked the showers and they have hot water – just
like in the US. Great!
I finally got past the latest Rosetta Stone writing exercise
with a score of 88%. (Those accent marks
can be a killer.)
More comments regarding my Home Invasion post:
Fecherklyn: A common occurrence is happening right now in
our house; we are, once again, giving serious thought to leaving Medellin, and Colombia. We have been here 14
years now, but the frequency of considering our options is rising. Today my
wife's cousin was mugged (in Belen) in her car with baby aboard and everything
of possible value was taken; you do not argue with a knife at your child's throat.
Just another crime? It happens wherever
you are? Nowhere is safe nowadays? and so on, and so on. We also have tried to
minimise the negative about what we see around us, but finally the story about
"the straw that broke the camel's back" comes to mind. I ask myself
"are we exaggerating (the danger)?” But I do not think so, the poor level of
security in Colombia, and Medellin in particular,
has reached the red alert limits. Today, it was my wife's cousin, a few days
ago an uncle opted out (of Colombia)
when his Laureles apartment administrator told him the monthly quota would be
going up to pay the new "protection" extortion. Last month I gave
help to our part time maid when her pitiful studio was ransacked. At the last
count, my wife's family has had over a dozen members murdered, and not because
they were associating with the wrong people. I could go on, and on, but you get
the point. So far, my wife and I have been robbed here 4 times, fortunately
without any undue violence if one discounts a revolver being held at your head.
My amazement is that we do not figure within the "statistics", and
how long will our luck last. I am fed up with people ignoring the
"facts" in Colombia
with the assurances that "just take a low profile and avoid certain places".
Medellin does
not belong to this scenario with any certainty any more. Ask the guy in my
bank....he was mugged in broad daylight in Oviedo recently and the "muggers"
walked quietly away amongst the watching shoppers. One can only live on excuses
for so long.
Cafetero: I don´t think any of us on this list is advocating
dropping our guard for one minute. What we are saying is......don´t stand out
like a sore thumb and hopefully you will be overlooked by robbers looking for a
rich target. It is unfortunate that your wife´s family has suffered so much
tragedy and also very unfortunate you have been robbed four times. That would
convince me to move out of Medellin at least,
and probably convince me to move out of Colombia totally. I´ve only been
robbed once so far, so my experience level certainly is not as great as yours.
But, I am fully aware my luck could change tomorrow and I could wind up robbed
or even hurt or dead very easily. So, my advice remains; don´t let your guard
down, dress casually to blend in with the crowd, and hang out in areas where
you feel safe. I´m starting to get the
impression that the cities with their dense populations are less safe than the
pueblos with the smaller populations. This may be analogous with a comparison
of cities and towns in the US.
I don´t know this to be true, but it certainly seems like it to me. Good luck
with your decision making process about returning to the US. Quite
frankly, I think about returning to the US
myself sometimes, not so much because I am afraid for my safety and well being
here, but because I really miss some of my former activities in the US such as RV traveling,
wilderness camping, kayaking.......and skiing :)
LaPiranha: I agree, that when we hear the reports from
others on this forum, it’s so sad to hear, and we must be thankful that the
result is only the robbery, and nothing worse. But we must also remember that
this idyllic spot in Paradise which attracts so many expats, Medellin, is, and always has been, a hotbed
of crime, robberies, murders, kidnappings, narco traffickers, and the home to
one of the world's most savage kingpins, Pablo Escobar. By clever marketing, Medellin has been
portrayed as a safe, warm and friendly, clean, upper class retirement
destination, where you can relax, enjoy life, and have not a care in the world.
All the expats seem to fall for this "whitewashing" of the true
nature of Medellin,
and they drop their guard, believing they will have a lovely retirement in a
beautiful and peaceful setting, warm climate, and just perfect in every way.
But Medellin is still Medellin. Life is, and always was, cheap, the
crime is still there, and drugs, murders, robberies still happen. It’s a way of
life for so many locals, and no matter how much "hype" you read and
start to believe about all the good qualities of the city, you will still find
the dirt, noise, poverty, squalor, pollution, traffic jams, and other things
you thought you'd never encounter there. And I know some folk will deny this,
but Cali is
much the same too. Cali, also the home of one of
the most notorious cartels, still has the same mentality in its people, just
like Medellin. Bogota too. But here in Bogota, the problem of
the legacy of the cartels is much, much less. You find the biggest presence of
the cartels is closer to where the stuff grows, and the violence that it
breeds. Crime here in Bogota
is more "everyday crime", a few muggings, cellphone robberies, etc,
and the most severe aspects like murders etc, are usually found in places where
you wouldn't go anyway. But getting back to Medellin,
people still make a beeline for Medellin,
based on the hype that promoted it as an expat destination, but in whose
interest is it, to tell the truth about the place? Not the city's local
authorities, not the tourist boards, not the property developers, and not even
the expats who have bought expensive property there, as to tell you that it’s
unsafe will only devalue their own properties. Colombia is a beautiful place, with
many wonderful things. But it is essential to be realistic, and realize that
there are problems everywhere, just like New York,
Chicago, Detroit,
London, Paris, Brussels or the Philippines
or Thailand.
In life we have to take some risks, or we would all live in little boxes with
armed guards, like living in a prison cell. But we have to try to minimise
those risks wherever we can. Running away doesn't solve anything, and you may
well run straight into another risk somewhere else. All we can do is take any
sensible precautions that we can, and rely on luck to play its part too, Most
of us will get through just fine, but there will always be a risk of an incident
somewhere, sometime, somehow, just like back home.
At 1:30 it started raining hard which turned the weather
much cooler.
About 2pm the dogs went crazy as a young man showed up. I understood the word water (they probably
meant rain) but didn’t know what was going on when Teresa went into the
bathroom and started cleaning the sink.
I understood a couple minutes later when the rest of the family that
visited us last Tuesday arrived. They
all sat in the living room and talked for awhile. Then they toured the house again including
the loft area and out back.
After they left Teresa informed me that the father has a lot
of money and also had a gun. That kind
of trumps the pepper spray I was carrying in my pocket. I hope he settles the score with those
thieves next time they come back to get more money from the gringo.
We watched a DVD movie that Laura had called And Soon the Darkness (5.2). I had seen it before – don’t remember where
or when or with whom.
I watched Dragonfly
(6.1) from my hard drive. It was an
atypical Kevin Costner movie.
I heard it start raining as we went to be at 11:15.
T-shirt of the day: Make me feel invicible.
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