Ukraine, for many Americans is way out there – somewhere in the nowhere land of Uzbekistan or North Korea. Ukraine is very far away from our daily lives.

And yet, it may be worth our while paying a little attention to what’s going on in Ukraine right now. It might just have consequences for all of us down the line.

A friend went home to spend Christmas with family in Venezuela – a much closer geography. He tells me that the dollarization of the Venezuelan economy is to all extents and purposes done. Motorcycle delivery guys can now make change for a $20 US bill with 20 US $1 bills. The bolivar is history. The surprise was that, in addition to paying for goods and services in dollars, in Venezuela my friend could now also pay with Russian rubles.

It’s a small, but pertinent, detail.

Venezuela, along with the rest of Caribbean, Central and South America, were once unequivocally considered to be under the umbrella of US purview. Let’s not forget the Cuban Missile Crisis as an earlier attempt to disrupt that way of the world. And yet, quietly, and somewhat menacingly to a distracted US, Russia has in recent years again begun to spread its tentacles into the economic heart of one of our neighbors immediately to our south.

How many rubles go about their daily lives in Venezuela? Nobody knows.

Food is once again abundant in Caracas, at least and perhaps not only, in its better neighborhoods. There are whispers of hope in the air. The dollar is now king. If you have dollars, you can not only just get by, but also even live well. The caveat, of course, is that you have dollars. Those millions of Venezuelans who had, out of necessity, to flee Venezuela in recent years are not in that column. After you force the poor, the needy and the undesirable out, you can aspire to a thriving society, apparently. Regrettably, we’ve seen attempts at that scenario before in our history. When you muscle any segment of your population out, you are veering far away from accepted norms of decency.

Almost suddenly, after years of waste, destruction and damage to the lives of its citizens and the infrastructure of the country, Venezuela is now signaling an economic shift. By the end of December 2021, the country had doubled its petroleum output from just a year before – not back to when Venezuela was a major force in petroleum production worldwide, but a long way toward a surprising and flag-waving celebratory candle cake for the Maduro regime.

Money is once again flowing, if not into Venezuela – at least not from the known Western world, then definitively round and about within its borders. What kind of money, again we don’t entirely know. So many Venezuelans have been sanctioned by the United States that now those very same Venezuelan citizens may just have decided to keep their enormous wealth home and plow it back into their country’s economy. Sanctions are flawed, and in this case, perhaps, counter-productive to US interests. Money needs a sanctuary. And just maybe, Venezuela is now a sanctuary for its own and odd money in general.

And in this repositioning of Venezuela, the ground has shifted.

Russia and China are now firmly ensconced, along with Iran, as Venezuela’s allies, protectors and supporters.

Why is that important?

Because this is happening in the Americas, just a little less than 2,000 miles south of Key West. This is not some distant Ukraine, Belarus or Uzbekistan.

For better or worse, for decades after WW2, it was taken as a given that the Americas were within the United States general sphere of interest and influence. We had sometimes benign and at times harmful relationships with nations within that domain.

Russia, on the other hand, had all of Eastern Europe, and not coincidentally, Ukraine and the Stan countries at its southern borders, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan et al to do with whatever it wished.

East was East, and West was West.

Except that many of the countries under Russian overview weren’t happy with that division. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, those nations grabbed at the chance of change. Ukraine wanted autonomy from its overseer, Russia. Ukraine wanted to shift its essential values westward. As did Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia and many of the former Russian affiliates.

And Europe opened its bosom.

Europe said, Come on in!

Ukraine was a big fan of the EU, and Ukraine said, Let’s do it.

And all was good, for a while.

Then came Putin, a Russian ultranationalist, a man obsessed with Russian power and superiority, a man with an exaggerated ego rarely seen in history – Thump not withstanding, a man focused on a Soviet-style view of the world as a greater Russia reinvigorated, a man who feels Ukraine’s aspirations as somehow a threat to his nationalistic manhood.

Cuba means nothing to Putin. He has done nothing to alleviate Cuba’s pain. Venezuela, on the other hand, sitting atop the world’s largest oil reserves -greater even than Saudi Arabia’s, means a lot.

And if Ukraine can be European, maybe Venezuela can be Russian, if you will.

Welcome to Putin’s worldview.

In Venezuela, Putin gets to mess with America like never before.

Almost overnight in the Ukraine crisis now upon us, all bets are off.

On Jan 14th, the BBC reported that …

“… a senior diplomat in the Kremlin described two recent rounds of talks with the US and NATO as “unsuccessful.” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who led negotiations with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, said he didn’t want “to confirm anything, won’t exclude anything here either”. When asked whether Russia might consider establishing a military presence in Washington’s backyard, Mr Ryabkov said it depended “on the actions of American colleagues”

Russia is not excluding a presence in Cuba or Venezuela; quite the opposite, in fact. Russia is positioning itself for a major confrontation that may just include the Americas.

Putin’s focus is far beyond Ukraine.

So we might just think about projecting ourselves a little bit (or a lot) into our near future.

Russia invades Ukraine.

The US imposes unprecedented sanctions on Russia’s banks and ways of doing business with the rest of the world.

Russia reacts. Russia sends military equipment and/or troops to Venezuela and Cuba.

Then what?

The US sends troops to Colombia?

A young Colombian friend of mine was already thinking about that possibility in a conversation with his friends at lunchtime here in Bogotá today.

Those with upcoming military service are worried, he told me.

And so, Ukraine has come home to roost.

Ukraine is not so far away at all, as it turns out. In fact, perhaps Ukraine is already here.

So now what?

The post Venezuela: Ukraine comes home to roost appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Lockdown and its close-knit family of dry laws, masking, self-isolation, curfew and quarantine have had extended shelf life here in pandemic Colombia. Throw in some country-specific phenomena such as repeated street demonstrations, roadblocks, food distribution standstills, general unrest and widespread vandalism, and you begin to get a glimmer of present-day life in this Latin American country, just about 1,725 miles south of Miami.

As things in the United States begin to show serious signs of returning to some semblance of normal, life in many other places in the world shows a contrast as stark as day and night.

In Colombia, the common expression such is life has taken on a whole new meaning.

Some days, evenings or nights, here in front of my building in Bogotá, the sound of a saxophone makes itself known. In the years before the pandemic, this was an unknown amplification. Yet now suddenly, a lonely saxophone can throw us back haphazardly and without notice to the origins of jazz, to poverty and pain. The saxophonist sets up shop in front of building after building and plays his set repeatedly throughout the evening. The lonely sax player is doing his best to make ends meet during a pandemic that seems to have no end.

I have left my building in Bogotá precisely three times in the last nine months; once in April to get my first AstraZeneca jab. Last month, I needed cash to pay a  plumber for an apartment emergency, so I went to an ATM. And three weeks ago, after a seeming never-ending 12-week wait, I went to the San Ignacio Hospital at the Javeriana University to get my second AstraZeneca shot. I finished my 21-day waiting period for maximum immunity to click in just a few days ago. Will my behavior and routine change much? I don’t think so.

Here at the end of June 2021, infection numbers and deaths were breaking records daily. Although we now appear to have passed the peak of our third wave, the mayor of Bogotá is warning that we will most likely have a fourth. As of this writing, the country has had more than 4.6 million Covid cases and there have been 117,000 Covid-related deaths. The daily death rate is still hovering, down somewhat from the third peak, at around 500, and Semana is reporting that one in three Colombians has now had Covid.

Yet, even now, in the midst of so much continuing and brutal uncertainly and after a year and edging toward a year and a half of pandemic living, I have been able to isolate some simple life lessons from my time in isolation (pardon the pun.)

#1 Creating order has opioid-like calming benefits

I don’t have a housekeeper. Making my bed in the morning has always been my responsibility. And I’ve always done it (well, almost always), sometimes later in the day, sometimes earlier. Covid has taught me that earlier in the day is better. The well-being effect clicks in sooner. That I have made my bed every day since the beginning of the pandemic now registers as not only not a bad achievement at all, but as a constant top-up of good energy for the day ahead

#2 Hot water must go down as one of the most brilliant inventions in history

I am more than proud that I have taken a shower every day during this year and almost a half of Zooming. The camera may not lie, but Zoom surely can. I could have gotten away with a day without a shower. Nobody would have been the wiser. But even if my shower happened in the late afternoon, it was still a shower. I have done something like 500 showers since March of last year. I may no longer be definably sane, but I am, and have been, clean. And the rush of hot water revitalizing my body must go down as one of the greatest inventions of all time, way ahead of the Model T, and perhaps just edging out the magic of Photoshop.

#3 Physical books rule

The pandemic has secured streaming as most likely the way we are going to watch movies from here on in. Cinema as we used to know it, going to a public movie palace to view the latest Hollywood offerings along with hundreds of other non-vetted fellow earthlings is over. Ah, but books! Books are forever. Books are physical, to be enjoyed alone in the privacy of home. Throw in the fact that Amazon is now offering free delivery on books to Colombia, and I’m in 7^th pandemic heaven. (Everything is relative.) Books lead us inward to discover nuances of meaning and feeling that movies can only envy. I just finished reading Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of the Celt, and I am humbled. Vargas Llosa’s study and investigation of the life of the Irish patriot Roger Casement leaves me in awe. If any book can change perceptions of history, Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of the Celt can. The book is a spectacular achievement.

#4 I am not Anthony Bourdain

I am not a food adventurer. I do like to eat out, and was amused to read mid-pandemic that what people missed most about going out to eat was not the food but seeing other people. Restaurants, it seems, are our showcases for seeing and for being seen. Restaurants are fashion hotspots, of all things. Lockdown, of course, changed all of that. Stuck at home, I learned that I can cook the same dish twice a week, without shame. I now know that I can get by on maybe 20 to 40 basic recipes for life. I’m good with my food. Oh and during this pandemic time of self-distancing, I have finally figured out how to scramble an egg. A pinch of corn flour does the trick. That and a splash of cream. Add chopped tomato and onion, and there you go, perfect Colombian huevos pericos.

#5 Cat litter is the equivalent of modern-day gold

Having lived with cats all my life, I understand that said cats depend on me for pretty much everything, Covid or no Covid. At the beginning of hard lockdown, when store shelves were being emptied of everything, I panicked. What the hell, is there going to be food available for my cats? I wondered. Luckily, there was. But more importantly I immediately conjectured, Is there going to be cat litter? I still remember the moment I called my local cat store, wondering what kind of future we all were going to have without said cat litter. I nervously asked, Do you have Fresh and Clean? Yes, they did. Big sigh of relief! Of course, that didn’t stop me early in the pandemic from hoarding bags of cat litter the way others were stockpiling other modern-day gold products like toilet paper, medical masks and Lysol Swipes. A slight confession, I am still somewhat of a cat litter hoarder. I still need to have at least two weeks of cat litter on hand to sleep easy.

#6 Pacing is a flawed mechanism for dealing with stress

As many, I thought I needed to exercise at home. I watched and emulated

the New York Times 7-minute workout exercise. I quickly discovered that my knees were not what they used to be, no matter how lite I tried to do the exercises. Locked-in at home, I thought I would just walk, pacing back and forth in my restricted apartment. I counted every footstep as I went room to room sometimes in clockwise direction, sometimes anticlockwise, sometimes totally haphazard. I noted all my pacing numbers in a daily diary. I was certifiably insane, until I realized that I was counting even in my sleep. I had gone overboard. I was counting everything, words on my computer screen, dishes I was washing, the number of food deliveries I was having. I’m happy to relate that the pacing and its annotation have long gone out the window.

#7 Crazy has left the building (or everything has its moment)

A decent night’s sleep depends on so many factors, some in our control, others not. Not only has counting my pacing numbers left my mindset, but so too has counting the days until the end of the term of the ludicrous and cartoon persona that was so much in our face over the last four, now distancing, years. This nightmare has, at least for the moment, left the arena. Everything has its moment, and just so everything has its end. The pain, and daily anxiety of dealing with this shadowy figure, who somehow got to be president and install himself as a curse for many not just in the US but around the world, is done. We can only hope. It doesn’t matter that he refuses to let go. Fold this figure into the shadows of history. Now, there is one less anxiety factor getting in the way of sleep.

#8 Mortality is a real thing

I have limited time here on earth. It’s a thought that has occurred to most of us during this pandemic. We are not in control of our destiny. Before this massive interruption to everyday life, maybe some of us thought we were good going forward. Others of us knew we were not in control long ago. A friend said to me early on in this pestilence, “We are back in the Middle Ages.” Not exactly. We have quickly garnered weapons to combat our plague. I am not religious and I hate to posturize, but I think that perhaps our most rewarding lesson from this intrusion of nature might be to think about how much good we can do in our time here on earth. ”How can we best contribute to the lives of others?” It’s a question well worth considering, it seems to me now.

#9 Tillie Olsen knew it all along

The repeated arm movement of pressing heat over dampened clothes to establish order when ironing is soothing and contributive to contemplation. Ironing’s sisters, folding, airing and placing on shelves or in drawers are equally good companions for reflection and for fortifying our inner selves. When we have something so rich in our lives, what do we do? Replace it, of course. We modernize. How about we invent something called a dryer? Throw soothing and contemplative out the window. True, a drying machine gets clothes dried fast, as often as not eliminating the need to iron. Here in Bogotá, I don’t have a dryer. I hang my clothes up to dry, as do most Colombians. When the clothes are ready, I iron, just as people have done for a long while before me.

#10 Breathe in breathe out/ Life goes on

We may like it or we may not, but in one form or another, life goes on. The Spanish Flu pandemic killed from 20 to 50 million people, and possibly many more. It infected some 500 million. Then came the Roaring 20’s, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Swinging 60’s, the Vietnam War, Hippies and Yuppies, the Internet and a new millennium. We were home free. Or so we thought. Only not. We were somehow hard-wired to repeat a pandemic lost in history to most. As of now, our Covid pandemic has taken more than 4 million lives worldwide. Our infections are at close to 200 million. And we are not out of the woods yet. Sometimes, I lie on my bed, and I start a breathing exercise learned in therapy in New York many years ago. I teach my body to relax. I start with my small right toe. I am calm, peaceful, relaxed, I tell my small right toe. I breathe in, I breathe out. I continue toe by toe, limb by limb, body part by body part. I end with my brain. And then, I start again. I am calm, peaceful, relaxed. And then for a while, I am at peace. And if successful, I may even find myself asleep.

The post Bogota breakdown: 10 lessons from an endless COVID lockdown appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In quarantine here in Bogotá, the days flow into more days.

But sometimes the routine of sameness is broken up. At a certain moment, live amplified mariachis playing in front of my building can break into song without warning.

Mariachis, and Bogotá has many, have a long tradition here. It used to be that mariachis congregated in one area of the city, along Avenida Caracas in the 50’s blocks. Anybody celebrating an aniversary, a birthday or a surprise event could drive up and hire a group of mariachi musicians right off the street, and the mariachis would follow the hirer to his of her home where they would suddenly burst into song outside the window of the surprised. This usually happened at night to increase the surprise.

Quarantine has changed all that. Nobody is driving to Avenida Caracas to hire mariachis anymore. The business model has changed.

Now the mariachis are wandering the streets of Bogotá playing in front of random buildings, looking for customers in broad daylight, hoping aginst hope that someone will hire them and pay them for their music.

They are not alone.

Other musicians of all variety have begun doing the same. At any time of the day, there can be a sudden eruption of music on the streets outside. Today there was a very powerful drumming ensemble. I had never heard this sound nor this vibration before and was unsure at first about what was going on. My cats were equally unsure and raced to the windows. These were amplified drummers looking to impress, and they did, and again looking to drum up business, and again in need of money.

Colombia is going through one of the longest quarantines in the world. 2 other Latin American countries, Peru and Argentina, are in the same boat. In Bogotá, we started our quarantine early, mid-March, and we are still going strong. Colombia’s President Duque said this week that 57% of Colombians, out of a population of 50 million, are still living their lives in self-isolation. And our quarantine countrywide, just now, has been extended till the end of August. Occupancy in ICU’s in Bogotá is hovering at about 90%, and our peak is not expected for some more weeks.

Vehicular traffic on the street outside my building is minimal; there are at times delivery trucks, taxis and some cars. Quarantine has been a boon for food and supermarket delivery services, so there are often motorcycle deliverers, bicycle deliverers and even pedestrian deliverers coming and going. I see people walk their dogs, and some people, though not many, going out with shopping bags and coming back from the supermarket with their shopping bags full.

Sometimes our quarantine has been strict, only one person per household allowed out at a time for essentials such as groceries, banking or pharmacy purchases. And sometimes our quarantine has been more relaxed though the city still maintains a control that only allows those whose national identification number ends in an even number to go out for needed services on even dates, and those whose ID’s end in an odd number to go out on odd dates.

And in this way, we go on. Days flow into more days.

Every so often, there are desperate shouts from those in dire straits walking the streets. Help us! they cry out. We need food, we need help! Men and women are wandering the city begging for help.

But we are in the middle of a pandemic with an uncertain future. Few are in a position to offer scarce money to all of those asking for help, and to those who might come tomorrow encouraged by those who got something today.

Others come by my building, shouting Eucalipto from the street. They are selling eucaliptus leaves. Colombians have a soothing belief in the power of eucaliptus to cleanse the body. I’m all in, but I haven’t gone down to the gate of my building to buy Eucalipto leaves yet.

People have been telling me for months that I have to go out.

 You need to leave your apartment, many have said. Go and walk about your neighborhood. Feel the sun on your skin!

 My psychologist has advised the same.

 For months, I felt no pressing need to heed their advice. But I went out last week for the first time in four and a half months. I put on my N95 mask, my doorman opened the gate of my building and I was free. I walked downhill, knowing full well that I would have to retrace my steps uphill to get home. My mask felt tight on my face, and that was good. I felt protected. I walked about my Chapinero Alto neighborhood in Bogotá, feeling my breath pushing out and pulling in within my mask, not exactly comfortable but not completely unbearable either.

I found a city transformed.

Restaurants that defined the Zona G, the Gourmet dining area of the city, are now not only shuttered, but decimated, their furnishings removed, their windows displaying For Rent/ Space Available signs. The local Starbucks store and other coffee shops were open for to-go only; their indoor seating areas were blocked off for all. Some other restaurants have banners plastered across their facades large enough for passing motorists or bus passengers to see their phone numbers and their now Deliveries Only presence. It’s clear that many restaurants are gone forever. And gone with them the employment they offered to so many. Seeing this new ragged restaurant reality impacted and saddened me.

Corner grocery stores were open. These mom and pop stores have no choice. They open or they go hungry. Taxis were still parked on both sides of 65^th Street; their drivers were still congregated in front of the small storefront where they take their coffee on break. Nobody was actually drinking coffee. The drivers wore masks, but there was no social distancing; they were just chatting as close together as before. These are the same drivers who might show up if I ever requested taxi service, those professing their taxi disinfected and their willingness to serve. I am not, other than in an extreme emergency, going to be calling a cab anytime soon.

I stopped in at a vegetable store that had clear guidelines on how to self-distance and shop posted at the entrance. Many stores here are completely open to the street with neither doors nor windows during business hours, so there is ventilation. I paid for my vegetables in cash – fresh avocados for the first time in months – and put the change into a separate pocket of my jacket where is stayed isolated for many days.

In complete contrast to the United States, since March there have been no passenger flights, other than humanitarian, within or to or from Colombia. There is no intercity bus service, the most common way for Colombians to travel. In fact there is no interstate, or interdepartment as it is here, travel without special permission for extenuating circumstances. Where you happened to be toward the end of March is pretty much where you are today.

And so for the moment, the days flow into new days, one day not at all unlike the day before.

The post Bogota quarantine: Nobody is hiring mariachis anymore appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In November 2016, then-Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signed peace agreements with the FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,) Colombia’s largest guerrilla group at the time. It was a moment that promised more than 50 million Colombians the tantalizing prospect of a new life without the daily fear that 50-plus years of violence had imposed on the country. That same year, Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, “for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people.”

 One of the most controversial provisions of the peace accords was the establishment of a parallel system of justice, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, commonly called the JEP. The JEP functions alongside but completely independent from the the Colombian Attorney General’s Office. The peace treaties specify that:

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace will exercise judicial functions, and will fulfill the duty of the Colombian state to investigate, prosecute and sanction crimes committed in the context of and due to the armed conflict, and in particular, the most serious and representative.

If a crime was committed by the FARC, by their paramilitary counterparts or by their legal Colombian military contemporaries prior to the signing of the peace agreements, the JEP’s jurisdiction is clear. The JEP’s objectives are outlined in the accords as these:

Contribute toward the historical clarification of what happened. Promote and contribute to the recognition of the victims; of responsibility for those that were involved directly or indirectly in the armed conflict; and of the society as a whole for what happened. Promote coexistence across the country.

Guilt? Retribution? Punishment?

Not a lot of emphasis is placed on guilt, retribution or punishment. And many Colombians felt, and still feel today, that the JEP’s mission was, and is, way too compassionate on guerrillas who bombed, maimed, kidnapped, terrorized and killed their families and fellow citizens for over half a century. According to the Colombian National Center for Historical Memory, 220,000 people died in the conflict between 1958 and 2013, most of them civilians, and more than 5 million civilians were forced from their homes between 1985 – 2012.  And the conflict didn’t end in 2012.

What many Colombians focused on in the peace agreements saw was this:

…that those who decisively participated in the most serious and representative crimes and recognize their responsibility, will receive a sanction containing an effective restriction of their liberty for 5 to 8 years, in addition to the obligation to carry out public works and reparation efforts in the affected communities.”

The 5 to 8 years stipulation addled many. Public works? A sanction equal to a restriction of liberty? These questions gave many in Colombia pause. In fact, a majority of Colombians voted against the Peace Accords when given the opportunity to do so in a referendum on October 2, 2016. The accords later found a way to ratification through Santos’s congressional initiatives, some might say manipulation. Santos’s Nobel Peace Prize had already been announced.

The Santrich Affair

Under the peace agreements, ten former-guerrilla leaders were given guaranteed seats in the Colombian House of Representatives, no election required. The FARC got to choose the nominees for these ten. And the FARC chose Seuxis Paucias Hernández Solarte, generally known by his wartime alias — Jesús Santrich — and one of the key negotiators in the peace process, for one of those seats. The FARC was now a legitimate political party.

Already on April 10, 2018, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York had announced that Jesús Santrich and 3 others had been arrested in Colombia and accused of “conspiring and attempting to import cocaine into the United States.” Colombia and the United States have a drug trafficking extradition treaty in place that goes back decades.

 The Southern District of New York’s evidence indicated that Santrich’s involvement in drug dealing occurred after the signing of the Peace Agreements and that he was therefore excluded from protection under the JEP’s judicial oversight.

“As alleged, the defendants conspired to ship cocaine from Colombia to the streets of the US. Thanks to the investigative work of the DEA, they are now under arrest and face significant criminal charges,” US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in a statement. The 4 arrested were charged with plotting to import ten tons of cocaine to the US, a shipment with an estimated street value of $320 million.

Marlon Marín, a nephew of another former FARC leader, Iván Márquez, was one of those arrested with Santrich. His uncle, Iván Márquez was again a FARC nominee for a no-vote-needed seat in Congress. After Santrich’s arrest, Márquez went into hiding. In late May of this year, Rodrigo Londoño, alias Timochenko, former head of the aforementioned guerrilla group FARC, chief negotiator for the FARC in the peace meetings in Havana and more recently a candidate for President of Colombia, distanced himself from Iván Márquez. He said that Márquez’s pronouncement, that it was a mistake for the FARC to have given up their arms, was wrong.

Upon his arrest, Marlon Marín offered to cooperate in the Santrich investigation, and following meetings with the DEA in Bogotá, his extradition order was rescinded and he was flown to the US as a protected witness.

Santrich remained in jail, pending extradition.

Colombia held presidential elections in 2018. Santos left office on August 6 of that year, and on August 7, his successor, Iván Duque Márquez, became President of Colombia. Duque had run on a platform emphasizing a reexamination of the terms of the mandate of the JEP.

As president, Duque insisted on his reforms to the decrees underlining the legitimacy of the JEP. His appeal went to the Senate and Congress. The results were indecisive. And Duque refused to sign off on the regulation of the basic legal structure of the peace agreements.

In the meantime, Santrich appealed his case to the JEP.

The JEP heard Santrich’s objections to his extradition. And on May 15 of this year, the JEP decided that Santrich should be freed and be immune from extradition to the United States. The decision was unprecedented in Colombian-American cooperation. One quick result of this decision was that videos of Santrich negotiating with Mexican drug cartel members began to appear on line, associating him through popular social media in drug dealing. Colombians were stunned.

And immediately upon his release, Santrich was rearrested by the Colombian Attorney General’s Office, based on new evidence that implicated him once again in illegal drug trafficking after the signing of the peace agreements.

What’s going on here? Who’s in control?

Apparently, the Supreme Court of Colombia. The Supreme Court of Colombia stepped in and announced on May 29 that Santrich should indeed be freed. The Supreme Court has jurisdiction over cases of wrongdoing by any Congressman or Senator. Even though Santrich had never taken an oath of office, the Supreme Court accepted that this was not of his volition; as he was under arrest at the time, he was unable to participate in a signing-in ceremony.

President Duque’s response was immediate and decisive. Duque called Santrich a mafioso, a term that in Colombia encompasses all those who are not guerrillas but who are underworld actors.

Santrich was freed on May 30.

But the Supreme Court wasn’t finished. On the same day, May 29, that they ordered the release of Santrich, the Supreme Court had a second pronouncement. The Court ruled that in the Senate and Congress a majority had indeed voted to deny President Duque’s objections to the underlying legal structure of the JEP and ordered the President to sign the statutory laws governing the JEP. On June 6^, Duque signed off on the structural laws guaranteeing the legitimacy of the JEP.  It would not be a stretch to say to say that he did this willingly.

The Supreme Court has assumed control of the Santrich affair and affirmed its jurisdiction over his case. A huge power shift has taken place in the country. Does evidence implicate Santrich in drug dealing before or after the signing of the peace agreement, or indicate any involvement at all? The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is convinced. They want Santrich extradited.

In Colombia, the Supreme Court will decide.

On June 6, the Supreme Court of Colombia announced that it had initiated an investigation of Santrich’s involvement in drug trafficking. They invited Marlon Marín, now a protected witness and a person under US custody to give evidence. The nitty-gritty of his evidence is proving bureaucratic to even get started. Permissions from the US Justice Department are now needed for Marlon Marín’s appearance, even video-appearance in Colombia. A date for his appearance has yet to be set.

On June 11, Santrich was officially signed in as a Representative in the Colombian Congress, and on June 12, he took possession of his congressional seat.

Right now, the Santrich affair is what Colombians wake up to the morning and go to sleep with at night. The process of peace in Colombia, the promotion of coexistence across the country as iterated in the mandate of the JEP, is proving hard to even get off the ground.

 The JEP has a ten-year mandate. Will the historical clarification of what happened in Colombia ever see the light of day? Colombians are at this moment in time, in all honesty, unsure.

The post The complicated, ever-evolving, nitty-gritty of peace in Colombia appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In 1971 after graduating college, I left Ireland. The zeitgeist and personal choice led me to the US, first to Ohio and then to Boston before I settled for a good long stretch of years in New York City. Eventually I was drawn to the more tranquil life of Columbia County in upstate New York; at least until the effort of shoveling snow for at times 6 months of the year finally persuaded me to move to the warmer climes of Florida. But I was never a happy camper in Florida, the absence of snow and snow shovels notwithstanding. And so, looking for further change, I began to make investigative trips to Mexico and Peru. By happenstance, two discount airlines just then began to offer service from Florida to Bogotá, Colombia. The fares were less than $200 round-trip, and before long I was back and forth to Colombia for long weekends and semester breaks from my teaching job in Florida. I had a summer semester free and decided I would spend it in Bogotá teaching English. That was mid-May of 2010. By June, I had decided to move to Colombia.

My first commitment was to live here for a year. I would teach some English classes, do some writing and continue my work as a cartoonist. And I did that. I packed my Florida essentials and had them shipped to Bogotá. And as often happens, one year became two, and then two became three. And three has just now become nine. Colombia’s tourism slogan the year I arrived was the only risk is wanting to stay. And there might be just some truth to that.

Over the years, I’ve learned a thing of two about Colombia. Here are the nine most important things I’ve learned in nine years living in Colombia.

1. Patience is a virtue.

In my first year in Colombia, I befriended a psychic; we worked at the same real-estate development company. It’s so strange to me that I’m living in Colombia, I said to Mariana over lunch one day. You do know why you’re here, don’t you, she added immediately. The reason you’re in Colombia is to learn patience, she said without missing a beat. Well, she was the psychic, not me. But being in Colombia to learn patience made perfect and immediate sense to me. If there was anything I needed in my life, it was patience. New York and my own personality had instilled in me a need to go go go, and perhaps the time had come to change to slow slow slow, or at least to slow, slow, slower.

In Colombia, the opportunities for learning patience are multiple. People jump lines constantly, on the pretense that they just have a simple question to ask that will take at most a couple of seconds to answer. This is rarely the case. Not only do people jump lines, but they also interrupt your conversation when you’re with any customer service representative in any situation. Una preguntita, señorita, someone will say over your shoulder while you are earnestly and intensely trying to understand, for instance in my case, why $3000 had disappeared from my bank account. (It happened!) The common response to this type of interruption in other areas of the world might be Please Ma’am, I’m with a customer, take a place in line. In Colombia, the immediate response is for the customer service person in question to begin to interact with the reprobate who is trying to jump turn. How can I help? What happened? Let me take your details. Trust me, your patience will have many opportunities to the taxed in Colombia.

2. Buenos días, Buenas tardes

Politeness reigns supreme. Colombian Spanish is somewhat formal; its reach goes back centuries. Usted is often used instead of the more relaxed day-to-day tú. Boarding an Iberia flight from Bogotá to Madrid a couple of years ago, I was surprised to be greeted by the flight attendants by a simple Hola. Bogotanos are exceedingly polite, and there is a protocol of niceties that is followed at all times. The morning greeting is Buenos días. The response is Buenos días. In the afternoon, Buenas tardes is answered by Buenas tardes. My flight was an afternoon flight, and Hola just sounded wrong to my ear. In Lima, Perú, I walked into a bookstore and the woman working there greeted me with Que tal? (What’s up?) I literally looked around to see if she was addressing a friend of hers behind me. She wasn’t; she was greeting me. And again coming from Bogotá, I was surprised by the familiarity.

3. Con mucho gusto

Con mucho gusto are three words that define Bogotá, and in fact all of Colombia. With great pleasure! You will hear Con mucho gusto daily in all kinds of contexts. Paying for a coffee costing 70¢ at the phenomenally successful coffee chain Tostao, you say Thanks/ Gracias. The response is Con mucho gusto. And this is the Colombian part; the communication of Con mucho gusto is heartfelt. To me, more than With great pleasure, I always hear We’re all in this together. Leaving my orthopedist’s office this afternoon, I thanked him again for a very successful surgery. He responded with Con mucho gusto. And then getting out of the taxi that brought me home, I paid my taxi driver the amount on his meter (taxis are ridiculously cheap in Bogotá!) I said Thank you. And with a sincerity that’s hard to communicate in writing he told me Con mucho gusto.

4. Su merced

Addressing someone as Su merced goes back centuries. It has long gone out of use in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. Su merced basically translates as Your Grace. The expression communicates respect on the part of the addressee for the person being addressed. It’s an extremely formal and old-fashioned choice of words. But here’s the thing; Su merced is commonplace in Bogotá. You will hear strangers addressing one another as Su merced, but you will also hear couples addressing each other with Su merced as a token of respect. I mentioned this to a friend in Peru some years ago and his immediate response was I want to live in Bogotá!

5. Family is close to the heart.

To understand the closeness of family in Colombia, I always think of the mothers that I see daily on the streets and public transportation of Bogotá, and yes fathers at times too, bundling their newborn in handheld blankets. Strollers and baby buggies are generally for the wealthy few and perhaps even then optional. Touch with newborns is essential and closeness to one’s blood here is physical. Colombians carry their babies close to their hearts. I can’t tell you how many times Colombians have told me I could never live outside Colombia because I need to be close to my family. Of course the truth is that as a result of the history of violence in the country, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Colombians have been forced to do exactly that, to abandon their families and seek refuge elsewhere. The resulting pain is hard to quantify.

6. Getting from point A to point B is challenging.

There is no metro or subway system here. Getting around town, you are going to have to use the same major and minor thoroughfares of the city as everyone else. Technically, there are requirements for getting a driver’s license in Colombia that include a knowledge and understanding of the basic responsibilities of being a driver in a country of just about 50 million people. And yet, all of that understanding seems to go out the open car window for 95% of Colombian drivers once they get behind the wheel of their vehicle. In other countries, as drivers, we put the rights of pedestrians above all else. Not here. As a pedestrian in Bogotá, when a car slows to a stop, and this is never the case with a taxi (so watch out for taxis!) to allow you to cross the street at a legally designated crosswalk, you may just feel that you have to express a gratitudinal bow, a tip of a hat, a thumbs up, a wow am I lucky moment to the car driver in question.

Why as a driver when you pass your exit or turn-off should you continue on to the next exit to get back to where you wanted to be when you can just back up against traffic for a block (or 2) even on a freeway? Stop signs are generally understood as mere suggestions, compliance optional. The best advice when confronted with traffic, whether as a pedestrian, passenger or driver in Bogotá, is simply to keep your wits about you.

Bicycles have become more and more popular in recent years. In Bogotá, there are some bike-designated lanes. There are other sort-of-suggested bike lanes. And there are places in Bogotá now where with bike lanes, official bus stop waiting areas and age-old trees there is literally very little room left for pedestrians to walk.

The latest addition to street congestion here is scooters. Pick-up, drop-off electric scooters are everywhere. Pay by credit card; pick up your scooter and go. Drop off wherever. Wherever literally means wherever; this is often once again in the middle of a pedestrian sidewalk. On the way to your drop-off point, use the congested roadways mentioned above, helmet optional. Zip here and there through pedestrian traffic, or take your chances weaving in and out along the roadways of the city already crowded with motorcycles, buses, taxis, delivery and private vehicles trying to get from here or there. Oh and remember what I was saying about driver education. Scooter users get to play just by having a credit card, no knowledge of rules of the road required. Living here, you are going to have to interact with all of the above getting around Bogotá on a daily basis, like it or not.

7. Colombia has strata.

Colombia has a rare 6-tier stratified economic system that’s hard to get your head around. Looking for an apartment, you will be told that it’s estrato 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. The designation is mainly based on the neighborhood; the appearance of surrounding buildings and the materials used in the construction of the building you might live in suggest to a government scout the estrato of your district. The estrato of your apartment is a small but important detail in choosing where to live. Living in an estrato 6 building means your utilities will be billed at a higher rate than anyone living in any other estrato in the city. Essentially those living in estrato 5 and 6 neighborhoods pitch in to help those living in estrato 1 and 2 areas. The bottom line in terms of taxes and monthly bills is that the rich pay more, the poor pay less. The system was designed to try to balance things out. Does it? That’s hard to say. As with any system, there are abuses and ways to circumvent the original intent. UN-Habitat, a United Nations group dedicated to better urban living worldwide, believes that the Colombian system of strata over time has come to divide rather than define the glue that holds us all together. And there’s some truth to that. On dating apps, you will at times find people looking for someone in a specific estrato, 2, 4 or 6 wanting to connect only to someone in their own estrato.

8. Your cédula (national identity card) is everything.

Want to know how having a national identity works day to day? Come to Colombia. Your cédula keeps track of you wherever you go, whatever you do. Buying underwear a few years back, I was asked for my cédula. I gave it. Did Colombia really need to know my choice in underwear? I doubt it. Buying paint when I was redoing my apartment, the same thing. The government now knows that I bought white paint to renovate my apartment. The first question you will be asked at any bank, clinic, government agency, airline, pharmacy or supermarket is Numero de Cédula? The country is trying to track the use of drug money; I understand that. Did I buy three private jets within the last month? That might raise an alarm. No, I didn’t. But did I really repaint my apartment with the white paint I bought? Nobody knows that but me.

9. Gentrification. What gentrification?

I just read a post on a Smith Street, Brooklyn, NY website bemoaning the flight of essential services from a long established, but now happening, NY city neighborhood. A supermarket that had served the neighborhood for years has given up the ghost: likewise, a local hardware store. I have seen gentrification at work in various cities in Europe and the United States. Step back in time. Gentrification, per se, doesn’t exist in Bogotá. There are hardware stores, ferreterías, on practically every block. Whatever you need in terms of the maintenance or upgrade of your home or apartment is available close to where you live. Likewise, sasterías. Sasterías are tailors’ shops where you can have any modification, repair, change or enhancement done to any garment that you own within hours. There are shoe-repair shops every couple of blocks. There is a Cigarrería, where you can buy anything from wine to an onion, on practically every corner of the city. Panaderías, bakeries with in-house ovens are yours for the asking. The sense of neighborhood and the services that neighborhoods provide are very much alive and completely at the service of their communities in Bogotá. Would I trade this for Carroll Gardens, New York, or Google’s Seattle, or any neighborhood in San Francisco right now? No way. In Bogotá, I’m doing fine: all the services that I need are just a stone’s throw away. And my peace of mind, as MasterCard might say, is priceless.

The post 9 things I’ve learned in 9 years in Colombia appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I don’t want to leave, but I have to.

When I left, I didn’t want to go. But in Venezuela, there was nothing more I could do. After a year and a half of soul-sapping mental and emotional questioning and re-questioning, late in 2017 I packed my life into two suitcases and a bag. Every day the crisis was worse than the day before; there were shortages of food and basic products, and in order to stretch what little money there was, it was necessary at times to wait in line for up to three days.

At my last lunch at my mother’s house right before leaving, my Mom as always busied herself in the kitchen. I couldn’t look at her face. I didn’t want to register her pain and to have that image with me as I left Venezuela. And I didn’t want her to see my face then either, a face reflecting a disenfranchised life so far from her dreams. Then in the bustling bus terminal, it seemed like years had passed since I said goodbye to my family less than an hour ago. How could that be? I had at that moment the sensation of waking up from a drunken stupor, of leaving a country disintegrating from its core, of having made the right decision. And so, as I disappeared and reappeared, the night journey to Colombia gave me an inscrutable landscape of shadows and sounds drowned out by the roar of a bus engine.

I don’t want to go back, but I have to.

March 2019. I live in Bogotá, Colombia. I eke out a life very different from my previous one as an editor in Venezuela. Here, I make ends meet cleaning buildings and selling homemade jams and marmalades. The news from Venezuela is not good. As is the case with most medicines in Venezuela, my Mom’s hypertension medicine has run out. She doesn’t want to stress her children with this development. I had already sent pills from Colombia in the past. Finally, she admits to me via Whatsapp that she’s feeling very dizzy. The information alarms me. Her admission of dizziness means to me that she is really unwell. She hasn’t taken her medicine in 10 days. This sets off a series of communications between Colombia and Venezuela in a frantic search for high blood pressure medicine. An alternative is finally found, but the determination of the dosage requires a doctor’s visit. The reality of present day life in Venezuela immediately makes itself known. There is a blackout. There is no electricity. There is no more Whatsapp. A weekend looms. When my mother is able to get Whatsapp back, she tells me that she has a doctor’s visit scheduled for the upcoming Monday. But then another national blackout takes place in Venezuela. My Mom’s medical consultation never takes place.

By the time some power is restored and communication comes haltingly back, my mother has suffered a stroke. The news comes to me early on Monday through a message from my sister. Several days go by before my brothers tell me that my Mom’s death is now imminent.

I want to go back to Venezuela before it’s too late. A friend lends me the money for the trip, and I fly to Cúcuta, Colombia to get to Venezuela. The border is closed. The only way to get through is by the so-called trails, trochas, irregular pathways where people venture from one side of the border to the other. The heat here is immediately unbearable. Hundreds of people, like ants, are moving with gigantic and overweight bags along the bed of the Táchira River.

A trochero, an experienced denizen of the trails, offers me his services to help me enter Venezuela. We negotiate a price. In addition to carrying my luggage, he will help me navigate checkpoints controlled not by Colombian or Venezuelan border agents but by armed irregular groups. My trochero tells me that anyone carrying a computer or tablet will have it taken away. Here, the law of the guerrilla and the mafia prevails amid the chaos that the lack of control imposes. We cross the rocky bed of the river. Colombia, my refuge, is left behind.

We are stopped at a checkpoint. They check my bag and I make a payment to continue. Once in Venezuela and past that initial welcome, my odyssey to return home continues. The driver of a buseta, larger than a van, smaller than a bus, exercises his share of power over his passengers. The verbal abuse reflects the debasement that has taken hold of the country. The departure of the buseta is delayed by more than four hours. We finally start to travel through Venezuela in the dark.

The passageway of the buseta bus is congested with bags and packages; food and household items both for the passengers’ own consumption and for resale. The sacrifice and difficulty of the trip to Colombia is worth it in order to be able to buy something rather than having money in hand in Venezuela and not be able to do anything with it. As the bus progresses, a reality emerges to outrage basic human decency. Not more than thirty minutes into our trip, the Bolivarian National Guard stops us on the road. As passengers we must collect the equivalent of 50 thousand pesos, about $15, in order to be able to continue and not have our bags and merchandise seized or destroyed. This stoppage by the National Guard is repeated four more times on our journey. Thus the night passes.

With the sunrise, there are other images and perceptions. I don’t consider myself chauvinistic; however, I cannot help feeling love for my country. I experience a sense of belonging and rootedness in the place where I forged my character and my dreams, a place where I built a life with a purpose towards a better world. But the memories are overshadowed by the bright colors of day that reveal the ruin. What a shame. What used to be fleets of modern buses now look ramshackle and old, with plastic in the windows as a substitute for glass.

There is something strange in the environment. At a stop to rest, few sit at the tables to eat. The majority stretch a little to alleviate the tedium of the trip. Perhaps remembering past moments when they were able to enjoy a good piece of meat or cachapas stuffed with a generous supply of cheese, the passengers stand to one side. With sweaty faces and languid glances, we get back on the buseta. We all want to reach our destination, nothing more.

In daylight, the sun oppresses; it oppresses and crushes not only people, it suffocates the air itself. The visible drought is unusual. Everything seems burned and destroyed. What was once a prosperous place is now ruined, sad and backward. A former expropriated sugar cane plantation, once luxuriant and prosperous, where the best Venezuelan rums were made, now looks dry, unkempt, abandoned and signposted, paradoxically, with a discolored government billboard announcing food sovereignty for the country.

Finally in the bus terminal, the feeling of acute transformation is overwhelming. The terminal is empty. There are few buses. The stalls, stands and stores that were once bustling are now deserted. People have a previously unknown aspect: a look of extreme poverty. Some people look famished, dirty and sad, while others simply look lost, a result perhaps of so much barbarism, so much impotence and frustration. All these images are heightened by the terrible silence of a once noisy place, crowded with vehicles and smiling people, many returning from Choroní or Cata, the emblematic beaches of Aragua, the most visited in the country.

My sister is there to meet me. On the way to the hospital, the streets and avenues are empty of traffic. The absence of public transport has given way to improvised means of transportation called kennels, pick-up trucks, which transport people of all ages under the inclement sun. Children, women and the elderly travel long distances to stand in line to get water. Water rarely comes through the pipes anymore. It’s necessary to provision oneself with containers, any size serves.

My mother is in bed number 9. She is unconscious; she is in a coma. Even so, her skin is smooth and soft, her hands strong, almost ready to continue giving love through her cooking just as she did with my brothers the night before her stroke. It is not easy for me to see her diminished, helpless, defeated. But there is nothing left to do, just pray for an end to her suffering. On Sunday, after six in the morning, I am talking to my sister while we prepare breakfast. The phone rings. It’s my brother who has spent the night at my mother’s side. My mom has stopped breathing. I feel empty.

 I can no longer stay here. This is not healthy.

During my stay I see and feel the most awful consequences of this regime. There are complete days without electricity, or at times electricity for only three or four hours a day; there are days without water, with the need to share a small bucketful of water to bathe. Even the most human and intimate act of going to the bathroom becomes unbearable. Perishable foods have to be cooked, and then reheated the following morning and again the following evening simply to avoid losing them completely. Underwear has to be reused, as there is no way to wash clothes. The sharp deterioration in the quality of daily life since my original departure is shocking.

I have to leave, to get back my new life, the one that I had to begin in Bogotá just 16 months earlier. I leave my siblings and nieces and nephews deep in thoughts of their own immediate need to escape while there is still time. The scene of November of 2017 is repeated; hugs, kisses, tears, and the promise of seeing each other again, only this time without the image of my mother clinging to the railings of the house as I left. Pain and anger accompany me on my trip back to Colombia. I am dogged by the uncertainty of not knowing if my mother would still be alive if her medicine had been available. The question goes round and round in my mind; was my mother’s a natural death or the collateral damage of a crime against humanity?

But it’s the image of my mother clinging to the railings of the house, the last memory that I have of her before her stroke, that accompanies me back to Bogotá. And it’s that image that still accompanies me today.

[Editor’s note: Eduardo Ponce shared this article with his friend, Christopher Burke, a longtime contributor to Occasional Planet. Burke translated it from Spanish and sent it to Occasional Planet for publication.]

The post A country in ruins: A mother’s death in Venezuela appeared first on Occasional Planet.

This year pre-Brexit, polls in Britain were equivocal. Would Britain continue as a member of the European Community? Nobody knew. However, in the weeks before the referendum, the late polls indicated Remain winning. The polls seduced voters into believing that the country would continue as a member of the EU. Many voters just didn’t feel the need to vote.

The results of the referendum were shocking for many of voters and non-voters alike.The morning after the British population voted for separation from the EU disorientated millions of Brits. Many woke up and went about their day in a dazed state. Months later, many still do. What happened?

Seemingly contrary to common logic, the majority of British voters decided to opt out of the European Community. And many didn’t feel the need to vote. Brexit won the day.

In the US, at a distance, we wondered what was going on. But in the U.S., we are far away. We shrugged. We moved on. The other side of the pond! The polls? Who knows what gives, what gave with that?

On our side of the world, the government of Colombia, a country convulsed by guerrilla violence for more than 50 years, spent the last 4 of those years negotiating the nitty-gritty details of a peace agreement with the country’s largest guerrilla group, the FARC. The going was tough – to put it mildly, but an accord was agreed upon.

The deal needed the approval by plebiscite of the people of Colombia. The question proposed to Colombians on October 2, 2016 was this: “Do you support the Final Agreement to end the conflict and build a stable and long-lasting peace? Citizens were offered a simplified Yes or No vote as their contribution to the process of peace in their country.

In Colombia, the polls resoundingly predicted the majority of Colombians voting Yes. Many, perhaps again seduced by polls, didn’t feel the need to vote. For those who did vote, the question of justice came to the fore at the moment of casting their ballot. Many felt that the peace accords did not offer due process for their suffering.The majority of Colombians voted No to the plebiscite. The polls again proved an uncertain guide.

In the US, at a distance again, many Americans may have shrugged and thought, those South Americans. What’s with them? Get it together!

Here in the US, we have Trump versus Hillary. We have our own stuff going on. Indeed we do.We have our sides. And this year, Hillary was ahead.  Until this past weekend, the polls were showing a pretty good margin of victory for Hillary.

Enter the unknowable. Enter Weiner from New York. Enter Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s long-time personal aide. Enter the F.B.I. Director, James B. Comey. Enter uncertainty.Enter, again, the definition of honesty in politics. Enter, again, the definition of honesty in politics. Trump, in a poll released this week, is now seen as more trustworthy than Clinton.

What?

And yet, suddenly “Hillary wins!” is not quite as convincing as it seemed only a week ago.

The question arises: what comes to the fore at our moment of voting. Are we willing to put democracy at risk and put pwer in the hands of a would-be dictator, setting the US on a dangerous and unprecedented course, with an unknowable and perhaps disastrous end? Or do we decide to vote at all?

28% of eligible voters in Britain and 62% of eligible Colombians chose for reasons of their own not to vote on  matters essential to their nation’s future. In recent presidential elections here in the US, about 40% of eligible Americans have decided that voting wasn’t worth the bother.

Are we willing to be shocked when we wake up on the morning of November 9th to this headline: “Polls upended. Trump Wins by a Stunning Majority!’

The unexpected has happened before–twice this year, in fact, in Britain and Colombia.

Let’s go out and vote! Everybody’s  vote counts. And let’s cast our vote based on our convictions.

Later on, for the rest of our lives, nobody can rattle us, question us on what happened in the presidential race of 2016 – not even ourselves – no matter what the morning headlines say on November 9^th.

The post Brexit, Colombia, Trump, and the threat of the unexpected appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I find myself in an odd place: abroad. Until recently, I had CNN International included in my cable package. I had come to view CNN when there was something that resonated in an immediate way in my life. What was happening in Paris? Who was winning in New York? At those times, I would leave CNN International on as background static for a couple of hours. I tuned into CNN by force of habit. But I found myself more and more alienated as time went on.

CNN International insisted on taking breaks at inopportune moments, and the channel does not fill its ad air time with ads for commercial product as does domestic US CNN. CNN International never takes a real break. It fills its ad time with pushy self-patting slots for any one of its stars. Becky Anderson with her emphatic and staccato speech patterns is featured over and over again. CNN defines Anderson as an important world presence simply by having her repeat from various geographies across the globe, in Jordan, in Rome, in New Delhi, in Istanbul, in Abu Dhabi.

Okay, I got it the first time. I had and have no need to see the promo for the umpteenth time every time I tune in. But there is no stopping the repetition on CNN International. It just goes on and on.

Way ahead of Anderson, Christiane Amanpour is the CNN star who gets to greet the real movers and shakers of the world. Her brand is Amanpour. – the period or dot seems to emphasize priority or seniority. Amanpour’s main CNN promo, repeated again and again, is built on her greeting the national, international and cultural or Hollywood leaders of our contemporary world; Mr. President, Welcome to the program. Welcome Robert Redford. Prime Minister, Welcome to our program. Foreign Minister, Welcome.

 Repeatedly, Hala Gorani tells us that When you speak to a person directly affected, that is when you complete your understanding of the news. It sounds good until you realize that those of us who cannot speak directly to a person affected in Iraq or Nigeria or Orlando have no understanding of the news, I guess.

CNN International does that to you. By insisting on their promo ads ad nauseam (pun intended), they give you the opportunity to overthink the basis of their claims. CNN is the news source that we trust. Do we?

Going further, on CNN International we are now advised when planning travel abroad to unabashedly consider staying in a CNN enabled hotel.  

CNN’s repetitive loop of self-promotion ultimately began to come across to me as no more than benign but irritating propaganda.

For me, the question came down to whether I should continue to tune in, to continue to reward CNN for its sophmorish approach to its international viewers. Should I continue to tune into CNN International as a news source?

In my mind’s eye, the presented news programing came to occupy about a 50% window of the total broadcast; self-propaganda the other 50%.

Cable provider to the rescue

Case resolved by Claro, my local cable provider! Claro did me a great service last month by dropping CNN International from my coverage. I would now need to pay extra, Claro told me, to view all the Becky Anderson, Christiane Amanpour, Richard Quest et al repetitive promos. Are you kidding me? No, thank you.

Ouff! I could finally breathe. The repetition was over. Claro forced me to see that I have options, perhaps not as intutitive as tuning in to CNN, but options nevertheless.

I just needed to refocus my habits. CNN does not provide a live internet stream unless I have a cable contract with a local U.S. provider. I do not. NBC’s live stream, their website tells me, is not available where I live; ABC’s live stream doesn’t load.

On the other hand, newspaper sites, including the New York Times, are continually incorporating video into their breaking news coverage. And I was ecstatic to find that CBS (Always ON) provides a free internet live video streaming news service available where I live – Colombia. I have no idea who their stars are, but CBS has quickly become my go-to place for breaking news. Sky News from Britain is also available live 24/7, as are various other channels worldwide from India to Spain to Al Jazeera English.

Google News had become an essential player in the transfer of news from the cable world to the internet. At Google News, any keyword entered will pull up reporting of what is going on right now with thousands of references, TV and print, at various locations around the world.

Am I willing to pay a premium over and above my regular cable bill just to have CNN International. Uh-uh.

Adios CNN. (At least for now!).

The post Adios, CNN International…for now appeared first on Occasional Planet.

We are in love with our morning coffee. What could be more American? Coffee more than pie? Just possibly! What if our morning caffeine were illegal? What would we do? Hoot and holler. I imagine we would do our best to drink our morning brew in whatever way we could. Coffee for many of us is our way, at a minimum, to start our day. We would do whatever we might do to have our daily caffeine. You want to illegalize my morning intake of caffeine? Get out of my way.

But in fact, attempts have been made to regulate caffeine.

Those who are married to a present day cocaine use may encounter a similar contemporary landscape. What if cocaine use were illegal? Oops, it is!

Put another way, How to come to terms with America’s affection for cocaine? The question has befuddled the country for decades, yet the attraction of cocaine continues unabated. Officially banned in the U.S. in 1922, by 2008 cocaine was still being used by almost 2 million U.S. citizens according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).

The Incas of Peru once used coca leaves to help adjust to altitude in the Andes; Americans do the same more or less seeking help in an adjustment to exactly what? Unknown.

Drug Free World reports that in the United States cocaine continued to be the most frequently mentioned illegal drug reported to the Drug Abuse Warning Network by hospital emergency departments in 2005 and that there were 448,481 emergency department visits involving cocaine reported in that year.

Have things changed since 2005? Statistics are vague. But over and beyond the larger parameters, the question remains, what is it exactly that Americans are looking for in their use of cocaine? It’s a tough question.

We drink our caffeine in the morning to help us energize our day. And we need our cocaine exactly why? To balance our lives? To understand what fate has dealt us? To calm down? To attempt to reorganize? To stop and take measure? These are possibilities, openings for discussion.

On the other hand, our government has looked at our needs and thought, “Well, the best way to deal with our citizens’ dependence on cocaine is to fumigate with glyphosate,” a pesticide manufactured by Monsanto among others, in Colombia. Let’s eradicate the source plant! What?

In an effort to address drug consumption in the United States, the official US policy in Colombia, a major US ally in South America, has been to invest large amounts of money to drop uncountable quantities of glyphosate onto the Colombian countryside. Glyphosate is a weed-killer most familiarly known in the US as Roundup. In Colombia, for decades, the US has promoted the dumping of huge amounts of glyphosate in sensitive areas of Colombia in an attempt to eradicate the cultivation of the cocaine plant.

As a consequence, have our needs changed in the U.S.? Nope. Because? Because the solution offered is so out of whack with the problem presented.

Americans are using cocaine exactly why? What is it that drives us to cocaine?

Colombia, thank goodness, has just in these past weeks decided to terminate the use of glyphosate within its borders in the eradication of coca. Citing a World Health Organization report that links glyphosate to cancer, the country has, according to the New York Times, defied the United States and ordered an immediate cessation to the fumigation of coca with glyphosate.

So, are we any closer to understanding why Americans use cocaine? I don’t think so. Have we looked at the incubating sources of our drug use problem? I don’t think so. Have we possibly contributed to the development of cancer in populations in outlaying areas in rural Colombia? Possibly yes.

Are some lives more dispensable than others? Possibly yes.

What is the underlying problem? Why this continuing need for cocaine in our society? Let’s open this debate.

The post Addictions: Coffee, cocaine, and U.S. policy in Colombia appeared first on Occasional Planet.

We sanitize happily in the United States.

In fact, we are blessed to not have to pay a lot of attention to our toilets at all. They are there. We flush, or as now in many public locations our toilets self-flush, and we move on.

Arriving in Colombia, I found a whole new toilet world. Here, we are offered signs and warnings in bathrooms throughout the country that paper is not an acceptable depositable possibility.

In public toilets, we are told that anything extraneous to bodily function is strictly prohibited from being flushed. In many restaurant and hotel bathrooms, the same applies.

Soiled toilet paper goes in a provided waste basket next to the toilet.

What?

Believe me, this is a cultural adjustment.

It just doesn’t seem right. If you have grown up flushing and leaving, believing that the infrastructure has got you covered, then readjusting when traveling or living abroad can take some getting used to. And what do you know, Colombia is far from alone in providing separate recepticles for toilet paper.

Where Do I Put the Toilet Paper is a website that breaks down what to expect country by country when traveling worldwide, The site is invaluable. Perusing their flushable country-specific advice, it quickly becomes apparent that the US is in fact far from the norm. Our US toilets and how we expect them to perform may, in fact, be one of the things that set us apart and define us as first-world.

Restroom systems in many other parts of the world can’t deal with what we are throwing at them.

At first, in Colombia, I was unenthusiastic, to put it mildly. Put this where?

And then, just last month, I saw in the New York Times that things are not so rosy even in New York City. The Times piece, Wet Wipes Box Says Flush. New York’s Sewer System Says Don’t, underlines that even the New York sewer system is under siege. Even the most sophisticated sewer systems in the world can’t deal with what we are doing right now, flushing wet wipes. The Times piece speaks of “the latitude of flushability,” sort of the same warning that crops on in slightly different wording on signs next to toilets throughout Colombia. The Times article goes on to mention that the New York City environmental department has begun work on a public awareness campaign concerning the importance of proper wipe disposal: throwing them in the trash.

What do you know; a sort of reverse symbiosis is going on. Colombia may be ahead of the curve.

There might be a benefit to all of us to introducing a trashcan for non-flushable materials next to toilets throughout the US.

I missed wet wipes when I first arrived in Colombia. The US marketing machine has made them indispensable. But the introduction of a commonplace toiletry product without an equal investment in sewer infrastructure is somewhat of a pipe dream. To me, this is the equivalent of saying that plastic bags have no impact on the environment.

Not.

And what do you know: wet wipes have just recently arrived in Colombia.

What?

A country whose sewer system can’t deal with regular toilet paper now wants to flood its pipes with wet wipes?

Are you kidding me?

No, not exactly. The wet wipe manufacturers, jumping on a worldwide bandwagon of profit, simply want us to use their product to increase sales and offer us a modicum more of cleanliness. But in Colombia, for the product once used, the same advice applies. Do not even think of flushing!

Use the caneca!

Dispose in the waste bin provided.

The post Adventures in flushing: Colombia edition appeared first on Occasional Planet.