Home, sweet home. Pensionado-prisionado

Renting an apartment in Cartagena is quite complicated. In Europe you just share an apartment with your friends or strange people, everything is quite easy and unproblematic. In Colombia it’s a little bit different. First, in Europe if you are looking for a place to live you just go online and you can find plenty of them, with prices, photos, directions, detailed descriptions etc. In Colombia there is no point in going online. You should go to the next supermarket instead and read all the classifieds that you can find there. They are very enigmatic, mostly there is just the name of the neighbourhood and phone number. Other way to look for a place to live is just to walk around and see if there are any ads in houses’ windows.

Next,  Colombians usually don’t move out until they have their own family. Even if they do, they might just stay with their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and so on. Sharing apartments with people who are not your own family is very rare. So, you might ask what they do if they go to another city to study at the university? Well, while Europeans want to go independent in their late teens and go to live alone or share apartments with other crazy students, taking care of themselves, doing the laundry and cooking on their own and also enjoying the freedom, partying, and having great social life, Colombians go to so called “pensiones”. Living a life as a pensionado for a European person is a total nightmare. Been there, done that. Basically, it means following: there is a Colombian family with a big house, they just rent spare rooms that they have to university students. They also cook for them and do the laundry (If they are Colombian students, they usually don’t do it for foreigners. Why cooking and doing the laundry for them, if you can only charge them for bed and bathroom?). They also mostly set many rules for you. I just don’t understand why Colombians students do it. It seems like they were afraid of going independent and taking care of their own lives. They also call it “ambiente familiar”, which I hate. If I want to have “ambiente familiar” I just go back to live with my own family and not with a strange one. They say they want you to be a family member. It’s a fucking lie, it’s not like being a part of the family, they don’t care about you, they just care about your money, which is fully understandable, but I don’t know why they don’t let you live your own life. In my opinion, if you are paying for a room, you have the right to feel at home, it includes also leaving and coming back when you want, inviting who you want and when you want and do in your room what you want and with whom you want, it’s your room, right? it’s your home and not a prison. Colombian landlords don’t get it at all.

It is very often, that living a pensionado lifestyle you have no key to the main door, so you have to knock every time you get back and wait for them to open the door. Of course, they are not very happy if they have to do it at 3 AM when you come back from a party. Sometimes they might even lock you in at night. And if you want to have friends come over – God forbid! Not to mention girlfriend/boyfriend staying overnight. This is a family house and you should respect their rules. They obviously forget to respect the fucking 600 000 pesos (300 euro) that you pay them monthly… :) Besides, mostly they don’t let you use the kitchen or the washing machine (if they have it).

Thank God in who I don’t believe finally I found a place to live where I have kind of a freedom. It’s not the most beautiful house in the world, no splendor, glamour and luxury, but at least I can come and go when I want and invite who I want, there is even no problem with couchsurfers :)

Modern (?) (Latin) Family

I never stop wondering, how different Latin families are from what we see in Europe. First of all, they have enormously higher fertility. You can tell when walking around Cartagena, there are kids everywhere, screaming, shouting and running around you. Especially at the Plaza de la Trinidad, which is a very nice place to spend a wonderful evening with your friends with a couple of beers, but be aware, the kids will make a lot of noise! There are also many pregnant women everywhere and many stores with clothes for them.

When you meet a Latin person, one of the first questions she/he may ask you will be “How many brothers or sisters do you have?”. For any person from Europe it might seem very strange – I have friends in Poland whom I’ve known for a while and I have absolutely no idea if they have siblings. You don’t really talk a lot about your family in Europe, do you? And then, in Europe, if you ask the question, the right one would be “Do you have ANY siblings?”. Almost everybody I know is one of two or they are the only child in their families. It’s very rare to have more than one brother or sister, numerous families were common before the World War II, but people from my parents’ generation are mostly one of two. Nowadays even a family with three children in Europe would be considered as a numerous one.

In Latin America there are many people who have like 4-5 siblings and it’s totally normal. Most families have 3-4 children, though. Actually, people have more brothers and sisters, but not necessarily from the same parents. Latin society is still dominated by the macho-man image, it’s normal for Latin men to have some kids with their wives and some kids with other women. Your wife will always forgive you your sins, she has to accept your extramarital offspring, a holy matrimony is a holy matrimony, and kids with other women are just kids, that’s it!

Well, nowadays most of the macho-man get separated, women can’t stand it anymore. But I love all the stories like “My grandfather had 21 children, but only 5 of them with my grandma. The other one had 18, only 3 with the other grandma”. And the grandmas wouldn’t EVER leave their husbands! Sounds like a joke, but it’s a true testimony, I’m not kidding at all!

As you can guess, patchwork families are very common in Colombia. This figure is very different here than in my country. Many of my friends have stepfathers or stepmothers.  In Poland, if you have a stepparent, he might be your friend or enemy, but he or she does not have any right to tell you what to do as far as he or she does not have a legal custody over you. Here it’s different: your stepfather usually gives you the money to live and you must obey him. You want to get a piercing and he does not like this idea? He just tells you to leave his home and your mother is usually taking his side because she depends financially on him…..

First Week Impressions: Bad traffic, but a funny one. Lost in transportation :) 

I’ve been living  In Cartagena for a week so far and I even didn’t  have time to write a post for my blog. Well, maybe I had some, but the hot weather makes me very lazy… :)

First thing that I want to share is that the traffic here is just crazy! It’s a circus! I have never ever seen anything like this before: there are almost no traffic lights in Cartagena and once you see one nobody cares what color it currently shows. It’s a real piece of a jungle. Crossing a street is very dangerous for pedestrians because drivers don’t pay attention to them at all. So far I am not really fond of crossing any big street on my own, I prefer being accompanied by some locals to be sure not to get hit. Traffic accidents are very common.

Then you have this kind of public transport that is very unusual for Europeans. First, there are no urban cards here, you always have to pay 1500 pesos (about 70 eurocents) to the driver for a ride, no matter how long. No tickets needed. Mostly there are old buses, without any type of air condition. Well, actually they have one: they just never close the doors :) Not only for better “air conditioning” but also for the passengers to get in and out whenever and wherever they want. Yes, bus stops do not exist here! You only have to wink to the bus driver so he stops and you get in and then you just scream “paraaaaaaa” (Spanish: stop) so he lets you out. And no route maps either. Actually it’s also difficult to get a city plan, there are only small plans of the historical center. For the rest you better use google maps and that’s it. So, you have to know exactly where you’re going. If you’re new to the city – you’re lost, that’s it!

Anyway, I don’t see it as a bad experience, just a different one. For sure It would be more comfortable if they had this kind of transport I’m familiar with, I just need some more time and some courage to explore the whole city without getting lost every second…;)

PS: They have begun to organize TransCaribe, a bus transport system that would be similar to the european one, but according to what I've been told the problem is that the authorities of Cartagena are constantly stealing money for that so after 8 years of work they still haven't made it :(