Tidbits from Bogotá

Nothing too exciting has happened to me yet, which is why you haven't heard from me. A few observations though.

You can definitely tell that foreigners are a rarity here. The other day I was having tea (don't mock me!) with 5 or 6 expats (people living outside their home country), and every person that walked by stopped a few feet from us and just stared. And these are relatively educated, wealthy, worldly residents of the capital. Whereas in Brazil my eye color might elicit a moment of hesitation, here I need to avoid eye contact altogether if I don't want the person staring at me in shock with mouth agape.

It's a much smaller country than either Brazil or the United States, and I don't mean in the obvious geographical way. Whereas in these countries you tend to think of yourself as a member of a confined region with its own distinct culture, Colombia feels like one big neighborhood. There are only 5 or 6 major cities, and you'll probably have family or at least friends in all of them.

Although there are different regions within the country, each with its own food, accent, and, of course, dancing style, you don't get the phenomenon that occurs in larger countries of regional sub-cultures who don't feel at all part of the same nation (say, downtown Manhattan vs. rural Texas in the U.S. or Alphaville vs. Acre in Brazil). Local cultural variations here seem to be considered legitimate expressions of an overarching national culture.

One unexpected thing I have seen here is the intense emphasis on physical beauty for women. I knew that Colombian women had a reputation for beauty, but I assumed that, this being a third-world country, it was more of a genetic blessing than a national pastime.

But no, you see in shopping malls young girls, maybe 16 or 17, with their faces (or boobs, or butts) bruised and bandaged, and the crazy thing is they're proud of it. Sure, there's tons of plastic surgery in Brazil and California (I do mean tons), but we're not proud of it. We don't advertise it. It's more like a mark of shame that we failed to have perfect proportions upon birth.

I've heard so many stories from expats about surgeries suggested to them by Colombian friends, everything from nose straightening to liposuction to eyeliner tattooing. And none of this is considered frivolous, superficial, unnecessary, or, I don't know, none of their business. There is no shame involved, it's almost as if we were talking about interior decorating or clothing.

That's all for now.