It’s been a little over a year since I visited Bogota. Looking back, I have a hard time believing all the amazing things that I saw and experienced during that short, two-week visit.

But as crazy as some of it may seem, everything you are about to read is true.

During my first week in Bogota, I met various members of Colombia’s educated class.

During my second week there, I wanted to meet people from other segments of society, so I wandered around the streets near my hotel.

I walked into a little hole-in-the wall bar on Avenida Suba. It was the kind of place that appeals to locals because of its low prices. At this place a can of beer costs 40 cents.

I met some people inside the bar. Pictured above are myself, Manuel, some kid, and Kristina. Right away I made friends with Manuel. Manuel is a street vendor who sells aguacates for a living. Aguacates are just like avocados, except that they are bigger. Agricultural products in Colombia tend to be larger than their U.S. equivalents.

A raisin, for example, is nearly the size of a golfball!

And an avocado (aguacate) is the size of a small cantaloupe. A plate of food in Colombia is traditionally served with a slice of aguacate.

Manuel and I spent some time talking. He explained to me the intricacies of the aguacate business. He goes to a big market every morning, where he buys aguacates at wholesale prices, then he goes out sells them on the street at retail prices, all day long.

I told Manuel that I wanted to document the impoverished living conditions of some of Colombia’s urban poor. I wanted to verify the information I had read in my economics books.

In the book, The End of Poverty, economist Jeffrey Sachs identifies several causes of poverty. The book emphasizes lack of education and rapid population growth as two of the significant causes of poverty. Would these factors be a major cause of poverty in Bogota’s urban slums? I would soon find out.

Manuel told me there was a slum near his neighborhood, and he promised to show me around.

The next afternoon, I met up with Manuel in Barrio Kennedy. Barrio Kennedy is located near the exact center of the sprawling Bogota megopolis.

Barrio Kennedy is an average Bogota suburb by all standards. People walk from shop to shop. Vendors sell their wares on the sidewalks.

Most of the vendors make a meager living.

The three people pictured above make a living selling carmelized coconuts for 30 cents a bag.

The carmelized coconuts are made with unrefined sugar. If you are not adapted to the taste of it, unrefined sugar is completely gross. In the poorer areas of Colombia, unrefined sugar is commonly used because it is less expensive than refined sugar. As a side note, unrefined sugar is also healthier than refined sugar.

Part way down Barrio Kennedy’s main drag, there is a store which has the appearance of an enormous monster. I do not know whether this design was intentional or accidental.

Street dogs abound in Latin America. In Bogota, I was surprised to see relatively few street dogs. A taxi driver explained to me that the government led a massive street dog extermination effort a few years ago, and the street dog problem has been essentially under control since that time.

Policemen patrolled a neighborhood street. They were happy to pose for a photo. Contrary to popular belief, Colombian policemen are friendly and helpful. Moreover, corruption levels are an all-time low, due to a crack-down on corruption by the current government administration.

Manuel and I stopped to get a bite to eat from a street vendor. We each got an item that would best be described as a “chorizo gordita,” although its technical name is “chorizo con arepas.”

Manuel took me by his mom’s apartment to meet some family members.

Pictured above are Manuel’s grandmother, myself, and Manuel’s mom.

The interior of Manuel’s mom’s apartment has the appearance of an unfinished basement. The walls and floors are cement. The only appliances in the house are a refrigerator and an oven/stove. No one in the family owns a car.

Manuel’s family lives in conditions similar to 40% of the people in Colombia. By definition, they are part of the middle class, but their living conditions would be considered lower-class, by U.S. standards.

Manuel and I left his mom’s place and worked our way deeper into the heart of Barrio Kennedy. Our destination was the city dump.

On the way, we passed a Mormon church.

Then we came to a park, with a large clearing, and up ahead, what appeared to be the entrance to hell. But it wasn’t hell, it was just more middle-class housing and stores.

This is what the majority of urban middle-class neighborhoods look like in Latin America. Click on the photo to see a larger version.

We walked down through the neighborhood, then worked our way across a ditch. We passed an open field, full of garbage and debris.

Finally we came to a filthy alleyway, full of trash and shanty huts and dirty little kids.

This shanty town is built on public land at the edges of the city dump. People eke out a living here by sifting through the garbage from the dump, and selling scraps of clothe and metal on the open market. They are known as “los Recicladores,” or “the Recyclers.”

Every six months, the city governement sends a team of bulldozers out to the site, and destroys the shanty town. The Recyclers then set up camp in another spot, and they get bulldozed again six months later.

The economic backbone of this little community is a man named Oscar, who owns a horse and a buggy.

An enormous pile of garbage is located a few hundred yards from the shacks. Oscar brings loads of trash back to the shacks, where the kids and women sort through it, to find clothe and metal scraps. The piles of materials are then loaded back onto the buggy, and Oscar drives the buggy around town to sell the materials to buyers.

The clothe can be shredded and used as stuffing for toys and furniture. The metal scraps are melted and recycled. The locals were eager to explain the process to me.

The people were very friendly, and everyone was excited to meet me. I was equally excited to meet them, but it was a bittersweet experience.

Even as I think about it now, I am full of conflicting emotions. How can I explain what I observed in a way that won’t sound offensive?

The people were so open and welcoming, and the mood of the occaision was upbeat and cheerful. But the experience was also very disheartening for me.

Everything I have read about economics links poverty with high birth rates and low education levels. Poverty causes low education levels. Lack of education causes high birth rates. High birth rates exacerbate conditions of poverty.

With that information in mind, I looked around, and I was terrified at what I saw.

There were children everywhere in this ghetto. They played on the piles of trash.

These kids are adorable, but they represent a big problem. Rapid population growth is one of the main causes of poverty.

All the books I’ve read about poverty and economics indicate that high birth rates and lack of education are critical elements of poverty.

High birth rates and lack of education. The basic cause of poverty was staring me in the face. It had snot running from its nose, and it wore a big, innocent smile!

As I talked with the locals, it became clear that there was no sense of sexual responsibility in this little community.

I felt desperate and helpless. I couldn’t exactly confront them about their problem. That’s not the kind of thing you can bring up with someone during your first conversation.

But the fact of the matter is, birth rates are out of control in these slums!

One of the local women – let’s call her Martha – was very friendly with me. Everyone was joking around and having fun. Martha kept giving me big hugs.

“Take me back the United States with you!” Martha said.

“Ha ha,” I said, “I’ll have to think about it…”

“Come on,” she said, “you know what, I’ll have your child if you promise to take me back to the United States with you.”

It was a serious offer, thinly disguised as a joke. And I have evidence that she would have been willing to have my child, regardless of whether or not I took her back to the United States with me.

Let me show you something…

Do you see the blonde kid sitting next to me in this photo? I asked the locals where he came from. They explained to me that a German tourist met one of the locals a few years ago. And now there’s an extra mouth to feed in the Recycling District.

I’m not making this up. I didn’t photoshop the little blonde kid into the photo. There was really a half-German little boy growing up in this ghetto. And a woman really offered to have my child during my hour-long visit there.

Martha obviously was not aware of the economic implications of her offer. Astonishingly, the Recyclers appeared to be completely oblivious to the fact that they were making their living conditions worse by having so many children.

Martha had no concept of sexual responsibility whatsoever. Neither did most of her neighbors. Nor, in all likelihood, did her parents. She was a product of her environment.

Wreckless sexual attitudes in urban slums cause high birth rates. These attitudes are the result of low education levels, entrenched subcultural traditions, and lack of access to birth control. The effect is that generation after generation is stuck in an endless cycle of poverty.

The living conditions in this shanty town are very low.

To enter one of the shacks, you must first cross a makeshift bridge over a putrid flow of garbage water.

The typical family consists of one woman and four to six children. Most of the fathers are nowhere to be found. A few noble exceptions, such as Oscar (mentioned above), have stuck around to help out, rather than abandoning their responsibilities.

I realize that the kids in these photos all look happy, but you must consider the circumstances. First of all, they are kids, and kids generally tend to be happy. Moreover, none of them had ever seen an American before. Most of them had never seen a camera. Now some friendly white guy shows up, speaking Spanish with an American accent, and taking photos of them. It was the highlight of the year. Two weeks later the government bulldozer team would show up to demolish their shacks.

It is relevant to consider what the future holds for these children.

How many of them will graduate from high school? Probably none. I met several adolescents from the community, and they all dropped out of school around grade seven.

Personal hygiene habits are very poor in these slums. By the time the children reach adulthood, 75% of them will be missing teeth.

By the time they reach their teens, their smiles will be replaced by scowls. Many of them will suffer from gum disease. Click on the photo above to get a better look at what gum disease looks like.

As I walked around this slum village, I was surrounded by innocent little kids. By their late teens, most of them will have children of their own.

The conditions described above represent a textbook case of Moderate Poverty. These conditions exist everywhere in Latin America. In Colombia, 30% of the population lives in moderate poverty.

These living conditions are lower-class by Colombian standards. By U.S. standards, these living conditions are unthinkable.

After a nice visit in the Recycling Village, the time had come to say our goodbyes.

Before I left, Martha gave me one last little reminder that she was available if I was interested: she deliberately rubbed her breasts on me while she was hugging me goodbye.

Oscar offered to drive us out of town on his buggy, so a few of us loaded onto the back of the buggy and rode off through the streets of Barrio Kennedy.

If you are unable to play the video above, you can click here to download it.

I traveled to Bogota, Colombia, last October, to perform research about travel safety, the Colombian economy, and Colombian culture.

Before traveling to Colombia, I read some terrifying “information” on the U.S. Embassy’s offical website. The U.S. Embassy portrays all Colombian taxi drivers as villians.

As the embassy explains, “Typically, the driver will pick up a passenger, and then stop to pick up two or more armed cohorts, who enter the cab, overpower the passenger, and take his/her belongings.”

After reading several pages of this sort of “information,” I became fearful. I took extreme mesaures to ensure that I would not be targeted for kidnapping or robbery…

I grew out a goatee.

Facial hair gives me a somewhat menacing appearance, and I felt that this would discourage bandits from targeting me for crimes.

My disguise worked like a charm. Not even one taxi driver tried to abdupt me. I am pictured above with a crazy old taxi driver named Alirio.

During my two weeks in Bogota, I traveled all over the sprawling metropolis. My primary mode of transportation was taxi cab.

Bogota is enormous. This city is home to more than 10 million people.

One of the strongest features of Colombia’s culture and economy is the presence of strong class divisions.

It is difficult to explain Colombia’s class structre, because terms like “upper class” and “middle class” have connotations in English which don’t apply to Colombian class distinctions. It will be easier to explain if I first offer some real-life examples, and then identify the resulting categorizations. It will take several posts for me to explain Colombian class structures.

My friend, Stephanie, migrated with her mother and siblings to the U.S. several years ago. I worked with Stephanie at M&T Bank’s Salt Lake office and we became friends. She invited me to meet up with her in Bogota, during October 2006. Pictured above are Stephanie, her cousin, and her aunt. This picture is a repeat from a previous post.

Stephanie’s relatives in Bogota live in comfort. They live in a nice neighborhood called Villa del Prado, in the northern suburbs of Bogota.

Pictured above are Tío Jorge, Monica, and Juan – Stephanie’s uncle, her mother, and her grandfather, respectively.

Stephanie’s grandmother, whom I knew only as “Abuelita,” took an instant disliking to me, and refused to have her photo taken under any circumstances.

The photo above was taken in Juan and Abuelita’s home. The walls of the house are made of brick and stucco, with no insulation. The house does not have central air conditioning or heating. Juan and Abuelita do not own a microwave or a dishwasher. They do, however, have the rare luxury of owning a washing machine, although it has no spin cycle – only wash, rinse, and drain.

They employ a maid, who works several hours a day, helping with cleaning and laundry. Each day, Abuelita makes the maid empty her pockets out before leaving, to ensure that she has not stolen anything.

Pictured above is a street that runs near Juan and Abuelita’s house. It’s pretty quaint, in spite of the graffiti. It’s the kind of neighborhood where you can walk around after dark without worrying that someone is going to jump you.

Juan and Abuelita are in the top 30% of Colombia’s households, in terms of income, assets, and living conditions. By this definition they are members of the upper class, but their lifestyle would be considered middle-class, by U.S. standards.

In visiting Colombia, Stephanie was reunited with a childhood friend, named Natalie. Stephanie and Natalie had attended a private school together as kids. By coincidence, they both have Americanized names.

Natalie lives with her parents in a beautiful townhouse in a trendy part of town. Original art hangs on the walls throughout the home. (Special thanks to Stephanie for contributing a creative facial expression to this photo.)

Natalie’s parents, known to me as “Mamá” and Guillermo, made me feel completely comfortable in their home, and they even let me crash there one night.

The family’s townhouse is made of brick and stucco, with no insulation, without central air or heating. The family does not own a microwave.

Guillermo owns a machining company, which manufactures replacement automobile parts. He is intelligent, educated, and well-spoken. He is paying for both of his children to go to good colleges, and the family owns two cars.

Guillermo and Mamá have a larger income and asset base than Juan and Abuelita, but they are part of the same economic class. They are part of the 30% of Colombians who can afford to send their children to good private schools. Their standards of living are comparable to those of middle-class Americans, minus central heating, insulation, and microwaves.

I was interested to know about Guillermo’s business, and he was happy to talk about it. I wanted to know about his company’s role in the global economy. I asked him what kind of impact the pending Free Trade Agreement (Tratado de Libre Comercio, or TLC, in Spanish) with the U.S. would have on his company.

Guillermo conceded that his small manufacturing company cannot compete with global manufacturers in either price or quality. However, his company is well-suited to adapt quickly to local and regional demands. He said that the increased competition brought by the TLC would be outweighed by its benefits The benefits of free trade include access to larger external markets, and growth for the overall Colombian economy.

While in Colombia, I spoke with several well-educated people about the Free Trade Agreement, and everyone I talked with shared Guillermo’s sentiments – that the TLC would be strongly beneficial to Colombia’s economy.

However, there exists a contingency of socialist-minded university students who do not share these feelings…

Nonetheless, opposition to the Tratado de Libre Comercio represents a minority voice in Colombia. Most Colombians, especially among the educated class, favor reducing barriers to free trade, and stregthening ties with the U.S. and the rest of the world.

While in Colombia, I stayed at a “hotel” called the Abeja Real.

The Abeja Real consists of two consecutive row-houses, which have been patched together and divided into small rooms. The cost of my room was $12 per night.

The low cost of the lodging in Bogota is attributed to several causes. First of all, laxed zoning ordinances enable residential houses to be converted into cheap hotels. Secondly, low U.S. tourism rates keep demand low. The low U.S. tourism rates are the result of highly unfavorable publicity from the U.S. State Department.

Additionally, I was able to find a good deal because I speak Spanish and I knew some locals.

The accomodations were adequate, though not luxurious in any sense of the word.

I formed a friendship with the owner of the Abeja Real, an irritable old man named Antonio. The terms of our friendship are simple:

Each night I arrive at the hotel between 12:30 and 2:00 a.m. I push the buzzer on the outside gate. Three minutes later, Antonio comes stumbling out the front door, muttering curses under his breath, and opens the gate to let me in.

Each morning between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. I leave my room and go downstairs to the front gate. I fumble with the gate latch for several minutes before going back inside and asking Antonio to help me open it. Three minutes later, Antonio comes outside, muttering curses to himself, and opens the gate so I can leave.

Three times a week, just for good measure, Antonio and I engage in a ten-minute debate about how much rent I owe. Each of us raises our voices in attempts to explain to the proper exchange rate for Colombian Pesos and U.S. Dollars. The arguments always end the same way. After several minutes of shouting, we abruptly realize that we are both saying the same thing, so I hand him the money and he sticks it into his pocket.

This is what Colombian money looks like. One U.S. Dollar is worth about 2,000 pesos.

Pictured above is 73 thousand pesos, or about 35 to 40 bucks.

During my first week in Bogota, I spent much of my time hanging out with Stephanie and her friends from grade school. As a result I became well acquainted with several members of Colombia’s educated class. Just a few of them have been mentioned in this post.

Stephanie left at the end of the first week. During my second week in Bogota, I looked for opportunities to meet people from other segments of society. My next post will be about people from the other segments.