»columbia«

Had several nervous breakdowns today on our trip to the highlands, cause our driver rides the curvy streets through the mountains, ignoring anything that could be behind the blind corners, like a he-devil on wheels. No worries at all after realizing he got plenty of jesus on his break.

Our flight to Bogota went Monday at 7, so that I couldn´t finish watching the Oscars (but Phillip beat Joaquin I heard. Yeah!) before leaving. Didn´t slept at all cause Iberia seats suck and the films to be showed even more. Anyway. We were still awake enough to go for a walk over Calle Septima, something like Broadway of Bogota the same day, and grabbed some delicious Empandas with spicy sauces, that made my stomach suffer the next morning, which made me feel very ... non columbian.



Bogota is amazingly ugly. You might say that Berlin gets it´s charm by it´s Ugliness but Bogota is ... boy ... an 8 million habitants dirty, filthy and tough Sodom and Gomorrah. The city is 2 600 m high in the Andes surrounded by mountains over whom clouds crawl into the city over the buildings like fog ghosts. It´s light and cloudiness remind me somehow in very, very dark studio ghibli films. I like it. My dad loves it.

i´m spending most of the day on my balcony enjoying view over the church. the trees of the parque. the mountains, sometimes hidden by deep passing clouds. this are my last days. i spend most of the days with trying things to save on my mind. pictures and views. things i see. the faces of people i like. the light through the clouds. trying to save the odors of the town. the trees. the weather. the bar-b-qu vendors on the street. same the tastes. the food. fruits. and juices. probably someone could mail me a reason, why to travel back to germany except for doing a diplom presentation, that´s nothing worth at all. i mean the diploma not the work to be presented. i´m getting pathetic. i know i know i know. but ... i´m sad and i like it.
i had a nice conversation with some of my sisters about a certain picture of jesus hanging in the convent. cause i thought he was looking really gay in it. i asked myself if they´d agree. at least they thought about it. i also recognized that on da vinic´s the last supper, judas is black. the only black apostle. tss tss tss.
heard in the news that a german hostage got free by farc after five years beeing kidnapped. five years. thats even so uneconomic. but in this war some things just don´t function logical or rational over here.
no, i dont wanna leave.

We drove to the barrio naranjal to a spot under the bridge where most of the kids hang out my dad knows and got a bit scared cause no one was there. This could mean that they got forced to leave by the police or worse by auto defense units (ultra right wing paramilitary deathsquads by the AUC). Later we found out that most of them hang out up north. It´s weird being here, cause I know all this places so well, but just by video from the documentary I edited.



I passed university of antioquia afterwards to spot works of their art and visual communications class. Ok so let me tell you something about Columbian universities: To get in you have to pass a police check point, where you have to show your id and your car gets checked for weapons and bombs. Even my camera had to get registered. Political activie teachers or students got shot in here cause all kind of different protest movements take place in universities. Wilson my former flatmate in Berlin studied here. He was active in liberal demonstrations and got stopped one day on campus by some guys telling him he should better watch his mouth. Needles to say what that means. After his family got some scary phone calls, he left Columbia and ended in Berlin. He didn´t got an asylum cause columbians never get the status of political fugitives. What the fuck are you else, if not a poltical fugitive if you have to leave your country cause terrorists (and that’s what FARC and AUC is) threat you with death for saying your political opinion.
But inside the university, you won´t believe, it´s marvelous! I´ve been here 4 years ago already and it´s one of my favorite spots in medellin. Tropical trees, everything quiet peacefull and mellow and every ten meters young lovers hanging out and flirting & kissing. The museum was closed but I found out that the new victor gaviria movie sumas y restas is going to be screened here the 23rd with an Q&A thing with the actors and the director afterward. A “Have to”. Gaviria is columbias most known director and Rodrigo d.: No futuro and La vendedora de las Rosas premiered at Cannes. If you want, you can read a filmcritic, I wrote a couple of time ago about Maria full of grace in which I also wrote stuff about Columbia and Columbian films. Film + Kritik is a great blogg anyway, though it got a bit calm. Read tom´s critic about irreversible it´s off the hooks (I love this kid!).

We went to a museum afterwards and met Sor Sara at the new public library. This place was a huge hang out for streetkids 4 years ago. I remember, that even when you drove around the place in your car, you could smell through the gas of the cars the crack the kids were smoking. Now the place is this weird socialist kind of thing. The lightsabers shine according to the moon. Full, half and so on.

did i mention, that i´m teaching two courses at escuela normal (yep, doing the roger) about film and filmanalysis? well here some pics from a trip i did with my students (my students??!!) to routa lechera.
and better be monday at 8mm (more about that to come).

my dad found marcela on the streets of naranjal. we filmed today. quiet sad. and tough. she was totally fucked up again. you wouldn't recognized her, though she looked so great a week ago when she still was clean. she was all on crack. like all the kids on the street in naranjal. crack is just 1000 pesos, so everzbody does after starting with glue . i have to confess having no idea or not remembering that clearly how crackheads really look or act like. the toughest is to see the little kids. like john davi, this very handsome 8 year old boy, that reminded me by it's cute androgynic face in my flatmate marcel. every move he does seems like out of control, too fast, like on a time warp effect, like a spastic. ununderstandable mumbling. totally freaky, flipping his eyes.
same marcela. i tried to film, running an interview. while speaking she starts to cry, nearly having a nervous breakdown. and me just sitting in front of hear, not beeing able to nearly understand a word of what she's saying. then in between a sentence - from one secdond to another - she just felt back and to sleep.
we filmed at gorras place. a cambuche under a bridge. gorras is her ex boyfriend. my father filmed here before. they know each other, for years now.
gorras is very friendly and very nice. 24 years old. from the street. he is into security now. that means if somebody fucks around in this barrio, he's takng care of it. you can imagine what that means. i really wanted to ask him, but didn't dare, cause we're at his place and he's so friendly, how many people he'd alreadz killed. but actually i guess i didn't wanted to know. it must have been a lot.
later sor sara told me once he killed 14 people in one year. but that was a couple of years ago. at the beginning of his career.

at night after filming i was absolutly exhausted but couldn't find reast so i started drinking aguardiente (booz) on my own, deciding to go out and drunk very quick. victor picked me up and we stopped at a bar in bello drinking with some nice but very very fishy looking guys. mafiosis are so easy to recognize: 70s busynessmen kinda like hair cuts, button down shirts and (of course) moustaches.what a clichee. they payed and wanted me to drink beer with them, but i told them columbian beer is for pussies and forced them to drink booz. i'm the guest. equals chief. hahaha.
then we picked up catherine, vitor's date, pretending at their parents being sober. drank more in the car, listening to to horrific bad but very loud eurotrash dancefloor techno on our way to a place they called "very special."
it was a huge bar/restaurant rave kinda thing on a finca, where you can rent horses to ride. very noble. very crowded. very loud. people dancing. a mariachi entertainer singing in a mic dancing and jumping from table to table. in between all of this cowboys riding tricky and techy through the bar on horses. absurd i thought. thought i should get nuts or more drunk. voted for liquor and ordered another bottle of rum.
somehow victor's friend gabriel appeared. gabriel calls himself an artist and bores me everytime i see him to show me his work. in fact he's building waterfalls. anyway. we drink and he starts kidding (well i thought so) about safety, parras and AUC. and i'm mumbling like: so you into this, well you better eat my fuck! but he does'n understand me by the volume of the music and goes on like: you know, it's full of AUC guys here, not the great bosses, but ... thats why it's so safe here. this are very noble persons, real patriots, caring about their country. .... i was getting very pissed, but was unable to speak proper and decided that best and meanest to do is to steal his bottle of aguardiente and drink it on my own. a little moment of revenge at last. (hmmm ... well it made sense at that moment, i thought).
meanwhile victor tried to get on his date. a couple of days before he told me men would still have the word in columbia. they could do what they want and women better listen. but right then it looked like victor'll never get laid, nor he ever would have the word. nice i thought, columbian women are the greatest (and my mom's the best).
at home i still couldn't sleep and sat totally drunk and wasted on the balcony watching the night trying to reflect the day while i listend to throbbing gristle. i kept singing from the roof top of the convent over the village of copacabana like spreading words: discipline! discipline! i want some discipline in here! nothings farer or fits less in here then throbbing gristle. ... nichts ist fehler am platz.

Went up to that rehab in highlands again to film next and last part of the documentary. But Marcela had a fight with her boyfriend and ran away a day before. She´s still missing. Situation fragile again. So filmed some impressions at the rehab and I hope it´ll we be something funny and nice by it´s own.
Afterwards I got Jaime to know. He´s in rehab cause of cocaine addiction. 18 years old. Very funny. Very nice kid. Dark skinned. Bright shiny eyes. Same his smile. All time handshaking. A wickedly cool handshake. Having an eye on everything. All time on the run. Awesome kid.
With 14 he inherited a piece of land by his granddad and started to run a coca plantation with his brother. With 16 he took most by his own. I mean, imagine being 16, living on the rural, being poor, having nothing to do and owning as much blow as you want. Hmmm. We hang out rest of the day and drank agua panella. Now I´m theoretically all about the little tricks in cocaine production (Don´t boil it too long!) and aware about what you can do with the trashes (Periquo).
“So how much is a gram?”
“For you? The finest and cleanest? Well, 2 500 pesos (that´s 90 cent). But actually I sell it in kilos. One kilo is 200 000. And it´s really clean. You could still make more of it. … Or periquo or smack. … On the streets you might pay 10 000 for a gram with quality like mine. 3000 is regular. But you know, not that good.”
This is just something for a little thought, next time you might lick toilet lids, not to waste your 70 times more expensive goods in your favorite club.
“And now you stopped?”
“Yep, I´m clean for two month. I was really wasted.”
“I mean production.”
“If I stopped production? Are you nuts? How the fuck should I pay rehab. And beside that, business is going so great since I stopped taking it all on my own. No, no I´m still in business for sure. ... But now I have to ask you something: What´s wrong with german soccer?”

Afterwards we went to a very close place where formally a Fruteria (café where you get fresh juices and fruit salads, some of them served with cheese, absolutely awesome) was. My parents got each other to know by accident in here. So the condition of my existence took place right here. Now it´s a store, whom sells religious stuff. So in a manner of respect to that place, I went in to buy a rosary. A very nice and stylish one, made full out of plastic.
Then we went to a fruteria and I had my first curuba juice since ages. Boy, you get the illest and greatest fresh juices with flavors over here you wouldn´t ever have dreamed about. But curuba juice ... tss tss tss. Curuba is a fruit only growing in columbia and it´s nearly not getting exporting. Anyway curuba juice tastes like ... dude, it tastes like daft punk is playing in my mouth and every one is invited!!!


Same day we flew on to Medellin, where we´re going to stay for the next weeks. I live with my dad at a lovely nuns convent in Copacabana. Copacabana is a small town right next to Medellin. During the great kidnappings in Escobar´s last decade his most important hostage, the president´s daughter, was hidden here. Escobar is also a very strange ambivalent issue to chat with columbians about. But anyway, I´m still totally jet lagged, while the watch on my mac shows 6 am and I´ve got no idea what time it´s over here. Anyway I can´t keep my eyes open any more and I´m right about to fall in a deep sleep while listening to the warm and gently sound of a tropical rain outside. Still snowing? Over and out.

So the next day we went to placa bolivar, which is exceptionally very nice. On the picture you see the placa bolivar and the congress building. Right behind me is the justice palace but just before I could turn around to make a photo I got stopped by a policeman, because without permission you´re not allowed to take any picture of public buildings. I mean what the fuck?! But I guess that the mood 4 month before presidential elections is pretty tensed. Though most of south american countries have had an dramatically left wing change in it´s government, take Bolivia for an example, it looks like ultra conservative Uribe will win again. Though 32 millions out 43 millions columbians live in poverty and there hasn´t been any effort in the peace process, but that´s another topic.

The justice palace has a really interesting story. In 85 the building was captured by the legendary M-19. The M-19 was the only revolutionary guerilla movement european left wing intellectuals socialite with. (By the way there´s no current guerilla movement to sympathy with. If you think there is, you´re wrong or very very very very stupid). They did spectacular actions in capturing the Dominican Republic embassy and taking embassadors as hostages without killing nor getting caught. When they occupied the justice palace the place you see on the photo, was crowded by army tanks instantly. Without negotiating (well some say there was, but …) the whole building got bombed like hell, so that most did not survived. Neither hostages or guerilleros.
Later the M19 got a legal party and some of their leaders had serious chances at the elections, but somehow most got killed and the M19 as a guerilla movement disappeared. My aunt Miriam took place in some M-19 piracy channel action in the 80s and nearly got caught. My grandparent´s house got stormed and demolished by army police troops, without any idea what this was about. Luckily she wasn´t at home and could get warned directly. So she had to disappear for a while, until a year later, to calm student protests, the president spoke out amnesia for political activists students.