Paz sin fronteras

Today in colombia is the
Peace without frontiers concert
taking place up in cucata (sp?)
on the bridge that connects
colombia and venezuela.

They are simulcasting the concert
here in bogota on big plasma screens
in different locations, one is
a few blocks from the house
at park 93. We were just taking
the dog for a walk when we
heard music and walked over
to see what was happening.

The park was just filling up when
we got there and we watched a
few minutes, but the dog wanted
to go home. She used her mental
superpower to force us to leave and take her back to her bed.

It looked like a good concert but I'm still not sold on saying "quiero
la paz" or "paz sin fronteras". I think that saying you want peace tends
to make bullies think you are a target, whether those bullies are
los farc, chavez or osama bin laden. I think it's better to say "I want
to live in peace after all those who wish me harm are dead, in prison or
have decided to change their ways "

Merry Christmas to all

Christmas in colombia has lost none of it's
religiousness, I think if you tried to say
merry xmas you'd be met with a blank stare.

Every day for the nine days before christmas
almost every house and office in the country
celebrates a Novena (ninth), where in the states
lawyers would be parachuting gleefully out of the
sky if every company was holding a religious service
for 9 days. The novena includes some kind of food,
buenelos(fried bread) with chocalate, or Natilla (pudding?),
and today my part of the company bought lunch, so we had
the traditional Lechona (pig stuffed with rice, not bad)

The novena also uses the same prayers
every year, with each verse of the prayer followed by
verses of the song "Ven VenVen", repeated enough until even
the gringos can sing along. It reminds of my catholic youth and
how my 11 year old self wouldn't be able to pick my 40 year old
self out of a linup.

Here's the Nativity scene from the office:




















(called a Pesebre in spanish) I loved the two sheep in the
forground standing at the well, with looks that say,
"where's the water, how do we work a crank?"

Oh well, we're off to travel for the 4 day weekend.
Merry christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Blackout

The power is out here in colombia around the country. In our
building we're on a generator, so I didn't notice. It went
down while I was giving a presentation, and the audience included
the client's CEO. Maybe the power outage was an attempt by god
to give me an escape route..."sorry, no powerpoint without
power, hehehe."

Unfortunately the almighty's help was stopped by a good UPS
and the building generator, the lights didn't even blip and I
swallowed the biley taste and gave a half-hearted presentation.
Nice try god, but next time smite the projector.

I hope the power comes on soon, there's no reason for it to come
on. Maybe the guerillas blew up a pylon, or 200. Who knows.
Here we're dependant on the government and the only thing we have to drink
in the house is wine, rum and whiskey. No bottled water to speak
of.

In the states it's stupid to depend on the government. Here
I'm criminally negligent. In New orleans people complained about
no help after 3 days, here in colombia the rats will be playing
peanuckle with my finger bones long before government help would
arrive after a katrina sized disaster.