People you will never meet (2)

A long ---but hopefully illustrative--- post on bus synchronizers, the clocks of the chaotic Colombian transportation system.

Similarly as minute sellers, bus synchronizers are rather recent street characters. To better understand what they do and why they do it, it is convenient to know a bit better how public transportation works in Colombian cities.

The first thing you should know is that unlike most civilized cities, In Colombia public buses do not belong to the city or to the Colombian state. Here, private companies own a number of buses and little buses (called colectivos or busetas, no more than 20 seats). Each company is managed independently from each other and serves a number of routes. The sole role of the city is to provide licenses to the companies and to manage routes, designing and assigning them to companies.

Also unlike serious countries, when you take a bus or colectivo you pay in cash to the driver. So, yes, apart from driving the bus driver should be aware of the money and of the change (yes, you don't need to pay with the exact change). The fact that drivers have to deal with money directly changes everything, and is the main cause of one of the most chaotic events one has to experience as a citizen: the so-called war of the cent ("la guerra del centavo").

The war of the cent consists in the competition bus drivers have with each other in order to earn more money by picking up as many passengers as possible. This occurs because of a number of factors:

1. The concept of bus stop does not exist in Colombia. You can take and get off a bus wherever you want.
   
2. The bus drivers do not have a fix salary; their income depends on the number of passengers they pick up during the day. At the end of the day, a small part of the money they produce is for them, the rest goes to the owner of the bus (yes, buying and managing public buses is a great business in Colombia).
   
3. The same route is assigned to the several companies, so it could happen that, from a given place in the city, you have several options (that is, several companies) to choose from.
4. There is little control inside companies. Since there are no bus stops, location and velocity for each bus are highly variable. There are some controls inside the city, but these are insufficient.

With the above factors in mind, then it's probably easier to understand why the war of the cent is the fierce competition that takes place between two bus drivers in order to get passengers. Notice that this occurs mostly between drivers of the same company. As most things in life, this circumstance has pros and cons:

1. In the negative side, it could occur that even if there are buses available, they don't stop to pick you up because they're fighting to each other and picking you up would mean losing valuable advantage.
2. Also in the negative side, as drivers take the war very seriously, they rarely respect traffic lights and regulations. It could be very risky indeed: while I was in Cali, for instance, there was a serious accident: a colectivo crashed into a house, 2 died and 23 more were injured:
   
   
   
3. In the positive side, if you're waiting for a bus and then one of the competitors picks you up, because of the previous item, you have the guarantee that there's no faster way for arriving to your destination.
   
4. Also positive, although only from my perspective, being part of a bus competition could be very fun.
   

Now that you, my gentle reader, have a basic understanding of the way Colombian buses "work", let me introduce today's unique profession: the bus synchronizers.

As mentioned before, bus companies have only a few controls inside the city. Usually there is a central station at each side of the city. Inside the city, however, bus drivers have no information on how the other drivers of the same route are relatively placed. This occurs because, even if the central station could synchronize buses (e.g., by dispatching a bus each five minutes for each route), buses stop and pick passengers wherever they find them, thus quickly losing this initial synchronization.

This is where today's character comes into play: bus synchronizers are placed in strategic intersections in the city. Their only tools are a watch, a piece of paper and a pen: as soon as a bus of a given company passes through the intersection, the synchronizers record in the piece of paper the time and the number of the bus. This is half of the job. The other part consists in informing the passing driver about the location of the bus of the same route that has passed before him. As the bus passes, they could yell something as the following:

"You're 5 from the 2156, and he's 10 from the 4123"

which means that the bus passing is five minutes away from bus number 2156, and that the 2156 is 10 minutes away from bus number 4123. This way, drivers get a very precise idea of how the "passenger market" is functioning. For instance, by knowing that the time separation is more than 5 minutes, a driver could possibly decide to speed up, so to get closer, and pick up more passengers. Conversely, if the driver realizes he's very close to the previous bus (say 1 or 2 minutes) then he would probably slow down, as the previous bus must have gotten all the available passengers.

When a driver hears this information he usually throws a coin to the bus synchronizer, as a way of rewarding his service. This is not mandatory: bus synchronizers don't get upset if they don't receive money from a driver. They know that the day is long, and that their luck will arrive sooner than later: he (or she) will be able to gather enough coins to buy his lunch.

A synchronizer in action, in a busy street in Cali. He's approaching to deliver useful information to the driver of route number 3 of the "Recreativos" company. Ironically, just above the name "Recreativos" it reads the company motto: "Comfortable, Safe, and Efficient Transportation".
Thanks to my brother for the picture.

Sometimes there's more than a synchronizer in the same intersection; this is specially common in huge ones: only one synchronizer wouldn't be enough to serve a lot of routes at the same time. Bus drivers know where synchronizers are, and sometimes have a preferred one. Also, there are some ambitious bus synchronizers who offer an extra service: they provide drivers with coins. Indeed, since drivers need to give change back to passengers, and this change is usually coins, they can quickly run out of coins. Upon they payment of a small commission, a bus synchronizer can change your 2000 pesos banknote (0.81 euro) and give you coins for 1800 pesos (0.73 euro).

To conclude this installment devoted to bus synchronizers, it must be said that bus synchronizers have very diverse origins: you see old and young people, women and men, even small kids. You can easily tell they're very smart people. Perhaps their only knowledge in life is the notion of time and the numbers. Most likely, they have very difficult lives. I find it noble that, in very difficult circumstances, bus synchronizers have chosen to decrease the levels of chaos, rather than becoming thieves or drug addicts. What motivates most Colombians to take long, uncomfortable ---yet honest--- roads to survival will be always a mystery to me.

Next in this section: the parking assistants and the packing boys.

Movie Suggestions

The other day the list of nominees to the Academy Awards was announced. As usual, I haven't seen most of the nominated films; I expect to work on that in the forthcoming weekends. Nevertheless, I have seen two of the nominated films, and I would like to use this brief post to recommend them to you.

First, please do see Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It's a good movie, with interesting characters and a clever story. Nothing excessively outstanding, but in any case the movie is superior to most of the usual crap around. The movie's main characters are two American girls, played by Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall. They go to Barcelona during the summer and things happen. Those who have been in Barcelona (not my case) would have an extra motivation to see the movie, I guess. I have to admit that my main motivation to see the movie was Scarlett's performance (I had liked her role in 2005's Match Point, also with Woody) but I was very surprised with Hall's performance as Vicky. I think her acting was extremely convincing. Penelope Cruz also appears, in a role that in my humble opinion wasn't worth nominating for best actress in a supporting role.

The second suggestion is not a film, but a documentary, an animated one: Waltz with Bashir. It tells the story of a number of former Israeli soldiers who were sent to the Lebanon in the early 80s. In particular, the movie describes the steps the director (Ari Folman) follows so as to trace his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The animation is excellent so is the music and the way of describing Folman's memories/traumas from war. I think that even if you're not interested in politics you'll like this film, one of the nominated to best foreign language film.

To conclude, it must be said that I am most glad to see that Richard Jenkins was nominated to best actor, for his marvelous performance in The Visitor, a great movie I had already reviewed here.

This week's catchy song (8)

I never endorsed that habit of labeling music. I find it annoying to think of music as some sort of genealogical tree. It's simply too rough to attempt at classifying sounds and what they convey with fancy adjectives. That said, labels are sometimes useful as there are no better words to describe groups or songs. In that respect, looking at the music blogs I follow it turns out that most of them represent what some people call "indie". What "indie" is? How can something be classified as "indie"? Does it restrict itself to music? These are tough, profound questions, I am afraid. What I do know (and very well) is the music I like. And it can't be described with a couple of adjectives.

This week I offer you a truly catchy song, from an "indie" band, called MGMT (the artist formerly known as The Management). They released what some people call the best "indie" album of 2008, Oracular Spectacular. After hearing it a couple of times, one could say that they appeal to the 80s to get catchy. It's hard to analyze, anyway.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you Electric Feel:

What's in a name?

Pretty much as they say that 'God moves in mysterious ways' one could perfectly say that 'stupidity comes in mysterious ways'. To support this claim, let me comment on a recent report I found in an online newspaper.

This is, essentially, a weird consequence of the 'Obamania' that nowadays makes the world happy and that sooner than later will disappoint us. According to this report, Barack Obama was able to inspire a couple in Cali, Colombia to name their newborn 'Barack Obama'. So, yes, there's someone in this world whose first name is (or sounds like) 'Barack Obama', with last name 'Sandoval Fajardo'. (Yes, in Colombia is common to use two first names and two last names.)

The mother said she expected her newborn to be as humble as Obama. The Colombian state ---represented by some public hospital--- was truly touched by this sweet and noble incarnation of stupidity, and will complement it by giving the kid free medical care and milk for six months. (Yes, not only the Colombian state rewards stupidity but also discriminates those parents who named their kids with conventional names.)

But let us avoid the political side of the story. Perhaps the most disturbing part of the news is that the actual spelling of the name was not confirmed. Since in Colombian Spanish sounds associated to letters "b" and "v" and to letters "c" and "k" are indistinguishable, a number of frightening spelling errors are possible. For instance, the poor baby could be named "Baracovama Sandoval Fajardo" or "Varakc Hovama Sandoval Fajardo", or even "Barako Vama Sandoval Fajardo".

It must be said that weird names are rather common in the Colombian and Latinamerican culture. This deserves a post (or even a series of posts). In Colombia, I observe that this is a phenomena most commonly found among low educated people. When naming a kid they prefer originality (in the most liberal definition of the word you can imagine) over common sense or psychological welfare of the newborn. This way, for example, one finds people called "John Kennedy" or "Usnavy", drawing inspiration from the 35th president and the navy of the USA, respectively.

How about that?

This week's catchy song (7)

A Camp is some sort of side project of The Cardigans vocalist Nina Persson. They have a 2001 self-titled album (which I recommend), and this year they're releasing their second one, called Colonia. Overall, I find A Camp's music highly enjoyable.

The suggestion for this week is Chinatown, a song extracted from Colonia. Enjoy:

On Happiness

If you look at the World Database of Happiness, created by Dr Ruut Veenhoven, you will be surprised to find out that at the top of the ranking by nations, along with three very serious countries (Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland) there is Colombia. In fact, to the question "How much people enjoy their life-as-a-whole on scale 0 to 10" one finds:

Iceland 8,5
Denmark 8,4
Colombia 8,1
Switzerland 8,1

[In case you're curious: the study says that people in the USA is happier than people in France and Italy (7.0 vs 6.5 and 6.8, resp.), and that people in Tanzania, Togo and Belarus (3.2, 4.1, and 4.2, resp) are not that happy.]

The existence of this kind of 'happiness rankings' as well as the good position Colombia has on most of  them is not new for the average Colombian. In the popular culture, there's this weird idea that "there is no better place in the world to live than Colombia" closely related to other absurd nationalist myths (which include Colombia has the "best coffee in the world", "the second most beautiful national anthem in the world" and that we speak "the best Spanish in latinamerica"). Regardless of the absurdity underlying the myths, I was always curious on why we Colombians consider ourselves very happy. It seemed very interesting to me that more than 50 years of war, growing levels of poverty and generalized violence, and the weakening of the political and democratic structures, have had no influence on "subjective appreciation of life", which is the fancy term Dr Veenhoven uses for happiness.

As an answer to that, I have just read about one of the most interesting scientific study in weeks. It provides initial hypothesis on why Colombians consider themselves happy (click here for a link to a summary of the study, in Spanish). Here I will quickly comment on the five explanations of such a relevant study.

First Explanation: The Latin Character. This has to do with the fact that because of the Latin personality, in the case of an interview or poll, a Colombian will hardly say something different from what the interviewer wants to hear, or won't reveal something (s)he considers secret. This way, in the event of a poll on 'happiness', it is unlikely for a Colombian to admit that (s)he's 'less than happy' even if that is the case. 

Second Explanation: Tight Social Networking. As in other countries, the idea of family is extremely important in the Colombian society, and constitutes the most basic 'social network' for anyone. Then you have your neighbors, your in-laws, your coworkers, people in your church, etc. It seems that the strong relationships people create with people in their 'adjacent networks' help people to feel better about their lives, they feel somehow protected. This ends up improving the overall perception of happiness.

Experts indicate that relying on the 'surrounding collective' as a strategy to deal with life is easier to observe in people with low incomes, as social networks change or disappear as people 'go up' in the social scale. If you consider that more than 50% of the Colombian population is 'poor' (according to international standards) then it's not surprising that social networks have such an influence on overall happiness.

Third Explanation: Lack of Ambition. This one is very simple: it has been determined that Colombian people have goals or objectives for life that are not very ambitious. So, when people reach their not-so-ambitious goals, they perceive a degree of satisfaction that is different from the one reached by those who have more ambitious objectives in life. This has a lot to do with the fact that Colombians survive to very difficult life conditions: for an average family it is then very hard to think beyond any medium-term goals. Example: nowadays people can only find fixed-term jobs, so long-term objectives (say, buying a house or sending kids to the university) are not even considered. Since expectations are not that high, the resulting frustration is less and you feel more satisfied with life.

The last two explanations are only initial hypothesis, which according to the experts, pose research problems in themselves:

Fourth Explanation: We Are Conformist. The study suggests that for people 'happiness' is not related to the material things they can buy and/or their incomes. People simply manage to be happy with the available means. This is a delicate conjecture and needs further research, as a stupid government could take this as an excuse to let things unchanged.

Fifth Explanation: Achievements in a Negative Environment. This has to do with the third explanation above. The study says that in a difficult (poor, violent) environment, small achievements are given a higher value. Examples of 'small achievements' include: learning to read and to write, to finish high school, to buy a new TV (this is very relative). Underlying this 'twisted valuation', there seems to be a positive attitude that prevents people from going down in moments of crisis; indeed, it seems it occurs the opposite: when things get worse people manage to find strength and keep struggling with life.

As a side comment, the study suggests that when it comes to happiness, 'spirituality' has a more noticeable effect from the point of view of social networking than from the point of 'religion.' In other words, what makes people in Colombia happy is not whether they're Catholic, Buddhist or Jehovah's witnesses but the fact that each religion comes with a community of people that can support each other in their daily difficulties.

This is an ongoing study and more concrete conclusions are supposed to appear in the future. I really look forward to read those. Also, I wonder how the above preliminary explanations apply to other southamerican countries and if some of them could be related to the perception of happiness of countries such as Spain and Italy, the so-called 'latin-like countries' in Europe.

People you will never meet (1)

A recurring thought while in Colombia is that I should try to cherish all kinds of memories on things that for some reason are not available in Italy. I refer to the food, people and situations that one would most likely miss when abroad. Some of that is quite unique, and even funny, if you look at that from a first-world perspective. Here I begin with a short series of installments on different professions you can easily find in Colombia but that you will never see in a serious country (or in Italy).

Today, let me elaborate on the minute sellers. Consider the following context. You have an expensive cellphone contract (paying a monthly amount for a certain number of hours/minutes of mobile phones), or have a pre-paid mobile with unfair fees. You're a busy person and need or like to talk a lot. Sometimes you need to make urgent phone calls to mobile numbers. And you move around. Using time not included in your contract is not really an option as it would be much more expensive than the rate that your contract includes. Calling to a mobile from any fixed phone around is simply prohibitively expensive (in any case, finding a fixed phone in which calls to mobiles are not blocked is not easy). What do you do? In Colombia, the answer is very simple: you go to a minute seller. Yes, almost in every corner we have people that can sell you time on a cellphone. They sell minutes. Not only: they have extremely competitive prices, surely lower than the price of additional minutes your carrier provides (or than the price of any prepaid card).

Minute sellers are easy to recognize: they usually have distinctive vests, in which the rate of the minute is painted on. Their job is easy: all they need to do is to stand in some busy corner all day long, carrying five or six cellphones with them. They wait for their customers. Nowadays, you can 'buy a minute' for as low as 200 pesos (0.082 euro); the rate is the same for all national and international numbers.

(A minute seller with his clients. Picture taken from here)

Where is the business? Easy. Someone bought hundreds or thousands of cellphones at the same time, and got a great corporative deal not available to anyone: those phones will come with the lowest rates in the market, with unlimited amount of minutes and SMSs. Some sort of privileged, large-scale contract. That person then hires people that 'manage' such phones. He makes lots of money and gives his 'sales representatives' convenient shares on the minutes they sell during the day.

When this thing first started (some years ago already) the cellphone companies complained; they were losing lots of money. It turns out that, according to the law, there's nothing illegal about selling minutes on the street. And forbidding it would have created a significant social problem, because of all the 'minute sellers' that would have been suddenly unemployed. How about that?

Next in this section: the bus synchronizer and the parking assistant.

This week's catchy song (6)

The suggestion for this week is All Night Long, a rather unknown song from The Verve. It appears in one of their recent singles, namely Rather Be. I like this song very much, and it's quite good to be kinda hidden inside a single release.

Since I have detected that ---for different reasons--- some of you can't access YouTube certain videos, starting from this catchy song I am offering only the audio, in good quality. Enjoy:

A little bit of Juan Valdez

As in most parts of the world, controversy topics in Colombia are largely irrelevant. The latest one concerns the cartoon below, which appeared January 2, this year:



The cartoon (taken from http://www.grimmy.com) was written by a guy called Mike Peters, who is supposed to be popular in the US and publishes his cartoon in over 600 newspapers. I didn't know him until today. The Colombian Federation of Coffee Growers (FNC) is highly offended because of this cartoon and will sue Mr Peters in an US court, as they claim the cartoon affects the "Juan Valdez" brand. The FNC has this weird dream of doing a "Juan Valdez" franchise all over the world and become larger than Starbucks. So far they have fancy coffee shops in Colombia, some southamerican countries and a couple of shops in US and Spain.

I don't know what to think about this. It's like when someone makes fun of you for some reason and you simply should live with it. I mean, it's part of life. We do have a (bad) fame, and should live with it with dignity. The thing that really bothers me is the hypocrite nationalism of media when reporting about this kind of stuff. Similar stupid reactions took place when Carla Bruni made a reference to the "white Colombian" in one of her recent songs, or when in "Mr and Mrs Smith" Bogotá was depicted as a city lost in the desert (or so they've said, never saw that movie). Here people complained (especially politicians), the media reflected that, and the expected outcome took place: nothing changed.

This week's catchy song (5)

The suggested song for the first week of 2009 comes from one of the best albums of 2008, Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid (on which I briefly commented here). More than catchy, this song is truly beautiful. Please enjoy a live version of One Day Like This:



Happy 2009 to everyone!