Bogota by Night

Wow, this city as beast. When your living here and you develop a routine its amazing to think how quick you adapt and become a part of something that is totally alien, sometimes i forget that i can't communicate with over 7,500,000 people in my same city. I have always kind of looked at cities like living organisms, partly because they are, to some extent, and partly because the are born, grow, and eventually die. Well, Bogota is in its growing stages, in 1951, there was 715,000 people, today there is over 8,000,000 people with estimates for the 2010 census around 10,000,000 people, this is city is gigantic. In spanish class today the ran begin to fall with heavy force upon the roof off your building, which was nice because the wet moist air help mask the smell of marijuana smoke that was flowing through the window while an entire class of students stood directly out of our window and smoked a big fat joint. Eventually my Spanish professor tapped on the glass and let them have it, "Could you please move over so your not smoking RIGHT next to our window?" Ha! All the kids turned out to have class in the room directly next to ours, another Ha! The rain calmed it self during the duration of the class, so much so the asphalt was dry when i excited the room. But, life was looking me directly in the eye in the form of a gigantic deep black cloud rolling like an avalance down the mountains in the east with a cold breathe that seemed to run down every last vertebre in your spine. I knew i had to get to the bus, and i knew that i had to do it fast, so i put my head down and begin the face paced trek to the Tranmilenio station, i beat the rain there but as i walked through the station i saw B12 roll by, and in the processing while waiting for the next 12, the 11 came, and it was crowded! So crowded when the people couldn't get off the bus, and someone trying to get on actually had to grab the person's wrist and pull them out of the crowd of people. They popped out like a cork, making the same noise and everything, and after the preverbel cork come the pooring of people, like six or seven, and of course nine got on. The last guy getting on got piched big time and when the bus left the strap to his back pack was actually physically haning out the door, i couldn't help but laugh. Immediatly i thought that Karma was going to put me on a crazy crowded bus. But alas, i didn't, and the downpour began as i got on to the bus. The top hatches were open for wind, and nobody close them, so every know and then while hanging out to the handle i would catch a fat rain drop right in the eye. All though all the side windows were closed, witch on this paricular day wasn't the greatest thing because someone farted the fieircest fart i have ever smelled and in stuck in a group of people that are face to back and ass to ass. Okay, this is how big the city is, at the first stop when the doors open the people getting on got soaked in the rain in the from the one inch crack between the bus and the terminal. By the time i got to my stop 145 (my school is on 26) the rain that was moving south had rolled over my bus route and the rain had actually stopped, not just stopped, but the the tread lines on the road where actually dry from the cars driving down the road, awesome. The walk home was a fast one, i moved quickly and than a moment of look around came over me around my house. I looked around my neighborhood, Cedrittos, and across from my apartment there is an all girls middle school more or less, i am not sure of the grades. At the school they were having a parent teacher night and the streets where lined with cars. I thought to my self, wow what a wonderful neighborhood, than i looked up and saw the mountains in the east. In the far east the mountains, and where the gradient allows it, which is still an amazingly steep incline, people build houses, and i assume don't pay for land. In this fairy tale neighborhood (were people still get robbed at 2 in the afternoon on a busy street) the ghettos in the mountains stands guard like a gargoyle in some old gothic castle. Looking across the street at all the happy families it was an erie feeling to think about all the people displaced from guerilla violence, people with half an arm and 2 fingers on the other hand, mothers who walk down the hill to beg with their children, 7 year old children getting tattooed by there 9 year old brothers, houses made of old brown brick and mix fast concrete with stolen electricity and cable but an unfinished second floor with a floor and one wall, just looking down on us all the time... the city is the home of anything and everything. It is a place where all your dreams can come true, and you can loose your life in the same night, what a magical place.