Poverty and Wealth

Perhaps the most obvious feature of Pasto is the gulf between the rich and poor.

Colombian GDP

There is a measure called the Gini index which measures inequality in the distribution of income on a scale between zero (perfectly equal – everyone has the same income) and one hundred (completely unequal – one family has all of the income). According to the CIA World Factbook Colombia had, in 2008, a Gini index of 58.5 up from 53.8 in 1996. By contrast the same source has the UK having a Gini index of 34 in 2006. The index is telling us that the gap between rich and poor is very wide, and getting wider. I was alerted to this by a news report on student riots in Bogota which claimed that Colombia is the only Latin-American country for which the gap is growing. This in a country for which growth has been strong recently and is expected to be around 4.5% this year. The CIA also report that, in 2008, 46.8% of the Colombian population lived below the poverty line. The rubic to this measure states that "rich nations generally employ more generous standards of poverty than poor nations" although what this means in the context of Colombia I couldn't say.

Nothern Pasto

The road from the airport to the city passes through the town of Chachagui and elsewhere is lined by a sprinkling of dwellings. For the most part these are pretty rude in appearance, constructed of concrete frames with brick walls and with a flat roof or one of corrugated iron. These buildings, from houses to hotels, workshops to restaurants are in varying states of repair, but often look weather-beaten at best and sometimes decidedly tumbledown.

Buildings of a similar nature are the first signs one sees of the city itself, but are soon supplanted by an altogether different ambience. A forest of modern apartment blocks some still under construction, others recently completed and displaying a clean front to the visitor.

Living on the river in Southern Pasto

There is an area on the road past the University of Nariño containing a number of very large houses – of a size where a single housekeeper would not be enough. By contrast, by the river there are people living in buildings that appear to be at best partially completed, perhaps even falling down. The displays of wealth in the city are generally fairly limited. It is the poverty that is visible daily in the city that highlights the gap between rich and poor.

Three times a week the dustbin lorry collects refuse from outside each property, but not before the scavengers have taken any recyclable materials to sell on. It is also quite common for us to see the refuse workers putting discarded items, such as shoes, to one side.

Reuse and recycle

Shopping here is a very different experience from in the UK. For many items the brands seen in the UK as global are not available here (or are extremely expensive). There is usually though a large amount of cheaper merchandise available: sometimes made in Colombia; in other cases imported from China (notably). In the latter case I have noticed that some of the items appear to be goods rejected by another buyer as faulty. For example, we bought for my son a monkey that jumps: it was only after we got it home that I realised that it was singing the "Tigger Song" from Disney's "Winnie the Pooh" and that one of the tracks cuts off in middle. I suppose that items such as these have a market because there are some buyers that cannot afford better quality goods.

Other parts of the shopping experience hint at poverty in other ways. In December we bought curtains for our flat. We went and chose the material and then the shop sent someone to the flat to measure up the windows. This is already a pretty good service by UK standards, presumably possible because the person that does the measuring-up is, to put to mildly, not highly paid. But what happened next astounded me: within two days the curtains were ready! I forget the exact cost of this operation, but we spent less than a million pesos (£350) for  perhaps 17 metres of floor-to-ceiling curtains (including net curtains). When it comes to furniture you can take the items in the shops as inspiration to create your own (often for little or no extra cost) as long as you are happy to wait a few days extra for your specification to be made and brought into the city.

There are a fairly large number of desplazados in the city (people displaced by the FARC of government activity against them) and these can be seen begging around the city. Some station themselves at traffic lights, but if they are not at a particular set or lights you can be sure that other people will be. Often jugglers, fire-eaters or other entertainers (who may be merely practising rather than particularly poor), in other cases people selling small items such as snacks or decorations for rear-view-mirrors.

Washing day on the river

It would be wrong of me to portray Pasto as some sort of ghetto - it is far from that. But by the same token it is clear that there are a lot of people that have rather more of a struggle to provide for their families that we in the UK. That said, the cost of living is somewhat less here than in the UK. However there is a minimum wage in Colombia: this year it is around 525,000 pesos (about £170) per month. All well and good you might think, but before Christmas the Pasto Government paid an artist to create some festive installations around the city. I have it on good authority that he was paying the people who actually installed the work about 150,000 pesos per month. A housekeeper here would probably not expect monthly to receive much more than half of the statutory minimum for six-and-a-half 12-hours days a week.

Perhaps the thing that most emphasises the poverty to be found in Pasto is the relative lack of visible wealth. This is not because there are only a few wealthy people, but more because it is not the done thing to display ones wealth. The main reason for this is that it risks attracting unwelcome attention, but security here is something to be addressed as a topic on its own.

Lights and Loud Noises

I have spent some time since the last post composing another essay about the first views of life in Pasto. It was only a few days ago that it occurred to me that, if I am to make my posts relevant to the present whenever possible, I should instead write about the festive season here. Unfortunately, since we have not yet managed to set up our desktop computer I do not have access to most of my photos relevant to the period, but I will do the best I can. This view is enhanced by the fact that, to some people, this time of year would be the defining character of the city, including as it does the carnival.

The festive season here starts much earlier than the parades of the new year. In late November and early December the city becomes festooned by displays of the nativity and, in particular, lights.

Pasaje Corazón de Jesús, Pasto

These displays are on a grand scale and are found all over the town. Ordinary residential streets take on a look that a Brit associates more with Oxford Street than supposedly sleepy estates. In the UK ostentatious displays are unusual and somewhat frowned upon: occasionally local councils ask people to tone down their displays. Here the reverse is true. Indeed, on one day in early December the electricity was turned off for around ten hours across large parts of the city to enable public displays to be erected more safely! The result is a city alive with colour and the displays make a for diverting evening driving around the more exuberant areas. In addition, some of the churches erect huge nativity displays while shopping centres and supermarkets have their own nativity scenes. The following pictures are of the display at Iglesia Santiago.

As the great day nears the festivities crescendo. From the 15th or 16th the evenings are dominated by Novena de Navidad celebrations in the street. These are, I suppose, the Catholic equivalent of the Church of England's service of nine lessons and carols. In Colombia they are focused very much on children, although the nightly services and subsequent parties can go deep into the evening.

After the day itself (which in Lily's family is a relatively low-key affair), comes the day of Holy Innocents (commemorating the day Herod ordered the slaying of the first-born). In Pasto this heralds the start of the carnival season and the streets are awash as people throw water at each other. Usually the water supply is cut off for the day, but after the heavy rains of recent months this was not the case this year.

The atmosphere briefly subsides for a couple of days before new year's eve. In this period one can see huge numbers of effigies for sale on the streets of the city. These are años viejos, representing the old year and are traditionally burned at midnight. This description doesn't prepare one for the outbreak of mayhem that actually occurs.

The first unexpected turn is that the años viejos are usually burned on the street. The favourite method of ignition being to dowse them in petrol and throw a lighted match or cigarette at them. This on its own would lend the city an apocalyptic atmosphere, the streets being full of small fires. What really makes the place seem like a war zone is that many of the effigies are packed with fireworks before being laid in the street. Some of the more exuberant revellers will drape additional strings of fireworks on top of them and throw still more into the minor inferno they have set outside their front door.

Across the city this scene is repeated in almost every street by anything from half-a-dozen families upwards. The cumulative effect is phenomenal! Our fourth floor flat (with the windows closed) smelled of cordite within about ten minutes of the clock striking midnight. The initial artillery barrage lasted for about fifteen minutes before petering out into sporadic mortar-fire around half-past twelve. Somehow Matthew slept through it all!

Picture sourced at Wikipedia

Up until the new year, Pasto appears to carry on business as usual through most of the festive time. Indeed many shops are open on Christmas Day, and working the week between Christmas and new year is not unusual. On the 2nd January the carnaval de negros y blancos (Carnival of Blacks and Whites) starts and Pasto shuts down for the week.

Each day of the carnival features a parade through the town of costumed performers from all over the region. From the 4th January onwards the streets are filled with marauding revellers intent on painting white almost anything that moves. There is a slight variation on the 5th (el día de los negros) when other colours, especially black, are added to the mix.

Picture sourced at Wikipedia

The finale on the 6th (el día de los blancos) is a magnificent parade of dancers, stilt-walkers, bands, marchers in intricate (and sometimes huge) costumes and enormous floats painted in bright and lurid colours. These performers progress slowly through the city through a continuous cloud of flour, shaving foam, fake snow and any other vaguely white substance that the population has to hand. The effect is amazing and the atmosphere electrifying. The parade is (according to Wikipedia) 7km long and lasts for three or four hours.

After the parade the biggest floats are parked alongside the Panamericana which is where I managed to get some pictures of this year's entries. The parade is actually competitive, and the creators of the winning float this year - the large lion - received a prize of 30 million pesos (about £10,000).

Happy new year to you all.

Scenery Rules All

Despite an altitude of 2,561 metres (8,402 feet), Bogotá is in many ways not significantly different to many large cities, and one's arrival is certainly unremarkable. This is not the case with Pasto. You can tell before you arrive in the city that you are soon to be somewhere rather different.

Looking south at Pasto airport

The aeroplane's descent seems somewhat shorter than usual and the landscape seen out of the windows is very rugged and composed of tall mountains and deep valleys, but nothing prepares one for the way in which the earth rises up to meet the aeroplane. If your flight happens to be full, your aeroplane can use a disconcertingly large proportion of the runway in coming to a halt. This is unsettling principally because the airport lies on a small plateau with an almost sheer drop of over 400 metres (1,312 feet) at the end of the runway.

Looking north from Chachagui,

The airport is visible on the right of the picture.

On disembarking one is usually met by bright sunshine and temperatures around twenty-five to thirty degrees Celsius. Pasto airport is actually outside a small town called Chachagui which is about half-an-hour's drive from the city and some 726 metres (2,382 feet) lower in altitude. The plateau on which the airport is built is seen to be a part of a larger plateau which is punctuated by very deep and narrow river valleys – one might almost call them gorges. This larger plateau is flanked by mountains to the East and West and stretches on to the South with more mountains in the distance. The Northerly aspect is dominated by Volcán Galeras one of the most active volcanoes on the continent which rises some 4,276 metres (14,028 feet) above sea level.

The weather and views can be almost guaranteed by the fact that one's flight has arrived. The airport is frequently closed by clouds descending from the nearby peaks. That is not to say that one can always see the summit of Galeras. The volcano is often shrouded in cloud, but is usually visible in the early morning or on bright, sunny days.

Departing the airport and heading South on the Panamericana (a network of roads that run for about 29,800 miles from Argentina in the South to Alaska in the North) one passes roadside restaurants and hotels generally in one of two styles: either painted concrete with corrugated iron or flat roof; or wooden framed and roofed. These soon give way to the small town of Chachagui where almost all the buildings are of concrete of varying states of repair, before the region's typical rural scenery takes over for the journey to Pasto.

The basic building blocks of the scenery around Pasto are tall mountains and impossibly deep valleys. The road winds around the mountains giving an upward view not dissimilar in scale to many in Scotland or North Wales. In those places you would be near the foot of the mountains, with a loch or the coast on the other side of the road. Here there is an exceptionally steep-sided valley twice as deep as the mountain above is high.

Mountains to the south of Pasto

Much of this terrain is covered in forest, but it is truly amazing just how much of the land has been cultivated. The crops must generally be of very low-maintenance varieties or, more likely, the fields are tended by hand with the aid of at most a horse or an ox. Tractors would not be able to operate on the phenomenal gradients exhibited by these enclosures. In some ways this environment is reminiscent of some British scenery, only somewhat stretched on the vertical axis.

Mountains and clouds between the airport and the city

Where it all starts to become vaguely surreal from the point of view of a humble Brit is the point at which the weather starts happening below him. One glances down into the apparently bottomless valley to see clouds floating by a few hundred feet below. If it were not for the trees, houses, road-signs, crash barriers and the like that are clearly visible above the cloud; without the panoramic view afforded by the car windows and the distinctive ambience of the in-car environment one might almost imagine that the view were one from an aeroplane ten or fifteen minutes from landing.

Volcán Galeras from the eastern side of Pasto

The city itself is situated 2,540 metres (8,333 feet) above sea level in a natural bowl with mountains on all sides, the view of Galeras rising to the West uninterrupted by features other than urban erections. The crater (and approximate summit) is only about 5½ miles from the centre of the city and as a result the volcano looms over the town almost constantly. The view in other directions is probably shorter than even this, since the other mountains rise less far but at least as steeply.

Volcán Galeras wreathed in cloud

Galeras and its perturbations (a strong tremor - 4.1 on the Richer scale - shook the city a week or two ago at 3:15am) may be the most obvious definition of the Pasto experience, but it is not the mountains that are the dominant day-to-day feature here. No, it is the clouds that form a persistent part of the landscape that best define how Pasto looks. Individually they may be intangible and ephemeral, but collectively there are almost ever-present obscuring more tangible features of the city and landscape as effectively as the most solid of mountains or buildings ever could.