Bus drivers

In London, the Routemasters have been phased out, because they are not cost-effective, requiring two men to operate them -- a driver to drive, and a conductor to collect the fare.

In Bogota, the busetas have just one driver. Sometimes his girlfriend, children, or friends ride in the cab with him, and help him by collecting the fair. But most often it is just the one man (and it always is a man), who, as well as navigating the vicious Bogota traffic, a considerable feat in itself, must look out for passengers standing on the sidewalk (bus stops aren't common: people just wait at the roadside and wave at the bus they want), operate the doors which are opened and closed with a jerry-rigged panel built from the electrical spare parts bin, collect the fare from passengers entering the bus, give change, and make as good time as he can, driving in whatever crazy way he can to shave minutes off his route time. At certain set checkpoints, men with clipboards in the street record the time the bus passes: presumably this information is used to decide whether the driver should keep his job or not.

Routemaster, London	Buseta, Bogota

As soon as you step into the bus, the driver accelerates away, throwing you against the seats as you click through the turnstile. Desperately clinging on to the handrails you scramble for some money for the driver. You poke it through a little hole in the plastic divider separating passengers from driver. When the driver has reached third gear, he takes his hand off the gearshift long enough to take your money. He glances at it then counts out the change with his right hand, all the while continuing desperate lane-changes and hard acceleration/braking so as to move ahead as quickly as possible.

So the upshot of all this is that although it is hardly a comfortable and stress-free experience, you can get on (and off) a bus wherever you want, which is extremely convenient, and you are sure to get to your destination as fast as humanly possible given the traffic conditions. I suppose the downside is you might have a crash. Most people don't like to sit in the rear row of seats, or even those by the window, presumably on the basis that that's where you're most likely to be crushed if another bus drives into your one. I don't know how common that is, although on Thursday I did see a bus that had driven into a tree outside my house.

Is that a Concept Checking Question you're asking?

Something the CELTA folks are very big on is asking questions to confirm instructions are understood, and to check concepts. So are they big on asking questions? What two things do they like to ask questions about?

The problem with this is that I have started doing it in real life :0. The classic correction by saying "Do we say, I do a mistake?" Great in the classroom: patronising as hell at the dinner table. Must stop doing it.

CELTA is Fun

Over breakfast with Panda yesterday, talking about my first week on the CELTA course, I realised how much happier I am than I was before I started. I think it's due to quite a number of different factors.

Firstly, just a simple thing: I have a somewhat fixed daily routine. It's amazing the calming effect that has, psychologically. Also, bcause I catch the bus every day to 'work' and back, I suddenly feel apart of the city in a way I hadn't done up until now.

A second thing is the course itself. It has been really interesting, and has stimulated me to think about all sorts of issues to do with teaching English, and teaching generally. I am interested in language structure anyway, and teaching is a fun way to study it. Also, like any managed learning environment, it has a calming effect, because you know that someone somewhere has a Plan for you, and though you might not see it all right now, you know that if you complete each small challenge as it is provided to you, you are on the path to success. In the horrible unmanaged mess that is Real Life I am plagued by doubts that anything is in fact the right thing to be doing at any moment. Perhaps religious people feel like they're on a kind of study course their whole life long, with God at the helm.

A third thing is that I am spending my days with people from my own culture (more or less). Quite a number of Brits, some Americans, a Kiwi, and a Swede. I can talk and not feel like an illiterate moron; I can make cultural references and have them be understood; things just flow naturally. Someone suggested going to the pub after school Friday before I even did.

A fourth thing is that our students have been great, and that has really given me a much more positive attitude to Bogotanos/Colombians. They love to learn, they love to join in, they love to contribute, they are eager to please, they don't "take advantage" because they have a trainee teacher. I want to give them all a hug! I remember feeling the same thing when I taught that one time in Cartagena (on the coast). I am definitely looking forward to teaching Colombians for real, wherever that might end up being.

And finally I think it is great to have a 'job' which is involving in many different ways: intellectually, emotionally, physically too (moving around a classroom instead of sitting at a computer.) Certainly getting up in front of students and teaching has given me a huge buzz. Beforehand, on both occasions, I have been really nervous, and have even thought, "why am I doing this? It's just not me! I'm a hiding-behind-a-computer sort of person, not a getting-up-in-front-of-people person!" But precisely because it is quite challenging for me it has given me a huge confidence boost. Teaching is a social activity, and success (at least on the social level) in the classroom has made me feel much more of a social person all round.

I realise that a lot of these things are the "beginners buzz" -- the highly rewarding quick-learning phase at the beginning of any new activity, combined with the kick of doing something that's all new. I'm sure that long-term teachers will tell me, "don't worry, you get pretty bored of it pretty fast." But for the time being I'm the happiest I've been since I came back to Colombia in January. And that's good enough for me :).

QotD

From George Monbiot, at monbiot.com yesterday:

"What the rich nations give with one finger they take back with both hands."

No ASBOs in Colombia

ASBOs -- Anti-social Behaviour Orders. As quintessentially British as tea, cricket, the village green, and, well... anti-social behaviour.

Despite the fact that statistics indicate that crime, especially armed crime, is more of a problem in Bogota than in Brighton, I have to say the experience on the ground is rather different.

Consider this common scenario in any town-centre in Britain: you are walking down the street minding your own business when you spot a group of young males coming the other way. You avoid their eyes, or cross the road because you don't want any trouble. Are they drunken yobs on their way home from a night on the lager looking for a fight? Are they a group of teenagers in tracksuits with nothing to do and a bad attitude? Or school-kids waiting for the bus, who will probably shout abuse, and might pull a knife on you to prove their machismo? Best, in any case, just to keep out the way.

I had just learned to live with and accept this as normal. But living now in a country and city with far bigger social problems, scandalously unequal wealth distribution, and a generally poorer populace, where I just do not see this happen, has made me realise that it is not inevitable, and that something must be seriously wrong with British culture for this to be the norm.

I get buses quite often here. They are always full of hard-working, normal people -- young and old, males and females, usually alone or in couples, going quietly about the business of their day (or night). They are not dominated and terrorised by groups of odious teens.

Often, someone will get into your bus and try to sell trinkets, sweets, prayers printed on paper as bookmarks -- anything, just to make an honest few pesos. Or they will get in and sing, do anything. They are very poor, often probably through no fault of their own, and may have been through horrific things (1.5 million Bogotanos are living in shanty towns, displaced by the violence -- that means they have probably lived first-hand through the kind of terrible violent acts that Britain's bored teens have only seen in their tasteless video games). What makes the biggest impression is that they are without exception respectful to all. They ask the bus driver if they can get in and make their pitch, and accept it if he refuses. They are unfailingly polite to the passengers, and simply provide the opportunity for one to help, without pressuring or being in any way anti-social.

Or people (often women) will turn to making and selling arepas on street corners, charging just a few hundred pesos (10p) for each one. Even though they know that business people or tourists have much more buying power, they are honest and charge the same price to everyone. Squeedgy kids clean windscreens at stop-lights. Old crippled men beg for change at street corners. But they never threaten, and they don't get anti-social if you say no -- despite the fact that they probably need that money to eat.

Of course, crime does happen. A couple of straggly-looking kids tried to rob us a while back, Henry got his cellphone taken off him in a bus by a man with a knife, and the British Embassy reports that people have been stabbed when refusing to cooperate with robbers. But when it does happen, you can't help but feel that at least it was in some way justified. With such a vast discrepancy in wealth, and very few safety-nets for the poor, it is not surprising that some out of desperation turn to crime. It is more remarkable that so many do not, and have a genuine work ethic and respect for their communities and fellow Colombians.

In Bogota, walking down a quiet street at night, you might want to be wary of people who look very poor. They almost certainly won't, but it is possible that they might rob you. You might get stabbed in the process. But at least they have a reason to be attacking you! They need the money more than you do. So much more, that its almost criminal for you to have it in the first place. In Bogota the sight of groups of young males is rarer, because the culture encourages people to go out in mixed groups anyway. But when it does happen, they are not yobs out for a fight, a stabbing, a proving of their masculinity.

In Britain, no-one is really genuinely poor to the same degree, and even those without money have access to a good infrastructure. What gives those yobs the right to go around terrorising people with their anti-social behaviour?

Whenever someone mentions Colombia's "culture of violence" I am reminded of Britain's "culture of yobbishness".