Colombian Street Life

Since the last time that I wrote regularly here, I have moved to my own place in Medellin. I now live in an apartment. I have a little balcony. Fantastic! My view from the balcony is over a little street. Well one thing that I have noticed about Colombia is that street life is so much noisier than in Sweden. I guess Sweden is a very silent country. Silent people, order everywhere. Colombia is kind of the opposite. When I sit and work in my apartment, there is hardly five minutes without sounds. What are these sounds?  

Ambulent sellers. These come dragging a little wodden carriage with two weels, kind of a a wheelbarrow, and they sell fruits or vegetables. All sellers have something in common: they shout out their offers so that everybody can hear them. "Aguacaaaateeee a millll!" "Maaazaaaamorrrra!" Many of them use a little portable sound system with a microphone so that their words reach every little corner of the block.  

Dogs. It seems every Colombian family has a dog. And they bark A LOT (maybe educating your dog  is seen as rude here?). I have two neighbours that have dogs that bark at least every five minutes from 7 am to 10.30 pm. Luckily they don't bark at night. But I can tell you, there is a lot of patience needed not to get mad daytime when I try to work from home. Mostly my solution is not to stay too long in my apartment.

People shouting for other people. Somehow there always seems to be somebody shouting to get somebody out of their apartment. "Maariiaaa-Luuuuzz!" "Nicolasss!" "Enriqueeee!" It always seems they have to wait quite a bit until the person shows up on their balcony or window.

The local guardian. These are security guards hired by the community. They circulate the neighborhood dressed in security outfit, with a baton (not gun). For some reason, I guess to scare people into not commiting bad stuff, they announce their rounds audibly. Mostly they use a whistle. For a while, our local guard used a bicycle horn. You know, those little rubber ones. Quite funny.

Neighbours. There is always some neighbour you can hear. Not like in Sweden, where some  apartment houses are totally silent. In Colombia there is always someone singing,  laughing, talking or just playing music.

Cars honking. This is a common one. If you love car honking, come to Colombia. The one I resent most: people who stop outside the place of their work pal at 5 am and honk to announce their arrival. Quite disturbing to a foreigner like me. For a Colombian? Nah, they don't even hear it.

The local construction site. For some reason, at both places I have lived here, there has been a construciton site close by. I guess because Medellin is progressing. Thing is, in Sweden, the only thing you would hear, is the sounds of the actual construction and a radio playing loud the national radio station called P3. In Colombia, there are no radios playing at construction sites. But there is a constant shouting, workers shouting from the 15th floor to the ground staff and vice verse, to send that up or down. Why does that never occur in Sweden? Do they all have walkie-talkies there? I am not sure.

Parties. This is more at weekends, but especially the night before bigger holidays, there are always several parties going on on the street. Yes, not in the apartmentes, on the very street. People cook "Sancocho" soup in a big bowl right over a woodfire. And they sit around, always with some kind of music equipment that allows the whole block to enjoy the music.