What's In A Name?

A couple of weeks ago, NPR (the most fabulous news source that exists in the United States, hands down) had a story about your coffee name. This is the name that people give to themselves at Starbucks when ordering coffee as to be efficient and not have to spell out their name. With a name like Jill, of course, I don’t have this issue. Jill is perky, short, simple, and easy. That is until you get to Latin America. In Buenos Aires, my name would cause bewilderment equivalent to the name Rumpelstilskin anywhere else. So what did I do? Exactly what the chick in the NPR story did – when going to a restaurant and putting my name in, my restaurant alter ego – Julia – came to life.

In the US, for the most part, your name is your name. As that NPR story signifies, people react with shock and awe if you stray too far from your given name. Sure, we’ve got Joseph’s who become Joes, Jennifer’s who become Jennies. But radical departures are seen as just that – radical and inspiring of NPR stories that people talk about.

In Latin America, it is common for people to have a variety of names and naming customs are very different. In the northern parts of South America and in Central America, people often take their mother’s maiden name too. So you can meet a Maria Jamilla Ruiz Perez that is sometimes know as Maria Jamillia Ruiz P.

Another one you will encounter all over LatAm is people being called names that are not even among the litany of legal names they may have. Some of them sound obvious – Lau for Laura, for example. But other times, people use a name that has nothing to do with their other name – like Nacho in place of Guillermo. In Bogota, I even ran in fear from trying to see an apartment when I asked for Maria, only to be told there was no one by that name there. Turns out, Maria was just the name she used on email. Violeta was the name her neighbors knew her by. Me? At first I thought it was a tourist scam (Craiglist, while wonderful sometimes, can also be sketch city regardless of what city you are hunting in) but I eventually realized the naming customs were not what I was used to.

Today, I am just going by Jill and kinda liking it.

Securely Insecure

As in all of the Latin America that I know, Bogotá joins the ranks of security obsessed. In front of every shopping mall, there are always a gaggle of security dudes sewn into pseudo-Army styled uniforms, with dogs ready to turn a snarl on a moment’s notice. It’s not just window dressing either, they don’t mess around here - every car that goes into a public parking garage is searched and sniffed, presumably for explosives.

Now granted, here in Colombia (unlike some other places that are security obsessed) stability and a non-violent existence are relatively recent developments. A friend here in Bogotá shared numerous stories with me as we walked through downtown a week or two ago, pointing out buildings that have been rebuilt after being torn to bits by explosives, even a tale about a classmate from school that was left maimed by a paramilitary’s mistaken bomb. Just tragic, especially considering that this all happened less than 15 years ago.

This security obsession doesn’t just extend to public places. Every apartment building has a doorman. Doormen range from scruffy looking guys that spend more time sleeping then guarding to the starched, pressed and proper variety. Regardless of appearance or work habits, they are all stunningly polite (a la Colombians in general). It’s a nice touch overall, except for one thing… you don’t have a key to the front door of the building. Yes, people. You don’t have a key to the place where you live!

It may be a matter of security (making sure there are no duplicates made, allowing the unauthorized to enter) but I find it a little much. This over-secured mentality seems to make me a little more paranoid and a little more edgy, which trust me… I don’t really need.

I also think this affects the psyche of people. While people in Latin America generally lean on the side of the over-security obsessed, I have heard endless cautions from nearly ever person I have met about taxis (always, but not from the street) and walking at night (don’t do it, ever). Now I know Bogotá ain’t Kansas, but c’mon people. The US is plenty sketchy. Ever been to Washington DC? I think it had the highest murder rate before Bogotá snatched the honor away years ago. But no more. These days it’s Caracas, Venezuela that’s taking the honors.

Whatever. Ultimately, it’s just annoying when you have a slacker door guy, it’s super late, you’ve had a few and you need to pee.

photo from: http://nitinwirenetting.tradeget.com/F16054/barbed_wire.html

Third World Women and Bikes

So… you probably didn’t know this, but Bogotá is a city that rivals any Western European city for bike friendliness. There are tons of bike paths and a weekly event where the bikes take over the vast majority of the city streets. It’s not Amsterdam, but it beats the hell out of my favorite bike lane in Washington, DC (on 9th St NW) where you are supposed to do halvesies with the bus.

Anyway, I have been talking to people about the fab bikeness of Bogotá and something really interesting came up that I have never considered… the gender divide of cycling. Not surprisingly, women of Latin America bike less than their male counterparts. This mostly has to do with the fact that women never even learn to ride a bike because this is seen as something unfeminine. Whhhatt?

Latin America is not the only place where this divide exists. According to research done by the UN, this divide exists in Africa too. In addition to the perception that riding is unfeminine, if a bike is the fastest mode of transportation available, you know who gets it. And it ain’t the chicks, I hate to tell ya.

This divide even exists in the US. Recently blogger Anna Letitia Mumford wrote about the bike divide in US, citing a study in San Francisco showing that women make up 49 percent of San Franciscans, but make up only 23 percent of frequent cyclists (meaning cycling two or more days per week) in the city.

Well, what can we do? First off, teach chicks how to ride bikes. I heard that the weekly cycling event in Quito, Ecuador has a bike riding clinic for women - a good step in the developing world. What else? Hmm… maybe make cuter cycling clothes? Just a thought.

P.S. The photo is the Porsche. Love her!

Liberator

It’s my first days in Bogotá and I am trying to find my way against a maze of zig zag roads that climb through the city like vines and addresses littered with a mouthful of numbers (which are my nemesis in Spanish). Add to that a radical microclimate where it goes from spring to fall in less than 15 minutes and you have my first days here.

Yesterday I did a little site seeing and went to the house of Simón Bolívar. Of course, it was a grand affair- a lush garden brimming with gorgeous plants, rooms where Bolívar entertained the intellectuals of his time, and a proud display of weaponry used by him and his compatriots. I went with a young Austrian woman who had studied Bolivar and his battles, which proved to be useful as we traded my translations services with her vast knowledge of all thing Bolivarian.

When we were chatting, she mentioned to me that Bolívar was not an indigenous South America. While born in Venezuela, he came from an aristocratic Spanish family. Simon was a pretty impressive dude, leading efforts to liberate what was known as Gran Colombia, which included parts of today’s Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia. Basically this dude was George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton all rolled into one. Or else he had a better PR person than anyone else.

Anyway, Bolívar was an extremely liberal thinker and wrote about creating government with checks and balances and individual rights a la the US. But it all kinda went south on him, he went the dictator route, which of course got ugly. He was planning his exile to France when he died.

In this tragic story, my favorite irony is that a dude totally worshipped by the likes of Chavez and Morales was thinking along the same lines as their present day nemesis. I get how it’s all been distorted, blah and blah. But still, a paradox, no?