Darwin and IPhones

Darwinism.

Survival of the fittest. Almost like wild animals in the jungle or forest left to fend for themselves and get by without dying. Darwin described human life in the same way. And while it may sound all too exaggerated and histrionic, it does have a ring of truth in our lives while we try to get by and not get crushed by society’s standards, rules, other people’s success and our sometimes-prevalent failures (of the light kind). And so when a man tells Silvana, “Aqui lo que cuenta es la viveza,” it makes sense. When she says, “Here what matters is staying alert, being cunning, taking advantage, surviving,” it catches the eye.

It’s true.

Yes, it does sound as if she’s describing District 13 in The Hunger Games and every other Dystopian society ever to brush our minds, but it does carry on the gist of what it is like to live in Colombia. In Bogota, if you get mugged it’s not some hot-spot news that leaves everyone startled with their jaws slacked on the floor. It’s common. That’s why people usually try not to flaunt their Blackberries or IPhones in crowded streets that might leave a good chance to be atracado. If you’re part of a huge line of cars patiently waiting to turn into a new street, there will be the occasional car that tries to defy the time and cut the line and try to manoeuvre his way between two cars in the front. If you can drive in Bogota, you can drive anywhere. Enough said. It’s not a dangerous clash of guns and hiding citizens, but it is true that to live here you must have some sort of cunning and alertness in your persona. That’s just how it is.

            And yet, that is no reason for someone to say, “ Colombia still petrifies me. I see a potential killer in everyone’s gaze.” Because that means that if you see a very classy and well-dressed old lady, you’re going to automatically think that she is going to kill you. That’s what including ‘everyone’ in that statement does to it’s meaning. And so I’m going to say that Silvana Paternostro is either extremely paranoid, or that she just places extreme words such as the former in sentences to sound more poetic and moving. I’m going for the latter.

            Another thing that she probably exaggerates is when she says, “Barranquilla has one of the snarkiest disparities between rich and poor that the history of human society has every known, as well as a staggering amount of corruption.” But not as much. I wouldn’t know to verify the validity of Barranquilla being one of the most economically unequal cities in humanity (sounds very compromising) but I will admit that in Colombia, Bogota at least, that is very true. While some people can’t even afford a car, some will spend money on four, if not more. She also talks about how “the money allocated for public services vanishes every time.” I’d love to disagree with her, but while money in the government doesn’t vanish every time exactly, it does tend to happen. Sometimes even the money accumulated by taxes is taken by corrupt government officials and kept for themselves.

            One would think there’d be a way to prevent this and stop the corruption withing Colombia, but there is yet to be a full proof system. If Silvana’s said anything tinted by truth, it’s this.