For weeks I have observed what people do while we are on the street, while we go to our jobs, during the time we are in urban and private transport; the answer is terrifying.
We have been invaded by a being that is not of our race, nor is it extraterrestrial, it is the Smartphone. From children to grandparents we are being kidnapped by these beings who seem to have a method of persuasion that not even the Russian spies were able to develop in the best moments of the KGB. They drive talking for them without hands-free, they listen to music in decibels so high that even the neighbors hear the personal party, the fat fingers are no longer so fat from so much chatting and they are the best entertainment friends in the frequent traffic jams of the capital.
Now, in public transport, everyone who has a gray hair or a little wrinkle is an elderly person and they look as if it were an obligation to give up a chair so that their forty-somethings can’t stand up; but when a grandparent or elderly person actually arrives, they look offended because another person does not give them the chair instead of giving up the one they are using. According to the Superintendency of Public Services, which is in charge of overseeing and governing regulations for the benefit of these people, senior citizens begin at 67 years of age.
Something that we have not been able to overcome since I can remember is the lack of personal hygiene of some people. What a day, that I got into a Transmi, when we arrived at the Pepe Sierra station a character got on that every time the articulated braked he exhaled a stinky smell, and not precisely through his nose. In addition to not bathing, they apply some lotions that combined with the lack of hygiene are a toxic bomb; add to that the fact that it bothers us to open the windows to circulate odors and viruses.
Now in the traffic you see a wave of motorcycles and bikes that come out of nowhere, they don’t respect pedestrians, cars, trucks, or buses, what’s more, sometimes they are more reckless than our little yellow friends. Electric bikes get in everywhere, just like motorcycles and they believe that because they are small they can get in anywhere and that it is mandatory to give them way even to park on the sidewalks. I’m not saying that all of them, but most of them are, as my grandfather would say, “a walking tombstone”.
On the other hand, begging with added values such as children or sick people, like Facebook images, invaded buses, Transmilenios, traffic lights, streets and establishments. They have such scope that one can no longer sit quietly inside (much less outside) to eat or have a drink, because someone comes with every intention of making you feel guilty because you can have a drink or eat something in that place and they can’t. The worst thing is when you vary and take a different route, and you run into one of these characters to whom you had previously listened to a story, but now it is another radio soap opera of those by Corín Tellado; after this nothing moves your heart anymore because you no longer know what is true and what is false. I bet 99% of it is fake; it’s that it’s a good business, without meeting schedules or hierarchies and also without paying anything to the DIAN or the UGPP.
Another perfect combination is the new generations that now have fashions that one does not know if they are displaced, from the street of the cartridge, homeless or well-to-do, because they paint, smoke maracachama, get fed up as if the liquor stores were going to run out, they dress, they express themselves… In addition to the fact that the owners of the world believe they have the right to sit on the stairs, bellows and any corridor for the comfort of themselves and the others who screw themselves. Dare to request that they settle according to the place, you expose yourself to a rise of father and Lord our God.
To close the exhaustive analysis of our daily life, the speed that all of us have in getting anywhere and at any time cannot be left out, we are always late, or if not, how many people in the Transmilenio do not line up, but when the bus are the first to push everyone in order to get in first. I laugh at those who have the gall, moreover, to reserve or take care of a chair, as if that were a movie theater or a restaurant. “I tell you, I have the same right that you have to sit down, therefore if I arrive first I have every right to sit down”. Not to mention that they do not respect children, the elderly, pregnant women or people who have undergone surgery or have a disability. But don’t worry, the same thing happens on the streets, if not, look at peak hours how people fight for a taxi service, we are not capable of giving in to anything, we are selfish by culture and the law of the smartest prevails. If not, let’s look at what happens with cars in a traffic jam, we are not able to give way because our time is more important than that of others and we get into any small hole that we see, like a motorcyclist, without caring about closing or mistreat the other vehicle.
As I read on Omar Gamboa’s blog, our problem is not bureaucracy, or lack of opportunities, or the economy, or lack of education, or corrupt politicians, etc. Our problem is our culture of SELF. I first, I want, I can, I am, I matter, I am everything, etc. As long as we continue to think as an individual and not as a community, we are doomed to remain an underdeveloped and failed culture.