London's dark side

Very often people ask me if Colombia is dangerous. Very often I hear people saying “I would love to go to Colombia, but isn't it dangerous?” And it is sad because let me tell you something, criminality in London town is pretty nasty. The things that I have heard and the things that I have experienced myself are hard to believe possible in the safe and peaceful continent of Europe...

A previous flatmate told me this story: he was on a taxi home after a night out, the taxi driver noticed he was drunk and charged him an outrageous amount that my flatmate refused to pay. Another taxi arrived and the two drivers threatened him with a knife to the neck! What?

Last Friday my workmate was in court witnessing the judgment and conviction of an 18 year-old boy that robbed him in the street. The boy tried to snatch my workmate's backpack, however he fought back. The boy escaped but the police managed to retrieve DNA samples from under my workmate's finger nails. Later on, this boy robbed some students and since they didn't have any cash, he forced them to go to an ATM and empty their bank accounts. Fortunately he was caught recently and was convicted to 4 years in jail.

The other day I saw a gang of about ten dudes beating up one guy, almost to death. I had to call the police... the police arrived and arrested some of them, the beaten up guy was taken to the hospital.

I don't know anyone in here that hasn't had their smart phones or bikes stolen at some point, but that's not unique to London, is it?

A year ago, a couple of days before New Year's Eve, I'm going to get some cash from an ATM machine a Saturday night... the ATM was saying “retrieve your card to get your cash”, I heard the card trying to exit but the card didn't pop out. After a few seconds the ATM displayed an “out of service” message and then rebooted, but the card didn't come out after all. I had a feeling that I was being a victim of crime. When I arrived home 30 minutes later, I went to my online banking to block the card, however I noticed that already some transactions had been made. I called the bank security phone-line and as I was reporting the theft I could see transactions being made with my card! I'm not sure how they did it but fortunately the bank blocked the card and gave me the money back the following Monday.

Big Beng

London is an amazing city and my time in here has been extremely positive, yet I can not help wondering whether at this point you really are safer in London than in Bogotá or any other descent place to live, as a matter of fact... it reveals how you are surrounded by people with corrupted hearts no matter where you go. You should always be cautious, it doesn't matter where you live. Nonetheless, never forget that the good people are the overwhelming majority of us Homo sapiens, regardless of all the violence we see in the news, the terrorist attacks, the murderers, the rapists, the corrupted governments...

When you hear in the news, Syria had chemical weapons... it wasn't Syria that had chemical weapons, it wasn't the loving mother who had the chemical weapons, it wasn't the man at the grocery shop that had the chemical weapons, it wasn't the kids at school that had them. It was a few mad men with power that had them. Those few men are not Syria.

When you hear in the news that Colombia is or was the biggest exporter of cocaine... it wasn't Colombia the exporter of cocaine, most of us 45 million Colombians had absolutely nothing to do with that. That was the thing of few evil or foolish men, corrupted and undeserving of being called Colombian. Those men and women are not Colombia.

Do not judge an entire population on the evil deeds of the few.

After all, the small acts of kindness that we do or experience everyday will not get any time on TV.

Journey to myself – 23andme, before DNA sequencing results (Part 1)

I feel that my life is about to change. I can not shake this feeling of excitement to finally and truly have genetic evidence of my roots. As a Colombian I am privileged to be racially mixed, within me rest the history of three branches of the human tree separated by many thousands of years of evolution and thousands of kilometers. I am the Native American, I am the men and woman that journeyed through Eurasia and ventured across the Bering Strait still through the ice age, fighting mammoth, frozen oceans and walls of ice 15000 years ago. I am the Spaniard conquistador, mounting horses and firing muskets, I am Cervantes and Don Quixote. I am the black slaves shipped from Africa, robbed of my humanity and retaken, I am cimarron and cumbia. I am a mix of Native American, Spanish, and African, both genetically and culturally, and I hope to confirm this with the genetic analysis.

My DNA ready to be shipped across the world

Previous genetic studies in Colombian mestizos have shown that we are about 60% Spanish, 30% Native American, and about 10% African... I have no reasons to believe I am different to that, but I am prepared for surprises. I want to find out if I can narrow my ancestry to a particular genetic group in Spain... is there a bit of North African in me due to the invasion of the Moors? What tribes of Colombia's Native Americans my Indian ancestry is from, is it Zenú, Embera, or Muisca? I may not get such detailed information, but I believe I have access to the raw DNA sequence data, so I may be able to do a few searches of my own.

Some Colombian families take pride in believing that they are 100% Spanish. Some other Colombian families reject their Spanish ancestry and express much hate because of the aftermath of the conquest. My families are a true example of this, on my mom's side they believe there is no Native American blood flowing through their veins and are outraged by the idea of a native ancestor. Many times I heard them take pride in the fact that in my grandfather's family there was a lot of inbreeding, they would say things like, “my dad last name was Londoño Londoño, we are pure Spanish, because they used to get married between cousins since they arrived to Colombia...” as if that was something good. On the other hand many times I heard my father express his despise for Spain, taking pride by saying that they have more facial features that resemble the Native American, and yet both mom and dad are unmistakably mestizos.

I am sure that if every child was aware of his or her true genetic ancestry, such kind of stupid believes that give rise to discrimination and oppression would not persist for centuries, as they have evidently persisted after hundreds of years since colonial times. This is particularly problematic when that kind of people achieve positions of power.

The other good thing about 23andme's service is that they will screen for my risk of developing some genetically inherited conditions or diseases, this range from lactose intolerance and boldness, to Alzheimer’s or Parkinson's, to some forms of cancer.

Very recently and very tragically my uncle (on my mom's side) passed away overcome by a rare form of cancer in his small intestine, he was only 52 years old. However, this is not the first time this has happened in my family, I already lost another uncle to prostate cancer and another one to liver cancer, both of them did not reach 60 years old. My grandfather (their dad) also died of cancer in the throat and it seemed that he lived as well with some form of skin cancer... he died around 75 years old or so. On my dad's side also an uncle died very young of lung cancer. So it makes me wonder whether I am at a higher risk for cancer than the average population, and whether I carry some bad mutations in my genome.

Thus, I can not wait until I have my results. Even if I am surprised with a higher risk of developing a severe disease later on in life, it is better to be mentally prepared even if there is nothing I can do. In any case, there is something I can always do, to enjoy every single second of this fragile life: fragile and ephemeral like evening dew and morning frost.

Not really quite what it looks like

Things are not what they seem. Look at this map from google... if you compare the relative size of the UK or France with that from Colombia, it looks like they are about the same size. France looks even a bit bigger. However, Colombia is 4.6 times larger than the UK in area and 1.6 times larger than France...

Area of Colombia: 1'138.910 km²
Area of the UK: 243.610 km²
Area of France: 675.843 km²

Now, while the UK is only 907 km from South to North (measured using Google Earth) and France 954 km, Colombia however is 1805 km long!!! WOW!!!

Or is it an optical illusion?

Not really quite what it looks like

The Giant Blue Cockerel at Trafalgar Square

A Madman's Diary by Lu Xun

This is the second book in my quest to read the best 100 books of all times. It is a short story published in 1918 by Lu Xun (1881-1936) and as in the previous book, I had not heard of the author before... and it surprises me to realize the extent of bias towards Western culture of my high school education, since in six years of literature classes at school back in Montería, I do not remember to have ever dealt with an author that was not Hispanic, American or European. The interesting thing about Lu Xun is that he was an innovator breaking from the traditional Chinese ways... and he must have been really brave to pull this off, in my opinion.

I must say that A Madman's Diary is hilarious! It is so uncommon to find a book that could actually make you burst into laughter. I could count a couple... I think it is really hard to be humorous in the written form; I mean, to the point of making you laugh out loud. All in all I rate this story very high, just for its entertaining value and without regard for its historical or literary context.

I do not want to give you any spoilers but the story is about this young man who thinks the entire world is full of cannibals, even his older brother is conspiring against him. Unfortunately for him, he IS their next meal!

Save the children...

Lu Xun

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

I begin my journey to read the best 100 books according to the Norwegian Book Club. This list was compiled in 2002 by asking 100 authors from different countries to select their top 10 books and it is supposed to include books from all cultures and all times. I have decided to read them all in order to diminish my ignorance levels and become a better man. The list does not have a ranking so I decided to read them in alphabetical order by title, the first one being A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, published in 1879.

As of the day I saw the list for the first time I had never heard of neither A Doll's House nor of Mr. Ibsen. I must say this little book was a pleasant surprise. It is a play in three acts narrating the intriguing drama of a young married woman. It is not until the last act that you understand what this play is really about: a critic to society and the institution of marriage, in particular of women being oppressed, minimized, and underestimated by their husbands and society. In this case not really because of physical abuse but mostly because for her husband, she is just a pretty face with a vagina. It must have been extremely controversial when it was played for the first time, I wish I had been there.

As relevant then as it is today, unfortunately.

Exotic tulip

From Confucius to me

A few days ago I heard a Confucius quote on a TV show. Submerged in my own ignorance, I started wondering whether he really existed or not, if there was any evidence of his historicity. As I wikied him I learned that there is absolutely no doubts that he actually did exist, but that his genealogy is the largest and best documented of any person in the world. His genealogy includes about two million people after 83 generations and spanning more than 2500 years!

I thought, how cool it would be to know my own genealogy back 25 centuries or more: where would this take me? Back to the deep jungles of the Caribbean Andes, or to an ancient Iberian? Maybe somewhere else in the world far and remote, I mean, a lot can happen in 2500 years.

You could say that the first clue of my ancestry could be found in my last names, Cardona and Londoño. The Cardonas were a noble and old family from the times of Charlemagne. In the 8th century Raimundo Folch went to Cataluña to fight the Moors, and he did so well that Charlemagne made him Viscount and great Lord of the city of Girona, in the region of Cardona. The first Cardona in Colombia was José Solís y Folch de Cardona, who was a Spanish colonial administrator and viceroy of New Granada in mid 18th century, or that's what some people say on the internet. The Londoño last name is Basque and apparently it was some kind of small village. The first Londoños to arrive to Colombia during the late 17th century were the brothers Agustín and Juan de Londoño y Trasmiera. I think it's very unlike that I could trace my lineage directly to Raimundo, there are probably millions of Cardonas in Latin America alone. On the other hand, it's a bit more likely that on my mother side they could trace their genealogy to the first Londoño in Colombia; since they come from the same region were the originals settled down, a region called Antioquia. However, when I see myself in the mirror, I understand that very little or nothing can be told from my last names alone. I am a mix of races, part of me is Native American, part of me is from Spain, part of me might be African as well. Who were my Native American relatives? Which tribes in particular did they come from and which language did they speak? How long ago did it happen?

So I decided to look for genetic studies on Colombian populations to see if the level of mixture had been estimated before. I found a recent study in PLOS genetics published in 2008: Geographic Patterns of Genome Admixture in Latin American Mestizos, a paper lead by Colombian professor Andrés Ruiz Linares at University College London. They found that in a region of Colombia (coincidentally close to where my family comes from), people were roughly about 60% European, 30% Native American, and about 10% African. I should not be very different from that, I dare to say. The study also said that the majority of the mixture happened from Spanish men mating with Native American and African women. In another study I read that in the population of people from Antioquia the male Y chromosome is about 94% from Southern Spain, 5% African, and 1% Native American. On the other hand, the mithocondrial DNA, that is inherited only by mothers is in about 90% of the people Native American, identical to the Embera people.

My dad told me once, I'm not sure I remember correctly, that one of his grandmothers was nicknamed “la india”, because she might have been all Native American... if this is true, probably I have a higher percentage of Native American in me. My plan is to later on purchase the National Geographic service to find out my ancestry on both my mother's and father's side.

 This is my dad dressed as a Native American in one of his anthropological expeditions to the jungle

Why I didn't like Christmas

I must confess Christmas holidays was a time I literally hated. I never enjoyed it, as a matter of fact, during most of my childhood I was scared of Christmas and New Year's celebrations, and later when I became a teenager it became a time of very uncomfortable decisions.

The main reason why I was scared of Christmas was the fireworks. There were two kind of them that I was particularly scared of, the first one is known in Colombia as carpeta (meaning literally: a folder). This was a small amount of gunpowder wrapped in paper in the shape of a triangle. Once ignited it exploded with an incredibly loud BANG! The second one of these scary things was called volador (meaning: flier). This was a rocket that exploded in the air with multiple BANGS! There was absolutely nothing pretty about them, no colorful lights to awe the spectators, just one loud horrifying bang. Well, my gentle soul was terrified of such type of fireworks and during Christmas there were more carpetas and voladores that could be exploded in one single night. Every single Christmas my drunk uncle came home with bags full of those, and there they went happily to blow these things up at the balcony for hours until sunrise. I had not choice but to find the most distant and dark corner of my house to hide terrified of the incessant explosions. Until this day the smell of gunpowder still sends shivers through my back and set me on alert, ready to take flight.

As I grew older and became a teenager I might have been able to tolerate the fireworks better, but with it came an equally displeasing discomfort. My parents separated when I was still a baby, and during most of my childhood I spent the holidays with my mother and her family. When I became a teenager my father returned to my hometown, at least during holidays, so I was put in the awkward situation of having to chose with whom I wanted to spend the holidays: with my dad's family or my mom's family. This was terribly uncomfortable for me because even though I had a choice, I knew that my mom didn't want me to go with my dad's family. She never said it but I could clearly feel it. On the other hand, I didn't get to see my dad so often so he expected me to spend the holidays with him. It was extremely uncomfortable having to decide whether I was going to be on Christmas Eve with one family or the other one, without hurting anyone's feelings. It was never easy, and that completely ruined my holidays every time. Nowadays that I have been living in Europe, I have had the chance to spend very peaceful Christmas. And even though I wish I could spend it with both my mom and dad, and even though I miss them so much... I'm kind of glad I don't have to make that choice or relive those uncomfortable situations any longer.

 Merry Christmas to all and a Prosperous 2013!!

Six months in London and two poems on the Underground

Ice Rink at the Natural History Museum

It's exactly six months since I arrived to London. To commemorate I'll leave you with two poems I saw on the Tube some of those days.


A Song for England

An' a so de rain a-fall
An' a so de snow a-rain

An' a so de fog a-fall
An' a so de sun a-fail

An' a so de seasons mix
An' a so de bag-o'-tricks

But a so me understan'
De misery o' de Englishman

By Andrew Salkey


Two Fragments
 
Love holds me captive again
and I tremble with bittersweet longing

As a gale on the mountainside bends the oak tree
I am rocked by my love

Sappho translated by Cicely Herbert

Tax avoidance in the UK?

The other day I was happy on the second floor of the double decker bus, on my way to work, when I saw on a bus stop the following poster:

It reads in small letter: if you have declared all your income tax you have nothing to fear. What is that supposed to mean?

Just to find out a few days later that companies like Starbucks using the loop-holes in the tax system, have paid no taxes on their entire revenues EVER in the UK!

And they try to put fear in the hearts of the populace? What hypocrisy.

Way to go Britain... way to go!