It’s been a WHILE. Twelve years since I left Colombia, 11 years since I left France. I hadn’t planned to resurrect this blog, but as it turns out, I have something I want to share.

When I was in grad school, I wrote a creative nonfiction piece called “Don’t Give Papaya.” I’ve worked on it on and off over the years, and finally got it to a place I was happy with a couple years ago. So I started submitting to literary magazines and journals, only to never hear back. The bane of being a writer, I suppose.

Still, I would periodically send out this piece for submission in the hopes of being published. Waiting, checking my email to see if I’d hear back, waiting some more. And I’ve decided I’m done waiting for someone’s permission or approval.

I’m happy with my essay. Is it perfect? Of course not. Luckily I don’t believe in perfection. But I’m ready to share it with the world (or at least the maybe three people that might read it), and I’m going to publish it on my own, here, on this blog. If you read the following piece, I am forever grateful to you for letting me share my words with you. I hope you are t r a n s p o r t e d.

Don’t Give Papaya

By Kate Trey

Barranquilla, 2010

            You walk along Carrera 51B, a main artery of Barranquilla, Colombia, on your way to the Universidad del Norte for a meeting. This particular stretch, the quarter mile or so before the university, is uphill. It is a typically hot and humid August day, nearly one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. You could have taken the bus, but that day you chose to walk instead, simply because you felt like it, even though most barranquilleros live by a dogma of an economy of steps: don’t walk if it can be avoided. It has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with the heat. You, however, still being new to the Caribbean coast of Colombia, don’t yet understand why walking doesn’t make much sense when one has the option of taking a bus. The point is, you’re hot; you worry that your white blouse has become transparent from sweat and your hair feels as though you never blow-dried it that morning. You are sure you’re going to look disheveled for your meeting, but you’ve come this far on foot and aren’t about to give up now, so you keep walking instead of flagging down a bus.

            But then, a bus slows down next to you. It’s a typical costeño bus, the kind that occupies the streets of the city, sea foam green with “Sobusa” printed on the sides in black, and a red sign with white words indicating the bus route placed across the top of the windshield. You know that there are no bus stops in Colombia. They tried once, but no one paid any attention. To catch a bus, you just wait along the bus route and flag down the one you want, much like you would a taxi. But you didn’t flag this bus down, so you look over, surprised and a little perplexed as the driver waves you on to the bus. You look around to verify that he is in fact gesturing to you. You feel you can’t very well refuse his offer of a ride, so you hop on.

            “A donde va?” he asks.

            “La Universidad del Norte,” you say.

            “Vale,” he nods.

            You pull a 1,000 peso bill out of your pocket, but he waves you off. You just wait up there at the front with him, feeling slightly uncomfortable. You don’t exactly blend in with Colombians; you’re a pale, freckled redhead and when you stand in the bus, most women only reach your shoulder or elbow. Your Spanish sucks right now. You have very little idea how things work in your new host country. Did you get a free ride because you’re white? A woman? What are the Colombians on the bus thinking? Are they thinking “pobrecita” or “gringa idiota?” It doesn’t really matter because about two minutes later, you get off at the university, thanking the driver for the ride. You’re still not sure why he stopped; maybe you just looked really lost, but feel grateful because you’re slightly less drenched for your meeting. The meeting, it turns out, you are early to because you didn’t know that in Barranquilla, a meeting that starts 30 minutes late is considered on time.

            You’re in Colombia to teach. You have a year-long contract as a Kindergarten teacher in a bilingual school. When you tell your new Colombian friends where the colegio is, they balk. “That’s far!” they tell you. But it doesn’t seem that far to you. For the first couple weeks, your boss, the director of the preschool, picks you up and takes you home every day. It means getting to school extra early and leaving well after school has finished, but it doesn’t bother you. At least, not at first. After you feel like you’ve gotten a hang of the city, you politely tell your boss you’ll just catch the bus to school. You feel confident. You now know how to take not one but two different kinds of green buses; you do it often.

          But now, you have to take el bus amarillo. The yellow bus. That’s what everyone calls it. There might be a real name, but who knows what it is? It’s the only yellow bus in the city. But don’t think it’s like the yellow school buses of los estados-unidos. It’s nothing like that. First of all, it’s actually yellow, not that sort of American cheese yellow of U.S. school buses. It’s painted with swooping, ribbon-like strokes of red, green, and orange along the side. On the inside, there are usually red tasseled curtains pulled back along the windows, shiny colored tape wrapped around poles, and the majority of drivers have an eclectic variety of old stuffed animals decorating the dashboard, in addition to a small, rusty fan pointed straight at the driver’s face. Frequently there is music blasting—vallenato, salsa, cumbia.

            In preparation for your first ride, you find out from a coworker where you can catch the yellow bus; conveniently, its route passes just a block from your apartment. This is good because you learn that the bus only comes about every twenty or thirty minutes, so you have to be out there on time. The exact time is not specified—you just have to be out there early. When you get on the yellow bus, you hand your money to the driver. But apparently that’s not how things work here, because he tells you to sit down, someone will come to take it. You obey, and in a little while a man comes around to collect your money. You have to tell him where you are going because the price differs slightly depending on the distance. You pay 1,600 pesos, 600 pesos more than the regular green buses you usually take. To get off at your school, which is along a stretch of road where there is pretty much nothing else, you have to go to the driver a little before and tell him the name of the school, “Los Corales, por favor,” but you try to say it with the costeño accent, so it comes out, “loh coraleh.” He nods and lets you off. Your heart quickens just a little bit each time, slightly nervous that you’ll get up too early or too late, or the bus will be too crowded and you’ll have to shout loudly at the driver, or he won’t understand what you’re saying. Sometimes you do get off a little too soon or too late, and you have to walk a little extra, but it’s okay.

            You grow to love your morning rides on the yellow bus. You sit by an open window and relax. There’s not much of a breeze until the bus moves out of the heavy-traffic area to the tree-lined roads that take you to school. Then a steady wind blows through, pleasantly ruffling your hair. That half an hour in the morning is so cool and peaceful. It’s your time, before you enter the school to calls of “teacher! teacher!” and small children running around. You do nothing but look out the window, at the university students heading to their classes, cars zipping by, a woman grilling arepas con queso at a corner stand, lush green trees and bushes along the route.

            There are certain kinds of Colombians, and foreigners, too, who have never taken a bus before. Or maybe they did just that once, when their mother’s car broke down and there were no empty taxis because it was raining. Other than that, they’ve always been driven places by their parents (or maybe their family’s driver), or when they’re old enough they drive themselves, or they always take taxis. Maybe they’re scared to take a bus, maybe they think it’s beneath them, or maybe they just don’t like crowds. But there’s this microcosm on wheels all around, and it should be experienced. You love the buses, and the culture contained within. You feel oddly accomplished with your newfound knowledge of the Barranquilla bus system, your ability to navigate this new city, and the fact that you don’t have to rely on anyone to help you get around. Plus, your Spanish has developed a nice costeño accent of which you’re very proud.

Bogotá, 2011

            You will soon dive even deeper into the nuances of life in Colombia, both on and off buses, when you move to Bogotá. After a year of living on the coast, you’re ready for a new experience. A new city, a much more expansive set of buses, but similar bus etiquette.

         The first immediate difference between Barranquilla and Bogotá is that in the capital, there are about a thousand different buses and you have no idea which one goes where. Just like in the coast, the only way to learn is to ask. Your first week there, you’re not brave enough to attempt the buses, so you either walk or take a taxi. Your temporary lodgings, until you find an apartment, are at a hostel called La Quinta in a neighborhood called Chapinero Alto. The hostel is a short fifteen-minute walk from a Spanish institute where you are taking a weeklong Spanish class specifically on the subjunctive tense because you’re having a lot of problems with it.

          At the beginning of your second week, you decide to explore the city a little bit, and take a taxi south to the Museo del Oro, the Gold Museum. The route seems pretty direct, along la carerra septima, an eight-lane avenue that runs from the south to the north. It’s a straight shot, which gives you the courage to decide to take a bus back home instead of a taxi. Before you leave the museum, you ask a security guard which bus to take to get back to your address. You succeed in getting on the correct bus, but you miss your stop and make the grand mistake of thinking that you’ll just stay on the bus, because eventually it has to loop around again, and anyway, you’re not in a hurry. It’s like a free bus tour of the city. So you stay on. And on. And on. And the bus is still headed north, farther away from your residence, and the sun is setting. Clearly this isn’t working, you’re going to have to get off and change buses. You get off at a four-way intersection, but you don’t know which bus will take you back. You try three different buses, asking the driver if they’re going where you need to go, and finally the third driver nods. You get on, feeling relieved and stupid for not realizing just how big Bogotá is.

            You learn later the reason why there are so many different types of buses and bus companies in Bogotá. A while ago, bus companies were privatized and there is no limit to how many bus companies are allowed to operate. Which essentially means that anyone with some buses can start a bus company. It’s a problem because the streets are oversaturated with buses, and they contribute immensely to Bogotá’s heavy traffic. The insides of the buses in the capital are not nearly as festive as the buses in Barranquilla; there is rarely music playing, and the colors are neutral and drab. In order to know which bus to take, you need to read the sign placed in the windshield. Bogotá bus signs are unique: they are a Palladian window shape, a variety of colors, with the names of streets, places, and abbreviations written that indicate the general route. The only way to learn is to ask people and conductors if the bus is going where you want. There are no schedules; you just wait on the sidewalk, or the roadside, until the bus you want comes hurtling along and you wave it down.

            The bus drivers work on commission, which means the more passengers they pick up, the more money they make. On the one hand this is convenient, because the driver will always make an effort to pick you up. On the other hand, this can be extremely dangerous when a bus zooms across four lanes of traffic and comes to a screeching halt to pick up one passenger, and then zooms right back to the left lane. No fixed stops means more frequent stops, sometimes just a block from one another.

            In Bogotá, you are no longer teaching in a school. You work for a couple of different institutes and private clients, teaching and tutoring all over the city, so you spend even more time on buses. You learn how to interpret the different signs, and if a bus doesn’t take you to your exact destination, at least it gets you close enough to walk the rest of the way. Most often, you catch a bus going north along la septima. When you look out the window to the east, you can see the mountains; they’re quite close. There are mountains to the west as well, but these are way off in the distance, only visible on a clear day. You never tire of the view, even if sometimes you miss the more relaxed pace of the coast, and you definitely miss the warm weather. You like the variety of the city, though; there are many different neighborhoods, each with their own feel, there are tons of restaurants and shows to go to, there are theatre festivals and book festivals. You find an apartment, and settle in to your life there.

           One day you take a bus along your usual route to your class, and a hawker gets on the bus and asks the driver for permission to sell his pens. Permission granted, he jumps over the turnstile, which is there to count the number of passengers who ride the bus—the number must match the correct amount of cash the driver hands in to the company—without paying and begins his spiel.

            “Buenos días, señoras y señores.”

            “Buenos días,” about a third of the passengers respond, almost robotically.

            “Que Díos les bendiga. My name is José María and today I have these magnificent pens available for you.” He displays an array of ordinary red, blue, and black pens, the kind that most offices keep in the supply closet.

            Then he proceeds to walk down the aisle, handing a pen to every passenger. Most people take one; a few refuse, including you, since you don’t want a pen. The hawker then walks back up to the front of the bus, says a bit more about the product, and thanks everyone for listening. Finally he walks back down the aisle, and you watch carefully as he collects either the unwanted pens or money in exchange for the pens, and exits through the back door the next time the bus stops, waving in thanks at the driver. You understand now—you can take the pen no matter what, almost like a chance to inspect the product, and then at the end, you either give money or give back the pen. It’s a seamless process, an everyday occurrence.

            Pens are not the only item hawked on buses, you discover, as you take a multitude of buses throughout the day to get to your various students to whom you are giving English classes. People sell fruit, children’s books, candy, and even smiley face stickers. Sometimes there is a set price for the item, but other times it’s at the passenger’s discretion to decide how much to give. The stickers are a “gift”—you are not required to give money to the hawker when he or she sticks one of the neon colored smiley faces on your shoulder—but most people spare a coin or two. One time, before you knew all the rules (even though you thought you did), you tried to give back the smiley face sticker that had been stuck on you. The hawker shook his head, smiling at you, so out of a sense of obligation you fumbled in your purse for some coins, and he thanked you. You had the feeling, though, that he sincerely wouldn’t have been offended if you’d kept the sticker without donating.

            There’s another custom of Colombian bus riding for how one pays the bus fare if the bus is too crowded to enter through the front, and instead has to enter through the back door. It happens rarely in Barranquilla—population roughly two million—but all the time in Bogotá—population over nine million. It gets pretty crowded on the buses, particularly during rush hour. So the new passenger squeezes on, wedging a place to stand just barely through the door—being careful it doesn’t close on an elbow. Then the new passenger hands 1,500 pesos to another passenger until the money reaches the driver. There never seems to be any concern that the bus fare will disappear into someone’s pocket en route. In the event that a person does not have the exact fare, the change will be passed back along a similar trajectory until it reaches the proper person. No one thinks twice about it—this is part of the crowded bus routine, and people are trying to get to work or home or school as efficiently as possible.

            You refrain from participating in this custom for a while, and instead wait for a less crowded bus. Then one day, you’re running late for a 7:00am class you have to teach, and you don’t have time to wait for a less crowded option, so you gather your nerve and squeeze your way into the back. In your fist you have clenched the 1,000 peso bill and 500 peso coin; exact change so that the money only has to be passed forward and no change has to be passed back to you. You stretch out your hand to somewhere in the aisle and someone takes your slightly sweaty money. You murmur gracías. You watch as your money passes from one hand to the next, until it reaches the little window where the driver sits and the person places it in the little holder that is there to receive the bus fares, and breathe a sigh of relief that your money made it safely.

           Despite the fact that petty theft is a common occurrence in Bogotá, there seems to be an unwritten rule that you must pass the money along. It’s not like it’s much money anyways, and it would be pretty obvious if someone were to pocket it along its trajectory, but you still worry. Not about the money, but about the awkwardness that would ensue if other passengers thought you had tried to not pay, making you look like the gringa who doesn’t know how anything works, which you hate, because you’ve worked hard to learn how things work and how to be part of it all. It’s a small victory every time you are able to participate in one of these bus-riding customs. It comes with a feeling of acceptance, of belonging, to your new country.

            You give classes and tutor all over Bogotá, at all times of the day. In evening rush hour, when it gets really bad, if the weather is decent you play “race the bus.” This is where you get so frustrated with the persistent stop and go of the bus that you get off, sometimes just a few blocks before your destination, sometimes really far from your destination. You walk quickly, keeping an eye on your bus the whole time (not an easy feat, among the hundred other buses), trying to stay ahead of it. It’s a constant leapfrog—the bus is ahead by a block, then it gets stuck, and you’re ahead. You win, of course, when you make it to your “stop” before the bus, which usually happens, though never by more than a block or two. At least, though, you were in motion and got some exercise.

            During your many months in Bogotá, you observe a particular phenomenon of Colombian bus riding. It is the act of seat-hovering. But it’s not until you’ve been there for several months that you actually ask someone about it, because you’re honestly just not sure if you’re overthinking it—maybe it’s nothing. But you repeatedly witness an occurrence wherein a seat vacates and a standing passenger moves in to take it. If it’s an aisle seat, the person sort of stands next to it, guarding it, for about a half a minute before occupying the seat. If it’s a window seat, the person moves in and acts as though he or she is going to sit down, but instead hovers over the seat for about fifteen to thirty seconds. Not everyone does it, but a lot of people do. You try to guess the reason for this. Maybe they’re waiting for a less bumpy opportunity to sit, or perhaps they are waiting to make sure no one else is on the bus who really needs the seat, like a pregnant lady or an elderly person. But no. You are completely wrong.

            One day your curiosity is just too much and you finally decide to ask your friend about the seat-hovering, half afraid he will have no idea what you’re talking about. He looks at you like the answer is obvious and says, “Colombians simply do not like a warm seat.”

            “What?” you exclaim, incredulous and amused. “What do you mean?”

            He goes on to explain that the idea of sitting in a seat that has been warmed by someone else’s bottom is repulsive to many Colombians and so they hover while guarding their seat and waiting for it to cool. He explains how his grandmother and others from her generation believed that it was possible to get germs from a warm seat—all seats, not just bus seats. Maybe that belief is how the custom got started. Now every time you sit down on a warm bus seat, you think about this and smile, but this is the only bus custom you intentionally refrain from joining in on.

            You do have a favorite Colombian bus-riding custom, though, that you participate in with great enjoyment. Since recounting this practice to others, you’ve been told that this happens in other countries as well, but despite having lived in cities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas, Colombia is the only place you’ve personally encountered this custom. It is, in your opinion, an example of the true goodness of human nature, through such a simple act that can really make the difference in your day. Buses are often so packed in Bogotá that you don’t even need to hold on (and sometimes you can’t) because the pressure of people on all sides is enough to keep you on your feet. Needless to say, seats are a highly coveted commodity. There are many nights when you take the bus home around eight o’clock after a long day of teaching and tutoring and have to stand for nearly an hour. And this where your favorite custom comes in—package- and bag- holding for strangers.

           Here’s how it works: a passenger who is fortunate enough to have a seat notices your heavy-looking bag, filled with books and lesson plans for teaching, and offers to hold it for you, thus relieving you of the weight of your bag and making it a much more bearable ride. The first couple of times someone offered to hold your bag you politely refused, saying that no, you are fine, you’ll be getting off soon. You did this partly because you were taken aback and partly because you felt some concern for the safety of your belongings. But then one day, you are carrying a bag with two pairs of shoes you just purchased from the market, still in their boxes, and a young woman offers to hold them. It is just too awkward and difficult to hold the bag of shoes along with your purse and still hold on to the metal bar, so you accept the offer. The woman makes no attempts to make off with your shoes, and you begin to trust people a bit more. And then you begin to initiate the custom yourself. You feel pleased when you are able to offer to hold someone else’s bag; you are both doing a good deed and further weaving yourself in to the tapestry of Colombian culture.

            A Colombian rite of passage that you’re not at all excited about, and which commonly occurs on buses, is the act of being robbed or mugged. Perhaps not every Colombian, but just about every one, has had at some point a phone, purse, wallet, piece of jewelry, bag, laptop, iPod, etc. stolen. It happens. Buses in particular are hotbeds for theft. The first time it happened, you had an almost empty shoulder bag with no closure. You had only a few items—a wallet, a book, a scarf. On your way home from an interview with an English teaching institute, after you got off the bus, you reached into your bag. You couldn’t find your wallet. You looked inside and picked up each item, but it was unquestionably gone. You called the interviewer, and they checked, but your wallet wasn’t there. You sighed. There wasn’t much cash in there, but there was your Colombian ID and credit card. Annoying, but not tragic. After this, you take the Colombian saying no des papaya—don’t give papaya—to heart. It essentially means, “don’t be ignorant and make yourself an easy target; be smart and be alert.” But it’s a lesson you haven’t yet learned well enough.

            One afternoon, you take a bus to the apartment of one of your students after a long lunch break. You are carrying a black shoulder bag that zips closed across the top. In it are your laptop, wallet, notebooks, and a few other necessary articles. As you stand up and push your way through the dense mass of commuters, making your way to the back to get off, the bus hits a few bumps while taking a sharp turn. You are forced to grab on to the metal bar above your head with both hands to avoid falling over. People are pushing against you from all sides. The bus rocks to a stop and you descend the stairs. You step onto the pavement, feel the lightness of your bag, see that it is unzipped, and then notice that your two-year young MacBook is gone. Your stomach drops all the way to your feet. You’re incredulous at first; you look frantically through the contents, wanting to believe that it’s there and you’re just not seeing it. But it’s gone.

            You look around and spot a policeman with the neon yellow vest that they wear. You tearfully speak to the young police officer and tell him what happened, in the vain hope he can help you get your laptop back. He calls it in on his walkie-talkie, taking your phone number and promising to let you know if anything turns up. You thank him for his help, even though you know that in Colombia, the only way to retrieve a stolen item is to find it on the black market and buy it back yourself. You accept the loss, but every time you think about that moment when you stepped off the bus, your stomach drops again, exactly the same way. From this point on, you always carry cash in your bra. You never take your hands off your bag. No des papaya.

            But sometimes an event occurs that you have absolutely no control over. One day you’re on your way to class when you feel your phone vibrate in your pocket. Your mobile is what Colombians call a flecha, the cheapest sort of phone one can possibly buy that does the bare minimum—text, call, and play snake. It’s a friend, calling to find out where you are and make sure you’re okay. He tells you that a bomb exploded on a bus, he just heard it on the news. You’re fine, you’re not near where it happened. The driver was killed, he says, and many of the passengers were injured. Was it the FARC? you ask. Probably, but they don’t know yet, he says. You recall that U.S. embassy workers aren’t allowed to take the buses—they have cars that drive them everywhere. Maybe the unlikely occurrence of an event like this is why. Still, though, you feel that the embassy workers, or anyone who doesn’t ever ride a Colombian bus is being deprived of unique opportunities to experience Colombian culture.  

            After living and working in Bogotá for one year, after having learned Spanish well enough that occasionally a Colombian will mistake you for a native speaker, after becoming adept at making Colombian dishes like patacones con hogao and ajiaco—you think back to that first (unintentional) bus ride in Barranquilla. How far you’ve come. Now you could comfortably travel by bus anywhere in the country.

          Then, just a few weeks before you’re about to leave your beloved Colombia, you are on a bus headed home. Strung across your chest you are wearing your mochíla, a traditional bag woven by the Wayuu tribe. It has no closure, that’s just the way they are, but you aren’t worried because you can clearly see it and keep your hand resting on it.

          You notice two shady characters at the back of the bus and keep a watch on them out of the corner of your eye. As you approach your street, you stand, lowering your eyes as you walk to the exit. One of the shady characters, a teen dressed in a black hoodie and black jeans, stands up. He moves towards you. You brace yourself.

          He can’t be more than sixteen, but he’s clearly up to no good. As you’re waiting to alight, he sticks his hand into your mochíla in plain sight. You look up now and stare directly into his eyes. You grab his hand, shouting “Oye!” and forcefully removing his empty hand from your bag, tossing it away. He doesn’t react, just stands there and stares at you. Heart pounding, you glare at him and get off the bus as quickly as you can, before he has a chance to think, looking back to make sure he isn’t following you. You’re pissed and euphoric at the same time. Ha! Take that, incompetent robber. Ya no estás dando papaya. You’re not giving papaya anymore.