ZeDoCaixao has left 33 comments

ZeDoCaixao comments on shopping

Damn, I've never experienced that. That would send me over the edge real quick. I should add that supermarkets here are very decent and, of course, no one bothers me when I am browsing the aisles ... which I do just for relaxation, I confess.

ZeDoCaixao comments on shopping

webmanco- "I am glad ZeDoCaixao will be leaving Colombia soon, otherwise he would be walking barefoot and naked for the presure he feels from Colombian salespersons. Good luck." True. In the meantime, how about I stick one foot up your ass after the other? That should take care of my feet temporarily. As with every other topic, the PBH regulars have completely warped a good-natured gripe into moralistic browbeating. I should be appreciative of spatial assault every. single. time. I walk into any kind of store. Sorry, not buying it. Maybe Colombian vendors should diversify their tactics. I appreciate attentive service where appropriate: hotels (in which they are generally competent), restaurants (competent but not at all attentive), medical care (competent), police (toss-up .... depends where you are, what you need, etc.), banking (cool but competent), legalities ..... not much experience there. NOT when I'm just browsing for a bloody pair of shoes.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Colombia's Old Spain Caste System

ferran - Agreed. Wealth follows the races which create it, bottom line. This is why southern Brasil is the wealthiest part of that country ..... it is the "whitest", and from Sao Paulo itself -- with its Italians, Jews, rich old Portuguese and other Europeans -- stems the ideological enfranchisement of the non-white as more "Brazilian", more inherently valuable than the white in what is universally accepted as Brazilian identity. The failed bourgeois-republican revolutions of 1848 brought thousands of northern Italians, high Germans, Swiss and Austrians to the River Plate -- whereas, in exact contrast, poor low Germans (from northern Germany) and southern Italians went to America without any great social upheaval to spur them on. The rich criollo / white families, owing to the equalizing ("Todos somos latinos!") metanarrative of liberal democratic capitalism can rest easy with an immense store of brown poor folk, be they mestizo, mulatto or simply the descendants of the poor old Iberian peasantry, to hold their shotguns and murder their opponents. And this of course is why Colombians hate .... Hugo Chavez.

ZeDoCaixao comments on shopping

Or what about when you go to a chain restaurant, or any one with picture menu displayed, and they have not one item listed? Hay chuleta? .... No, lo siento .... Hay costilla? ..... No, lo siento ..... Now I just ask: Que hay de verdad? As ferran noted, the mall thing (with constant rotation of duties and availability of product) is new to these people. I'm about ready to lose it some days, to be honest. The other day I got into a cab, gave the dude the address, he drives ONE BLOCK over and says: 2.800 pesos. I say MAL PARIDO LADRON as I fling 4.000 at him and slam the door behind me. He gets out and starts shit, I just walk up and stare him down until he gets back into his cab. Anyway, I'm leaving this country soon.

ZeDoCaixao comments on

What you'll find more than anything else, by the way, is that Colombian females really aren't gaga for gringos at all. Colombia has plenty of native hotties, most of them what they call "mafiosos", with money enough to satisfy their needs. American men usually just come across to them as weird and, sometimes, completely alien. First thing you need to do is get rid of this implanted notion that foreign women are hot for you because you're American. They aren't. Maybe they are more flirtatious because they're not cold blocks of midwestern permafrost like our women, but really they aren't out to drain your wallet in "exchange" for sex .... it's just how things are done here. You take them out, you buy them shit, they are your girlfriend until some native Lothario sends just the right amount of text messages (usually in the 1000s) with just enough clipped pillow-talk (te amo mi vida pa siempre!!!) to lure her away from you. And it always happens.

ZeDoCaixao comments on

"So does casual sex without blatant sponsorship exist down there? Would it be possible for me to have a gf that didnt see me as some kind of meal ticket? " Don't count on it. It may happen, it probably won't, especially if you're anywhere but Bogota or Medellin. These women are not like our women; it is not the same dynamic at all. If you're expecting the American kind of relationship - friendly, casual, etc. - without the dancing and aguardiente and text messaging and shopping which is the Colombian female's whole world, forget it. If you can manage all that, which is not exactly "sponsorship" but .... let's say the cultural field of Colombian dating, you could find yourself rolling in it very quickly. If you don't dance though, you will quickly become reacquainted with your old childhood friend, the hand.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Colombia's Old Spain Caste System

The problem with all this is that a "mestizo" race, or racial continuum, is a flawed concept at root. People have for long assumed that because a Colombian, or any not obviously pure native Latin American, has bronze skin and black hair, they are "mestizo", a creature between European and Indian. This is nonsense, as anyone familiar with racial variation in Spain itself would know. The reason your paisas are lighter and so on is simply that they're mostly Vasco and Galician; literally the same blood flows through much of Costa Rica, which is why THEY are generally more european-looking. Most of the time, when people talk about or refer to "mestizos", unless there is some physical feature with correspondence in a non-European race, the subject is actually just a southern Spanish type. The fact is that the conquistadors and the colonists who followed in their wake weren't the bourgeoisie or nobility, but the proles, and in a mixed country like Spain (which was created by a tension between southern/moorish-arab and northern/roman-germanic elements) that means people with dark skin, dark hair, weird shapes and all that. Point is, mestizaje isn't as universal in the lower echelons of society as people think. These weird types which we account for by the word "mestizo" can be traced right back to the Iberian peninsula itself. Probably the criollos themselves invented this concept to distance themselves from the descendants of poor families. In our time the concept has gained political weight from the left as a blanket cultural identity to cover any shade or shape of "Hispanic". And this is as nonsensical (and convenient) as calling everyone born in the US an "American" despite all possible racial differences and crossings. "Mestizo" identity defines itself in large part against North American identity, anyhow. "Todos somos latinos" in the mouths of both northern-Italian Argentines and blacks in Choco is the politically correct formula for abrogation of natural identity in favor of the state's enfranchisement of all as "citizens" and consumers, subservient to the metanarrative of total world equality designed by the American academic left. For both to call themselves "latino" because the language they share stems from a European tongue which itself was a descendant of another called "Latin", is an admission that thinking about who and what they really are is not part of the worldview in which they find themselves; that they do not care about, and have no conception of, who they are in substance, and surrender to the all-powerful line that one is what one speaks, and nothing more -- though the black and Indian are, of course, granted identity rights of their own (by societies created for, and dependent upon, whites, caucasians or criollos) to accomodate the white's impulse of self-mortification for alleged historical injustice, thereby surviving both materially and psychologically on the white's masochistically inverted sense of distance from the non-white.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Que Hubo? Sounds like Cuobo or in English, Q-Bo?

As far as "look here", I hear a nasal "veaaa" all the time, sometimes shortened to "ve". Rarely "mira". Never "que hay" for what's up.

ZeDoCaixao comments on shopping

Good point. Have noticed people trying to sneak around an obvious line, or attendants' drifting or switching to others out of order. Was at La 14 in Cali, in line for about five minutes, and just as my turn was coming up, this old lady walks right up to the person being checked out and waits there, clearly intent on hijacking my spot. Now usually I'm a friendly guy, will gladly let the elderly pass, help them across the street or whatever, but as this was so utterly brazen and, what was worse, reminded me of my very much unbeloved grandmother, I had no choice but to raise my voice at the little line-terrorist and send her scurrying back to where she belonged.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Que Hubo? Sounds like Cuobo or in English, Q-Bo?

I never hear mijo/a in Buga, in fact was wondering about it just the other day. There seems to be some significant regional variation in speech.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Input needed: keep house and stuff in U.S.?

I'd bet money on a move back. Put your things in a reputable storage facility, try to find a reliable maintenance man to manage the renting of your house, and count on coming back in 1-2 years to reoccupy it. Not being cynical, but very few American expats here are in for the long haul.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Que Hubo? Sounds like Cuobo or in English, Q-Bo?

It's said exactly "kyoovoh". I get "que mas" and "hola! bien o que?" much more often.

ZeDoCaixao comments on shopping

i'll take your word for it. but this is a problem for avg colombians too, as you recognize; i don't look like a "gringo" either. none of that tall / blond / blue eyed shit going on here. i should work on my delivery, perhaps .... find something polite to say to get them to back off. once, a quick "no gracias solo mirando" seemed to work, but a few seconds later she descended on me again with redoubled fervor!

ZeDoCaixao comments on shopping

it is pathetic. i'll never forget stepping up to this one dingy old tienda, dude was an easy 90 years old and selling pure junk; the very second i walked up he was on his feet, hunched over, eyes thick with glaucoma, swaying slightly and mumbling "a la orden, a la orden". i tried my hardest to get him to sit, but he just looked at me blankly. i left.

ZeDoCaixao comments on ZeDoCaixao

i dunno. they'll just think of you as 'gringo' in any case.

ZeDoCaixao comments on shopping

oh yea, and cabalgata sucks.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Cheapest hotels (excluding hostels) in Medellin?

Good enough.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Tattoos

"Is that what that one means? I wish I'd known that before." It's called a tramp stamp.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Tattoos

All that is objectionable, but adding to one's intimidating personae, as you put it, has some darwinian value. Not that it helps one much in the worst situations .... like any time of day or night in just about any Managua barrio. It's just skin, our hides aren't worth so much that one is entitled to be heartsick (for very long) over some ill-conceived ink. I got a huge, solid black swastika on my right arm about five years ago in southern Brasil, and have since distanced myself from that ideology. But I have refused to feel regret. Instead, I had some more work done and turned it into a pretty Hindoo mural that people seem to like once they get over their shock. I *do* regret a second one I got on my arm, rather poorly executed. The only regrettable thing, then, is bad art.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Cheapest hotels (excluding hostels) in Medellin?

Or perhaps I should ask, the seediest part of the city -- and go from there.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Why so much

The French have a very intense love for their patrie, more on the sentimental side - like returning to an old family estate - than the ra ra patriotic stuff of other nations. That said, Betancourt is just basking in her celebrity.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Looking for a job teaching English anywhere in colombia

Just go to a smaller city further south. Manizales has a lot of universities, Cali has fewer foreign residents and native English teachers. Pasto is almost a ghost town as far as foreigners. But you have to talk to people, in Spanish, to make contacts. Advertise in whatever local paper as well. Could also put up a couple signs at the local mall. I did that in Zona Sur here in Cali, got a bunch of replies.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Congrats to Black Sheep & Casa Kiwi Hostels

Black Sheep is fine if you like watching a bunch of obnoxious Israelis and Swedes get drunk all the time.

ZeDoCaixao comments on

Because Western women are spoilt and more likely to abort your seed and steal your money than be faithful and reproductive. Simple as that. Hey, what about all the (usually fat and ugly, but often enough beautiful) white girls in the States who shack up with black and Mexican thugs? how about all the white college girls mad for Israelis and African immigrants? It's always only the white male who is the "pig", responsible for all the world's ills, allowed no defence or escape from guilt and punishment.

ZeDoCaixao comments on THE BEST ACCOMODATIONS IN MANIZALES AS OF DECEMBER 2007

Why in God's name would anyone want to do business, of any kind, with a guy called Dick Dickerman?

ZeDoCaixao comments on

"How the fok she kept in contact with her gringo from her village is beyond my simple mind." MSN, dude. Colombians I've seen in the Kwa have been on the far left-end of the Darwinian spectrum, for sure.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Ingrid to leave Colombia within the next few minutes

This woman isn't special. She thinks she is, and was able to convince others that she is, because she's European. Europeans are quite sure they are the saintliest, most progressive people in the world; no one is more liberal, more interested in ethno-native tribal art and customs than the average European citizen, who can talk you under the table in a dozen languages, including the singsongiest girlie English you've ever heard. They're all martyrs for worldwide human rights and la la la, the old saw from Geneva. Her celebrity got an enormous shot in the main by being kidnapped, and now gets another by release in a "perfect"ly timed operation carried out precisely to bolster the reputation of a) Uribe's government and the military and b) John McPain. And this all in the name of "liberty" -- that's the State's idea of liberty, don't you see: a scowling brown dude in bulletproof uniform, armed with a shotgun, on every street corner waiting to put you down should you look at him the wrong way. Betancourt's free, but the state of society grows more steadily militarized.

ZeDoCaixao comments on The Big Lie: Pretty Colombian Girls?

This dude was spot on. Travel advisory for all gringo or euro males coming to CO to chase an El Dorado of poontang: ain't happening. If you have a few hundred, possibly thousand to blow on dates, and speak more than serviceable Spanish to at least keep the girls awake, then yes, it probably will, but you'd be better off blowing your wad(s) on working girls in that case. As for Latina 'passion' and so on, forget it -- if it ever was here, it ain't no more. Occasionally in a smaller city a pair of eyes will linger for more than a second, but that's that, expect nothing more. Maybe you have a Colombian buddy who will introduce you to some friendly, likeable girls; maybe you get to know each other and, as Colombians are wont, pick and poke and touch each other a little in a joking manner -- expect nothing more, it's just how they are. These girls aren't passionate, they're juvenile. I don't know what moron confused the two to begin with. OTOH, I've been with Chilean girls who, with a very minimum of coaxing, were ready to bang my knob off. There's a line in that awful pile of propaganda "The Motorcycle Diaries" -- Che's buddy tells him Chilean girls are the easiest in South America. In my experience, limited to the north and south of that country, that is close enough to reality to warrant further experimentation. Which is NOT to say you will get a thin, blond, green-eyed european type girl in the middle region, or in Santiago. You probably won't, and will instead be slipping on your own drool every day you spend in those two areas, as you will most of the time in SA anyway. As for the BEAUTY of the women, degree and quantity thereof - as in, how many overwhelmingly, kill-yourself-now, big-titted, blue-eyed, raven-haired, pale-skinned, freckly, short, curvy bouncing chicks you see in ten minutes on the street - Costa Rica beats just about every Latin American nation hands down. Argentina of course has its superior quality (roughly the same kind you'll find in southern Brasil up to SP, and to a lesser extent in Antioquia), and I don't oppose the two as their women are different types of perfection. And of course if you like morenas, go to northern Brasil, Guyana, Choco or somewhere like that. Guatemala had some goodlooking chicks, especially nearer the coast where the Mayan influence shades off, though I'd bang a cute Mayan chick any day, don't get me wrong. The point here is just to dispell this bogus notion that Colombia has THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, MORE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS PER CAPITA, or THE MOST GRINGO-FRIENDLY GIRLS in Latin America. That is NOT to say you can't get laid, or married, or find a vapid little chick to take to the movies (which is probably all you WILL find outside Bogota), just that YOU, QUA GRINGO, ARE NOT SPECIAL. Colombian dudes are goodlooking hombres; they bathe religiously, wear starchy pastel clothing girls seem to find unthreatening, or a bad imitation of American mall-wear, and like to pump iron when they're not texting. In Cali you also have a lot of black dudes who have, generally speaking, lower body fat, are taller, and are therefore physically superior; Colombian marketing agencies know this and play it up in ads and on television, as you'll see on the billboard which welcomes you to Cali of a black dude and white latina. If you're a 6'5", pale, sandy-blond, crystal blue-eyed Germanic type, ok, you'll more than likely find girls willing to fawn because you will here be an utter rarity. Otherwise you ain't jack, gringo. I say this as a disillusioned gringo, myself. If you want easy girls in SA, go to Chile or Guyana. Everywhere else is just ..... normal. Colombians have a warped idea of feminine beauty. I've heard Colombians, men and women, many times actually say that large natural breasts are "ugly", and that these unmoving plastic globes the calenias sport are beautiful. Their fashion sense is ghastly, hardly even warrants the name "sense" -- every tacky accessory is united in the style of the Colombian female, from the ultra-tight jeans paired with sparkly heels, to the hot pink tube tops and hoop earrings. So a chick with either no tits, or utterly fake balloon tits, a clipped nose, silicone-bloated lips, and a chubby ass painstakingly wrapped in jeans 10 sizes too small is BEAUTIFUL? It flouts every standard of beauty both traditional and modern in every other part of the world. Of course not EVERY Colombian girl looks this way, etc., and sometimes you'll see girls of just heartbreaking natural booty --- but ALWAYS warped by the tacky clothing and obnoxious "latin" culture. Bogota, Brasil, Buenos Aires and Montevideo are here superior, because in these places you can find girls with actual personalities. It all depends on what you like. But the main thing is, don't expect much because people here have been enfranchised by capitalism and you are not interesting to them as a sexual object .... unless you're talking to a hooker. Oh yea, and the Per(r)eira joke is bullshit. So don't even bother unless you actually want to see that city or its environs. If anyone cares to know WHY the areas I've named have the most beautiful (and therefore least accessible), i.e. europeanish women: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2507392, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12601469 . Genetic isolates ..... namean?

ZeDoCaixao comments on Moving to Colombia

Also, stop calling yourself gringo.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Moving to Colombia

Try finding an auto rental outfit in a bigger city or tourist area, they'll perhaps want you for Anglophone business.

ZeDoCaixao comments on Bolivia is Gorgeous!

Sounds like effing paradise.

ZeDoCaixao comments on elmodefoque

you're pretty amusing, dude

ZeDoCaixao comments on Portraying of Colombian men & women on PBH

Well, I never got laid in any part of CO but by paying for it. Except once when I shelled out who knows what amount for liquor and ended up with some ugly broad.