The class war in Colombia has many facets, but the more noticeable, every-day side is monetary. The middle-lower classes who are working hard to improve their conditions are constantly faced with infinite barriers to even the smallest attempt and I truly believe this should be a priority for developing more prosperity and equality in this country.

Banking and taxes

The banking system in Colombia disproportionately discriminates against the middle and lower classes. Colombia's inflation rate in 2015 was around 4.5%. However, it is incredibly difficult for regular families to obtain bank loans and those who do get given extortionate interest rates often over 20%. It is clear to see who the winners and losers are in this equation. Many families are stuck between a rock and a hard place, not applying for credit and living with rising prices and inflation but with stagnating salaries, or get credit and be faced with almost impossible repayment rates. 

Colombians are taxed 0.4% on every single type of bank transaction, including withdrawing money from cash point, promissory notes, wire transfers, internet banking, bank drafts and bank checks, money on term deposit, overdrafts and installment loans. In addition, Colombians are charged around $9,000 a month to just have a debit card and withdraw only 4 times per month from a cash point and this increases if you want to withdraw more. This is why most people simply don't have debit cards so have to spend hours every week queuing in the banks to see their statements and withdraw or move money. I have seen on countless occasions hoards of manual labourers sat outside banks for hours on end just to access their weekly salaries. In addition, paying household bills and phone bills requires you to physically go to a supermarket and queue up for ages to pay them. Even if you can pay online, most do not due to the charges for having a debit card. So, not only is the class war directly monetary, it also indirectly affects development and wellbeing as it takes up valuable time that could be spent working or looking after family. 

Similarly, getting your tax code sorted or changed, or applying to start up a business requires several physical visits to a DIAN office, the national tax authority. Not only does this take up a lot of time, as you may have to wait hours or an entire day to be seen (I have had the pleasure of such visits), these offices are only located in the major cities meaning that for the poorest or most remote rural communities, this is an incredible expense of time and money. Thus, the class war is not just between strata, but also shows the strong urban bias. These taxes, whether official or unofficial, exacerbate the wealth gap and do not affect the rich who can afford to pay the fees to save themselves time, and money in the long run. The poor, however, do not have the luxury of long-term planning, so are faced with these small, but significant, every day costs. Mortgage rates are also extortionate and I know people who, in the 80s and 90s has interest rates of up to 25%. Nowadays, rates are up to 12% which is over 10 times higher than in most of Europe. It doesn't help that, in Colombia, 3 banks own 80% of the mortgage market. A monopoly that is common in the country, ranging all the way from banking to nappies and toilet paper.

One of the factors exacerbating Colombia's inequality and class divisions is the lack of proper regulation. The whole economic system needs reform from the bottom up, decentralising the tax offices and fairer, more pro-poor banking regulations would be a start to enable easier access for the non-rich to not only credit, but their own hard earned cash. In addition, interest rates must be tied to inflation. There needs to be a long-term vision that acknowledges the benefits of having more financial empowerment for the middle and lower classes. Having a stronger middle class, less inequality and poverty would mean a stronger consumer base who purchase more products and invest in their children's futures, in addition to more taxes being paid that could be reinvested in infrastructure and education.

Pensions

Apart from the banking system, there are numerous ways in which financial mechanisms are designed unfairly to benefit the rich. One that I feel is the most shocking and exemplifies this and the corruption in Colombia is the pension system. 

Only 1/10 Colombians of working age have a pension fund, due to high levels of informality, and unemployment, and of those, many are never able to receive their money and, therefore, can never retire. In order to access your public pension, you have to have logged 1,300 weeks of work (or 25 years), meaning that many people, mostly women, who end up working less due to childcare responsibilities, or people who suffer from medical problems in middle age, could work for 24 years, for example, and pay thousands of pounds into a pension and never see a penny of it. 

The private pension funds people can pay into are no better. In fact, they have been known to steal and suffer from a lack of regulation, which would arguably only bring them up to the abysmal level of the public pension system anyway. In private funds, you need to have 180,000,000 pesos in your pension before you can access it. So, if you earn the minimum wage, as over 55% of the population do, not only would you be putting money into your pension that you desperately need to live on as the wage is too low, you would have to work for over 150 years in order to even receive it. Pensions in Colombia, therefore, disproportionately affect the poor. They are part of such a complicated system that not even educated people would easily be able to understand it. I know an accountant who has spent hours figuring it out and barely understands it. It is there to trick people into giving away their money and not receiving anything in return. 

The injustice of the pension system is clear when you read about the corruption that has come to define it. Even if you are able to make a claim to your public or private pension, your pension may be denied to you on the basis that you do not have enough savings or years logged, or fraudulent action will take place and your documents will be altered illegally to make you look ineligible. On top of this, many high level congressmen and magistrates fixed the pension system to give themselves extremely high pensions illegally or outright stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from the pension fund. There are also currently thousands of court cases where people are suing the government due to their pension funds being mysteriously emptied, which often result in an unfavourable outcome as it is the judges and magistrates who are profiting from this theft. The government has complete impunity.  

Even if Colombians manage to receive their pensions, they will get it heavily reduced due to complicated algorithms that could see them only getting around 65% of what they expected, and on top of that, the average life expectancy in Colombia is only an average of 73 years, meaning that people will only get their pension for 12 years. However, the majority of people of retirement age and over have not choice but to keep paying into their pension fund and work until their dying day.

This is not the usual lack of safety nets that are all too common here. This is the elites and the government consciously stealing from its own people. It is such a clear misuse of power and should be punishable by huge jail sentences, but it will remain unchanged due to the unequal balance of power and the fact that many Colombians are unable to fight such a unjust system. It is devastating that millions of hardworking individuals have to face such stress and disappointment in old age to access something that they are legally entitled to and see that their money is actually being used to fill the pockets of the elites. 

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Crucially, solving these problems and class divisions requires the allocation of rights to all, not just the rich and for those in power to lead by example of transparency and fairness. Crime and violence in the lower classes are rooted in the current inequality and elitism, where the lower classes have little choice but to resort to quick methods of earning money since the official mechanisms are stacked against them. Similarly, crime and violence in the upper classes, as a means of exerting control and obtaining more power, are also a key factor in this inequality. The powerful and the government have a duty to promote a culture of trust and responsibility, rather than the one of suspicion, individualism and corruption that currently exists. The key is to to grow a real middle class, redistribute wealth and pull people out of poverty, while condoning corrupt and unfair practices in the financial and banking sector. This might be asking for too much, but you have to start somewhere. Getting rid of charges to access your own bank account and allowing people to actually retire would be a great start. 

This inequality and class war is certainly not limited to economics, see my posts about inequality and poverty for more on this topic. 

I felt I needed to address this issue as it is a real problem I have faced in Colombia, and something that I have noticed is one of the important but less tangible challenges to the future of the country. I hope to explain this issue respectfully and feel, like the title of my blog, it is better for everyone to be honest in order to find solutions.

One of the most difficult things to contend with here is that many Colombians will fight tooth and nail and become extremely defensive when someone addresses the problems that are so visible in their country. Poverty, corruption, poor roads, they see it as an attack, no matter who brings it up. Taking a brief look at the comments section under newspaper articles or blogs about issues in Colombia is enough for you to get a feel of this reaction, not to mention the offensive comments I have received. There is often a lot of 'so you think Colombia is the only country with this problem?', 'if you don't like it here, go home' or them telling me how terrible Europe is and how perfect Colombia is. Clearly not very productive or conducive to change. But it is important to be aware of this mentality as it can be very difficult to manage even when you can have the best intentions. 

Of course, there may be an element of hostility towards a foreigner's observations which may seem judgmental, but I know some Colombians who are also met with the same abject horror and denial when they bring up what should be a normal topic of conversation. In addition, the  global elite benefit from such a mentality as multi-nationals and governments take advantage of countries like Colombia where the powerful essentially give away natural resources and cheap labour. So it should be in every Colombian's interest to be honest about social and political issues in order to reclaim their country from the hands on the powerful few.

Colombia is a country of contrasts like all other countries and its human rights and violence record demands for people to speak out. You can still love where you come from and acknowledge it isn't perfect. The two aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, I would say that you love your country more by not letting future generations be satisfied with less than they deserve. 

Although the popular slogan for Colombia is 'the only risk is wanting to stay' (see my post of safety for why this is not true), I would say that a bigger risk is this mentality of denial and boundless pride which leads to a covering up of problems that affect millions of people. It means anyone who wants to make improvements gets shut up before they've even finished their sentence and it creates this romanticised language portraying perfection. Countless people that I have met have repeated that in Cali and/or Colombia, "we live in paradise". I am not saying they shouldn't love their country or city, but it exemplifies the language that allows for very little objective observation or room for improvement. I don't believe anywhere is paradise and people should be allowed to voice their concerns and put pressure on policymakers to grant them more rights, whether it is in Colombia, the USA or Norway.

There is clearly an agenda in government to push this vision of Colombia and just during my time here, I have seen many public campaigns stating how perfect Colombia is. The most disturbing was part of the 'De Cali se habla bien' campaign which depicted Caleños with quotation marks saying things like 'Cali, the best city on the planet' (this is a direct quote). Many of these only showed the white, privileged few in luxurious surroundings, and those that did show mixed race or black Caleños, still printed incredibly positive messages that do not reflect the reality of people's lives here. I feel resources would be better spent actually investing in infrastructure, basic rights and reversing corruption, than in campaigns such as these which do not allow people to recognise that they deserve better.

The graffiti art I took a picture of (above), although exaggerating, expresses this sentiment: 'fucked, but happy' (‘jodido pero contento’). Many people here are suffering, whether rich or poor, due to social, economic or environmental problems, but they find ways to convince others and themselves that they are completely happy. As a result, the status quo is never successfully been challenged and people’s expectations of a good society are maintained low. For example, when I have had conversations about the fact that I believe that all humans deserve quality state-funded healthcare and education and that is how it is back in Europe, I have been met with laughter and some Colombians have said that the European governments must be stupid for giving it away like that or that there must be some sort of catch. People expect very little and are very happy when they get something small. This is both the thing I love and hate the most here. It is inspiring to see people pick out the good in difficult situations, but it is such a barrier to change if the rest is ignored.

There are many distractions here to ensure that people overlook their lack of safety and opportunities that should be granted to them by the state. Potential complaints are often drowned out by loud music or avoided by dancing, football, alcohol or drugs (as the graffiti depicts). Distractions are a natural response to a life of hardship and people trying to make the best of a situation or a society in which those who have spoken out in the past have been unsuccessful at best, or physically silenced at worst. But I worry that people are letting these distractions be imposed or maintained by those who benefit from having a population that, on the whole, believe the lie that they do not have the right to more. 

As I mentioned in my post about poverty, and as I found in my dissertation work with poor people, there is a phenomenon here with denial and a preference to show that you are better off than you actually are. Denial is often a coping mechanism when faced with problems that people do not know how to fix. However, this creates a stagnation of ideas and progress which plays perfectly into the hands of the elites who benefit from such a system and can afford to pay extortionate amounts for healthcare, education and the illusion of safety. It certainly is a sort of paradise for the rich, but even they would live better if more rights were demanded for all. 

In my view, Colombians can either accept mediocrity, let the powerful elites continue to rule the country and propagate the idea that they live in paradise, or they can understand the reality, which may not be pleasant, but leads to standards being raised. The government also has a huge responsibility to improve the educational system in order to promote this sort of thinking and make people agents of change. I know it may seem impossible to overcome the issues here so it is easier to deny or romanticise, but people deserve more and the first step should be raising awareness and educating children who are the future leaders of the country.

I am not asking for people to be negative, and there is such a charm to colombians’ outlook on life, I am asking for a space for honest conversation, the lack of which is a real problem. I know people who have had to remove blogs on a similar topic due to the abuse and threats they received. The fact that even I had to pad out my blog with monotonous drivel about what to do and eat in order to dilute the impact of socioeconomic and political commentary is another example of this, but I hope that one day critical thought will be permitted more publicly. 

If you are interested in this sort of topic, I invite you to read my very first blog post about Colombia having been announced as the third best country in the world, and how social conditioning and pride play a part in skewing such studies.

Although living in the middle of a big, busy city which is dirty, loud and chaotic, there are unexpected moments where nature pops up and grows in between the vast concrete structures to remind us that Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world.

Here is a snapshot of what you might see on your walk to the bus stop or to the shop. Of course, the whole of Cali is not like this and a lot of these were taken from inside my gated community, but if you look closely enough, you should be able to see something. Mostly it is amazing, like the ant colonies navigating through the inhospitable streets trying to build a home, beautiful, like the pink Pomarrosa flowers, and sweet like the hummingbird's nest outside my office. But sometimes it is just plain scary like this strange dinosaur-like 4-inch-long insect that once flew into my room! We even had a family of eagles fly around the outside of our apartment once, which was quite amazing.

Colombians LOVE cheese. 'So do Europeans!' I hear you say. No, no, you don't understand. Their love for cheese is different to our love for cheese. It is so big that they almost can't eat anything without it. Or drink, for that matter. Cheese is definitely one of my favourite foods but, having been brought up in a French household, I struggle to mix cheese with anything sweet, so I get quite the shock when I discover what it is eaten with!

I would love to hear from you all to see which of these you would actually consider eating, and whether there are any expats who have fully embraced this cheese madness!

Hot chocolate with cheese: that's right, a really thick and chocolatey drink, with melted cheese inside or dipped in. Also eaten in aguapanela, their sugar-cane based really sweet hot drink.

Bocadillo and cheese: Bocadillo is a guava sweet, a bit like pâte de fruit in France. Very nice and normal. Until they wrap it around cheese and eat I like that! (not my photo)

Arequipe and cheese: Similar to above but with their caramel-type spread. This is often eaten in obleas (large wafers) or in pancakes. (not my photo)

Cheese icecream: That's right, they went there. One of the most popular icecreams here is cheese icecream, sometimes with bocadillo (guava sweet) in it too. It literally has grated cheese all mixed up inside it!

Fruit salad with cheese: This is the most extreme mix, in my opinion. Not only is it fruit salad with grated cheese, it is no ordinary fruit salad. It is full of extremely sweet condensed milk, whipped cream and icecream. I found it so funny when we went for fruit salads and you had to ask for it without cheese. It is just so normal here. I applaud any expat who can eat one of these!

Colombia's Caribbean coast is the number one tourist destination here. I have now been twice, in 2011 and this year, so this is a mixture of what we did on those trips.

Cartagena: The cheapest way to get to Cartagena is to fly with VivaColombia from Cali. In 2011, we got a taxi to our Hostel, called Hostel Real that we booked online. In Cartagena it is worth booking somewhere in the high season and around Christmas/New Year as it is the busiest weeks of the year. You can get cheap hotels or hostels a short walk from the historic centre in old colonial buildings (like the one we stayed at, cheap and cheerful). Or you can get hotels in Bocagrande (the modern beach bit with no character but.. a beach!). This year, we stayed at the Playa Club hotel which was a cheap and cheerful hotel but right on the beach and with a great pool. You can get taxis cheap to get to the historic centre easily from Bocagrande. Other hotels there are significantly cheaper because they don't have aircon or a pool but tend to be the ones that don’t have online booking so you can go in person and barter it down. When we returned to Cartagena for our return flight for a couple of days in 2011, what we did was book a night in a normal hotel then we went to a couple of ones that weren’t advertised to haggle some prices (they are the hotels that Colombians stay in and bartering is part of the deal). Then you can move hotel for the cheaper price.

In Cartagena you can relax on the beach (and buy delicious fresh mango from sellers!) which has a nice breeze or explore the Colonial centre which has some great museums but it is very expensive for restaurants and bars. From Cartagena port, just outside the big beautiful city gate, you can arrange a boat to Playa Blanca near Baru if you want a proper Caribbean experience. This was my favourite part of our stay in Cartagena, although the boat ride was particularly uncomfortable! Ask at the port or at your hostel for tickets. Here are some photos of Cartagena and the islands from our trip:

Taganga: You can get a bus from Cartagena to Taganga which is an odd little coastal town just north of Santa Marta (you may have to change buses in Santa Marta). On the one hand it is a cool hippy beach town, but that is just the beach front and behind it is a pretty impoverished town. For Taganga, don’t book anything in advance - go to the beach and book into a cheap hotel there, once again, they don't advertise online. We made the mistake of booking one online but it was very expensive and nothing special. For a day trip, you can take a little boat (negotiate the price) to the beach across the bay and you’ll get lunch included in the price. Also buy/rent snorkels before going to see fish over there. I would say to stay in Taganga for no longer than 4 days as there is not much to do, but it is nice to relax there. From Taganga you can arrange a bus to take you to Tayrona or you can get a boat but we were warned that the sea can be quite rough so maybe talk to some locals before deciding. Here are some of our photos:

Tayrona: Tayrona is the famous national park and is beautiful but we had a bit of an unfortunate experience. It is extremely physically demanding and there is very little guidance or signs for tourists, so you’re kind of on your own. When you get there you either have to walk on a road for an hour or pay for a minibus to get to the jungle, then you have an hour's walk mostly uphill on rocky surfaces until you get to the coast and a little (very expensive) restaurant. From there, the most popular place to go to sleep is Cabo Can Juan which you see in all the photos but that is another hour+ walk along the beach which is really demanding. Unless you’ve got money (to rent horses to carry you or to rent a little house), you’ll have to walk for hours carrying all your stuff and then sleep on hammocks. We trekked all the way there and were told that all the hammocks were taken. Unfortunately, there is no information when first arriving to tell you where to go or the availability of hammocks so we had to walk another hour back to the first beach - but this time through the forest on a path, which is much easier than via the beach, but once again there were no signs or guidance that the path existed when we arrived. 

Sleeping on hammocks is really uncomfortable and was quite expensive ($17,000 or £5 each a night) given that there were basically no services available and the hammock hut was falling apart. There were no cooking facilities and all the food and water for sale was very expensive. Most people end up enjoying it but it depends on your budget, and that that time we were on a very tight one. If you can rent horses, do it! The beach we were staying near was very dangerous with huge waves so we walked to the other one the following day to explore a bit and it was very pretty and we saw some cool animals but the whole thing was just tiring and badly organised. Although, as you can see from my photos below, Tayrona is beautiful, the girl behind the camera was absolutely drained. It is worth doing and you do get great photos, but we were not at all aware of just how physical it would be and that we might not end up sleeping at Cabo San Juan and just kept hearing such great things about it so assumed it all was well organised and goes smoothly, so just be prepared!

The Nirvana nature reserve is about an hour outside of Cali, on the other side of Palmira and costs $10.000 per person for entry. It is a 2-3 hour signposted hike up the mountain over streams and under bamboo and low-hanging trees to reach the viewpoint over the valley (above). The trek isn't particularly easy and is muddy at times so be sure to wear adequate shoes and take plenty of water. On our hike, we saw a variety of spiders and flowers I had never seen before. There is also a nice restaurant to have lunch at as a reward for all your hard work and, although prices for individual dishes such as trout or chicken are very high for the portion size ($25-32.000), the 4 or 6 person picada is actually a very good deal at $55.000 for 4, and is the best picada I've had in Colombia! There is also a butterfly farm right by the restaurant with so many butterflies that they often land on you and I found it much better than the one on Cerro de los Cristales in Cali.

Getting money out abroad is always a hassle. You don't want to fork out for a terrible exchange rate, bank and cashpoint fees, but fear not, I have done all the hard work for you so you can learn from my mistakes!

For the first few months I was here, I was using my Fair FX cash travel card that I usually use for trips, which charges 1%, £1 and then a mystery amount something to do with the exchange rate, normally between £1-3. However, once I started earning and needed to withdraw a lot more often (I get paid into my UK bank account), these charges seemed too much to I looked into other options. 

I started to use my Nationwide FlexAccount debit card which supposedly has quite good rates for withdrawing abroad but the trusty Servibanca cash points charged me around 8% when I used it and only allowed me to withdraw $300.000 (under £100) a pop. After investigating, the solution seemed to be to withdraw at Citibank which says it charges 3% and allows you up to $800.000 a go, but luckily I have only been charged around $12.000 and have managed to withdraw over $1m. The annoying thing about that though is that my Nationwide card seemed like it hadn't charged me extra but then the next day it adds around £5/6 charges to the withdrawal, so I actually ended up going overdrawn as I assumed all the charges would be all at once. So beware of this option! 

So, after testing out many ways to withdraw money, I now have a Halifax credit card that charges me nothing to withdraw so long as I put the money back on it within 24 hours. I ordered it from here and got it posted it to me, which is risky but it arrived safely a few weeks later. So I now get charged the $12.000 fee from Citibank and nothing from Halifax which is great! 

Cerro de los Cristales is a mountain to the west of Cali that you can get to by car or taxi. The primary attraction on Cerro de los Cristales is the Cristo Rey statue that is a point of reference when navigating through the busy streets of the city. It takes around 20 minutes to reach the car park near the statue, driving up winding roads through very poor neighbourhoods. The view is impressive, spanning across the whole of Cali and beyond. You can also walk down behind the statue to other viewpoints looking over the road up to KM18 (pictured above). There are numerous stalls selling food and drinks and the statue itself is surrounded by flags from around the world and is quite beautiful. A must for tourists to Cali! However, visiting the mountain or the statue is not recommended late at night for safety reasons.

Another reason I like this mountain is because it has numerous pizza places dotted up the main road overlooking the city. These are much lower down than Cristo Rey so take far less time to get to by car/taxi. Our favourite restaurant is called 'La Curva' and is open-plan with two floors overlooking the city which is particularly beautiful at sunset. Although they are nothing particularly special, the quality-price ratio on the food is very good so it is worth a visit.

Finally, the last attraction on this mountain is the Adoke butterfly farm which is at KM 6 of the main road up the mountain. The roads are not the best to get to it so make sure you have a good car. It costs $12.000 per person and you can spend as long as you like there. The guide (pictured below) was very knowledgeable about the butterflies and the various plants that sustain them. I saw some of the biggest butterflies I had ever seen at Andoke, so big I thought they were bats! They also have a hummingbird viewing/feeding area which, if you have the patience, will give you some great shots of these beautiful birds. The last part of the tour involves an interactive map of Colombia that they built into the hillside with different coloured rocks depicting rivers and mountains, sculptures of various native animals and emblems for the main cities. It's a refreshing little day visit away from the hustle and bustle of Cali and would be great for kids.

This is probably the most important aspect of living abroad - the budget! There are various accounts online of how much you need to live in Colombia. Most of these are for the expensive Bogotá or for Medellín or the Caribbean coast and, of course, it depends on the type of lifestyle you live. I am quite careful with my money and don't drink a lot or buy many clothes or other luxuries, so here is a breakdown of roughly what I spend in a typical month. I am also saving part of my salary each month. Nevertheless, as I have highlighted in some previous posts, the cost of living in Colombia is high relative to salaries and if I were to get my own place (which would mean buying beds, washing machine, sofas, fridge, etc), buy a car, or have children here, the cost would be almost prohibitory, especially if I wanted to live in a safe neighbourhood.

I live with my partner and his parents so I contribute the equivalent of what you might spend on rent and food in San Antonio, and more than I used to spend when I lived there in 2011. And my health insurance and lunches are covered by my employer, so that would be an additional cost for some expats.

Rent/bills/food: $400.000
Phone: $20.000 (1gb data and unlimited Whatsapp, email and Facebook with ETB, see my post about mobile phone providers). 
Taxis: $32.000
Restaurants and bars: $300.000
Cinema: $9.000
Clothing: $40.000
Trips: $250.000
Toiletries: $30.000
Miscellaneous: $100.000

Grand total: $1.181.000

I know a lot of expats truly do not believe you can survive on $1million, but I am just careful with my money and am trying to save this year so I make it happen! We still get to go on trips, I just don't buy things I really don't need! Of course, if my living situation were different, or certain things weren't covered by my employer then this would be a different story. So in conclusion, I would say that if you are really good with your money, you could live on just over $1 million pesos, however most expats couldn't live on less than $2 million. I'd love to hear your experience here and anything you spend money on that I missed out on. Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

What a surprise this has been! My blog has been awarded a bronze award in Bob's Top Travel Blog Awards 2015. I am very proud and grateful to receive this award without even having put myself forward for it. Over 2100 blogs were analysed and rated according to strict criteria and you can see this blog listed under the 'Destination' category here. Thank you again to Bob and be sure to take a look at the other winners!

For those of you who do not know, I work at CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture) here in Cali, and my work involves going to countries in which USAID's Feed the Future initiative are present to evaluate whether what they are doing is 'climate-smart'. Climate-smart agriculture is a term used to describe practices that do two or more of the following: increase adaptive capacity; increase productivity; mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Click here to read more detail about the work I do.

Back in June, I went to Rwanda, and in early August I got to go to a country I never thought I would visit - Bangladesh. From the moment I landed into Dhaka, I knew this was something different. The sheer size of this huge city of over 14 million people was something I had never experienced before. The roads were chaotic and the heat and humidity were unbearable. Interestingly, where there were proper cement roads, they were of a much better quality than roads here in Cali, although many in Dhaka were in fact dirt roads or dirt mixed with smashed bricks. One aspect that was particularly sad was to see the level of poverty that exists there. I saw no upper-class areas, no nice parks or gardens reserved for the rich, demonstrating the significant lack of inequality compared to Colombia, but also the extent of the deprivation in Dhaka. Yet, one of the most pleasant surprises was just how lovely all the locals were. In the short amount of time I had to myself to explore a little, not once did I feel unsafe, not even at night. I felt respected and like I was allowed to blend in (although clearly I stood out like a sore thumb!). I also was surprised to see various big red English-style double-decker buses. An obvious remnant from colonial times.

Regarding the work my team carried out, it was fascinating to see how much is going on in Bangladesh to protect them from climate change. This is logical since it is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate shocks as it is so low-lying, and relies so heavily on agriculture. I saw numerous examples of Feed the Future and its implementing partners developing climate-smart solutions to ensure that Bangladeshis do not suffer in times of floods and droughts and the increasing salinity of freshwater resources due to sea level increases. This was an adaptation that I was fascinated by. The use of saline-tolerant bamboo to work as a physical barrier to the rising sea, and the development of saline-tolerant seed varieties to make sure that land remained profitable and that food security would not suffer. Equally, I really enjoyed hearing about the increase of aquaculture (fish and shrimp) in ponds as the sea creeps further inland. This was often accompanied by growing vegetables on the side of these ponds. Very innovative and making the best out of a worrying situation.

All in all it was a valuable experience both personally and professionally and it is always eye-opening to see such contrast to what you are used to. Here are some photos of the city itself:

Just a quick post to remind any non-Colombians living here that I can help you to get private health insurance which covers you from routine check-ups to major accidents at the best hospitals in Colombia. (Click here to find out why private is the only way to go in Colombia)

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Every day home-cooked food in Colombia is fine. I don't love it and I don't hate it. It does it's job and tends to be centered around rice, plaintain/yuca, beans, avocado and meat. But, unfortunately, I don't like avocado and am not a massive fan of plantain or yuca. However, typical Colombian meals in general are not great. They are unvaried and often unhealthy. Good food here tends to be rare and incredibly expensive. That said, they have a different attitude towards food and either eat to live or love fried goods (fritanga) and imported american-style foods such as chicken wings and MacDonalds. 

Bandeja paisa: When I worked here as an English teacher in 2011, my students told me that the Bandeja Paisa (Paisa relating to the region of Antioquia and Bandeja being 'tray') is the best dish ever but, to be honest, the once or twice I ordered it I was not impressed (I took that photo from Google as I never have it!). It is basically the Colombian version of a fry-up but it is eaten as a proper meal and consists of avocado, rice, arepa, fried egg, beans in a beany sauce (a bit tasteless), chicharrón (really fatty fried pork rind), sausage and sometimes plantain. 

Tamales: These are a very typical Colombian meal, usually served with rice (what a surprise!). They are a corn-flour based mixture of vegetables, potato and meat, we usually get chicken, wrapped and cooked in a plantain leaf. I think these are pretty nice, although sometimes they come out with soggy gelatinous parts which I am not too keen about. 

Empanadas and ají: Empanadas are made with corn flour and are like the Colombian equivalent to pasties or samosas. They are filled with meat and potato and have a half-moon or triangular shape. They typically come served with my favourite sauce here called aji which is a mix of spring onions, tomato, chilly, fresh coriander and vinegar. It is one of the rare strong flavours of Colombian cuisine and one of the even rarer sauces. Delicious!

Aborrajado: This is a battered sweet plantain (basically banana) with cheese in the middle. No comment.

Desgranado de mazorca: This is a typical starter/snack that is basically just sweetcorn and cheese. Sometimes you get them with little thin crisps-like things called fósforos (match sticks). It's delicious! 

Bread: Ironically for a country with bakeries on every corner open until late at night, Colombian bread is really not good. It is mostly white bread that tends to be pale, undercooked, tasteless or sweet. I do not understand putting sugar in bread! Pandeyuca (cassava bread) is slightly less bland than others but it still just eaten on its own so is very dry. However, the saviour for these bakeries are the pandebono, cheesy bread balls that are delicious when freshly baked as the inside is all soft and gooey!

Envuelto de choclo: This is a sweet breakfast item that is made from corn and has a strange texture in between powdery and jelly-like. It's quite nice, although it kind of feels like there are bits of plastic bags in them but I think that must be the casing of the corn kernels!

Soups: Sancocho: This is a typical soup made with chicken, plantain, yuca (cassava), coriander and a corn on the cob. 
Ajiaco: This soup we eat quite frequently and consists of chicken, potato, corn on the cob and my partner's mum adds other vegetables sometimes. You then add a dash of cream and some capers which is lovely. This is actually one of my preferred lunch dishes here.

Arepa: These are the typical Colombian carbohydrate, in addition to rice. It is a type of flatbread made out of corn. Sorry to all Colombians but I mostly don't like these. The common very white ones are flavourless. I have never tasted anything that tastes like solid air before. That said, you can buy more expensive ones that are more yellow in colour and have either butter or salt in them to give them more flavour, but even then they are very dry and often eaten on their own with no sauce or spread. These are much better with cheese or egg stuffed inside!

Fruit: Now Colombia is a country of exotic fruit, particularly fruit juices/smoothies. Their pineapples and mangoes are massive and really nice and they have loads of fruit not found elswhere such as lulo, a green fruit commonly used in juices with water and sugar to counteract the acidity, also in lulada, a chunky fruit juice that is a bit too strong for me. They also use passion fruit (maracuyá) a lot but primarily mixed in a juice and never on its own with a spoon like back home! They are very different to the European ones and are big, smooth and look more like oranges from the outside. Granadilla (one of my favourites!) is within the same family. Chontaduro is a small orange fruit that is cooked before eating it cold with salt and honey...! I can only describe it as a potato-y, dry, tasteless bizarre experience! I am not a fan. Guanabana (sour sop in English) is a huge green spiky fruit with white flesh inside that is mostly used in juices with milk and I love this one. It also has anti-cancer properties which is an added bonus!

Drinks: Champús: A typical drink here made of various fruit, full pieces of corn, cloves and cinamon. I am not a fan of the latter three and the fact that it is a thick and lumpy drink means it kind of looks and feels like vomit. They seem to love it here and you can buy it from sellers on bikes, a bit like those old-school ice-cream sellers. Salpicón is a fruit cocktail in a fruity drink which is quite nice. Lulada (as mentioned above) is an extremely sour drink made of lulo. Cholado is specifically from Cali and is more of a desert than a drink but it comes with a straw so is categorised as one. It is a big fruit cocktail with condensed milk (another obsession here) and ice. Colombians also love their avena (powdered oats) and often make thick milkshake-type drinks with them. A favourite of mine here is the avena cubana (cuban oat drink) you can buy in shopping centres like Cosmocentro here that is like drinking a sweet porridge-flavoured milkshake, sounds odd but is delicious!

Desserts: Cakes here are often beautifully elaborate and decorated to within an inch of their lives, but it is usually all a facade and the actual inside and taste are very disappointing and for some reason cakes are often soggy (like the Genovesa/tres leches). Colombian desserts are generally nothing special (sorry!) but a post about food without mentioning arequipe would be just wrong.  Colombians are a very sweet-toothed nation, primarily due to this thick caramel-type spread that they often just eat with a spoon. I think it's OK but prefer it on or in something, rather than on its own. Obleas are these very thin crispy wafer-type things that are often eaten with arequipe and cream cheese (see below). Without cheese they are nice though!