Blogs :: protests in Bogota
Today I went to go pay the rent for the month, and rather than rush to my destination as I often do, I took the time to look around. Of course, it was a little difficult not to look around today, but more on that in a bit.
Whether it's paying the rent, or for Spanish school, or anything else, when it involves walking around with (for me) large amounts of cash, I'm always a bit nervous. I've never been robbed (yet...knock-on-wood). But somehow my paranoia tells me the day I get jumped I'll be carrying a pocketful of rent money.
Anyway, back to walking the Bogota streets to the bank. As I approached Plaza Bolivar, I could hear chanting and see a crowd from a couple blocks away. There was a protest going on, for what I wasn't sure. Peaceful protests are nothing out of the ordinary here, I see them perhaps every few weeks or so, for everything from political reasons to anti-bullfighting animal rights.
Today's was the biggest I'd seen, however, with Plaza Bolivar overflowing with people in front of the Palace, and a crowd of onlookers around the square. I later found out that it was over 15,000 students on a march to "demand a decent budget for their universities". I kept walking down the street to find a group of riot police in full body armor with shields, and one or two with vests loaded with canisters of something which I guessed was tear-gas, leaning against the side of the graffiti-covered grocery store building.
About every other block from there, I found another half-dozen or more Colombian riot police chilling on street corners, even several blocks away from the protest. I also passed a couple Colombian SWAT armored riot vehicles, which look like tank-truck hybrids.
Probably what struck me the most was the large number of people who continued walking with little more than a glace at all the excitement, or for some, not even a glace. It reminded me that, however similar it may seem at times, it's a very different world than back home, where events like this are not necessarily out of the ordinary.
protests, Bogota, police, Colombia
Posted By:
David
10/21/2009