Being Colombian, a state of mind!
When you arrive in Colombia you immediately feel a little lighter. The Colombian people are characterized by their joie de vivre, their friendliness and their unfailing enthusiasm. In national opinion polls, nine out of ten Colombians say they are happy, and Colombia is always in the top ten happiest countries in the world! People listen to music all the time, while dancing is the natural expression of happiness, the desire to live life to the fullest. A very Colombian expression sums up this state of mind: the " gozadera pura ", which could be translated as enjoying without restraint, living the present moment 100%, losing the notion of time (a notion that is already quite different from ours!). Colombianidad, the Colombian way of life, seduces the tourist who encounters a welcoming people, with a sense of humor and self-mockery, but also hedonistic, hard-working, and oh so patriotic! The Colombian is emotional and passionate, he talks constantly about love and his dreams, always with projects in mind! The hechao pa'lante ("to go forward") is de rigueur to face the daily difficulties, in a mixture of carefree and resilience.
Family first
Family is the most important thing in the heart of every Colombian. Even though we live in the same city, we call or see each other every day. Several generations often live under the same roof and stay late at their parents' house. Abuelos (grandparents) take care of their nietos (grandchildren) when the parents are working. Day care centers, like nursing homes, are rare here. The family is a common topic of conversation and when greeting people, they never forget to ask about each other. The family unit is a hotbed of mutual aid: in adulthood, in the absence of an efficient pension system, it is usually the children who help their parents. Going abroad is a real sacrifice for the person who will send money back home every month(remesas) to pay for the children's education or the rent of a parent. Marriage is a social institution respected and ardently defended in this Catholic and religious country. People meet more on the dance floor than on dating websites. The first child arrives around 22 years old, earlier in the countryside, later in the big cities. Relationships are romantic and passionate. The man is a gentleman, at least at the beginning...
A stratified society
A Colombian curiosity is the socioeconomic stratification of the habitat. According to its number, theestrato (stratum) defines the social class to which every Colombian belongs according to the place where he or she lives, like a second identity of which everyone is aware. The urban population is thus divided into six levels, from the poorest(estrato 1) to the richest(estrato 6). The elite and the wealthy live in neighborhoods with well-kept parks, surveillance cameras and security guards, while in estratos 1 and 2, the streets are not paved and children have no green spaces to play. The cost of public services (water, gas, electricity) is legitimately subsidized for the lowest social strata(estratos 1, 2 and 3), while strata 5 and 6 pay extra for these same services. The system was created in 1994 to help the most disadvantaged people, but it has had a perverse effect over time: spatial segregation. Life opportunities depend largely on the number of theestrato and it is complicated to move up from one stratum to another, because even the jobs one can get depend on the stratum to which one belongs. The estratos have become part of the common language to classify people socially and ideologically...
¡A estudiar!
If you come during the school year, you will quickly notice the smiling schoolchildren in their clean and well ironed uniforms. The school system is composed as follows: preschool(educación preescolar), the equivalent of our kindergarten, for children aged 3 to 5; elementary school(educación básica primaria) from grades 1 to5, for 6-10 year olds; secondary school(educación básica secundaria) from grades 6 to 9, for 11-14 year olds. School is normally compulsory until grade 9, but many children drop out in grade5 to work with their parents, especially in rural areas. Then comes the equivalent of high school(educación media vocacional) consisting of grades 10 and 11, at the end of which the bachiller diploma is awarded. Sports are important and there is little homework. The teacher/student relationship is often more informal and friendly than in France. The university system includes pregrado and posgrado . It operates in semesters, from February to June and from July to November. The first universities were created by the Dominicans, Jesuits and Augustinians during the colonial era, and even today many universities are owned by religious institutions. Access to universities is very expensive. For example, to study medicine at the prestigious Universidad de los Andes, or at La Javeriana, in 2021 it cost around 4,500 euros per semester (it takes 12 to 14 semesters to finish medical school). Most students or their parents have to go into debt for years to finance their studies. This explains why only 42% of Colombians have access to higher education and less than half finish their studies with a degree. The cost of education also explains why there are students of all ages in universities, not just young people graduating from the bachillerato . The Universidad Nacional, present in the main cities of the country, is the public university of reference. It is (almost) free, or at least much cheaper than the private universities. The selection process to enter the university is tough, which is why it is recognized as one of the best universities in the country, if not the best. The level of the higher education institutions is generally of high quality, especially in certain sectors such as ophthalmology, where Colombia has excelled for decades.
¡A Camellar!
Camellar in common parlance means working hard for not much. In Colombia, the monthly minimum wage finally reached one million pesos in January 2022. That's about 220 euros a month for 48 hours of work a week. But in some sectors, such as the hotel and restaurant industry, where informality is king, wages are even lower. The work is very flexible, you can have a series of fixed-term contracts over several years and be fired (or resign) from one day to the next. The recruitment process is quite different with surprising questions during the interviews, especially about your private life, such as who you live with (sometimes with visits to your apartment by a company psychologist), whether you use drugs, etc. The use of lie detector tests (this is not a joke!) is quite common, even for positions that are not very "sensitive". The unemployment rate is one of the highest in Latin America, between 10% and 15% depending on the year, and the labor laws are among the least protective in the world. For example, there are no unemployment benefits, and trade unionism is very limited, both by labor laws and by the threats against their leaders. Several thousand trade unionists have been assassinated since 1980 in the course of their activities. In this context, it is easy to understand why so many Colombians prefer to be their own bosses, even if it means staying in the informal sector all their lives (56% of total employment, excluding agriculture). A business can start simply with a small stand sellingarepas on a street corner, or a mobile bicycle repair shop. There is a popular saying that no Colombian dies of hunger. If they don't have a job, they will always invent something to survive. This is called the " rebusque colombiano", or the art of coping, an often ingenious activity that allows the family to live from day to day. As for retirement, the age is set at 62 for men and 57 for women (officially to compensate for the domestic work to which they are more subjected). In practice, few people receive a pension, since half of Colombians work in the informal sector and less than a third contribute to the general pension system. People therefore often work until much older ages.
Gender issues
Women play an essential role in Colombia, in education (41% of women are heads of household), food security and resistance in conflicts. But they are also the most vulnerable. Colombia is a macho country, a machismo that is even more expressed in rural areas. In the countryside, young girls often do not have the chance to study for very long, and many become pregnant before they are 16 (25% of women between the ages of 15 and 19, compared to 15% in the city). In the big cities, the situation is different: women are often better educated, with university careers that they often combine with employment. They hold positions of responsibility, but continue to receive lower pay than their male counterparts, while suffering other forms of discrimination and sexual harassment. The #MeToo movement regularly echoes this in Colombia. The movement "Ni Una Más" (not one more) campaigns against gender violence and feminicides with terrible figures: 622 cases recognized in 2021 according to Observatorio Feminicidios Colombia.
As for homosexuality, it is no longer considered a crime since 1980, but it still shocks some people. Society remains conservative, with the influence of the churches (Catholic, Pentecostal and Evangelical) being very strong. In the 1990s and again recently, homosexuals were victims of "social cleansing" (murder) by paramilitary militias. Fortunately, the situation is gradually improving. In 2016, after a long legal battle, same-sex marriage was finally considered legal by the Constitutional Court. Same-sex adoption has also been recognized since 2015. LGBTI marches are becoming more and more popular and gay-friendly establishments are now commonplace. Colombia now even appears among the emerging countries of gay tourism.
