When we were invited to our taxista's daughter's birthday we knew it would be a new cultural experience and that we had to go.
The city of Cali is divided by a main road called the quinta (5th) in general the west are lower-mid & upper class neighborhoods and to the east are the harder lower economic neighborhoods referred to as the popular neighborhoods. For the most part this is where the majority of the crimes take place, where there is more drug trafficking and where the best salsa dancers live....and yes our taxi driver too.
We have driven through some of the rougher areas of town before like the olla (the pot) where trash covers the streets and where the families who gather the recyclables through out the town meet to sell and organize there goods. But we had yet to spend any serious time in a "popular" neighborhood.
First we went to the house of Surella's mom to pick up her daughter in a bordering neighborhood to our final destination. And you should of seen the look on Surella's mom's face when we told her where we were going. I thought for a moment she wasn't go to let us go.
Well the first thing is that the invitation said 3:00 and we showed up at 3:15 and there was NO ONE there (Colombian time.) So with Surella's suggestion we left all our valuables in the house of the hostess. It was quite a scene to see us removing all our jewelery, watches, wallets, phones and putting them in one purse so we could roam the streets.
Luckily Surella had a few connections in the neighborhood and so we went in search for her cousins, which we found pretty easily. Everyone knew everyone in this neighborhood. The cousins told us that we were crazy for even coming to this neighborhood, even though I knew it was a dangerous place I think they like to exaggerate....It is cool to be from the worst neighborhood. But we survived our cruise around the neighborhood and the birthday party was finally underway around 4:00.
Okay kids birthday parties in Colombia are very traditional because before we even got there Surella gave me the play by play and called exactly what they would have for food. Pretty different from a kid's party in the US, first of none of the adults were talking, everyone was just sitting and kind of waiting for something to happen.
So we all gathered in a small hot room lined with plastic chairs where the music was so loud you could not talk (which actually made it easier for us to sit and watch) we were served coke and the kids (2 year olds) danced. Then much like a wedding everyone took turns taking pictures with the birthday girl in-front of the cake (yes Aaron and I too) Oh yes, it should be mentioned that the cake is the focal point of the party. It is all decorated and special...well it was untill Aaron and Sofia dropped a ball on it leaving a small dent and removing a bit of frosting.....you should have seen the look on the mom's face....priceless.
The photo shoot was followed by some games, more songs, passing of potato chips with a ketchup and mayonnaise dip and more coke.
When we told Surella's cousin to call us a taxi he laughed and said taxi's don't come into this neighborhood- we will have to walk out to a main road. He walked with us.
All in all I felt fine there, the thing that makes it dangerous is the violence between the people who know each other and the drug stuff. I didn't feel unsafe, probably because we were Surella's cousins who....well let's just say they are well known- I found the whole thing entertaining. Definitely a different part of Cali.
Oh side note.....the suegra (mother-in-law of our taxista) was wearing a skin tight dress that covered just under her but with super high heels, I have never seen anything like that before.
I think it is pretty obvious why there are no photos to add! Use your imagination.
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