Semafaros

Traffic Lights in Colombia are truly a sight to see. Even after a year and a half commuting to school I am still amused and amazed of how much action can happen at one traffic light.

My students and I have been doing a project with a small school located in rural Wyoming. One of the questions my kids asked them is, "What do people sell or do at your traffic lights?" Not surprisingly they said, "nothing" but what did surprise the children is when they added, "we only have ONE traffic light in our town!"

Selling stuff at traffic lights here makes up a oddly strange amount of the job market.

At one traffic light you may find people selling all of the following:

• fruit (typically Pinapples, Avacados and mandarines)
• gum and cigarettes
• blow up toys, including but not limited to...Toy Story beach balls, globes, pink electric guitars & the Pink Panther
• cell phone chargers
• chips
• lottery tickets
• water & soda
• Popsicles
• pirated movies
• cans for spraying pesticide
• Electric racquets for killing mosquitoes

But there is more than just vendors selling random junk...you often find people doing the following for a fee:

• washing windows
• juggling
• dancing
• fire poi and other hippy like entertainment
• painting your body green, calling yourself the Hulk, shaking your car and then asking for money
• mimes
• or nothing but asking for money

Although working at a semafaro may be competitive and maybe even lucrative (compared to unemployment) you can imagine that it draws kind of a seedy bunch of people. Which brings me to my story.


I was on the school bus home. It was hot. I was sitting by the window. It was wide open. We were stopped at a busy traffic light. A boy who is washing windows begins to stare at me. I know something is up. I think...should I shut the window or will that draw too much attention? He is close and staring, he sees my ear-phones but not my i-pod. It doesn't take a genius to imagine what is on the other end of my ear phones. I assume he does not have a knife or a gun (if he did he wouldn't be washing windows at the traffic light.) I decide not to shut the window, thinking he will react when he sees me move. The bus begins to slowly lurch forward into gear. He comes closer. Now the bus is moving and he is too. He jumps, his hand is in the bus. he goes for my ear phones with out success. He grabs my boob and the bus is gone.