Editorial Note: In April, I took a month off in Medellin. For me, this meant an interesting and diverting month. For you, this means 30 days of posts about my vacation. I’ll try to make them somewhat amusing.
There’s no getting around it: Colombia has a violent past. The interesting thing is that while the nice parts of Medellin today seem just as tranquil as a city can be, there’s a much greater emphasis placed on highly visible security than I’m used to. The house to the right, for instance, is typical of what you see here. Everything is locked, guarded, and/or barred, and very serious-looking gates, fences, and barbed wire are the norm.
Also, private security is everywhere. Most are (apparently) unarmed, but the little strip mall where I take my shirts does have a guy with a shotgun on patrol. This level of security in the US would only be warranted if you were living in some sort of dystopian urban hell, with gangs running riot in the streets. That’s just not the case here.
Finally, however, I think that this picture sums up the Colombian approach to security. Security girl is holding a mirror used to check the undersides of vehicles, presumably for explosives. The first thing is: There are a lot of other entrances to this structure, and only one of them had mirror-girl in front of it. The second thing is: I wanted to get a shot of her using the mirror, but she out-waited me: She kept jawing with the other girl in frame as car after car drove past, and I eventually got bored. (The mirror was used as I describe, but other girl showed up before I got my camera out.)
