Bad Santa

After landing in
Medellín a week before Christmas,
we dropped off our luggage at the sleek Art Hotel and explored the surrounding neighborhood
called El Poblado. Vague recollections of drug wars, kidnappings, and deadly
violence loomed over me for the first few minutes outside the hotel until I
realized we could have been in Miami!

Fashionably
dressed young people strolled along streets lined with art galleries, design
boutiques, and restaurants representing cuisines from around the world. Colorful
murals adorned nearly every wall. As dusk began to fall, the city radiated with
Christmas lights strung across many streets and lighted sculptures sprung up in
every park. Luminous sea creatures slithered through one park. Glowing birds,
butterflies, and dragons flew through another park.

When cocaine
cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar was killed in 1993, Medellín began to recover from two decades under siege. The city began by modernizing
the infrastructure with a new metro system that ran the length of the city, and cable cars and an escalator system that connected the elevated parts of the
city to the resources below. Before these improvements, people who lived in the
mountainside favelas were stranded by the arduous and slow trek down to Medellín. Improved transportation
meant increased access to jobs, education, healthcare, and basic shopping. This physical
transformation earned Medellín
the title “City of the Year” bestowed by the Urban Land Institute, which recognizes the world’s most innovative urban centers.

During our walk
around El Poblado that first afternoon, we found an organic grocery store that
sold freshly made vegetable juices. I ordered a mason jar of a kale, carrot,
ginger concoction with bits of coconut flakes floating on top. We sat outside
reveling in the balmy winter weather. Medellín
is called the “the city of eternal spring,” with temperatures hovering around
75 degrees all year long. The seasons are marked by rain rather than
temperature.

A tall, pale,
mustachioed man sipping a green juice at the next table asked without making
eye contact, “Where are you from?” I detected a Canadian accent.

When I have met
North Americans in Latin America who were not typical tourists, they were often
on the lam, fleeing heartache, or broken in some way. The Canadian’s vague
explanation of what had brought him to Colombia two years ago was no different.
After exchanging a few more basic traveler pleasantries, he said, “Whatever
you’re doing tomorrow morning, you should change your plans and volunteer with the
Angels of Medellín.”

The Canadian
explained that a guy from Rochester named Mark, now called Marco, had founded a
charitable organization to help the people who lived in an impoverished town called
Regalo del Dios, God’s gift. Located almost at the top of a mountain
overlooking Medellín, residents
enjoyed beautiful, panoramic views of the Aburrá Valley. Despite the prime real
estate, though, residents were poor and the town had been racked with violence
during the drug wars. Until the drug cartels were vanquished, policemen
assigned to patrol the town would desert the town before dark every day. Gangs ruled at night, extorting protection money from businesses and frightened
families, and trafficking drugs.

The legendary
Marco confronted gang leaders, explaining he wanted only to help the children
of families that had sought jobs and relative safety in the city when they had been
displaced from the countryside by the drug wars. Gang leaders allowed him to build
a community center where the kids could play games, master computer skills, and
learn English. Today, the gangs have retreated and the community center is
growing, but poverty remains.

The Canadian’s directive to change our plans the next day had been a clumsy invitation to help distribute gifts to children at the annual Christmas fiesta hosted by the Angels. We happily accepted.

The Canadian instructed
us to meet him at the Poblado metro station at 8 AM the next morning. We
arrived late, though, and missed him. He’d mentioned that other volunteers were
gathering at the Acevedo station before ascending the mountain where buses
would take them to the party. We figured we’d keep following his loose
instructions until we found him. If unsuccessful, then at least
we would have gotten to see a part of the city that tourists rarely visited.

At the Acevedo station,
we right away spotted a small group of blue-shirted people, mostly Colombians
standing on a platform, surrounding The Canadian. We waved at him and a couple beats
passed before he realized that we were the same couple he’d met the previous
afternoon at the juice bar.

“I
didn’t think you’d come!”

From Acevedo, we
switched to Line K on the MetroCable, a branch of the metro system involving air-conditioned
gondolas that swung past the platform slowly enough for passengers to step
inside. The capsules floated to the top on a single, fixed cable in only a few
minutes.

Near the top,
we saw other signs of revitalization, like the new Biblioteca España,
or Library of Spain. The irregularly shaped set of three buildings clad in
black slate jutted out from among tin-roofed, unfired brick homes clinging to
the mountainside.

We exited the
gondola at the final station Santo Domingo and followed The Canadian single
file along a narrow road lined mostly with food stores that blared music.
Vehicles of all sizes strained up the steep, one lane road. We’d jump into a pastry shop or cell phone store whenever a larger bus passed too close.

After waiting several minutes at the bus stop, which was a slightly wider section of the road, the 55 bus picked us up. Rust and dust permeated the interior and the vinyl-covered seats were too close together to sit forward. When The Canadian first
invited us on the adventure, I’d imagined air-conditioned luxury coaches. The
driver collected the fare and drove while texting and talking on his cell
phone. When a bus came toward us from the other direction, he would slow down slightly
and pull way over to the side without stopping to let the downhill vehicle pass. None of the
buses had side mirrors.

Soon the
pavement ended and we bounced up a dirt road pocked with deep potholes until we
reached Regalo del Dios. On the short walk from the bus stop to the community
center, we could look down the side streets that ended with scenic vistas
across the valley from the edge of the mountain. Some of the houses sat on matchsticks
stilts that seemed barely able to withstand a mudslide that the next heavy rain
might provoke.

A long line had
already formed outside the community center when we arrived at the gate. We
were shepherded into the gymnasium where large cardboard boxes containing
thousands of cheap, plastic, garish toys made in China had already been lined
up, girl gifts on one side and boy gifts on the other side. A couple volunteers
were trying to fill up a leaky moon bounce with air. The rest of us milled
around until Marco was ready to deliver the instructions.

We sat in child-sized
plastic chairs while Marco described the detailed procedure for leading each family
through the toy selection process. He spoke in Spanish with a pronounced
American accent and responded in the local language even when a volunteer asked
a clarifying question in English. We discerned that the little cards that would
be handed to each family at the gate were very important. When I asked a
Colombian volunteer what exactly we were supposed to do with those cards, she
said she had no idea. She couldn’t understand Marco either! He later admonished
us volunteers for mishandling the cards when several children were caught
revisiting the gift stations.

When the
children were finally allowed to enter the gymnasium, their squeals of delight
reverberated across the concrete floors and walls. Before they were allowed to
choose toys, though, they had to pass through the banana and apple stations, and
then the cereal and milk stations. Even after that torture, they remained
respectful and shy once they arrived at the toy section.

I turned a jump
rope for an hour and jumped a little, too. I’d forgotten how much cardio health
skipping rope required! The little girls often couldn’t turn the rope high enough to accommodate a rather large North American woman who towered over their much smaller parents.

The promised Papa
Noël, who Marco had described with a
wink as Malo Papa Noël or Bad
Santa, was nowhere to be found. Another heavy man donned the Santa suit,
strapped on a fake white beard, and joyfully dispensed cookies to children who
sat on his lap for a picture. Some were shy and had to be coaxed. Most politely
accepted a cookie and made room for another kid. I saw one boy shove the cookie
in his mouth and then sneak back through the clamor of children for another one.

Malo Santa finally
arrived two hours later, glassy-eyed, teetering unsteadily, and reeking of
alcohol, possibly the national liquor aguardiente. Substitute Santa did not
want to relinquish his role, but Malo Santa had been hired specifically for his
naturally white hair and long white beard, red cheeks, and a potbelly that
spilled over the top of his pants. The two Santas disappeared into the bathroom
and Malo Papa Noël emerged in
the red suit. I didn’t hear either of the Santas ask the kids for their
Christmas wishes. I suppose they didn’t want to raise their hopes for things
they knew they couldn’t have.

Around lunch
time, we departed the party feeling buoyed and exhilarated by the children’s smiles and laughter.