Moment of Panic

Saturday, Sept. 09, 2017--Medellin

I had a moment of panic after leaving my apartment this morning.  I had stayed inside dealing with some reservation matters and didn't leave until about 11:00.  I walked down the street and everything was quiet.  Almost all shops were closed with their medal awnings down.  Only a very few places selling breakfast were open.  I came to the big street, and it was the same.  Suddenly, I wondered:  Is it Sunday?  Did I get confused about my dates?  Because if it was Sunday I had missed my bus already.

I pulled out my phone to check. Sure enough, it was Saturday as I had thought.  I do not know if all Saturdays are this quiet here.  It could have been that everyone decided to take the day off due to the visit of the Pope.  He was already here and a TV at one small place was showing him speaking at the inner-city airport where they had planned the biggest gathering.  So maybe everyone stayed home to see this and were coming out later.  Anyway, I had quite a sense of panic there for a few moments.

There were both regular police and military police out all over town.  Every corner seemed to have at least 2-3 of them standing guard with guns.  Later in the afternoon they were still around.  I think the Pope's helicopter flew over my apartment.  I heard one for a long time and finally looked out; it was slowly moving around and occasionally stopping briefly.  I figured the Pope might be getting a tour of the city that way, and the helicopter looked like the one I saw on TV with him in it.  However, it could have been that there was a sense of danger somewhere just north of here and that it was security people flying slowly trying to locate a reported problem.

While out, I wandered across the river into a nicer part of town where the local branch of the University of Colombia is located.  It's a fairly new campus and has beautiful grounds--lush green with wonderful flowering tropical plants.  Living in an area of Medellin that looked like that would be nice.  I had hoped to see two art exhibits--one at the university and one at a library.  Both were closed with the library looking like extensive remodeling was occurring. 

Returning back toward town, I wandered down the pedestrian shopping street.  At one end of it, there were people waiting at barricades for the Pope to pass.  I took a photo of 4 children who were so excited and were waving banners with the Pope's image on it.  I asked the mother what time the Pop would pass, and they still had about 2 1/2 hours to wait.  At that time, the crowd was at least 3 rows deep.  There's no telling how bad it got by the time he passed.

I returned through town just watching people.  Many people were out shopping, visiting, etc.  As I neared my neighborhood, there was a clap of thunder and an afternoon shower came.  I opened my umbrella and headed home.  I saw a few people who had left the lines for the Pope's visit; they were obvious because they were carrying small plastic chairs.  I wondered about everyone else.  Were they braving the rain and staying?  I hope they were, because the shower only lasted about 15 minutes and then it didn't rain again the rest of the day.

Another reason I came back to the apartment was to make a phone call.  Nurse Grethe had several of my other friends over for a dinner.  To call while they were still there and had finished eating at the table, I had to do it around 15:00 here/22:00 there.  It was nice to have a quick conversation with them while they were all together.

Before it got dark, I made one more trip out to wander the streets.  But even on Saturday things start closing down early.  Shops were shutting at 18:00.  The park had people in it, but most of them were probably not going to be there long.  The Lido Theater had people lining up for tonight's concert.  And the sidewalks in my neighborhood were already very quiet when I got back.