The Maicao Mall

 The Maicao Mall

The best part of Maicao was the Islamic part of town.  It was clean and people were friendly and helpful.  The worst part of Maicao was the craft market, an area in the middle of town, covered by a variety of large multicolored tents held up by rough wooden poles connecting ramshackle tin roofed establishments creating a crammed maze of dark narrow passages separating clusters of vendors.  The heady odor of food, excrement, dead animals, and the hundreds of people selling and buying goods was not conducive to shopping, but there were not many choices in that part of the world.  The dirt streets surrounding this covered square block caused dust to permeate the air when it was dry. During the rainy seasons the streets were like rivers of deep dark stinking mud that made the streets impassable to pedestrians.  Little boys carried planks around town to help shoppers cross the streets without stepping in the mud.  Thankfully the narrow concrete sidewalks were mud free and fairly ubiquitous, carrying people to the narrow colorful tiendas guarded by serious men holding shotguns.  This was our mall where we bought the household items, imported foods and cigarettes that made our lives in the gray metal house at the Cerrejon coal mine more comfortable.  The mine was over an hour away on the bus and was located on the south edge of a jungle.

We were in front of the International Hotel, all five members of our family, looking around the narrow street trying to find our bus.  The bus with the armed guards who protected us on the ride through the wilderness to and from Maicao.  They were also a reminder that the the huge open pit coal mine where we taught the children of the engineers and administrators, was an important financial presence in Maicao.   Our employers paid royalties to the local government so that the the mine’s employees had a kind of immunity from the harsh life of the town during the day.  We had been told by our Colombian neighbors, “Do not get caught on the streets of Maicao after dark.”  We even knew people who had been pulled form their cars, robbed and left helpless right in the middle of town during daylight. Without the bus and its armed guards we were beginning to feel a little panicked.  We were a remarkably visible foreign presence in the midst the dark natives who saw foreigners as easy pickings.  

It had actually been a pleasant day wandering around town, eating in the Islamic section,  buying items we wanted to take back to camp to make our life a little more comfortable; clothes, electronics, candies, liquor, cigarettes.  We had visited the Wayouu craft tents where we had wandered around disoriented and that was why we missed the bus.   Maicao had begun in 1927 as a stronghold keep the Wayouu people under control.  That hadn’t worked well and now the town was a crossroads for “black market” imports.  Situated on the Venezuelan border and only an hour away from the deserted beaches of the northern coast on the Caribbean.  To the east are the Sierra Nevada mountains, an important pot growing region and from the south, out of the jungle, there is a flow of marijuana and cocaine.  Maicao was given special tax status so there is no import fee for raw materials, but this turned into a free flow of goods from outside Colombia and sold without the crippling taxes you would pay elsewhere.  Drugs and the black market combined with the war against FARC, Wayouu unwillingness to be Colombians, the harsh terrain, and the humid climate made Maicao a place ripe for tough hombres, and we were not those hombres as we stood in front of the hotel and tried to figure out what to do.

     

We began to feel that our space on the sidewalk was not secure.  Scott, our youngest son, was bumped by some young boys running down the sidewalk.  Our daughter, Heather, thought that maybe we should stay at the hotel.  Jeremy, our middle schooler, did not want to stay in Maicao preferring to find the city bus station and pay for a bus to get back to camp.  Although we were not sure where the bus station was located, LaWanda and I decided that was probably the best idea as we noticed the appraising looks we were getting from the many pedestrians while the sun continued it’s descent and the light began to dim. 

So, I asked someone for directions in my heavily accented Spanish.  This drew a group of men who menacingly watched while we attempted to get directions.  After we figured out what was being said, we took off at a brisk pace to distance ourselves from the group of men. The people on the sidewalk did not smile and wish us a good day.  They bumped into us as we hurried along and maybe attempts were made to pick our pockets, but we were moving too quickly for anyone to be effective.  We just kept walking faster and faster, hoping we would get to the bus station before the last government bus took off for the jungle.  We felt as if the whole town was watching our flight through the streets of Maicao.  

   

Finally, after an unnerving walk through town, we found the bus station.  We were so anxious to get off the street that we almost ran the last fifty yards.  Once we were inside the station there was a sense of relief and the unhurried pace of life in Colombia returned.  There were people sitting around waiting for buses who didn’t even look up as we entered.  We approached the ticket counter, requested five tickets for Cerrejon and were told the bus would leave in half and hour.  When we crawled aboard the brightly painted bus we were greeted by a sign telling us that Jesus wished us a good trip.  Our bus trip was uneventful and our imaginations settled down as the bus took us back to our metal house with the bright red carpet on the edge of the jungle where we felt safer and a little more comfortable with the things we had bought in Maicao.