Shucking off peas...

After almost twenty years of waiting for her husband to return to Ythaca, Penelope was forced to agree to wed one of the many suitors that had occupied her palace, and promised to make a decision once she had finished weaving a shroud for Laertes. Weaving during the day, she stayed up tearing it up at night to delay the moment, but was discovered and just about to make the choice when Odysseus finally turned up, killing or chasing away the suitors...

 

This is exactly how I felt about the women who work from very early morning until dawn at the Bay 30; there they were sitting, some with their baby sleeping in the push-chair on their side whereas shucking off the endless peas and selecting the best quality ones to be packed and classified. The rhythm and speed by which they took off the peas looked like they were playing a music instrument.

 

I thought of those women working night by night sitting on the same crate taking the husk off peas; yesterday, the day before yesterday, tonight, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow... from 4:00 am to midday when they go back to their homes and feed their children and back to the Corabastos to start all over again...

Coteros at night...

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Coteros in the dark... from midnight to dawn,
every day, from Monday to Sunday,
carrying goods brought from the far land into the city.
One,
two,
twenty,
hundreds of them...
Young men and those
who can't even carry their own bodies,
bent by the weigh of endless sacks
thrown at them from the inside
the trucks without mercy...

Of course, as they are paid
by the numbers of sacks
they can carry
and deliver
and store
inside the bays' big belly ...

Coteros at dawn...
they are paid £ 2.30 per day;
they are our arms,
the hands
that get dirty
aged,
injured,
hurt,
so that our nails remain clean
and our belly safely fed.

Who are you, sons of darkness?
Where are you from, brothers?
What's your name?
Do you have any sons,
so that they can continue feeding us?
_____________________________________________

Coteros

 

The coteros, usually men, work in Cobarabastos unloading the sacks from the lorries and piling them inside the bays. This is a very informal job, so workers had no tax benefits so when they fall ill there is no income to provide for their families.

 

Others labourers at Corabastos are known as zorreros; they also start at midnight and ending at 2 pm. Their job is to transport products in human traction wheelbarrows from trucks to the stalls as the coteros also do. A zorrero earns on average eight thousand pesos per day (£ 2.50/$ 3.30) to respond with as head of household.

 

We were well into the night when the whole market was already at its busiest; people running from bay to bay looking for the goods to purchase and negotiate prices with sellers; then, they will pass a list to the cotero so he would go around the stalls loading the sacks on his shoulder and deliver it to the truck.

Corabastos

(part 1)

 

We walked through the empty alleys towards the bays. The warehouses were quiet; inside the stalls looked like dormant animals wrapped in plastic canvas... the whole place was lit by a striking green light which made me feel strangely as I was all dragged out of time. As we started filming the corridors, a sound that would become familiar , began to come from outside: the workers have already commenced carrying wheelbarrows...

 

Corabastos is considered the biggest food supplier in the whole continent; everyday, tons of food, including black beans, carrots, creole and savannah potatoes, onions, mangoes, guanabanas, corncobs, manioc, tomatoes, melons... are poured into the 30 bays of Corabastos by the campesinos from as far as the regions of Boyaca, Cundinamarca, Meta, etc.

 

Gradually, the coteros started approaching the lorries parked in front of the bays; suddenly, a cacophonous mixture of noise coming from the lorries, shouts and salsa music being thrown from the speakers filled the air of the until then quiet bay. By midnight, The choreographic races of the coteros coming in and out of the bays left us confused trying to make sense of the (apparently) chaotic movement.

Corabastos

(First Night of Filming)

 

Our first night of filming was in Corabastos; we arrived at 9 pm when the market is still closed. Outside the premises hundreds of lorries and vans of any size and model were waiting to enter. My idea was to film this enormous space without people to convey the feeling of a colossal animal waiting to be fed. The night was unexpectedly chilly and a full moon was shining above us.

We climbed to the parking building from where I could see all the bays and get a better view of the place. Two policemen accompanied us as we walked through the empty warehouses lit up by old-fashioned lamps. We set up the crane in the corner of the main entrance and waited for the lorries to start coming in.
We had been warned of a deafening uproar when around 10:30 pm the noise of the engines would surround the air as the lorries, which had arrived from the region of Cundinamarca laden with fruits, potatoes, carrots, peppers, etc. rushed to the bays to start downloading. Slowly, the silhouettes of coteros (people who carry goods in wooden wheelbarrows) started to appear from the darkness as the lorries parked at the still closed bays.

Back to Corabastos

 
Sunday morning; I have arranged to meet Jhon Arias, a student of the Universidad Nacional, to go back to Corabastos. Jhon has been working there since he was a kid, helping his father with the business. We walked around the bodegas (Bays) where thousands of carrying boxes were piled up and owners were negotiating the selling of the goods to interested buyers.