Typewriter

Colombia 🇨🇴: This is just another curiosity from the strange city of Pasto, which we liked and it surprised us in many ways.

Walking the streets of this peculiar city, just by the courthouse, we noticed yet another strange scene: a line of beach bar umbrellas evenly spaced. Every umbrella was attached to the small table. There was a chair by each table, and on each table was… typewriter (for those who don’t know what typewriter is…. well… Google it, youngsters! 😆 😃). But the most interesting was that person behind the typewriter. For purposes of that text, let’s call him T.O. (Typewriter Operator). I am sure that native English friends will provide the correct name for him. How can you call a person whose job is to compose and type official documents on a typewriter? It cannot be an office clerk, as he requires an office. Scribe? Help me out here, please!

You might ask yourself who needs such service. Now, in times of smartphones, computers, wireless laser printers? We came to three conclusions. None of them were scientifically supported, but we spent some time discussing them. There were even some Colombian statistics involved. Nevertheless, our Spanish is rather creative than academic there might be some discrepancies. Anyways, we argued between those three:

Typewriter

✅ People don’t have access to computers and/or printers. Pasto is the capital of the Narino district, inhabited by indigenous people from the high Andes, Amazonian jungle, and the Pacific coast. My guess, based on observations, is that they have other needs than computers. However, the modern world is set the way you cannot avoid offices. So sooner or later, everybody needs to have some official paperwork done.

✅ Bureaucracy could be so absurd that you need a magician who holds secret knowledge to get you through it without fines or problems in general.

✅ There is a significant number(about 20%) of people in that region, who can’t read or write. There might also be a large number of those who simply hate writing official documents – that is Marcin’s theory because he hates it as well. It’s easier to pay someone to do it for you. That person would be the T.O. – Typewriter Operator 🙂

What about sitting in front of the courthouse? It honestly seems like a pretty sane strategy to find a client. And an umbrella? Hey…we are talking about the place in the equatorial zone – the sun is dangerous here, man!