ho, ho...oh

I promised a blitz of blogging...and I didn't deliver. Before you complain, I have the perfect excuse: it's the government's fault.

Yes, you read me right. It's all their fault. They went and did exactly what everybody was afraid of: the elections have been posponed. Maybe until January 22nd. They'll let us know for sure any day now. Which means the anxiety of who/what/when will last at least that long.

I'm personnally anxious for us to turn a page. I don't believe there will be elections, democratic or otherwise because it doesn't seem like that's the plan. We're crawling with NGO types, military types, diplomacy types and for what?

When I registered as a voter, I discovered the office by happenstance, walking down the street. It wasn't written anywhere that I could tell. Ditto for getting the card back. My mother stumbled upon the line the first day so we went the next.

Is there a point beyond ridicule? If so, this is what it must be like.

Not that anybody else thinks it's going to happen, either. This canadian journalist doesn't believe so. Neither do most cab drivers I've talked to or any one else for that matter.

I don't even think we really care. We've had gas problems. Sure the streets are almost empty because school is out for the hollidays but the lines in and around gas stations last week were not fun at all.

And then there's the news that we beat Colombia for highest kidnapping rate ever. Rather hard to be proud of such a reputation. I'm personnally very scared to go out. Allegedly, we've gone from 30 kidnappings in Nov to 30 for the first week of December alone. Yikes! I'm also not convinced, like the Police seem to be, that this is purely criminal.

Take for instance this guy who gets kidnapped when he just made a withdrawal at the bank. He gets cornered and kidnapped by armed men. Logically, this is a set-up. Somebody at the bank tipped off the bad guys. Were the story takes a chilling twist is that the unfortunate woman on the sidewalk is taken too. And tortured, to hasten the ransoming process. That one smells like a crime of opportunity. Doesn't it?

I think it's a tool. Which is nothing new. In the past, whenever there's been talk of trouble here and foreign intervention, suddenly your phone or cable doesn't work and thieves are all over you. Can't be just a coincidence, can it?

Not with the UN reportedly renting left and right for an average of 5 years. Not with Mr Rinse-Repeat a favorite if not a sure thing for President. (So much so, he didn't bother until recently to talk to the press, or so they say)

A friend says that if he is our next president, she's definitely leaving the country. After what we've lived through so far, can I blame her? Worse still, with the current crime rate, can she stick around long enough to find out?

'Tis the season to be jolly, right?