Every apartment building in north Bogota, almost without exception, has porteros. I’ve lived in large buildings in US cities with varying degrees of door service too, but in Bogota it’s a different sort of system.
Porteros are always on duty 24 hours, and their prime purpose is security. In almost every residential building, the portero has to unlock the front door, with a key (sometimes a buzzer, but usually a key) to admit people to the building. Even residents are not permitted to have keys to the building. Invariably, there is bullet-proof glass. In the bad ole days when kidnapping was very common, lots of security measures were implemented, and many of them are still in effect.
Porteros can also do things like accept packages, deliver messages, etc., and might be responsible for mail, too. They wear uniforms that usually say “Seguridad Privada” (”Private Security”)–there are only a couple basic styles of uniforms, so I’m not sure if that means the porteros all work for a few private security firms or if maybe there are just a few uniform firms.
Porteros are very, very poorly paid, and they work a lot. In my building, for example, there are only 16 apartments, and we have two full-time porteros. Each works a 12-hour shift six days per week, and there is a replacement guy who works two 12-hour shifts per week. For this, they might earn something like $300 per month. That’s enough to live on a subsistence level, barely, in the poor neighborhoods. In the first building I lived in after moving to Bogota, one of the porteros was from another city, and sent half his earnings home to his family. That’s a pretty common story, apparently.
Sometimes, porteros carry guns. This was a little off-putting to me at first, but I got used to the idea of seeing lots of types of people with guns around town–there are many police and military in the neighborhoods with rifles of various sorts, and security guards in stores are often gun-weilding.
Usually porteros are pretty friendly and helpful guys, and just like doormen in US cities, residents get to know them and depend on them. Many Bogotanos treat their porteros pretty well, but a lot of people also abuse them. My friend James lives in a building where a portero refused entrance to someone because the apartment owners had told him not to let ANYONE in. The guy he denied entrance to was a relative, and he attacked the portero. For this, the apartment owners berated the portero and complained to the administration about him, and he was forced to quit his job.
I have heard stories from 10 to 15 years ago of how porteros might sell out to kidnappers and abet in the crimes, for money of course. And in all that time, it never occurred to the rich apartment owners of north Bogota that if maybe they paid respectable wages, this would have been less of a problem.
I like to treat the porteros well, and bring them food from restaurants, give them things I don’t need anymore (household stuff, clothing even). Once one of my porteros askedto use my cell phone to call home because his baby was sick–he was not permitted to use the building telephone located at the front desk. People I work with say they tip their porteros about $8 at Christmas, but I gave them each about $20 and a bottle of booze, so they’re definitely looking out for me.
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