WORDS FOR EVERYONE

WEDDINGS, ADOPTIONS, SEPARATIONSIN COLOMBIA, STREET WRITERS HELP PEOPLE ORGANIZE THEIR LIVES

- BY Viktoria Spinrad FROM SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

WHEN THE HEAT hangs over the city like an oven, and once more there are more pigeons than people seeking help passing by his open-air office, Jairo Lasprilla Jiménez, 70 years old, white beard, nimble fingers, switches into sales mode. "A la orrrrden!" he booms from his plastic chair, ready to serve. On a small wooden table in front of him stands an old typewriter with metal levers. Brother Deluxe 1350, a powerful machine.

With it, he can resolve property disputes, save pensions, make marriages possible, and even warm hearts. Lasprilla also types love poems on the keys. Everything is tailored to the wishes and needs of his customers. Unfortunately, there are none to be seen at the moment.

“Bueno,” he says, folding his hands in front of his stomach, wiggling his foot and stroking a cat. In front of him, pigeons peck at crumbs, and salsa music blares from a pocket radio. A Colombian still life.

Parque de los Poetas, Cali, Colombia. Lasprilla sits under a parasol in the square in the center of the city, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and jeans. He doesn’t need a cable, the internet, a degree, or any training.

Everything he needs to know, he has learnt from books and from life over the past 34 years. That’s how long he’s been doing this job, drawing up purchase and sales contracts, writing memoranda, deeds, tax returns, and declarations of registered partnerships. Sometimes he helps a young man in debt avoid being evicted from his apartment. Sometimes he helps two women apply for unemployment benefits, or an elderly lady prove her working life so that she doesn’t spend her retirement years in poverty.

The art of survival in Colombia, a country full of bureaucracy and mobility, determination and ingenuity, laws and lawbreaking—Lasprilla masters it like no other. He is a kind of lawyer for the common people, without a law degree but with an inner compass.