Life: A Colombia Musical

My life is a musical.

There's no getting around it. Life, here, often feels like it's the prelude to STOMP or maybe High School Musical, where at any moment people will break into song and dance and rhythm. This is similar to Jessica's assertion that life is like a telanovela, which I won't dispute. But, there's something about the constant noise and music here that in my mind, has turned life into a musical.

Here's the deal. People here are a lot more comfortable with music than the average gringo. They're good at rhythm the way white people are good at, I dunno, wearing khaki. I really like khaki, so, that's cool by me...but, anyway. A few examples:

People here are not even the slightest bit embarrassed to sing in public. I've been to conferences where the speaker starts her speech up with a few lines from a song, sung full voice over a mic. She's not necessarily great at singing, but the audience drinks it up. Students in class will sing for their classmates without the slightest hint of pena, whereas ask them to read in English and they're cringing like they're the shiest of mice.

At our adult Saturday English classes, sometimes folks arrive early. It's rare, but, it happens. If they happen to be the only student, and we teachers are busy setting up, chances are that within 2 minutes they'll have cranked the music on their phone. 30 seconds after that, they're singing out loud. Silence, you see, is not an option...but rather than make normal conversation, they'll sing!

Then there's the electronics aisles in the almacenes, or supermarkets. There's usually at least one speaker set blaring as loud as possible, which is how potential buyers are convinced they can make enough disturbances on their neighborhood block to vale la pena of throwing down for a new speaker set. Shoppers are usually drawn to this music like moths to a flame. It's not strange to see them salsa-ing around the aisles, just, so happy to have found some music in their otherwise tedious shopping errands. Many times, they'll burst into song as well. (Just like they do in musicals, right? It's like, where'd that come from?!)

And then, to complete the life is like a musical, we have bus rides. I am not, by nature, a heavy purveyor of public transport. I prefer to walk or bike, for miles if necessary...so I don't really remember whether or not public buses in the US play music. Here, of course, that's not an option. Everything from salsa to reggaeton, or, if life is going to be really rough, lugubrious Christian music (it's not the religious notes, but the syrupy, repetitive lyrics that really get me, there) may be blasting from speakers on the city buses. Often times, my fellow travelers just can't help myself—they're tapping the off beats or singing along, making sure that every bus ride is a musical event.

But of course, nothing compares to the traveling band. You know how some Mexican restaurants keep an in-house Mariachi, or, if you're lucky enough to head south to the US border towns, you'll get real ones circulating through the restaurants' openair tables and seranading you with trumpet blasts whether you asked for them to make it impossible to converse or not?

Well, the more Colombian version of these have taken to the streets—in buses. Here, the band members climb aboard a bus with their accordian, drums, and metal rasps and squeeze themselves into the aisle or potentially available seats. Just the other day, I climbed in mid-concert. Sliding myself into the only free seat, which happened to be below the metal rasp player and across from the accordian, I was treated to blasts of vallenato, including complementary head knocks from the rasper on every syncopation, and knee bangs from the accordian whenever he got particularly excited and inflated to full capacity. Needless to say, they weren't that bad, and even managed some exciting harmony. The extra treat came when they started to sing about me.

See, the thing about public buses is that most white people don't ride them. Most white people 'round these parts have money and splurge on taxis, or own cars. So a mona, or monkey/white person, even if of less-than-super-gringo caliber, often attracts attention. Cue my life story being sung into a romance with the accordian player, my every move narrated for the surrounding passengers...

Despite the horrendous ear pain that accompanies accordian blasts in the face, it has to make a person smile. And give up a few pesos for the cause...

This plus the facts that my girls at school are always singing and dancing and trying to get me to sing and dance with them, that there's always some sort of a dramatic love story going on somewhere, and that people smile despite the ridiculous things going on—life is a musical, for sure.**

**This is despite the fact that I'm failing as a protagonist, so I've been told, since I'm lacking a novio. BUT WHY??? demand my students on a regular basis. WHY HAVE YOU NO NOVIO? You've had a boyfriend before, right? Right? Oh thank goodness. Was he pretty? Were his eyes like the sky??? Like Justin Beiber's???!!! Well, I tell them, I don't have one right now because I'm waiting for the right man! Which usually gets a, Que bonita! Followed by the top coo's-- AWWWWWWWWW--they squeal. And then...they dance away, singing.

...And a mammogram, as well!

It's not every day you get to see a dentist set up shop in a tiny storage room, psych evaluations in a preschool room, tetanus and yellow fever vaccines in the hallway, blood-sugar tests in a teachers lounge, oh, and, a breast exam station* right beside the psych exam desk.

But, it was that kind of day at school today.

I was sitting in my teacher's lounge in our planning period, and in rolls an authoritative-voiced, polo-shirt-bedecked woman wearing lab gloves. Now, 99%** of all local costeños are capable of the sort of authoritative voices after which I've long lusted, so that on its own didn't make me blink, but the gloves did have me do a double take.

Turns out it was a nurse. Setting up shop in our teacher lounge. As she unloaded a needle box, "sterile" gauze, clipboards, and checked her phone (all while wearing the same lab gloves that I knew better to question whether they'd be changed, and what I realized was not an officially-logo'd polo but one that instead read DAYTONA BEACH SURF PARTY), I slowly pieced together the somewhat confusing particles and realized what was about to ensue: a whole set of physical exams and other offerings.

All public school teachers here belong to a union, that among other services (a sort of clubhouse with a restaurant, heavy discounts on cabins at the beach), takes out money from salaries each year and puts it towards preventive health, which comes straight to the school to provide services! We're talking full dental cleanings and exams, breast exams, electronic readings on blood pressure and blood sugar, and all the rest.

I find this highly progressive....if a bit disturbingly and completely less-than-sterile. My kind coteachers kept urging me to get exams done, even when I explained Peace Corps gives us the same services. (Aprovecharla! Es gratis! Importante! Animate!--Take advantage! It's free! Important! Animate yourself/Get moving!)

I couldn't help what wonder this sort of attitude resulted in on the vaccine front--"We have yellowfever vaccines. Have you gotten one in the last ten years?"  You could just see everyone thinking...well...I don't want to miss out!

My former healthcare record worker self was cringing to the core..(results were just read out to the participant, not even a stab at documentation!)...but I realize that's not quite where we're at, here.

Although, on a side note, I have heard that Epic, the company where I used to work, did make a sales trip to Bogota...I'd have to assume that doesn't make it to the public health clinics...

Anyway, that was an interesting day. On a sidenote, to appease my coworkers, I got my blood pressure read: I found that even at school I manage to maintain a 100/70 sort of blood pressure. This, my friends, I consider my accomplishment of the week.


*So, there weren't actually mammograms of the x-ray sort, but they kept calling it a mamografia, which technically IS a mammogram...but I guess we were speaking in upgrades, here
** This is completely made up. Therefore, please assume an approximate 5% margin of inaccuracy.

12 months = one year = NOT halfway quite yet.

One year ago today, I arrived in Colombia. Crazy, right? Well, to me it is. All this time thinking about time passing--I can't lie, I pour over my calendar at least three times a week, marking off days and highlighting upcoming events--and bam, a year. Time is just, so, measurable here, between the stark delineation between BC and CC (Before Colombia and Current Colombia), and the knowledge of an expiration date (AC), and plenty of landmarks in between...well, it happens. Thinking about time, I mean. Days and weeks often pass slowly, but months have FLOWN by.

Not a huge accomplishment, in and of itself. Time has passed. Not to mention, the first three months were training, and on top of that, in terms of productivity, this has got to be an occupation with one of the biggest ever learning curves. Also, service is 27 months, so this isn't the halfway point or anything. Still. A year. In Colombia. That's a thing.

Not going to pretend like I know what umm, exactly I'm doing quite yet, but I can at least say I have a better idea. And that things are only going to get better, at least in that respect, from here on out.

So in honor of this not-so-auspicious-but-still-somewhat-noteworthy occasion, I started making a list of things that I no longer find totally strange. Let me tell you, it really takes it out of you when practically every single moment is the craziest thing you've ever seen, so this on its own is going to add up to super amounts of extra energy this coming year. Things becoming normal = adjustment = some sort of personal success, no?

I thought I'd make a small list. Just scant minutes later (seemed like), I'd reached 100. So I left them.

For your entertainment, and in no particular order, here are 100 things that I've come to find normal, or at least a predictable part of life, for the past year in Barranquilla, Colombia. 

1. Mule carts galloping next to  cars
2. So. Much. Sweat.
3. Bloody Jesus watching over my school hallways

4. Speakers that are 5 feet tall blaring salsa in my house

5. Hanging out the door of a bus while trying to get somewhere
6. Flagging down buses so they'll pause for me with a floppy Hitler salute

7. Not using canned tomatoes

8. Not using any sort of bullion or stock to cook
9. Rice made with oil and salt with grains fried prior to boiling

10. Mall food courts being the most productive place in my life to work

11. No air conditioning

12. People knowing how to dance. Every single one of them.

13. People dancing everywhere (Bus. Grocery store. Street corner. School. Clubs. Home. …)

14. Carrying an umbrella everywhere

15. Using umbrella in the sun as well as the rain. Often in the same day

16. Getting called "my queen," "my heaven," "my daughter" on a daily basis by strangers and acquaintances alike

17. Getting cat calls even on my frumpiest days

18. In terms of frumpy: my best days here were probably my frumpiest in the US
19. Wearing sandals every single day
20. Buying my fruit off of carts
21. Haggling over prices, from taxi to fruit to spices

22. Not knowing 1-3/4 of what is said around me

23. Getting told blunt, personal observations on a daily basis (your acne is looking suuuper bad today. Is that everywhere on your body? You're getting fat!)

24. Lots and lots of touching

25. Kissing to say goodbye and hello

26. No windows in my room.

27. Never being cold
28. Spending most of my money on food
29. Getting inordinately excited over vegetables

30. Getting fed things that are so garlicky they give heartburn (who knew overdosing on garlic was POSSIBLE)
30. Heartburn

31. Vegetables being called a salad no matter what sorts of vegetables/form they're in

32. Beans being called "grains"
33. Cilantro being called a vegetable
34. Putting cocoa powder in my oatmeal to get my chocolate fix
35. Not having an oven

36. Getting questioned on whether or not I'm Mormon for wearing skirts

37. Having Spanish come to mind instead of English when thinking of synonyms

39. Being mistaken routinely for people who look nothing at all like me

40. Getting asked if I know famous people on a daily basis
41. Getting asked if I'm from Miami on a daily basis
42. Getting asked about God on a daily basis (do I believe? What's my church like?)

43. Never wearing my hair down

44. Soap operas as a daily feature of life

45. Not walking alone after 8:30 at night

46. Living in a city

47. The fact rain paralyzes daily activities
48. Masses taking place during school hours regularly. In school.
49. Sounds that could be gunshots actually turning out to be gunshots

50. Drinking hot chocolate in 100+ degree weather w/o a/c

51. Eating soup in 100+ degree weather w/o a/c

52. Seeing a flowering plant bloom multiple times a year

53. Eating things cooked in butter on a regular basis

54. Passing a fried food stand on every corner

55. Hour-long bus rides, half of which are standing up in aisles 3-people deep, to get anywhere

56. Living with 9 people in a 3 bedroom house

57. A parrot as a pet

58. 3 chihuahuas

59. Feeding house scraps to the pet turtle pack. Or parrot.

60. Being able to talk about people behind their backs without them knowing it

61. Traffic

62. Traffic noise

63. Living in a city

64. Explaining the difference between real-life US and Hollywood

65. Weekly cultural in and outsights
66. Carrying hot sauce around with me to ensure life has a touch of flavor
67. Carrying toilet paper around with me everywhere
68. Throwing toilet paper in a trashcan instead of the toilet
69. Cold showers
70. Explaining what it means to be a vegetarian
71. Eating chicken

72. Working, officially, on Saturdays

73. Letting someone know every time I leave my house for a night
74. Letting someone know I'm alive, officially, once a week

75. Being watched. All the time.

76. Speaking incorrect English using Spanish structures
77. Hearing incorrect English being used by everyone who (thinks they) speak it

78. Loudspeakers/speaker towers everywhere

79. Public spaces routinely being louder than a crazy punk-rock-dubstep-name-that-concert

80. Sweat pouring out of every pore while sitting at the kitchen table, my desk, lying on (note, definitely not "in") my bed

81. Speaking a second language. (Not claiming fluency, but, I get around…)

82. Being referred to as "La Gringa"

83. Playing soccer

84. Signing up for a fantasy football league
85. No real measurement of success
86. Living in the same city for 12 consecutive month/planning to live there 12 more.
87. Seeing my parents/US friends only by virtue of Skype (minus the super awesome ones who visit!)
88. Having small children around the house
89. Watching Will Smith in terrible tv movies, dubbed over in super deep voices
90. Sitting in plastic-style beach chairs
91. Sitting. A lot.
92. Representing the US
93. Using hand gestures while speaking--not the unspecified Italian sort, but sort of like sign language
94. Having many siblings
95. Seeing extended family on a regular basis
96. Cooing over babies
97. Working as a teacher
98. Thinking every day about how I'll make a difference
99. Thinking every day about if I've made a difference
100. Being in the Peace Corps

Coffee fun for everyone

Even if you don’t drink coffee, Colombia’s Coffee Triangle is a magical place to visit.

I hesitate to write this. If I do you might race and get your plane tickets. You might decide that even without a traditional tourist infrastructure, Colombia’s interior is too good to miss out on. You’d be right to do so, of course, but if you did, then when I return to Colombia’s interior gringos might become a common sight, and then of course that changes everything.

                As it is, I’m barely sitting in my seat, just returned from the swooping valleys and mountains of the Colombian stretch of Andes, wondering why I was so silly as to return to the sweltering coast, the crowded gray ruckus of Barranquilla. I suppose a job here and my Peace Corps commitment was a decent reason...okay we'll go with that :)

On top of Montserrate

                But meanwhile. When a friend who doesn’t like the heat decides to come south to Colombia to visit his Peace Corps, equatorial- located friend, it only takes an instant to decide where to meet up. Eschewing my coastal site, off we headed to the glorious interior, where elevation makes up for location and cool weather rules.

Bogota's main plaza

 After meeting in Bogotá to spend a day or two perusing the city’s collection of esoteric museums, pigeon-filled plazas, and lovely lookouts, we headed to the Ejé Cafetero, or the Coffee-growing region in the Andes Mountains. This area, typically defined by the cities of Medellín, Cali, and Bogotá, is where 85% of Colombia’s coffee is grown, mostly on small farms. It’s also the location of the Cocorá Valley, where Colombia’s national tree, the wax palm, sprouts hundreds of feet high above a cool valley. The valley itself is a beautiful entryway into a cloud forest.

Really beautiful waterfall

                Sticking to the small cities, my friend and I traveled first to Pereira, the closest city on bus routes to Santa Rosa de Cabal, which is home to incredible thermal hot springs. We headed to the smallest thermal which included an incredible waterfall that fell above the concrete pools of naturally hot water. Alternating between the cold waterfall and hot pools, we watched a thunderstorm move in. Steam rose from the thermal pools where cold rain drops fell, almost sizzling as they hit the pool. Rising reluctantly, we moved on and out before the lightning crested the mountains.

Super badass naked Bolivar

Other Pereira notables included one of the best zoos in South America, and an infamous statue of Simón Bolivar. Bolívar is the liberator of countries and cities of many South American countries, and thus there are statues of him in pretty much every town and city. Pereira’s, however, is naked. An impressive work of art, which I enjoyed viewing while munching on eternal cups of chontoduro, a local fruit. Sold for about 1 mil by local vendors, the fruit’s flesh is fibrous, something like a potato-carrot (as Abby so aptly describes it). Doused in honey and salt, it’s a tasty, tasty thing. Or at least I thought so. My friend...not so much, but it’s one of the few plants we don’t see on the coast.

                A day and a half exhausted Pereira, and we went on to visit Armenia, which is the closest “real” city to the Valley of Cocorá. It’s also about twenty minutes away from a luscious botanical garden and mariposaria, or butterfly house. The gardens require that you attend the tour, which is two hours long. Reluctant at first to be trapped for so long, especially since the tour was in Spanish and my friend speaks almost none, we were pleasantly surprised by the incredible variety and depth the tour offered. From matapalmas—trees that grow off, then over and around palm trees, splitting into many trunks and eventually overtaking the palm tree, to incredible bamboo forests with shoots over thirty feet tall and half a foot wide, to a bird sanctuary where we saw the famously shy banquero, a bright teal and green bird that lives in earth banks, and a long, wire-tethered bridge over a small chasm, it was all breathtaking. And of course, the butterfly house, where clouds of butterflies rose from the flowers, feasting on cups of orange slices, each moment one for a painted masterpiece.

                We finished our trip in Salento. Salento is a small, quaint town about twenty minutes from the entrance to Valle Cocorá, known also for its coffee plantations and artisan crafts.  There were more non-Peace Corps  folks from the United States in Salento than I’ve met in the last year, which is to say we met approximately ten. That plus the other internationals meant some public spaces were unexpectedly geared towards English speakers, a plus for my non-Spanish-speaking friend. One of the famous hostels, The Plantation House, owned by a Scottish man, offers a wonderful tour of his adjoined coffee farm, and thus I’ve forgotten more about coffee already than I ever knew in a lifetime.

Some super tall palms. Note tiny cows, for relative size

                Valle Cocorá was my personal trip highlight, starved for rolling landscapes and mountain paths as I am. Rising at 5:00, I took the 6:15 jeep out to the valley, which meant I had the whole path to myself for hours. First an hour trek through the tufted green valley, passing traditional farms and an odd mounted campesino, goggling at the stands of palms stretching into the clouds. Then the cloud forest, with kilometers of incline, breathtaking views at every turn. With its pines and leafy trees, the forest held a comforting familiarity to those in the US, shot through unexpectedly with wild tropical vines and flowers, palm-sized beetles, and of course those rising palm trees. Six hours later I emerged to the crowds of palm-seeking tourists, who tripped along the lower stone-laid paths in fashionable shoes and jeans. Definitely worth the early wake-up.

                It was a sad thing to leave the beauty of the interior. Beaches may be where some find peace, but they are not, shall I say, my neck of the woods. It’s incredible to know how much variety this country holds. Sweating again on the coast, marveling at the idea that snow exists elsewhere in the world, I’m already plotting my next trip, to see yet another slice of this country!

More pictures!!

Clearly on our style of "orange" diet

 The amount of caramel used on a daily basis in Bogota is staggering....this is literally half an orange, candied and then filled with caramel

Bridge in the botanical gardens

"Fat American Filter,"says this sign. For those who ate too many oranges.

Amazing moss

Views from the cloud forest:

 Views in the valley

 Atop Salento

Coffee farm

All types of coffee

Hand-roasting coffee beans