And the Seasons they go 'round and 'round...

Things I miss in Colombia: Seasons!

One of the strangest parts about living on the Caribbean coast, so close to the equator, is not having seasons. The chief issue here, for a former maple-everything lover, is missing fall. I love...everything about fall. The drawback of course, is the winter that follows, since extreme cold is only sometimes my thing (snow fights and ski hills and snow-plastered forests = awesome, icy streets and missing fruit short days and having to dig out cars = ...not awesome)

Some of the most fun classroom discussions I have with my students is about seasons. Imagine never experiencing a time when something isn't growing. Imagine never experiencing trees without leaves. Or shortening and lengthening days. Or extreme weather differences. I hear that might be a thing on the US west coast, at least in terms of the food...but since I'm from Wisconsin, I plead ignorance.

My students and I sometimes do seasonal food mapping, and they teach me about the times of different fruits, like mango time, June-July, when trees drop almost a hundred fruit a day (Friendly PCV Jessica is lucky enough to have one in her yard, so I've witnessed this. Mangos EVERYWHERE!). Then there are the times of guanabana, guayaba, ciduela and more, when these fruits become, for a time, crazy-ubiquitous. We're not talking just local farms dropping these fruits, but trees on every street corner of the city.  (Of course, the street vendors mostly score them in the early morning hours and sell them back to city dwellers, sometimes pre-chopped, for the rest of the day...)

I'm lucky enough to have scored a lime tree at my house--these trees have fruit all year long(!) The limes here are about the size of a ping pong ball or smaller. Nothing like squeezing 10 or so to spice up black beans or  roasted garlic hummus...oh wait, that goes on a different blog. Anyway. The point is, the idea of times of a year where there is NO growth, not just different growth, is completely foreign. One of these days I'll bring in Laura Ingalls Wilder excerpts to the classroom. Nothing like The Long Winter to drive that point home...Digressing again. But boy did I love those books growing up/still do...

And of course, my students and I talk about snow.

Things I don't miss: having limbs so cold they turn white, jumping up and down in pain when blood returns to fingers, snot freezing on my nostrils just walking outside...sometimes, when I'm sweating gallons of salty liquid doing nothing more than sitting at our kitchen table, I think to capture the moment, to save  it up for times when I'm miserable from cold and will want to think back to such "glorious" warmth. Grass is always greener, I taunt myself. It gets me through the days and nights, imagining that one day I may be nostalgic for it. Hah.

Anyway, this may or may not have all been a lead up to put my most recent GoGirl post up. Six months of writing with them, woot!

Also, Monday = Vacation time in the cooler interior, double woot!!! Updates on that in a few weeks.

On loving fall: http://www.travelgogirl.com/2012/09/20/missing-seasons/

11 months

Not that I'm counting, but tonight is my 11 month anniversary in Colombia. Whatever that count is worth--since although we arrived in Colombia last October, we didn't arrive at our sites until January, and with Carnival, it felt like we didn't get started with real work until March. Lots of benchmarks, different realities, different situations, and whatever else to stop those 11 months from feeling like a terribly solid sort of count, in some ways. Heh.
11 months since leaving the US.
There's a solid thing to measure by, at the least.
 
That said, time has flown by in the last few weeks. Sometimes I'm not really sure if what I did in the morning was actually what I did last week. Or vice versa. Needless to say, I haven't been hanging my memories up on any sorts of hooks or anything. Honestly, I sort of forgot I had a blog. Oops.

One big thing that happened a few weeks ago was our first group of new trainees came--30 people starting the journey here that my cohort began almost a year ago, now. Which makes my group, the first of the 2-year volunteers to come to Colombia since 30 years prior, technically the veterans. How little I know, and yet how much more than when I started! Crazy to remember how I viewed the people I met my first weeks in Colombia, and realizing I'm a part of that for these new folks. Cringing a little at what they must be thinking...first impressions and all that...haven't had to deal with that in a long time! Whatever else, I live life here about as unfiltered in every way as I've ever been. You want to know what I'm thinking? I'll probably tell you, no questions asked :)

Last year at this time, I was heading off to Austin City Limits music festival to enjoy a last (North) American adventure before quitting my job and heading south. I'll spare the reminisces...Just got lost in my head for a bit there..

Hah. But here's the thing-I promised myself that I'd take this time as a true, integrated part of my life. That I wouldn't consider it an outside detour or taking time "out" but I'm not sure I've kept to that promise, for so many reasons. For example: I've realized that I'm often not a terribly nice person when I'm living in super hot weather as a volunteer in a strange land. At least in my head. Also around others.

I'd like to think I'm a "good" person. Doesn't everyone? I guess I could be a not-good person doing worse things with my life, but that doesn't actually make it better that I catch myself feeling resentful/petty/frustrated/negative here much more often than I'm comfortable with. And of course, since I don't want to think of this as a character trait, I'd like to think that's a conditional thing. Except turns out that life catches up, anyway. Things I thought were or could be just "me-in-Colombia," 11 months later, I'm coming to terms with the fact they may actually be just "me." On the visible side, this Emily sweats a lot, is less conscientious about diet, gets surprised looks when wearing jeans INSTEAD of a skirt, is not at all phased by detailed discussions on bowel movements, has a consistent, stationary group of wonderful friends seen sometimes too often and sometimes not enough, and is bad at answering emails. (Okay, that last is maybe not new...) And that hasn't even touched the crazy!

But that's not really the point. I digress. Bubbles, a friend here tells me, are the way in which I tend to tell stories. Nothing stepwise. This is apparently confusing and somewhat ineffective. Sorry! But... I'll continue forgoing organization, for a minute, or a lifetime, to just say that in so many ways, a year ago seems just a small step backward.

Theory: Most of my life here isn't building on an accumulation of other things; I'm a teacher (new), I'm living with a host family like a child (new), where I went to college doesn't mean a thing, and slightly related, I have no plans to be anywhere in the next year except here, doing basically the same thing I do now (hopefully better at it, personally, but job position/salary/etc are sure not changing). By leaving the US, I hopped right out of "normal" expectations onto a happily random tangent. This makes it hard to think of a year ago as anything but a hairsbreadth behind me, and deceptively easy to slip back into, if I so choose; I have to consistently remind myself not only will I not be returning to that life, I wanted nothing more than a complete change, when I left it.

Meanwhile, those I left behind in my old life are in a place I couldn't return to if I wanted to, not the least of that based on the fact they've spent the last year adding to other experience that probably proceeded it in a stepwise fashion. This seems potentially more sustainable, in life.

Not that this, my experience, can't be stepwise as well! Maybe not quite so obviously? Or maybe it will be, depending on what I do with my life. (someday I'll stop wondering that and actually get on with it...) And who cares about sustainability, anyway...at least in terms of settling down with a white picket fence. Then again, there are lots of potential variations on that white picket fence, fortunately, I have to believe. Haven't even approached it yet, so this is just supposition.

Either way, These two + years down here (11 of the 25 months now complete) are officially a part of my mid-twenties, and I don't get those back. There's a pretty delineated before and after in the sense of arriving in Colombia, but less so in terms of who I'm becoming, down here--and whether my Colombian-born character traits will really fall away when I go back to the States or wherever comes next...and if I live here with the assumption that some of my lifestyle choices are temporary things, then why would I live with them at all? These 2+ years aren't just a static measure of time, turns out, but a dynamic span, and SHOULD affect who I am; the rest of my forever.

Oops, that was more reflection than planned. I think I'll leave it as is anyway? Moving on.

In two weeks a US friend is coming to visit me, and we're going to the interior and I will be escaping the daily 117 real-feels that threaten to melt my corporeal and spiritual being into a puddle of Colombian-Corn-Fed muck, and if the trip is only half as wonderful as I'm imagining it will be, I might just spontaneously combust with happiness (mountains, under 80 degree weather, scarves, nature, a good friend...you know, the whole these-are-a-few-of-my-favorite-things-the-hills-are-alive-style rigamarole) ... how amazing it is, to live in a crazy gorgeous country..Caribbean coast, a couple sets of mountains, lakes, hot springs, valleys...Yeah.

Okay, that's all I got.

Well, one more thing: I started a food blog. Figured it was time. I'll be migrating things over there, updating. This blog shows it on the right; the link turns bold when I update. You can follow there as well--the plan is to have recipes from the Colombianified kitchen, kitchen stories and an excuse for total food-related self-indulgence on my part. Can I just repeat, one more time, that cooking keeps me sane? I've been stocking up on my own supplies, finally, and there's nothing better than a cast aluminum pot and a growing pile of spices under my bed to chase away the monsters.

Disclaimer--this is very much a beginning effort AND work in progress--
www.elbowfood.wordpress.com https://elbowfood.wordpress.com/


I'm planning on a much more tangible one year update/fun travel updates. Wasn't planning to do a thinker-style post tonight but here you have it...so I'll leave you with these half-baked thoughts for now. Missing lots of you, to be sure.

Spanglish

There are few things more surreal, from a language standpoint, than sitting in a classroom while a native teacher instructs the students in pronunciation. The singsong-like repetition along with morphed vowel shapes and sounds means "English" practice loses all semblance of language and it all washes over me like a Gregorian chant. Or something like that.

After this chanting effectively wipes away all firmly fixed ideas about English as a language, I become frighteningly receptive to a new sort of language...Spanglish.I'm not talking about Spanglish as in adding in a Spanish word here or there, for the most part, but instead a more insidious version. A Spanglish that roots deep into structures and thinking patterns, until everything's pure "disorder."

Here are some of my favorite Spanglish words and phrases that I hear even my most fluent of English counterparts using on a regular basis:

• "I don't listen." This actually is probably true. But what they're trying to say is, "I can't hear," or, "I didn't hear you."
• "Remember me." This is not a corny plea nor that terrible movie by one of the Twilight actors, but means, instead, "remind me"
• "Explain me." No, this does not mean to sit down and have a Freudian-like consult, but instead indicates that someone requires an explanation
• An "ubication," or, "I have to ubicate myself." The speaker is referring to a location, or the action "to locate." The Spanish verb is "ubicar" and somehow the fact that it's not an English word hasn't quite caught on.
• "Say me." Rather than asking for a repetition of "me," this usually indicates someone is interested in being told something. Often told to the students as an instruction.
• "Pass in front of the class." This means to come up and take a turn, and although it is actually okay to say this in English (I think?), whenever it's said--which is very often--I can't help thinking two students are going to be throwing footballs around up in the front of the room.
• to "Make a test." When said, this almost never refers to actually creating a test, but rather giving it. "Hacer," means to do or to make, which is how the phrase is said in Spanish. Apparently they only give gifts around here, not so much tests.
• "Alone," referring to locations: "That street is very alone." Meaning, it  isn't very inhabited, and is not safe to walk down at any time of day or night. Sola is the Spanish word, used for alone and uninhabited/empty.
• to "Molest." This is not something children should worry about, but instead the speaker means it in its most tepid definition, as in, "to bother." Which happens to translate into Spanish as "molestar."
• "Delicious" used to describe things like nice days, or a pleasant time with friends. "Que rico!" is the Spanish saying...which means my English speakers talk about delicious, say, people, far more than I'm comfortable with.
• "Thanks God." They're not saying, "Hey, Thanks, God!" Instead this is almost exclusively said in exclamation form, like, "Thanks God it didn't rain today!" I like the informal connotations, however. 

There are lots more. Some of this comes from the fact that Spanish has a pretty awesome concept of reflexive verbs (verbs inherently indicate whether or not they include internal action...as in, instead of saying "I sit" it's more like, "I sit myself." That's a really unscientific explanation. What can I say, Peace Corps refuses to teach grammar when they do their language instruction...)  Some of it...I have no idea. The scary part is when find myself adding Spanish structures to my English, too. And not as a joke.

Either way, inherent Spanglish is rapidly becoming a part of my daily reality. Along the lines of watching a small boy tote a parrot around a hostel on a giant stick and no one finding that odd, including me (uper adorable, though). Or hearing what sounds like gunshots outside the house, passing them off as a car backfiring, and realizing they actually were gunshots. (That happened just two days ago. No one was hurt...just some idiot trying to steal a car in plain daylight. From the garage of a house that's being given away by lottery. Speaking of almost-but-not-quite normal...)

I guess one thing I never expected, in all of this, was to become legitimately unsure of my own language, and to inherit the same speech patterns that stuck out so glaringly as incorrect when I first arrived. It's not that I don't care anymore, or that I don't think that perhaps I should be correcting, at the least, my English teachers who use these constructs...but after a while, the repetition and obvious inability to correct the entire English-speaking world, here, just starts to rub off. Who knows, anyway, what correct English is? I sure don't!

 Not sure what the long term effects are, but, with no other options, will just be continuing onward with the "I have no idea what's going on in life or in my head" that's become my general MO! Oh..and I guess I'll keep on teaching English, while I'm at it...

Minca Honey + Maiz Pira = ....KETTLE CORN

So, I mentioned in my last post I'd bought some of raw honey from the mountain village Minca near Santa Marta. I've used it in a few divine combinations so far, including with cinnamon and apples, and with mustard, ginger, and carrots.

Tonight we made...Kettle Corn.

In case you don't know, I am...more than slightly obsessed with Kettle Corn. The proverbial fat kid at the state fair when it's around. At the Madison Farmer's Market, two corners of the square hold booths that offer kettle corn, which meant that I could, and routinely did, buy one bag of kettle corn for immediate consumption and then refill without even a backtrack.

After a fun day of cooking other things with Jessica (blackbeans with bell pepper, carrot and zucchini salad, apples and oatmeal), and then digesting, Tyler and I decided to make popcorn. "Let's make kettle corn," he said. Amateurs that we were, for our first batch we cooked up the popcorn and added a halfcup of sugar. Let me tell you, that does approximately nothing.

Barely tasting the sugar, we devoured batch number one accompanied by the jalapeno sauce Tyler brought back from his medically-necessitated trip to Panama (read: intracountry food run!)

But there had to be a way to make it actually taste delicious, right? So, not a quarter way through our first giant bowl, I googled Kettle Corn recipes. Soooo easy. Add sugar to the oil and THEN pop the corn, sprinkle on salt immediately thereafter. Of course we decided to make batch number TWO.

Except, the family sugar supply was running dangerously low. Don't you know, it takes at least a cup of sugar to make a pitcher of fresh juice...

So in came the Minca Honey. Same deal, different sweetener. Tons of shaking required, because it makes the kernels sticky...but that just justifies eating that second batch, right...??

Anyway, yeah. At-Home, Colombia-enabled, KETTLE CORN. It's a good night.

Recipe:

1/4 cup  oil
1/2 cup honey
6 tablespoons maiz pira (popcorn kernels)
sprinkle of salt

Heat honey til warm and homogenous. Add oil and a few kernels, listen for pop. Add the rest of the popcorn and do the shake 3 sec, wait 3 sec (on the burner) until the kernels stop popping. Sprinkle with salt, let cool slightly, enjoy TREMENDOUSLY

:D

So, it's been a while

I've been...busy? Not much has happened in and of itself that's all that new or exciting (minus a visit from a friend from the US (!) but we mostly retread old stomping grounds) . As substitute, here's an aggregate of the last few weeks

1. Started school. I'm teaching with 4 new teachers, most of whom don't speak English past an A2 level. And yet, it's been great planning and teaching with them so far...not because our classes are amazing, but because it feels like we're actually getting a bit done. Slow change is definitely the new motto.

2. Had another US visitor (!). We checked out Santa Marta and Minca, this amazing little mountain town outside of Santa Marta. Visited waterfalls and wells, bought fresh coffee from a local family (which naturally turned into a spontaneous revivalist prayer meeting), and saw more hummingbirds in fifteen minutes than I've seen total in my life. Turns out there are a few varieties in the Sierra Nevadas in that area that don't exist anywhere else...but you'd have to ask the real birdwatchers what they were. I just saw incredibly gorgeous, tiny, iridescent birds of different shades and sizes...

3. Bought and ate raw honey, from Minca. Complete with little insects, that's how real it is. Used it in stovetop apple crisp (chopped apples plus cinnamon plus a pinch of salt and juice of a lime, boiled down in water with honey, topped with granola and yogurt. Amazing.)

4. I am turning orange. Slightly. Nothing to match another PCV who is incredibly, noticeably orange. You know that whole eat-too-many-carrots-you-turn-orange myth? Not such a myth. Have to say, I'm pretty proud of my slightly orange-shaded palms. Turns out subsidizing one's diet with carrots, tomatoes, papaya, and squash has a henna-ish effect...

5. I've consumed ridiculous amounts of guanabana, which has recently come into season. It's bigger and much heavier than a football, and resembles something like a headless, tail-less, wingless dragon. Its flesh is white, sort of like a fish but more fibrous, and has these giant black seeds you have to work out with your teeth. It's flavored something like a mixed-fruit smoothie, all on its own. ...In short, it's terrifying and delicious. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soursop

6. I am also becoming cat-like. Sadly, only in the virtue of hating to get my feet wet. We're entering the second rainy season. Today the streets had turned into a grid of arroyos between my house and school, but from rain from the north that never actually reached us, in the coming-from-the-sky version Which meant that in order to not wet my feet/splash through nasty arroyo water, I walked about 30 minutes out of my way in weather that had not cooled post-rain...because all the rain had stayed on the northern (read: heavens-favored in all ways) part of the city.

7. Going on a month, now, I have listened exclusively to Modest Mouse. Colombia, you are changing my musical tastes.

8. I haven't progressed further in learning to play guitar, but I do own one now. And can play a few songs. I'll keep you posted on progress once I get back into practicing. Nothing like strumming kumbayah, however, to make one feel like a genuine PCV, that's for sure.

9. Turns out, soy milk is great for cooking veggies in, for curry-like mixtures. Also turns out, cooking tomatoes in real milk causes it to curdle. (Science, you win yet again!) Fortunately, that just makes everything taste sort of cheesey...but soy milk is a great substitute. Albeit a bit expensive.

10. I found out my favorite (northern-located) panaderia has free wireless. This is going to wreak massive havoc on my (already carb-high) daily diet! They have FOCACCIA. With rosemary, garlic, tomatoes and onions. Focaccia, I say! Don't even get me started on the chocolate cake...

Literary fun

Today, my first (sort of) published-outside-of-a-college-journal flash fiction piece went up online. Since it's inspired by a conversation with one of my wonderful advanced students here, I've decided it's relevant to my blog as well :)


http://www.cactusheartpress.com/the-blog/

Villa de Leyva--glorying in Colombia's interior

 The last post I wrote, I was really excited about being in the luxury of a Marriott. The executive suite. Free food. Ridiculous amounts of pillows.

This, I will not deny, definitely still falls under the awesomeness category. However, leaving the city behind and heading to Villa de Leyva, a colonial Spanish town that's kept its ambiance for tourists and peacefulness in general, alike, was...better. Mostly because...it was glorious, glorious nature. Of the cool, mountainous sort. We're talking waterfalls, mountain hikes, long sleeve shirts and swinging tea-drunk in hammocks, cool mountain breezes, clouds that hover over and among the mountain tops, so when you climb said mountains you're literally among the clouds. And the most comfortable beds in the world. Better than the Marriott. Thin mattresses and pillows and all, they were somehow incredibly satisfying, with wool blankets that trapped that perfect amount of body temperature, so that you awake in the most wonderful warm bubble.

After 9 months of Barranquilla, I almost cried the first morning I came out of the hostel, looked down into the valley of terracotta-roofed buildings, up into the cloud-cloaked mountain tops and realized I'd have all day (and the next two following) exist in that setting. Literally, put my feet down one after another on that dirt road, absolutely speechless.

Rather than repeat myself, here's an account of my trip as posted on GoGirl:
http://www.travelgogirl.com/2012/07/villa-de-leyva-charm-nature-and-long-sleeves-oh-my/

 I was going to share some of the reflections made on the trip. Details about how I realized, in the clear, easy air of the Andes, some of the bad habits I've let myself fall into here in the city; realizing I've let negativity take hold on so many of my outlooks, how I haven't yet let myself feel grounded and call my room, my school, this country--any of it--truly my home. But my reflections, as reflections are wont to do, got more than a bit cliche. So ultimately I'll just say that, my resolution back on site is to look more on the bright side of...everything.


And for happiness, here are some pictures of the lovely Villa de Leyva...I'm running short on bandwidth so they're annoyingly not facing the right way...I'll fix at some point in the near future, promise :)

Flea market!

Jessica, looking out over the Andes on our walk to "El Fosil"

beautiful yellow flower in the middle of gray

more beautiful cold-climate flowers

The sign describing the legend of Lake Aguaque, where mankind is supposed to have been born

From the mountain top.

birthplace of mankind..

Like a sunflower, but furry! And kind of like a cactus.

El Fosil!

Vacation Time

For the last two weeks, we haven't had school, as we're in the middle of our three week class break. For various reasons, the English activities planned for the two weeks of in-school development took up slightly less time than expected, but they did occur, so that was good. It wasn't a bad two weeks. However, relaxing as it was to not be teaching in classrooms and having much more daily autonomy, it wasn't quite vacation, as it were.

But my, how things have changed!

Earlier today, I flew to Bogota. It only took three hours longer than expected, since our flight didn't manage to board before the 2 hour all-airport lunch break...but finally we arrived, descending into sixty(SIXTY!) five degree temperatures and the verdant mountain-ringed valley of the city.

 In a slight twist in Peace Corps (mis)Adventuring, I'd decided to use some Marriott points I'd accumulated during my short tenure as a corporate professional last year.

Which leads into the surreal fact that I'm currently sitting on the puffiest bed potentially in the world, with a "Pillow Menu" on the nightside table (just press 0 and order your favorite kind, gratis), on the highest (read: executive) floor of the Bogota Marriott. Across the hall is the executive suite which offers, for high rollers like yours truly, free alcohol, breakfast, and dinner-time "canapes."

(You should have seen the desk lady's look of dismay as she handed over my "elite" set of keys and told me of these perks. Eschewing the trappings of my fleeting Marriott gold status, I was definitely hauling a backpack as luggage along with a cheap guitar, and was wrapped in the windbreaker that is my only sub-80 degree clothing here in Colombia...To be fair, I wasn't really expecting the executive floor, so I'm sure my face was humorous to watch as well...)

Pinch me?

Idon'twanttobeanexecutiveIdon'twanttobeanexecutive...if I keep repeating it, maybe I'll remember how true it is!?  I swear, there were definite reasons I left this lifestyle...give me a few minutes and I'll gather my thoughts and remind us all why working in 100+ degree weather in disorganized, un-airconditioned or ventilated or even electric fan-equipped schools is more fulfilling than working for a corporate agenda and getting free room service... Okay, I'm back. Teaching is more fulfilling. It just, is. So there we are.

Anyway! I'm set to enjoy three days in this ridiculous hotel chain wonderland. Tops goals include:

• Put my feet on every surface that can be sat on (because, believe it or not, that's something not allowed in public or private spaces in Barranquilla. Maybe not here either...but not going to let that stop me)
• Watch Wimbledon
• Avoid small children
• Choose the volume of my surrounding music
• Work on personal writing projects
• Wear a long sleeved shirt with a hood at all times
• Meet up with awesome college friend, who just moved to Bogota for the summer(!)

I'm happy to report that four of these goals are being accomplished as I type. I'll let you guess which ones.

After three days here in the city, during which time I may or may not venture out of the room, I'll be traveling to a small Spanish colonial settlement for the last few days of the vacation. Probably won't be updating again until I have time to experience the sights and gather my thoughts. Or who knows. Maybe I'll just have that much time on my hands, and you'll hear more of my Posh Corps ramblings :) We'll see.

Happy mid-year break!!

Good as butternut squash...

Friday was a day just about as good as butternut squash, which is the best vegetable in the world. I love vegetables. So you see, this day was a wonderful day. Particularly because it actually included some delicious butternut squash(!) BUTTERNUT SQUASH. Yeah that's right, I'm going to shout that out there.

I have become accustomed to lowering my expectations for general things. This is a survival technique. This makes things like a hours-long walks in the boiling sun without finding the place I'm looking for, or prepping plans for a week-long intensive English seminar that gets turned, five minutes prior, into 2 days of 2 hour lessons, bearable.

It also makes unexpected discoveries, and actual successes AWESOME.

It goes without saying that successes/awesome things of a major sort do not often number more than 0-1 per day. Trifectas are even more rare...and I feel like sharing some good things. So, here you have it, a perhaps inordinately long post about my successful past Friday...this grew even longer since, as you'll perhaps see, successes are not won easily in these parts...but after everything they are incredibly sweet.

As a spoiler alert, I am including butternut squash as a "major success" and/or an "awesome thing." Moving on.

We're currently in our school "pause," which means we have three weeks without students at the school, aka three weeks of official reasons to not have class.  Since my school took Friday to input grades, and I am not a grader,  I took the day to do some exploration of personal projects.

1) The "Changing Lives" Foundation

With Jessica along, I trekked out to an organization I've been meaning to check out for months.

The organization is called "Fundacion Cambiando Vidas." Long ago, I'd read an article in the paper that mentioned an organization that offered horse therapy here in the area. Horse therapy, or equinoterapia is a type of (human) therapy that uses horses to help treat/work with cognitively and/or physically disabled people, from children to adults. I had my first experience with this at the incredible organization Three Gaits, Inc, in Madison, Wisconsin. Since that was the most wonderful volunteer experience I've ever had, I thought I'd see what this Barranquillan program was all about.

The place, by all accounts, was located about thirty minutes outside of Barranquilla, on the autopista (major highway). Jessica and I, working off of somewhat vague directions, got to the nearest landmark, and then had to resort to asking folks along the way.

"Horses?" asked the fancy school security guard. "Oh yes. Go that way. Enter the iron gate."
"But the gate says se vende," we said. (for sale)
"It's hidden," he told us. "You have to walk inside."
 Jessica and I walked to the gate. It was a huge, rusty iron thing, but when pushed, swung open to reveal a patchy field surrounded by wilderness.
"This is a turning point," said Jessica. "Not sure what of, but it is..."
"Nothing to lose," I said, setting off on the slight worn path through grass. The sun pressed down and the thick air buzzed with cicadas ( the real-feel temperature a cool 110 degrees.) Far ahead, we saw a rundown house, two stories tall with a curving outdoor staircase, surrounded by mango trees.
As we approached, it seemed the house was deserted.
"Not looking good," said Jessica.
I was about to reply, probably to say something inanely positive, when two dogs, one black and one tan, raced towards us, barking explosively.
Jessica, not a dog lover, jumped behind me.
"Oh hello!" I said (in English), noting the wagging tails. "How are you, pretty puppies!"
They forgave me my language difficulties and bounded around, circling as we stepped closer to the house.
Scrape, scrape.
A man in a worn white tshirt sat on a crate in the middle of the empty concrete bottom floor, sharpening some tool. When we stepped onto the patio he rose and limped outside, carrying a long, now-finely sharpened machete.
"Buenas," we said. "Es de, estamos buscando los caballos. Para terapia. Sabe donde quedan?" We're looking for horses, for therapy. Do you know where they're at?
We figured it didn't hurt to ask.
"Horses?" he asked, eyes milky with cataracts, face sunken. "That way. Beware of the dogs." He pointed straight-armed across the field with his machete.
Off we went, trekking down another sandy patch. When we entered the new compound, it was immediately clear that 1) there were horses, 2) this was not the place we sought. However, in typical friendly coastal fashion, the family of horse care-takers sent their son to guide us to the place...which unlike everyone else we'd spoken to, they seemed to actually know about.
And so, finally, we arrived at the foundation.

Upon our knock, a friendly woman escorted us in, and it was like entering another world. Turns out, this foundation not only does horse therapy, but has a complete, holistic program for disabled people. Children and adults can come either for one "jornada," (half the day), or for the full day.On site, there are therapists who talk with the patients and establish specialized therapy plans. Then, others run the activities. There is a music therapy room, with all sorts of instruments, a physical therapy room with machines and mats, a covered pool for water therapy, and then, about six stalls with therapy horses, and a small arena where patients were being given riding lessons, two people at a time. (and for icing on the cake, there was a 15 day old foal, Katy, with her mother Canela! (Cinnamon))

It is not a large place. Perhaps a football field and a half. However, it is organized in wonderful ways, so that rather than seeming crowded, it's like a cozy separate world. Everyone we talked to was knowledgeable and enthusiastic, but even more impressive was the clear trust and confidence shown in all the interactions between the workers and patients.

I have a meeting with the boss at 8:30 Monday morning to see if I can take some time on a weekly basis to volunteer there. All I can say is that, it would be amazing, lovely, wonderful, to get to dedicate time to this organization. Here's hoping it works out.

2) Airplane Ticket accomplishment
For the last few weeks, I've been trying to make a change in my flights for my actual vacation coming up. You know how, in the States, you just make a few clicks on the internet, and there you go? Well, not so much, here. Here, a flight change requires a trek to one of the actual airline offices. This saga started a few weeks ago, when I went to the closest office to get a flight shortened from Medillin-Bogota-Barranquilla to just Bogota-Barranquilla. This office happens to be located in the mall by my school, sort of a kiosk.
"You'll have to pay 80 mil pesos," says the woman. (about 50 american dollars/ an eighth of our monthly "salary.") "Penalties and taxes and all that."
"But, the flight is shorter!" I said. I figured I'd have to pay...but, you know, never hurts to ask.
After minutes of clicking, we come to what I was pretty sure was an agreement that I DON'T have to pay. Woohoo! thought I. Success! However, the kiosk didn't have the machine to print off the ticket. I'd have to go to a different office--a freestanding one.

These offices are, like far too many things around here (clinics, customer service of any sort, etc), similar to a DMV. You take a number and you sit on connected, generally blue chairs, while the folks at the desk do god-knows-what on a computer, and everyone waits in progressive stages of cranky. I'd reached, "more-than-slightly-irritable" by the time my number came up. After explaining my situation, I was once again told I'd have to pay. We then once again somehow worked out I didn't have to...except, to complete the transaction they needed a printer, and the printer there was broken. "We'll call you," they said, "to tell you when it's fixed. There's also this other office you can go to- but they'll be closed for the next few days."


Well, I didn't get a phone call. But, on the bus back from the foundation, I noticed that we were passing said other office. "I'm off!" I said to Jessica, jumping from the bus. Twenty minutes of waiting later, my turn came up. Only to hear: "La luz se fue." The counter lady clucked at her computer, shaking her head. (This phrase literally means, the light went away. It generally refers to an electricity outage...but I soon gathered that in this situation it meant their system was down."

"Oh no," I said. "It's that, I have to get this ticket for my flight next week..." and related my saga.
Once again, we went through the dog and pony show...but this time, 45 minutes later, not only did I walk out with my changed ticket having paid no penalties, I also got a voucher for a one-way ticket from Bogota to Barranquilla for whenever I next go, to make up for the "difference" in the flight costs!!! Yes, yes, yes, win!!

3) BUTTERNUT SQUASH
I needed to run a few errands, so I trekked the few blocks to a northern, free-standing Exito--one of the three major department/grocery stores around here (the name of this one, exito, happens to mean success). This particular Exito is near to nothing I generally go to, so it was my first time shopping there. Northern department stores tend to be much better stocked in general, and this one had a particularly good produce section. I wandered, searching for vegetables since Tyler and I were planning on cooking.

And then, I saw it.

At first, I couldn't be sure. It's been so long. But it was yellow-ish tan, flecked with green, with a round bell that narrowed slightly into a longer tube...yeah. It had to be.

Butternut Squash.

Just as a sidenote, butternut squash may have come up a few times (read: once a week?) in the past 8 months as something we (read: the obsessed veggie cookers aka Jessica and me) have missed in life. We may be overly obsessed. But still. It's probably the most delicious vegetable ever.

Of course, when I went to buy it, it practically broke the register--as in, they had no idea what it was, and I held up the line for a good 15 minutes while they figured out what to charge. Which means this is probably not a regularly stocked item. However, turns out it's a strand of the more common, local ayuhama, which is a big round squash that looks like a pumpkin, although its outside is a much duller orange and the inside flesh is harder.  (Have you ever cut up butternut squash by hand? Yeah. Ahuyama is even less fun)

But, prices established (it was cheap!), I purchased it and other goodies (veggies and BARLEY!), and I left excited to go cook my winnings.

4) Free taxi ride.
There was a nearby bus that would take me the almost-hour-long ride to Tyler's house. But while looking for it, an overly friendly taxi driver tried to give me directions. He took a shine to me, and by a series of events, which included me riding out to a few different barrios with some paying customers and almost crashing since the taxi driver preferred flirting to watching the road, I managed to get a free taxi ride to Tyler's, avoiding not only paying bus/taxi fares, but ridiculously sweaty busrides!!

5) Dinner and hammock
Tyler's house has a hammock. This I consider a daily success. So, it was pretty much heaven to swing in it while we waited for our tomato-onion-broccoli-butternutsquash-barley meal to cook. And then even better to eat said deliciousness swinging in said hammock.

I headed home in the late, breezy evening, full of complete happiness


If I could have just one day like this a month, I know that I'll make it.  :)

Hot hot hot

Channeling a few friendly PCV's blogs, here (and in terms of a top ten list, especially Jessica's great examination of noise levels: http://colombiajessica.blogspot.com/2012/06/your-pico-might-be-too-loud-if.html):

We are in the middle of our first winter here. Which means, we're in one of the hottest months of the year. Temperatures hit around high 80's to 90's on a daily average, but real-feels are about 103-107. And then in between the humid heat, sometimes these crazy storms roll in and cause storms and raging floods (a few weeks ago, a person was swept away in one of the street-flood arroyos and died, just a few blocks from the Peace Corps office).

So here you have it--the top ten reasons you know it is TOO HOT*



1) You must drink at least a liter of water, whether outside or inside, each hour to stay hydrated. (We're not talking, "let's keep our pee clear!" hydration--we're talking, retaining mental functions and ability to walk, keep your kidneys functioning sort of hydration.) Up that number to 2-3 if you have done any sort of exercise.

2) Exercising without a sweatband, on pain of losing your eyesight from burning sweat, becomes impossible (Hey there, menfolk-- you know how I used to make fun of you for wearing those? I finally get it.) Also, if you happen to be holding anything while exercising, your fingers will actually prune in their own sweat. Scientists, feel free to weigh in...but somehow I thought this was physically impossible?!

3) You walk out of a crowded, windowless classroom where you've spent the last 2 hours teaching, and even though you *know* the outdoor temperature hovers at a 105 degree "real feel," you suddenly feel as though you've entered air conditioning.

4) You are only five minutes into class, it's 6:30 in the morning, and  the amount of sweat dripping down your body is roughly equivalent to what coats your skin upon finishing a noon-time summer run in the continental US

5) You can't think in English, let alone in Spanish

6) Your super-high-temperature pasteurized milk goes bad in the refrigerator two days after opening

7) After a short walk outside, your male friends can literally wring out their shirts and have sweat pour out

8) Despite having been sleeping directly under a fan, you wake up in the middle of the night with your clothes and hair as entirely soaked as if you'd climbed into a shower fully clothed.

9) You are sitting still in your own house, at any time of the day or night, and the sweat is rolling down your body in levels you had only previously experienced during strenuous, summer-day-time physical activity.

10) You seek out the nearest grocery store, food court, or public area and, despite your hatred of crowds, malls, or any consumer space in general, plant yourself there for up to hours a day, as often during the week as possible, because it has air conditioning

 The second winter rolls around in August. More rain. More heat. More torture...until the beautiful "brisa" of December and February! Which, to look on the bright side, is only 6 months away...!


*These things, I hate to say, are in no way an exaggeration.

Where there's no such thing as a dessert failure

Tonight, I decided to scratch my cooking itch. I haven't cooked dinner for myself in months. So I persuaded friend Tyler to join me in said venture.

Dinner, I have to say, was amazing. A pasta sauce with carrots and peppers and onions and tomatoes, garlic and rosemary, pureed with my birthday-present-immersion-blender (!) (parents, I love you so much). With al dente pasta. This was surely about a hundred steps up from the usual ketchup-and-half-a-tomato sauce-served-over-pasta-mush which passes for spaghetti here. Don't get me started on local spaghetti...Moving on.

The issue came when, after torturing ourselves with thoughts of delicious food and cold weather in the United States, Tyler and I decided that it was perfectly feasible to make a cookie cake boiled-style.

We are not, and have never claimed to be, scientists.

Charged up and ready for the adventure, we made our third trip of the night to the neighborhood bodega (named, appropriately, La Bodega), and picked up all we needed to accomplish Best Recipe's cookies, in a pan, cookie-cake style.

Undeterred by the slight tastelessness of the cookie dough (ingredients just don't have the same...kick, around here), we piled it into aluminum pans and set them to boiling.

Half an hour later, then an hour, and then an hour and a half later, we realized concurrently that we had made a terrible mistake.

The butter and wheat and separated and covered the top with a glutinous mass which, as Tyler so aptly put it, tasted like cream of wheat. To make it even more appetizing, it looked exactly like boogers.

We spent a better part of the cooking time skimming the accumulating cookie boogers off the top of the pans. Sliding down the slippery slope of defeat, we decided to fry some of them. Chocolate cookie arepa! Not able to stomach this ourselves, we passed it out to the gathered family, warning them of not-so-delicious-ness. Instead, we got positive reviews!

Which made us realize that, here, there's no such thing as a dessert failure.

Enthusiastic about having an outlet so as not to have completely wasted our efforts, we ladled out the cookie "pudding" to the family. As it cooled, it condensed into something like flour-y carmel..and it was proclaimed delicious.

"Of course you can't boil something with butter in it," said my host aunt, after polishing off her pudding. "That will never make a cake."

...Science wins again.

That being said, there's a pretty awesome ball of not-cookie sitting in our fridge. It's super fun to play with. And it's getting pretty solid. Cookieball? Cookie flubber? Cookie rock? The final outcome remains to be seen...

but I can pretty much say with 100% certainty that it will be eaten by someone in this house...and most likely enjoyed!

Z-Z-Z-Z-ZZuuuumba!

Zumba. Or with lots of Z's...but that pronunciation is only in my head. The post is titled as such because there is a radio station that shouts out a particular phrase that sounds like that every few minutes. Right now I can't remember for the life of me what they're actually saying...but I hear that phrase about a hundred times a day. That being said, for now, in my head, it's replaced by "zuh-zuh-zuh zoooommbaa!" There. Now you can have it in your head too!

Anyway. For those few of you may not know what this is (hi, parents?!), Zumba hit as an exercise craze some years ago. It's an exercise-cum-dance class, that includes dancing to a variety of predominantly latin types of music and dance. I'd always heard of it, thought, "That sounds fun!"and promptly deemed myself completely incapable of participating.

Well, when I visited friend Abby in Cartagena, we headed to her zumba class for fun at night. (Unlike in Barranquilla, Cartagena has a variety of free awesome offerings during the week and weekends. Case in point- Zumba classes!)

And here's the thing: I could do it. I mean, I wasn't awesome. But somehow, shaking my butt, doing pelvic thrusts, not to mention following an instructor and doing brand new dance steps that were a mixture of salsa, reggae, and who knows what else for a full hour...was suddenly possible.

I attribute this to two things: 1) I have learned just a little bit of dancing in the last 8 months. 2) I have been humiliated so entirely and completely in dancing situations in the past 8 months, I have become almost immune to my previously crippling shame/embarrassment regarding my lack of dance skills. You want me to look silly with a class of 20 other people and try and figure out dance steps? Hah. I've done this alone in front of hundreds!

All foibles aside, it was super fun. The most surreal moment might have been when I found myself doing cumbia (a conservative, traditional courtship dance) steps to a Latin-ized remix of the Bloodhound Gang's "The Roof Is On Fire."

 Yeah. That happened.

Good to know that I'll bring one tangible skill back to the US after all this--the ability to join in a Zumba class, and maybe not be the worst person in it!

A food kind of day

Today was basically ruled by food. Not that I'm complaining...

Throughout this semester the Barranquillian volunteers have been holding English classes for the English teachers in the city. My class, which was planned primarily by myself and co PCV Jessica but helped out tons by the other volunteers, had a huge food focus (surprise!). We indulged ourselves for the last months teaching about American culture by picking our favorite (non-oven) foods that were associated with various regions, holidays, seasons, and/or all of the above, and introducing them as well as their context to the teachers.

Today, we gave the class over to them. The instructions were for them to create presentations based around their favorite recipes and give us the background of said food. We suggested they bring in food for us to taste, just for fun...and boy did they deliver.

Things I learned in class today:

• Yucca is also  known as Mandieca and also Cassava. It came to South America via the slave trade.
• Yucca has cyanide in it. If you eat it fresh, you're fine. But, say you're making bollo with it. Bollo is a sort of all-purpose food that's really just a log of boiled *enter starch of choice here*. It's sort of like a glutinous potato mass. Or, in the optimistic words of my visiting US friend, "it's like gnocchi!" Anyway, bollo logs are made to be sold on the streets and/or eaten whenever, a a cheap side dish to anything.  Which brings us back to the poison issue. As explained to us, the cyanide forms when some chemical in yucca makes contact with air. The longer this happens, the more poisonous the yucca can become. So when you make bollo, make sure you squeeze your starchy boiled yucca mass, because that will extract the poison! Nothing like finding more ways, other than salmonella (which, given the ratio of time-when-there-is-raw-meat-in-sink, to time-when-sink-is-raw-meat-free, is actually pretty miraculous no PCV has yet contracted it) to live on the edge down here.
• Mojarra, a common fish here, is actually tilapia. It comes in red and black versions and is caught in the local river
• How to make coconut rice:
• In the US, we're used to buying cans of sweet, tasty, creamy coconut milk. It's not cheap, but it's sure delicious. And easy. Here, coconut rice is a favored dish. Easy, right? Just pour coconut milk into rice and voila! Or should I say, presto! Well, no. Making coconut rice here includes making the coconut milk. Which  that includes grating entire coconuts, blending them, squeezing the coconut juice out, cooking down coconut until it caramelizes into "titote", blending the coconut with more water, to make the "second milk,"pour this into your caramelized coconut, then cook this with rice, sugar, salt, and optionally, raisins. Simmer until it's done
• There is a thing that is called "Junior Rice" that people eat here. Junior is the name of BAQ's beloved soccer team. The food is rice with ketchup. It's called Junior rice because these are Junior's colors...
• una bollita (little bollo) is a name for a beautiful woman
• although arepas de huevo -- corn cakes deep fried filled with egg -- look easy enough to make (fry a corn patty. Cut it open. Pour in an egg. Refry), they are apparently very hard to do in a way that keeps the egg inside.
• Boiled yucca eaten with cheese (or actually a variety of things eaten with cheese) is known as a "matrimonial"because the pairing is delicious but also because the cheese represents the virgin bride, the other thing represents the groom.
• In Santa Marta, a typical breakfast includes a fish soup. The fish is served whole, with the broth, which includes green bananas, scallions, onions, garlic, cilantro and avocado, ladled over it. This gives you lots of energy for the day!

Things I ate in class today:

• arepa de huevo
• yucca with bollo with suero (the whey of cheese, aka sour cream)
• boiled yucca
• "Russian Salad" - a salad with ham, chicken, peas, apples, yogurt, mayo, and lime. And iceberg. Usually eaten on white bread, we had it with crackers.
• tilapia
• coconut rice
• fish soup
• caramel-filled crackers,  of the sort given to you at mass but giant-er
• More bollo

Some of our teachers went all out for their presentations.

Serving the Santa Marta fish breakfast soup

Vueltiaos, the Colombian traditional hats, come in all sizes!

 After class and a little hammock swinging in La Paz, Tyler's barrio, I returned to the house determined to try out the "baño de Maria" method of cooking bread--as in, boiling it. Without stoves, we've gotten creative here--all credit to Jessica (check out our cooking blog to see the basic recipe and method... it involves elevating bread pans in a big pot, filling the pot with water so it comes two thirds up the pan, topping the pot and boiling until done)

I was going to make carrot bread. But that just didn't seem exciting enough. So I made it with beets and an apple. And even though I accidentally bought arepa flour, which meant the dough had not only bran and regular flour, but corn flour as well, and I'm missing a few cookie cutters, which was what I was using to elevate the pans so I balled up aluminum foil which isn't heavy enough and the pans decided to float...and I didn't use a single measuring device and combined about 4 different recipes I found online for quick vegetable breads...it actually came out super tasty.

So if you ever feel like being adventurous: Chop up two medium beets and a small green apple. Mix this with a half-2/3 cup yogurt, a half or so cup oil, 2 cups-ish of sugar, 4 eggs, baking soda, enough flour of any sort to make the batter of brownie-ish consistency. Add some salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and if you have them cloves (I didn't, but I can imagine they'd be good), and put them in small pans. If you're lucky enough to have an oven, go to...if not, boil away!

Conversation with Colombian housemate, who, unlike the majority of people here, I tell what's in it before she tastes it, rather than tricking them:
C: "Remolacha? (beets) Oh, Emily, what were you thinking?"
E: Well, it's an experiment..it's a sweet bread
C: No, no, what were you thinking?!
E: Try it!
C: Oh! It's sweet!
E: I told you
C: It's good!
E: *big grin!*

After which, my veggie-hating host brother tried and also approved. Aka, this must be fool-proof. Did I mention, I'm also terrible at baking?

Finished bread

giant pot used to boil bread. The water discolored since one spilled a little bit...

*quality of pictures terrible because they're all from my awful phone camera, still don't have a real working one!

In Search of Beauty (and finding it)

As Barranquilla is anything but pretty, it’s sometimes easy to forget how near extraordinary beauty actually is. Last weekend I hopped the bus to Santa Marta for a much needed city escape. Although I went ostensibly for a beach trip, I managed to have some wonderful food experiences as well…on which I feel like dwelling (Surprise?!). You’ve been warned.

After about a 2 hour bus ride, I dismounted near Santa Marta’s center. Relatively newly re-done, the city is a fraction of Barranquilla’s size and has a charming downtown area, with Spanish colonial buildings as well as a location directly on the water. Just blocks from where the bus lets out, I found my absolute favorite place there—a café called Lulo’s, near Santa Marta’s historical cathedral.

Lulo is a fruit that is something like a cross between an orange and a passion fruit. I had an amazing juice smoothie made of watermelon, strawberry, some other fruit, and ginger. Who knew ginger was so incredible in juice?! You should try it! This place is owned by a foreigner whose son is currently also in the Peace Corps! Talk about a small world. I’m obsessing just a little because this is something definitely foreign to Barranquilla—a reasonably priced café with non-typical food, with a focus on healthy and fresh. Entrepreneurs, hear me now: there is a market for this!!

Anyway. I completed the yuppie-hippie experience by journaling away while I waited to reunite with a fellow, Santa Marta-dwelling PCV. For dinner, she informed me, we’d be heading to a restaurant called “Baba Ganoush.” “It has an international food focus,” she told me. “Is that okay?”

Hah. The restaurant is located in Taganga, a small fishing village nestled in the mountains just a short bus ride from Santa Marta. The restaurant is set in the hill, open with a peaked straw roof. We sat to eat before an incredible view of the ocean and while the sun set behind ocean-surrounded mountains we supped on ayhauma (a local orange squash) soup, falafel, and a brownie sundae. And fresh strawberry margaritas. I think I just shivered as I wrote that…so much happy deliciousness!

The next day brought an early morning wakeup and homemade swiss-cheese-veggie-egg scramble, and then we headed back to Taganga. There, a small group of volunteers and one volunteer’s co teachers gathered. We hired a boat for the day, and for a slightly expensive fare, set out for a secluded beach.

Our hour long boat ride took us around craggy jutting mountainsides, where the waves crashed on the rocks and trickled down in spontaneous waterfalls. The boat wasn’t that big—a metal launch, and it seemed the waves were at least our size…there was nothing to do but trust our local guides and the somewhat suspect motor (it took about 20 minutes to start, the first time around…) What the boat DID afford us, however, was an incredible view of the surrounding scenery as well as the ocean waves themselves.

The surrounding water was five times as intense a blue as the clear open sky, and where it crashed against the rocks in effervescent waves it shaded to every variation of teal and aquamarine. I’ve never seen so many colors of blue. I’m suddenly understanding artists’ obsession with the ocean; I’ve always been a forest girl, myself, and although it would take a lot to change that, this beauty definitely won oceans some points in my book.

The beach itself was small, set in a small cove. There were actually three beaches to choose from there. We swam at one a few minute boat ride from the “main one,” which had a restaurant; when we arrived in the morning, the restaurant’s owner pulled out a tray of a variety fresh dead fish to choose which one we’d like to have for lunch. I chose Fred. Actually, I saved my money and ate the lunch I’d brought…but later on, I tasted some meat.

Fish here is always served whole, having been thrown in a pot of oil in its entirety to fry crisp. That said, the Sierra was maybe the best fish I’ve ever had, white and meaty, almost no bones (of course you’re picking the meat off the skeleton, so this is in context, here), and not even as ridiculously fried as they usually come. Maybe since they didn’t have to kill the sat-in-the-hot-market-sun-for-5-hours bacteria that generally accompanies the Barranquilla fish…

We spent the day swimming, relaxing, strolling, and eating, and then it was time to head back on the boat. I took the bus directly from there, and arrived back in my big city of Barranquilla…refreshed to start another week.

The weekend was yet another surreal side to my life as a Peace Corps volunteer on the Colombian coast…over and over again, all I can think is, “Who would have thought…?” There are too many ways to finish that sentence than I could possibly list.

All the photos below are stolen from PCV Heidi Jo, since my camera still remains un-fixed...

How to Ride a Bus, Barranquilla-Style

Riding a city bus in Barranquilla is not quite the same as in the States.  First of all, almost all the buses are run by private companies. They pick their routes and for the most part stick to them. However, this is never a sure thing. For these buses, there are also no bus stops. Instead, one makes one’s way to a street where the bus generally passes, and waits. If your intended bus hasn’t arrived within five minutes, you are probably on the wrong street.

When your bus does come barreling by, you stick your hand out and do a floppy sort of Hitler salute, indicating to the driver you’d like to climb on. Then, despite the lack of a “Release” waiver, you climb on. In hindsight—as well as foresight, while you’re at it—this almost always seems like a bad decision. But, since you’re lacking a car and distance or the presence of arroyos has forced your hand, as they do a regrettably significant amount on a weekly basis, on you go.

If you’re lucky, you may find a seat. But let’s say, for the fun of it, it’s one of the many “busy” times during the day (7am-10am, 11am-2pm, 4pm-forever).  Let’s pick 9:00 pm, because you were silly enough to put off sundry-shopping until then on a Sunday night, and the streets are too unsafe to walk, and you as well as the world needs to return home.

So, you stand by the corner and wait until the particular pattern of flashing lights announce that your bus is arriving (each bus distinguishes itself with lights, colors, and a variety of casino-worthy decorations). You flag it down, then haul yourself up the first few steps and stand wedged on the top step. You are lucky enough to ascend this far since, in this scenario, you happen to be a small pale girl; rather than having to cling to the door handle while the wind tugs at your belongings as well as yourself, other hapless men take their places on the bottom step where they stand half in and half out the door. As the surrounding men stare ardently, you give over your 1500 mil pesos to the driver (about 80 American cents), who is impetuously holding out his hand for your fare even as he talks on his cell phone, accelerates down the narrow street, and jokes with the person sitting shotgun.

Then, it’s time to hold on, because bus rides are nothing, here, if not a test of bus’s brakes. The bus drivers clearly have somewhere better to be, always, because they are champions at speeding up directly into the person in front of them, then slamming on their breaks to avoid hitting them.  They then blast their horn multiple times, but when that doesn’t work, they pull into the opposite lane to cut off whomever they can, even as oncoming traffic charges towards them.  As one Barranquillan said, “If you have a big vehicle, you do whatever you want.” Buses, by virtue of being the biggest, are the tyrannical, maniacal kings of the street.

It’s a frightening thing, being this close to the front window and able to witness these driving feats, but no matter—because soon the bus driver will glance back and see that an inch of space has opened in the back. After hollering for people to squeeze in more, he’ll crank the turnstile so you make it past the steps, until you are standing so close to the people crowding the aisles that your sweaty arms begin to slide together in unison to the bus’s jerks and stops.

Not lucky enough to land near a window, your sweat-soaked clothes bear witness to the fact that the temperature in the bus aisle is approximately ten degrees hotter than outside, which, after a long day approaching 100, has finally slid down to the low 90’s, and you realize, as the woman opposite you in the aisle bumps her ample self into your back, and then leans back against you and settles in for the ride, that there are more than just traffic-related reasons you may not survive this bus ride. But the gods are good, because at least your companions have mostly used deodorant.

A gut-wrenching series of stops, starts, turns, accelerations and near-accidents later, you lean over some passengers, peer out the window, and see from the numbered streets that you are rapidly approaching your destination address. Too rapidly. Although just minutes before the streets were so congested you moved only in fits and bursts, suddenly the way has cleared.  And in the space of time it will take this racing bus to go four blocks, you need to squeeze through a bus aisle stuffed three-people deep.

If you are good at Twister, these skills might come in handy, although better if you’ve ever played it in a dark and oscillating setting. Hauling your now-curse-of-a-grocery bag, you climb over legs, squeeze between flesh, push, pull, yank, levitate, and there it is—the door. You search for the button to push, that will let you out of this careening Hell—and you see that it’s broken.

Parada! You shout. Because you have no choice. And the entire bus swivels to stare you down, you who already pissed off at least ten people by stepping on them or squashing their families, in your quest for the door. Gringas, you can see them think.

But, mercifully, the bus shudders to a stop. You lurch off, gaining your legs slowly on the sidewalk, breathing in the suddenly sweet-seeming Barranquilla air.

And, for the moment, you’ve survived. As long as you can figure out how to make it across the street…