Loving Bogota....Oh no, sorry Medellin

I love Medellin, I really do. But Bogota has something, some je ne sais pas that makes it stand out in Colombia as a thriving Metropolis with hip, sassy people.

I went to Bogota this past weekend for the 3 day weekend with a friend of mine from Medellin, Ana, and two gringa friends living here, Ashley and Kirsten, happened to be going the same weekend. Ana and I were going for the Killers concert, an American band, on Sunday and the other girls were just going to explore the city. So after a crazy bustle at the bus terminal (with everyone going away for the long weekend) Ana and I set out on a 10 hour bus ride overnight while the other two gringas got on a different bus since ours was full.

When I went to Bogota the first time in December I just remember thinking how big it was and how it overwhelmed me too much to compare to Medellin. But this time, while walking around the city Ana and I just marveled at how cool it was and tried to hide the betrayal that we felt towards Medellin. On Saturday we took in the Gold Museum, enjoying all the intricate gold work (from breastplates to animal masks to penis coverings), with Ana commenting on how interesting it was that for such a poor country Colombia had a phenomenal amount of precious gold. After the museum we satisfied our hunger eating some amazing shawarma, a middle eastern wrap that I ordered with falafel. Bogota definitely has one up on Medellin in the food department, in terms of variety, though we were quite disappointed when upon arrival Saturday morning the only thing Ana and I wanted was an arepa (a thicker tortilla) with cheese and a hot chocolate. We asked at 3 restaurants and after 2 "no's" we finally satisfied our craving only partly so with a mediocre arepa that didn't compare to Medellin. The hot chocolate was even different!

On Sunday we went to another museum, taking in some national history and culture, and walked around. I'd have to say we spent most of the time getting lost, asking people directions on the street and instead of getting a standard "I don't know" answer, spent hours following the misguided directions of eager to help us Bogotanos (one of my biggest pet peeves here is Colombians' lack of communicating directions). I don't know if it was the fact that we were two bewildered girls, one blonde blatant foreigner and the other from Medellin this being her first time in Bogota, but it was like a mission anytime we tried to communicate with people from Bogota. Since Ana has a horrible sense of direction, I had to be the one on my toes analyzing people's directions and guiding us along. We managed to get lost not only on the streets, but on the Transmilenio as well, Bogota's version of a metro that consists of buses in their own lanes on the street with specific stops that people get on and off at. But the whole getting lost thing did help me participate in my favorite pastime-people watching.

Observing the people was by far my favorite activity as we meandered lost through the streets. The pepole are more attractive, they dress better, have more style (this could partly be due to the cold though. After Ana and I analyzed it we thought it's easier to have fashion sense, or there's more of a need to, when you need to wear various layers, while in Medellin it's pretty warm so it's ok to dress in a hoochie tank top with your bra straps showing and your belly hanging out). There didn't seem to be as many people sleeping on the streets -again the cold could play a role in this- and I don't know, it just FELT like a real city. The shop we bought wine in felt like one of those you would find in Europe that are narrow with high ceilings wiht bottles lining the walls. I pointed this out to the gringas and they agreed.

So, I didn't HATE Bogota, I was actually starting to really enjoy it, however the cold really got me. During the day I would wear a sweater and scarf and be good, but at night it would drop down to the 40s and I would need another jacket and hat. Also the fact that they don't believe in HEAT makes it hard to get cozy in the city. At the gringa girls' hostel we tried to snuggle up in the "living room" as they put it, (wooden tables and rickety chairs) near the fireplace (a wood stove) but were beyond disappointed when we found out there was no firewood to be found.

But I honestly think I've grown WAY too acclimated to the sunny 70 degree days and cool 60 degree nights here in Medellin as I honestly could not bare to go out into the frigid 40 degree air once the sun went down. I try to convince myself that going home will be ok, as I will be enclosed in warm, heated houses and will have more appropriate clothing. But I'm not so sure, as I know my parents love to torment me with keeping the thermostat below 65 in the house and saying it's not that cold, just put a sweater on! No thanks, I prefer the bra-revealing tank tops and just a light sweater at night here.

New House, New Characters

Two weekends ago I moved into this lovely house in the residential-ish neighborhood of Boston full of trees, parks, and old people. It's only a 10 minute walk to the very center, and still close to my work and all methods of public transportation.

View of the street from our balcony

I found this house a while back when I was planning to get a place with some girlfriends here, but when things fell through I never thought I'd actually live in this place. I came back when a guy I work with told me he was looking for a place too. Though it was only the two of us (the place has 5 bedrooms) we figured why not since we really liked it and I thought I knew some people who were looking. We met with the old woman who owns the house, who also lives on the floor below us, and she is just so sweet and also like any old Latina grandmother should be. She's lived here for 60 years in the same house and it shows. Her living room is full of this old furniture that reminds me of Cuba and it seems that as she accumulated furniture and tchotchkes over the years she just pushed stuff aside to make room for the new additions. Anyways, she's a dear and as a result of a freak accident is nearly blind and so she looks at me with this yearning look pats my hand and tells me that she knew some gringos before and they were real nice and I seem very sweet and nice and so she wants to skip the whole real estate business and let's just do the paperwork ourselves. Excellent idea I say, I find you quite charming as well. So that week my coworker Fredy and I are busy getting all the papers together-well mostly him since he's filling out everything as I don't have a Colombian visa or any type of Colombian social security number. One week after endearing myself to the señora I move into my spacious house and my lovely room sans mattress, sans furniture, but with the most important thing-a built in closet.

the kitchen

my closet!

This house isn't full of as many characters as my last one, but they've still got their own quirky stories, as I've found most people in Medellin do.

First off, the guy I work with who is in charge of the house with me. I first met Fredy back in April when I applied to work at the language center that we both currently work at. I went on a tour of the city at night with the school's English students and met Fredy and his ridiculous British accent. That night all I managed to get from him was that he was adopted by a German couple and lived in England for a few years. The rest of his saga didn't come out until much later. Turns out Fredy got adopted late, when he was 11, and therefore never felt quite German, nor had a great relationship with his adoptive parents. He came back to Medellin at age 18 just for a 3 month holiday, but when things weren't going too smoothly with his parents back in Europe, he made the split decision to stay put in Medellin and hasn't been back since. This was 8 years ago.

Fredy in his Blendex (where we work) attire

My other roommate is la Juana aka Juan Bernardo, a childhood friend of Giovanni's. Juana came to us after a breakup with his girlfriend of 8 years with who he has a 14 month old. He's one of those characters who you never see, except for at 6 o'clock in the morning when after opening the door to let out your boyfriend for work you come back inside to get the bejesus scared out of you by his werewolf impression. He works for a call center speaking English and Spanish and studies at a local university. Apparently he's also in the trial period to be some sort of stoke broker, making a 10% commission on every deal he makes, which start at $25,000.

Juana, in his werewolf phase (i.e. Halloween party)

These are the two most stable individuals. Next we have Kirsten, our kangaroo-loving, all things other-side-of-the-world expert. We weren't sure if Kirsten was going to grace us with her 6 week presence, as she seemed to prefer living in a corner of her boss's apartment outside of the kitchen, but last weekend she took the plunge and joined us. Kirsten has been outside of Oz for a year and a half and as no intention of going back anytime soon. Kirsten came to Medellin the first time in February with her Canadian boyfriend. When things went a bit sour she set off to do the gringo trail in Central America, managing to get stuck along the way at various points, even with this being her second time around. When she got back to Meds she decided it was time to straighten up (well at least a little bit) and fall back into the grueling routine of working for Adriaan, one of the characters from the old house, writing articles and teaching English to an old rich lady who's preparing to go on holiday to Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon.


We're still waiting on roomie #5, a gringo from Chicago. He gets here in a week or so. Character analysis to follow upon his arrival.

Learning Patience

Ok so I know I'm not the most patient person in the world. And I wear my heart on my sleeve-when I'm pissed off, sad, happy, whatever-everyone knows it. But I decided to muster all the energy I could to suppress these inadequacies and teach English to Colombians ages 15 to old señores and señoras with grown children. I thought the difficult part would be vocabulary and grammar, especially when I as a native speaker have no idea what the function of the word "do" is in a question ("Do you have a boyfriend"-a question I've been asked one too many times by my students) or what the Easter Bunny has to do with Jesus; this little lack of knowledge being discovered in a discussion of American holidays.

But honestly, after too many personal questions about why I'm here in Medellin, how long I'm staying, if learning Spanish is hard, and having to cut my speaking pace in half and act as if I were talking to a five year old, I thought I had learned a good amount of patience. But when people are idiots in English AND Spanish, I just can't deal. One example is my friend Gloria, a señora of about 40-something. She asked me a simple question, how do you say jabon in English. I told her soap. For Spanish speakers the word soap sounds like a lot like soup in English so Gloria asked me to spell it. Happily, I began S-O- and when I got to A, she didn't know what to write. She wrote H, and I said no, A, and she was confused. I said A, you know like the first letter of the alphabet. I said you know what alphabet is right? And she said yes. So I said the FIRST letter, holding up one finger to demonstrate. Scratching her head she didn't write anything. Ok, I said, testing the patience I had built up this first month of teaching, "Alphabet, what is that?" And she said alfabeto and I said good, ok so the FIRST LETTER. Still looking at me like a deer in headlights I began to write the alphabet on the board. "Gloria, what is the FIRST letter of this." I even pointed, A, for god's sake, A!!! I finally reverted to Spanish (something I don't do so much but I really should, because when they don't understand my English explanation I could just save myself the frustration and just repeat what I said in Spanish, but no, I want them to actually understand and learn English). I ended up saying the letters in Spanish to her through gritted teeth until she understood and said "ohhhh, it's just that when you say A it sounds like H," as if the problem were my fault, my ineptness at pronouncing my own language.

Other cases where my inabilities at remaining calm have been demonstrated when I've asked for more details from some of my students. Take Laura. She's a pretty 18 year old who finished high school and has applied to college to be a plastic surgeon. But again, she's not one of my brightest bulbs. She failed the university entrance exam for her major not just by a little bit, and always comes to class at least 20-30 minutes late. When she does arrive, I ask her how her weekend went, what she's been up to, etc to get her speaking in class. She responds with the standard "good" or "fine"" and then gives me nothing. When I ask what exactly she did she says "Nothing." I never take that as an answer. "You HAD to have done something!" What'd you do Saturday night for example?" Then she flashes me this braces-clad dumbfounded smile and says "I don't know, nothing." And I'm like think, come on you did something. You're an energetic, fun girl. And when she finally actually tried to think of what she did, she couldn't find the right vocabulary. Ok, so tell me in Spanish and I'll help you with the vocab. So she starts thinking again and says, "Ah no, I can't think of the word." This has been her response when I've asked her to tell me about herself, her weekend, or her interests. Ok, well I can't work miracles, so instead of getting frustrated and trying to force something, anything out of her, I give up and move on, telling everyone "if you're not going to speak in class, then don't bother coming because I am here specifically for you to practice talking."

So I've just come to terms with the fact that I can push people. If they don't want to talk they they're not going to talk. And if all else fails, then I should just speak to them in Spanish.