Last Sunday I touched upon Colombian families, and the guilt that they generate. To show you a complete different side of Colombian families, I'd like to use my friend Sergio's family, who I met today. Yesterday Giovanni, some girlfriends of mine, and I went up to a town called Santa Elena, about an hour from Medellin, up at 2,500 (8,200 ft) meters above sea level (just to give you an idea Medellin's altitude is about 5,000 ft). So the climate is a chilly, but nice 55, 60 degrees during the day (when there's no sun) and falls to about 40 at night. Most homes don't have heating, so we stayed warm with lots of layers, blankets, and a fire. Santa Elena is a nice little town, where a lot of people have weekend homes, and has become so popular recently for its laid-back lifestyle and ease that many Paisas (as Medellinenses are called) have re-located up there to escape the hectic city.
When we got to Sergio's place I was pleasantly surprised. The little 2 bedroom house was quite charming, with stained-glass circular windows, a ceramic-tile countertop in the kitchen, and enough floor space upstairs to sleep about 10 people. Sergio gave the house his own touch though with some great old-fashioned and retro decorations. The house is tucked back along a trail that you need to take a bus and a taxi and walk for 15 minutes to get to from Medellin. It's surrounded by forest, with pine trees and blueberry-like bushes everywhere.
This morning, as we were eating breakfast, the group of us (Sergio included) were surprised to find Sergio's family heading down the trail towards the house. Sergio had just moved to the place a week ago, so his family wanted to pay him a visit (and make sure he wasn't scrounging for nuts and berries in the woods to stay alive). As soon as his family arrived (mom, dad, sister, and nephew) they got right to cooking. They had brought along a number of "house-warming" gifts, including a cutting board, which his sister told him would be much better than his current wooden one, which was full of bacteria, when he showed it to her. Despite the fact that we didn't know they were coming, and they surely didn't know there was a group of 5 of us there to keep Sergio company for the weekend, at lunchtime plates were set out for all of us. We had a typical Colombian meal of plantain and potato soup, and a plate of rice, chorizo sausage, salad, and avocado. Not even planning on feeding 10 people instead of the 5 expected, there was more than enough food to go around (with rice left over, of course!).
This kind of hospitality is so common throughout Colombia. On Saturday Gio and I went out on our bikes and we went to say hi to his son, who was staying at his grandma's house. We arrived right around lunchtime, when Jeison was about to eat, and instead of just 1 plate on the table, his grandmother eventually brought 3. Again, not even planning on us, there is always more food than enough food. This situation resonated with me in particular because visiting your boyfriend's son's maternal grandmother, you wouldn't typically expect more than a hello, let alone a whole meal after you show up uninvited.
I've gotten used to this type of welcomeness that it's become normal for me, and I even find myself acting like a typical Colombian woman, offering guests not just something to drink but a whole meal. Being able to take on things like this that are part of Colombian culture and make them a part of me is one of the things that I most love about living in a different country. I just need to make sure I always find the good bits of each country's culture to weave into my personality!
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Mental Yoga
Today after a highly irritating waste of time at the Citibank in Colombia, I walked the block back to my office and tried to hide my fuming emotions by setting down to work and blasting some music on my earphones. When Giovanni asked me what was wrong, I knew that explaining the entire situation would just make me more irritated and fume even more. Besides, it's not like I really deserved a "oh you poor thing;" all banks are like that in Colombia. If you manage to get in and out in less than 30 minutes, you should call yourself lucky. So instead of complaining and explaining the whole story, I simply said that I was really ticked at the bank, but I would get over it soon. I am normally someone who gets frustrated easily and any place where I have to stand in line for over 5 minutes is just wasting my time. But being down here in South America has actually taught me that (as cliche as it sounds) there are more important things in life than getting mad, ruining my day, and probably the day of whoever I yell at, and wasting that energy when I could just let it go. Let it go. I was on the verge of yelling at the Citibank lady who told me to get in the wrong line, who gave me the wrong paper (and even as I'm writing this, it really wasn't THAT extreme, but it just felt like it), but instead I decided to keep my angry thoughts to myself, to breathe deeply, practice the type of breathing I had just used that morning during my yoga practice, and just not let this small hiccup in my day get to me. And though it took me a little while to get over it, I didn't shout at anyone and I was cordial (enough) to the person attending me.
I say I've learned this type of technique more here in Colombia because customer service is abysmal in this country but no one seems to worry about it. They just go along with it. On the one hand this is not acceptable, and I make it my duty when necessary to make people aware that they deserve better treatment. But most of the time, it is not worth the energy to get all riled up over something so trivial, not only frustrating yourself, but putting a damper on the day of the other people who you touch. Of course it is taking me some time actually put this mantra into practice. I do try to breathe deeply and think about something else when I get in that kind of frustrating situation, but then again, how can I help teach Colombians the importance of customer service if I don't make myself heard once in a while? ;)
I say I've learned this type of technique more here in Colombia because customer service is abysmal in this country but no one seems to worry about it. They just go along with it. On the one hand this is not acceptable, and I make it my duty when necessary to make people aware that they deserve better treatment. But most of the time, it is not worth the energy to get all riled up over something so trivial, not only frustrating yourself, but putting a damper on the day of the other people who you touch. Of course it is taking me some time actually put this mantra into practice. I do try to breathe deeply and think about something else when I get in that kind of frustrating situation, but then again, how can I help teach Colombians the importance of customer service if I don't make myself heard once in a while? ;)
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Mother's Day
Today is Mother's Day in Colombia, same day as in the US. It's as important a day, or even more so, here than any other days - Children's Day (Dia del niño) which was just last week, Father's Day, Secretary's Day, etc. Ads have been up throughout the city for weeks, and although Giovanni isn't as close to his mom as most Colombian families are, we decided to make the hour long trek (though mostly just to appease his sister) all the way to Bello, a suburb of Medellin where his mom lives. After wishing my mom and stepmom a happy mother's day, and making sure my mom was satisfied with her early Mother's Day gift (a kindle!!) we set off on the long bus journey to Bello. Now Gio wasn't really dying to go, as he had just seen his mom, who he usually see only a few times a year, one week before when he helped her move house. That was the 2nd time he's helped her move this year. The woman cannot keep still - and I thought I was bad! I've helped her move twice in the two years I've lived here alone. But we went there anyway, to celebrate with Giovanni's brother and sister, eating fried rice and sliced bread as you do in special cases like this one.
When people ask me about my relationship to Giovanni's mom, it's a hard question to answer. Do we get along? Well sure I guess so - when she remembers my name and doesn't call me Ana, the name of Giovanni's ex-girlfriend and the mother of his son, and also the name of about 50% of Colombian women. It's a weird relationship that Giovanni's mother has with her children, and I don't think their upbringing is unlike many people here. I've come to realize lately that I do not know one Colombian who grew up in the 80's who did not have a rough childhood. And by rough I mean whose dad wasn't involved in some sketchy business, who didn't get beat as a child, who didn't have to move multiple times because their family lost all their money or it got too dangerous in their neighborhood. These people can have the worse kind of living situation, with parents who don't see them as children, parents who give them away as babies because having a child sounds good in theory but in reality they can't handle it. Yet these children, now adults, continue to love their parents. They continue to feel that need to support them, to call to check up on them, to do what they're supposed to do as children because hey, they're alive aren't they, they didn't die of hunger.
When it comes down to it, it is hard to let go of those biological ties. I don't think it even has so much to do with the fact that the family unit is so important in Colombian culture, I view it more as a guilt-culture. People here are motivated to go see their parents by guilt, by this idea that these people brought them into the world, and how can you just abandon that? This ideal is easily viewed everywhere you look - on the bus where a guy entertains passengers with a few songs horribly out of key, but still panhandles a few bucks, in stores where returning an item for whatever reason is unheard of, in relationships with submissive women and machista men. In some ways this kind of guilt-ridden society can be viewed as a positive though, because citizens feel a moral obligation to do good, and to help others. An ever-occurring example: ask someone on the street for directions, and they don't just tell you how to get there, they take you directly to your destination.
In the case of Giovanni and his mom, I can only accept it, because changing this type of Catholic-infested society, even though one rejects it outright, is not something I set out to do.
When people ask me about my relationship to Giovanni's mom, it's a hard question to answer. Do we get along? Well sure I guess so - when she remembers my name and doesn't call me Ana, the name of Giovanni's ex-girlfriend and the mother of his son, and also the name of about 50% of Colombian women. It's a weird relationship that Giovanni's mother has with her children, and I don't think their upbringing is unlike many people here. I've come to realize lately that I do not know one Colombian who grew up in the 80's who did not have a rough childhood. And by rough I mean whose dad wasn't involved in some sketchy business, who didn't get beat as a child, who didn't have to move multiple times because their family lost all their money or it got too dangerous in their neighborhood. These people can have the worse kind of living situation, with parents who don't see them as children, parents who give them away as babies because having a child sounds good in theory but in reality they can't handle it. Yet these children, now adults, continue to love their parents. They continue to feel that need to support them, to call to check up on them, to do what they're supposed to do as children because hey, they're alive aren't they, they didn't die of hunger.
When it comes down to it, it is hard to let go of those biological ties. I don't think it even has so much to do with the fact that the family unit is so important in Colombian culture, I view it more as a guilt-culture. People here are motivated to go see their parents by guilt, by this idea that these people brought them into the world, and how can you just abandon that? This ideal is easily viewed everywhere you look - on the bus where a guy entertains passengers with a few songs horribly out of key, but still panhandles a few bucks, in stores where returning an item for whatever reason is unheard of, in relationships with submissive women and machista men. In some ways this kind of guilt-ridden society can be viewed as a positive though, because citizens feel a moral obligation to do good, and to help others. An ever-occurring example: ask someone on the street for directions, and they don't just tell you how to get there, they take you directly to your destination.
In the case of Giovanni and his mom, I can only accept it, because changing this type of Catholic-infested society, even though one rejects it outright, is not something I set out to do.
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