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.

Wet Week

A remote beach set in a jungle-surrounded national park on the Carribean coast sounds just ideal doesn't it? When everyone recommends it, saying you have to go to the last campsite because it has the best beach they tend to leave out one minor detail: the 2 hour hike in 100+ degree weather. To be fair, most people leave their stuff at a hostel in a surrounding town, or come into the park via boat. I was not that unfortunate. I'd like to comment more on my way back, leaving the park. Even though I knew what I was in store for, I wasn't totally prepared for what was to come, but I made do.

To start with, my first day of my week-long trip I lost one contact lens and of course it was the one time I didn't have the foresight to pack another pair. So I was stuck with my glasses for the rest of the trip. Which would have been fine, if it hadn't been humid and sticky and ridiculously hot, leading me to have to push up my glasses off of my nose every five minutes while they simultaneously fogged up so I'd have to take them off and then have no where to rub them down because my shirt was soaked with sweat just from sitting down to a meal. But I was prepared for this as I set off on my 2 plus hour hike to get out of the park. I packed just my big backpack, so my front was free of my little backpack (my first mistake when I came into the park) and had put on a good pair of socks to wear my hiking shoes so I didn't get blisters (my second mistake). About a half hour or so into the hike, dripping with sweat and in the full swing of my glasses-push-up routine, I came to the part of the jungle trail that takes you to walk on the beach. First however, there was a bit of an obstacle to cross consisting of a saltwater pool that had filled up from high tides and rain the night before. There was a few sticks and logs going across the pool, inviting hikers to cross. I was unsure, especially with my 15 pound unsteady backpack. But when a local guy came by and said "yeah, no problem" as I was looking for an alternate route, I summoned up the courage and decided to cross with his help. After a few wobbly steps, I thought I had it, but when I went to put my foot on a small, slimy log, I slipped and soaked my entire left side. Great, well it wasn't like I wasn't already wet before, but this time I got to have the smell of salty stagnant water linger upon me. Excellent. This local man put up with my cursing and attitude for the next few minutes, and when I got over it, we actually had a nice walk back. I managed to step in a only a bit of horse shit and mud, but nothing too horrific. The guy was nice and kept me company, not asking the usual questions of gringos, but asking me if they have this particular type of tree in the U.S. and telling me how he goes up trees and fetches coconuts to ship out. Since he had worked there for 12 years, he knew the best paths and we made it out of their in an hour and a half total. I managed to catch a bus into town after a few minutes of chatting with a lovely old lady who sold me a pork tamal (which I swear was chicken, but she assured me) and told me how it was a shame that Colombians didn't get to enjoy their own country as much as foreigners. I agreed. Part of my plan all along had been to go to town to catch an overnight bus back to Medellin. I had only slightly anticipated the extent to which I would be smelly and gross, so when I got to the bus terminal, it was a relief to see a guy I had met back in Cartagena getting on the same bus to Medellin. While he watched my stuff, I made the required 800 pesos (30 cents) to use the bathroom and wipe myself down with an assortment of baby wipes, soap, and a washcloth. I had one more pair of clean underwear left and put on my last only one day-worn clean shirt. When I came back my friend came me the sniff test and I managed to pass. Then I prepared myself for the 15 hour freezing bus journey by taking out a long sleeved-shirt, a fleece, scarf, and sleeping bag to keep my toasty on the A.C. blasted bus. Twenty-four hours after my sweaty trek, salt water spill, and musty bus ride, I finally got home, scrubbed myself rotten, and fell asleep.