Día de Acción de Gracias

There’s nothing more American than eating until you feel like your pants will burst.

And there’s nothing more Colombian than dancing until your pants literally rip.  

So I take solace reflecting on the fact that the new hole in the inner thigh of my lucky 6-year-old jeans is really a symbol of the fusion of two cultures. 

In Colombia, if you invite someone to eat in your house, you provide the meal.  The idea of hosting a dinner where everybody brings something to share is, in itself, a very U.S. concept.  But the Thanksgiving potluck at my house was far from all-American.  Instead of turkey and cranberry sauce, we had arepas, lechona, and tamales.  After eating, instead of watching football or chatting about bargain hunting for Christmas presents, we pushed the tables aside and cranked the volume on the salsa music.  

But the gringos in attendance did conserve of few of our cultural traditions.  We couldn’t resist introducing the Colombians to their first taste of apple crisp, mac and cheese, and pumpkin muffins.  We made a toast to good health and prosperity.  And although I’m usually the one rolling my eyes at the “Let’s go around and say what we’re thankful for” game, in the name of my mother (who loves that type of thing), I called the people together to have a go at it.  

Everyone said pretty much the same things--family, good food, Colombia, new friends, 24-hour supermarkets, etc.  But despite the cliché, even I got the warm-fuzzies.  Every year there are pop science articles (in the Readers Digest magazines my mom also loves) that talk about the power of positive thinking and the dopamine releases in your brain when you meditate on gratitude.   During our “Thankful for” activity, the room filled with endorphin bubbles, floating along the ceiling, bumping up against the walls, reflecting a soapy shimmer of the Christmas lights bordering our window.  We were collectively intoxicated from the food, wine and good company and the aggregate vibe emanating from our shared pleasure made the lights in the room glow warmer.  

The cheesiness of the ritual was made bearable by knowing that we all genuinely felt incredibly lucky to be sitting around that table.  Once the round was complete, we all raised our glasses to our good fortune and got back to the business of gluttony and dancing (and that’s when pants started ripping).   

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Fear itself

“Is there any other animal on earth that willingly tempts death?” 

My new roommate Iris was having a hard time understanding why, exactly, she was about to jump off a bridge and how, exactly, I had convinced her to do so.   She, like the three others who came with us, had fallen prey to my high pressure sales tactics for a bungee jumping excursion.  As we de-boarded the van upon our arrival to the jump site, my companions were all looking at me the same way bankrupt homeowners look at their bankers--as if to say, “I know this was technically my own decision, but what drug did you slip in my drink to obtain my consent?”

I proceeded with attempts to calm their nerves (and deflect their laser glares) using existential philosophy.  

“No, other animals don’t do things like this because humans are the species with the highest level of free will.  But free will is like a muscle--if you don’t use it, it atrophies.  If you live your entire life only doing things you are supposed to do, the things you are expected to do, never taking any risks, never pushing any limits... you’re going to wake up one morning and realize you no longer have free will.  You will be a slave in a cage of rationality and fear.  You will only be capable of following orders and social norms.  You won’t know how to quit you job or invent something new or travel to an unknown place because you will have lost your faculty of creative decision making.  

We should practice facing fears every day.  It doesn’t matter if the thing that scares us seems futile or irrelevant.  The point is to strengthen the muscle of confronting and overcoming any obstacle. 

So, my friends, today we will throw ourselves off of this bridge!  Not because we have to.   Not because it is particularly productive.  But because we are human!  Because we can!  And because if we don’t, we risk evolving into catatonic uniphobes, incapable of touching doorknobs for the fear of the unknown on the other side of the threshold.”

And unanimous applause followed!!

(ok, that last part was slightly exaggerated)

But after we all survived, no one regretted it: 

I must admit though, for all the fanfare of my epic speech making, it’s all hypocrisy.  I’ve never been afraid of heights or adrenaline thrills, so bungee jumping isn’t exactly overcoming a major barrier for me.  The things that I’m actually afraid of--being vulnerable with others, losing control over my life, making a wrong decision--I don’t touch with a ten-foot pole.  In fact, I pad my world with meter-thick mattresses to avoid the bruises from those kind of jumps.  

Every relationship is casual and label-less because “I’m independent.”  But actually I’m scared of being known. 

I make a good salary, but I pinch pennies because “I’m responsible.”  But actually the thought of a bank account without safety net savings feels like staring into a black hole supernova.

When I’m confronted with a choice, I consult everyone’s opinion because “I value good advice.”  But actually I’m terrified of regretting a bad call.  

So I guess it’s about time I start following my own cheesy advice... and the wise words of ol’ Frank: “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”

Zombies!

According to my friend Jackie, Halloween in the States just means "slutty outfits and long lines at the clubs."

Halloween in Bogota means thousands of people decked out in wear of the living dead and amble through downtown.

Epic.

The oldest trick in the book

I have a feeling I’m about to become immortalized as a blonde joke.

I don’t know what made me more upset: the robbing itself or falling for the oldest trick in the book.

I was opening the door to my apartment building after coming home from a bike ride and there was a guy--late 20s, decked to the nines in bike pro gear--looking up expectantly.

Me: “Are you waiting for Camilo (the guy who lives below me)?”

Guy: “Yeah.  Do you ride often?”

Me: “Yeah, but probably not as much as you,” looking at his new clip shoes and Nike spandex shorts.

Five minutes of chatting about biking....

Guy: “Well hey, if you ever want to tag along for a ride with Camilo and I, we know a lot of cool routes around here.”

Me: “Cool, thanks.”

Guy: “Actually, that’s my house right there (points one block away).  If you want to walk to the corner with me I’ll pass you my card.”

We walk to the corner and he says, “Actually, I can just put my number in your phone if you want.”

Types his number and hands me back my phone.

We proceed to chat for about 20 minutes about how he went to the UN (Universidad Nacional) and how he and Camilo do lots of extreme sports together and my work at the UN and my experience in Colombia, blah blah blah...

Guy: “But you probably can’t take that bike on any long rides.”

Me: “Why not?”

Guy: “It looks way too heavy.”

Me: (lifting the frame) “No, it’s not too bad.”

Guy takes a hold to “test” the weight of the bike, swings his leg over the frame and before I can say, “You are so full of...” Poof!  He’s off, around the corner, never to be seen again. 

And I am left standing on the street corner contemplating the feast of lies I had just consumed like it was Thanksgiving Day--feeling torn between strong desires to vomit and to bang my head against a wall. 

Did that really just happen?  My own idiocy overwhelms me.

But life isn’t all lemons.   A mere five hours after the incident, I won a costume contest and the prize money is more than enough to buy a new bike.  

So I walked away from the episode with a valuable lesson:  Don’t talk to strangers (and always channel shameful rage into perfecting a Black Swan costume).

Talkin about a revolution

And they said I would never use my major after college... 

Yet here I am, going to work every day to sit in the grass with young revolutionaries and leading discussions on how to create a social movement without involving homemade bombs.  

Since the school buildings have been blockaded in protest against the Ley 30 (an education reform), my classes have taken on a new flavor.  I call it “Educanarchy” to convince my students that their attendance and participation is, in fact, an act of rebellion against The Man.  We meet every afternoon outside in the campus to have special meetings (in English) about how to overthrow the regime--sort of.  So far, activities have included reading the Ley 30, analyzing picket sign slogans from the Occupy Wall Street marches, interpreting Bob Dylan lyrics, listening to Martin Luther King Jr speeches, discussing Karl Marx, and debating the true meaning of feminism.  In other words, the content of my entire college education.  Boo yah.

"Against the education system, Pro learning."

Even though I started this little project just for kicks, I’m unsettled by how few students take advantage of this opportunity.  I have more than 50 students who all claim to be desperate to learn English.  The students of the language department hold protests against the poor methodology of their Colombian professors who don’t speak native English.  The entire student body is up in arms about the fact that the government will not pay for their bachelors degree and they are willing to spend all day painting signs that say, “Education is a right!”  But when they have the chance to learn--not for a grade, not for a certificate, not for a resume--but for the sake of acquiring knowledge, there are on average about six people that show up. 

I can’t exactly judge them... I remember checking for the attendance policy in the syllabus the first day of class to calculate how many classes I could skip without effecting my GPA.  Every person who has ever gone to college has taken short cuts and ultimately cheated themselves out of what could have been a much richer learning experience.  That is simply the reality of academia.  But this generation (or maybe all young people since the beginning of time) seem to have lost all sense of our true objectives.  Why do we go to school?

To become self-sufficient autonomous individuals capable of producing our own prosperity. 

The students demanding free and universal education remind me of a son demanding that his father buy him a car so that he can be independent.  Initially, it will enable him to go where he wants on his own schedule but it will also make him reliant on his father to pay for gas and insurance.  There are certain societal contexts created by the State that are necessary to create favorable conditions for quality education.  But at the root of the problem of an undereducated country is a cultural paradigm of entitlement.  If the individual will not take the initiative to improve his own condition, there is no law or reform that will make him smarter. 

The students at La Universidad Nacional want to be a part of a revolution, they want to paint their faces and pump their fists.  Mass movements make us feel important and empowered.  But the excess of youthful passion combined with a lack of adult foresight leaves us all blind to the forest for the trees.  

("Taking your education into your own hands instead of waiting for the government to educate you: Priceless")