[Unedited excerpt from journal 12/29/11]

I can tell I'm growing rusty with this hand-written journal business.  I've grown accustomed to the ease of mechanically encoding my streams of consciousness on computer documents and then rearranging the thought blocks like a tetris game until the pieces form something of a coherent narrative.  But in this archaic ink world, in which I contentedly self-expressed for years prior to this July, I suddenly feel suffocated and mortal--physically limited by the two-dimensional space, mentally incapable of slowing my jumbled neuron firings to the clumsy speed of my hand, and technically prevented from pressing the delete button or copy/pasting the random thought bubbles to put them in order.

This practice forces me to take pause and consider which waves of words in the ocean of my brain deserve to break against the shore of The Record.  When I'm feeling tired or lazy, the pages flood with unadorned recountings of the day's events and undeveloped annotations of my surface-level emotional state.

"Today, Fabian, Iris and I hiked to a waterfall and gave ourselves a 'spa treatment' with exfoliating red clay from the trail and a massage from the cascading falls.  Not my typical Christmas morning."

It's dry and straight, but it's raw.  It grants me the comfort that at least the memory will not be completely drowned in the depths of rememberlessness.  It may rust or discolor, it may only be a palm-sized artifact of a Titanic experience which, in its time, was vibrant with characters, colors, sounds, smells, and feelings.  But it's something--if even the smallest of relics--to save the moment from oblivion.

And, honestly, it is hard to say if the other kinds--the carefully premeditated word waves--will provide any more useful to the future (if that is, indeed, who these writings are dedicated to).  With all of their metaphors and verbose articulation, they still carry but a drop of the sea of the Present.  

It is most frustrating when attempting to capture The Beautiful.  The Unfortunate can be conveniently framed in sarcasm and The Ordinary is made novel simply by exposing curious particularities.  But despite even the most eloquent efforts to describe the pristine, the magical, and the surreal, the recaptured stories seem to uncurl on the sand, flat and foamless, without even so much as a white crown to show for all their immensity of detail and wonder when they were forming.  I will never remember them fully. The waves always disappear in the sand, no matter how magnificent. 

Reflecting on the fleetingness of even the most momentous of events creases a whirlpool of nihilism in which one can easily drown in the despair of futility and impotence.  I rescue myself by saying that I write for the Present, for myself, for the Now--as a means of meditation, a way of drinking in even more of a moment by willfully applying conscious language to the infinite waters of sensations and observations.  I tell myself that my journal is a pure art, seeking only self-expression without concern for recognition, validation, or preservation.  If I actually believed this philosophy, I would suffer no trauma f this entire notebook sunk to Atlantis tomorrow.  Hence my theory is, like so many of man's religions, a hypocrisy.  [As proven by the fact that I am transcribing this entry to this page right now].    It is a merely a mind game, an existential life preserver, to keep me afloat in the unrelenting tides of passing time.  

"All the time we are aware of millions of things around us - these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of the engine, the feel of the throttle, each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road - aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world." - Robert Pirsig 

The Scene

Setting: Every salsa bar in Colombia.

Scene: Enter Blonde.

Heads turn discreetly and peripheral glances drift from eye corners to scan her from yellow hair to non-heeled shoes and back up again--partly intrigued, partly suspicious.

Blonde walks across the dance floor and removes her jacket.

The girls in the bar seem to be thinking, “What the hell is the gringa doing here?” The guys seem to be thinking: “Exotic species.  Must hunt.”

Blonde mingles within her crowd and starts casual nondescript side-to-side dancing with drink in hand.

Enter Man #1.  Script:  Default laundry list of questions/compliments: “Where are you from? How long have you been in Colombia? Your spanish is great! Do you know how to salsa?” (She says yes but they never believe her.)

Cue: Salsa music.  Blonde and Man #1 begin with the basic steps.  He notes that she catches the rhythm so he throws in a turn.  She doesn’t falter so he moves faster and spins her more until a circle is formed and a small audience observes--earnestly surprised that the white girl is not a horrible dancer. 

Cue: Reggaeton.    

Enter Man #2. Repeat default questions--this time yelling in the ear to compensate for the increased level of music volume.  Eventually, the two dance sandwich style, squished together amongst the mass of swaying bodies on the dance floor.

Enter Man #3: Blonde starts making up lies for answers to the default questions for boredom of repetition.  She starts teaching Man #3 the Funky Chicken and the Running Man and generates a small radius of breathing room with the flailing arms of the Disco and the Sprinkler.  The audience of observers assume expressions of bemused confusion. 

After she is tired of salsa and reggaeton and feels that she has provided sufficient entertainment as the clown of the evening, she collects her things to leave--despite the slurred protests of the observers with whom she formed alcohol-induced friendships. 

It’s only 1:30AM (early by Colombian standards), but she takes her bow. 

Every. Single. Time.  The exact same charade.  Not to say it’s not fun, just humorously predictable. 

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).   

'

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")

Irrelevant

After two weeks of emailing someone named Joaco trying to make a reservation to camp in Villeta (a little town one hour outside of Bogota), it turns out that the best way to organize a trip is to make no plans.

We planned to meet at 10am... we left at 12pm.  At that point I turned my watch to “Chrono” mode and let the face show 0:00 for the rest of the weekend.  Time is irrelevant when the only goal is to have a good time. 

We got off the bus and followed pointing fingers to the Salto del Mico waterfall.  This wasn’t the kind of tourist attraction with guides or lifeguards on duty, but As Felipe said, “Hagale como los modelos--sin pensar” (Just do it like models--without thinking).   Apprehension is irrelevant when looking over the top of a cliff getting ready to throw yourself over the edge into the water. 

We didn’t know the Spaniards we were following in the dark, but we had a feeling they would lead us to a place where we could set up camp.  Eventually we landed in what was essentially the backyard of someone’s farm where a whole crew of Paisas from Medellin were also squatting.  We ate all the marshmellows before we even got the fire going and we ended up having Saltines and aguardiente for dinner.  Taste buds are irrelevant when the shots are free and taken in good company.

We brought out the guitar and I started going through my standard repertoire--The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Hallelujah, etc.  It was nothing impressive until one of the Paisas started freestyle rapping over the strumming.   I would repeat the theme and sing the lyrics of the chorus in English and he could spit for two or three minutes straight in legit Spanish rhyme.  Language is irrelevant in a predawn jam sesh around a campfire. 

We didn’t pay to use the pool at the camp site, but the tents that we rented came with complimentary swimming that night when the Made in China plastic generously allowed the rain storm free entrance.  But sleep is irrelevant when everyone can have a good laugh sitting around the breakfast table recounting the sensation of  the rising puddles washing over our elbows and toes. 

We hardly registered the sleep deprivation, distracted by riding on mini train cars, drinking Guarapo, getting sunburned, playing water volleyball, swimming in the river (and me mooning all the tourists when one sneaky waterfall tried to steal my swimsuit bottoms).  Although despite the blaring reggaeton music, I did manage to pass out on the bus ride back to Bogota--at least until I was awoken by the Paisa with a request to perform one last duet with the rapper.  Self-consciousness is irrelevant when an entire bus of people are waiting for the white girl to sing.

Traveling is a lesson in present-mindedness.  There are too many factors out of your control to waste energy being preoccupied.  Somehow things always work out, and if they don’t, as my friend Willyn says, “Es un cuento para los nietos” (It’s a story for the grandkids). 

Ode to Alice

I don’t think I ever actually got the joke about the birds that shit in the priest’s hand, but the best part was watching my parents helplessly wince at their elementary-aged children hearing the “s-word” from their Grandma.  She paid no mind to their rolling eyes and just watched us with a belly-bouncing laugh.  

One could never be sure what sort of dirty (and sometimes racist) jokes, gossip stories, local scandals, or reports of recent deaths would be told upon arrival at 2215 Crescent, but there were certain things that could always be counted on at Grandma’s house:

A bowl of strawberries or grapes on the table.

Dr. Pepper in the fridge.

A bowl of mixed nuts on the counter.

A loaf of white bread in the drawer. 

An item of supposedly vastly underestimated value recently excavated from the basement on the dining table, ready to be reappraised and sold for a great fortune.

Rosaries stuffed in between the couch cushions. 

At Christmas time, a dancing Santa doll that would moon the unsuspecting button-pusher at the end of his jingle.

It was those simple acts of mischief--naked Santas, the jar of nuts with a coiled snake, the fake cockroach under the donut--that never ceased to amuse Grandma.  Reminiscing the glory days with neighbors and visitors was the highlight of her day.  Uncle Bob’s friend leaned over the kitchen table, raising his eyebrows over his down-tilted nose in true George fashion: “Well shoot, we was just sittin ‘round smokin ceegars when ol' Clark sawr one of them brown recluse spiders and he up and killed that thing right der with his shot gun."  Grandma sat with a close-lipped smile, shaking her head and laughing from her shoulders through the entire retelling.  

The epic tales of police run-ins, pranks, and trouble-making are never fact-checked and they often wear a tone of the “And he caught a fish that was this big” kind of story.  But it doesn’t matter.  If your versions contradicts Grandma’s, she’ll just shake her head disappointedly, feeling sorry for your misguidedness.  And then the subject will return to what’s for dinner. 

Real Life

“This feels like real life,” he said looking out at the traffic from the window of my fourth-story apartment.  I was cooking pasta in the kitchen and we were listening to The Killers on the living room speakers.

Granted, my brother has lived in somewhat of a bubble for the past 24 years, but I knew what he meant.  I don’t know what it is about the four bolts I unlock every time I come home, or the dusty stairwell in my apartment building, or the cigarette lighters on the counter I use to light the gas stove,  or my goldfish, or hailing a bus on a street corner, or sticking the phone bill to the door with a magnet..... But it does feel like real life. 

It is romantic because it is concrete.  After graduation and liberation from the academic machine, the over-thinking under-feeling non-acting intellectuals are lusting to inhale any air that is not theoretical.  We crave the nonabstract.  Something as mundane as making tea with leaves pulled from a plant on the balcony feels almost photo worthy.  Like a kid riding his bike without training wheels, we want to shout, “Look mommy!  I’m doing it by myself!”

Ironically that sensation of so-called reality comes from a construction people like my brother and I have contrived from television advertisements and Hollywood images.  This is what people in the “real world” do, right?   They change their lightbulbs and buy sponges for the kitchen.  They water their plants and go to the bank. They walk anonymously down busy streets and make calls from pay phones. 

The even bigger irony is that this year of my life is probably the farthest from “reality” I could have gone, in that I will likely never live another year with as little responsibility as I have now.  My salary is enough to cover the bills (and some splurges on the side) and my work schedule has yet to impede the social caprices and personal whims that spontaneously pop into my cravings.  I never worry about making ends meet and I spend an embarrassingly little amount of time thinking about my future. I just bustle around in my make believe universe where there is only the present moment.  My life is a theater, a masquerade of adulthood.  

And I’m ok with that.   

Why not me?

Felipe is what they call a guerrero (literally “warrior,” more accurately “hustler”).  He swaggers through the labyrinth of the San Victorino street market like Jerry McGuire strolling through a floor of office cubicles--high-fiving and fist-pounding the watch makers and the shoe salesmen, not once losing his sense of direction in the dizzying mayhem of tent stands and food carts.  The streets are in his blood. 

For a middle-class suburbanite, his skateboard and tattoos might as well be a pedestal and superhero cape.  He is all that is cool.  Real.  Legit.  Street.  He’s worked at every rip-off clothes store and cigarette outlet, he knows all the tricks, he’s heard all the lines, he’s seen all the types.  

I found myself rummaging through my catalogue of memories in search for a credential-boosting scar story to tell him as he led me across the plaza, shielding me from the oncoming zombie attack of vendors with a light saber arm wave.  Being picked on by my older brother?  Too juvenile.  Surviving on only potatoes during a motorcycle trek in the Andes?  Too “study abroad”ish.  Losing a battle with my insurance company?  Too First World.  Losing my religion? Too existential. Losing a friend in a car accident?  Too personal.

There hasn’t exactly been a lack of silver platters in my life thus far.  The poor performance of my mutual fund is hardly considered a tribulation.

The philosophical “Question of Suffering” concerns coping with the meaninglessness of futile injustices.  But while the suffering of innocents is the most infamously senseless of life’s mysteries, statistically speaking it is exactly the suffering that seems to give life meaning--or at least perceived value.  There are hardly any Third World countries at the top of the global suicide rankings.  The top 15 includes countries with some of the highest standards of living in the world (including Japan, Finland, and South Korea).  It is those who do not suffer from life’s basic trials that lose the ability to see purpose in living.

For We The Privileged, the question sounds less like “Why me?” and more like “Why not me?”   If it is scars that make someone “legit,” if it is battles that strengthen the soul, if it is suffering that gives life meaning, if it is death that inspires life... where does that leave the white LIberal Arts girl?  

Felipe smiles at me like Gandalf smiling at a hobbit--wise and amused.  I will never see the world through his eyes. 

'Tis a gift to be simple

I was only slightly concerned when Juan Sebastian purchased the same plane ticket as me to Medellin.  I prefer to fly alone.  Sitting next to someone you only kindof know on an airplane is like being stranded on a desert island with only one kind of food.  What if it tastes bad?  Or what if it’s ok but you get sick of it?  You might want to ignore it but there’s nothing else to do.  Thankfully, the flight was less than an hour and Juan is terrified of airplanes so there was plenty of entertainment to fill the time.

First tourist stop: Parque Explora.  Disneyland meets Bill Nye the Science Guy.  If my high school physics class could have involved a fraction of the interactive pulley systems in Explora, I might have actually enjoyed it.  Little uniformed school kids ran around playing with gravity magnets and centripetal force wheels, happier than Charlie in Willy Wonka’s factory.  Did you know that if a face is upside down, the human mind does not register if the eyes and mouth are inverted?

Next stop: Fútbol.  OK, I admit, I was bored at the game (I’m sorry, I’m a gringa and I’m just not into soccer). But afterwards, Juan, myself, and a posse of other gringos and Bogotanos went to a corner store and got our dance on with some other local fans.  When the stadium hotdog and cheap beer started their own dance party in my stomach, I was disappointed--but far from discouraged--to hear that there was no bathroom.  [READER DISCRETION ADVISED]  I found my way to a tree in the dark and took care of business.  A few minutes later I'm back in the buzz of the store front patio with the crew when I see Juan talking with a police officer who is motioning to me with his finger.  Turns out that tree in the dark wasn’t as hidden as I had thought...

Slight public humiliation and minor legal run-ins aside, the Medellin weekend was delicious.  I confess that by the end, the desert island food was turning a little sour and I began to see Juan’s flaws glaring brighter than a burning ant under a magnifying glass.  Extended amounts of shared time + sleep deprivation = hypersensitivity to the faults of others.  
But on the flight back home I stroked his arm as he hyperventilated through the turbulence, and I realized I had quite a happy situation.  He was telling me to put his ID in his mouth so the police could identify his body after the crash and I was laughing to myself at the simplicity of life.  I may be deluded, but as far as I can tell not all relationships have to be complicated.  Maybe there is such a thing as a mutually casual date.  Hallelujah.

Under a fish tank in Parque Explora, a plaque explained that the fish--although seemingly swimming around in random directions--were actually following specific and predictable patterns.  It read: 

“Nos muestra que la vida, llena de complejidad, en el fondo oculta simplicidad, matemáticas y tal vez un toque de azar.” (This shows us that life, full of complexity, deep down is rooted in simplicity, math, and maybe a touch of chance.)

Back to the races

Just when the Vi Boheme was seducing me deeper inter her bosom of carefree-ness, somehow my overachieving tentacles managed to tangle themselves in the web of the Rat Race once again.  I remember that a mere week ago I was marveling at my overabundance of time to surf through all the articles in my Google Reader news feed, watch The Daily Show, and sit in my apartment blowing bubbles out of a plastic bottle.  And suddenly I find myself slapping sticky-note To Do lists on the mirror: 

-Meeting with the Ministry of Education (if nothing else, I might get free lunch out of it)

-Prep classes for next week and grade/edit the essays I assigned (what a stupid idea)

-Make 20 PBJ sandwiches and update PBJ website/facebook page 

-Read/respond to 15 unread emails

-Coordinate weekend travel plans

-Write a blog post for the nonprofit organization’s webpage 

-Clean the apartment before germaphobic brother arrives

-Either buy stronger laundry detergent or buy new socks

Up the stairs, down the stairs, on the bike, around the corner, on the bus, in the line, and on and on and on.  When did this happen?  Not to mention, just when I thought I would be a permanent member of the Society of Intermittent Recreational Exercisers--where a brisk walk counts as a work out and days off are as frequent as days on--I up and joined the university track team.  I happened to meet the coach one day as I was doing my bi-weekly 30 minute jog and before I could say “out of shape” I was doing sprints on the infield.

I find myself scarfing down burned beans doused in hot sauce for dinner and I haven't made my bed in a week.  Pero hay que aprovechar la juventud (you're only young once).  Carpe diem!

And then there was one

RIP Karl, Chimichanga, and the other goldfish that never received a name because it died after two days. 

I confess that I did not feel any particular emotion (other than inconvenience) at the deaths of my new pets, but their passing did heighten my awareness of my own youth.  Goldfish are infamously poor at surviving, but it it shouldn’t be that difficult to keep a few of them alive for at least a month.  The fact that 75 percent of mine didn’t last longer than a week was just one of several indicators I’ve noticed recently of my general lack of maturity.  I’ve never claimed to have “things all figured out”, but lately I am especially cognizant of the mountain of basic life skills I have yet to acquire. 

It took me a week to install Christmas lights in my apartment because I was trying to hammer the screw-in hangers into the ceiling without making an indent hole with a nail first.  I make fake phone calls to avoid awkward social situations.  I still haven’t perfected the art of water-efficient dishwashing.  I laugh when my roommates talk about their romantic escapades but (let’s be honest) I can hardly relate.  I put a plastic plate in the toaster oven.  When I’m by myself for too long I lose the capacity to read my own mood and I can’t tell if I’m lonely, bored, tired, or hungry.  I wander to the fridge and pass up leftover quinoa squash for crackers and chocolate. 

But other than dead fish and a burned plate, being young also has its perks when living abroad.  First of all, your roommates forgive you for your lousy cooking and strange eating habits because, after all, you’re just a kid.  What’s more, your waistline will forgive the late-night munchies too as long as you throw in a few days of exercise.  Got company at your house Friday night until 9am and a trip on Saturday?  No problem.  Fatigue from two days without sleep is cured by one night of rest followed by one dose of pancakes. 

I’m no Peter Pan, but I’m in no rush to move out of my temporary Neverland--even if I have to endure a few goldfish burials while I’m here. 

Friend me

“We become who we are in conjunction with other people becoming who they are... People don’t develop first and then create relationships.  Relationships create people.”  --David Brooks, The Social Animal

In the Facebook Era, the term “social networking” has taken on a different connotation, but the concept of people creating webs of relationships is as old as Homo sapiens.  These internets of humans once emerged primarily from family or tribal groups, then commerce allowed for new connections based on economic interactions, and today the world wide web has made friend-making as easy as mouse-clicking.  But the phenomenon of globalization has created unique environments for social networking in more ways than just a boom for online communities.  Today it is possible (and common) for a young person to move half-way across the globe without previously knowing a single soul in the destination.  How is she--a foreigner, a nonnative speaker, an outsider connected neither by family nor economy--to cultivate her social network? 

The truth is, I don’t have many friends yet.  

I spent my first month in Colombia bonding with one of my roommates who moved back to the States last week.  

I spent the day after her goodbye party regretting that a few of my students had been in attendance (and had seen me in a less-than-professional state) and therefore I spent last Friday feeling cautious and reserved when I was out with a group of students from English Club.  

I spent one evening on my doorstep explaining to one of my few friends why we would never be more than friends (and realizing that we would now be much less so).  

I spend my days preoccupied and happily independent and I spend my nights debating whether I would rather be alone or in less-than-inspiring company. 

I tease my two roommates for their menageries of women that would rival that of Casanova.  The contrast of their love lives to my own could not be more stark.  But I feel neither envy nor reproach.   I’m just casting out my social net where I can and waiting to see what kind of catch I can get.  I hoping to reel in some nice girls (I’ve found myself in too many precariously platonic relationships recently), maybe some runners or climbers...   I’m not desperate enough yet to latch on to whatever comes my way, but I admit I am widening my gaze. 

Colombia 101

I am here in Bogota to teach English but obviously, my own cross-cultural learning experience is one of the main goals of this exchange.  The lessons of this past week have been a bit of a crash course:

Cukas are a typical Colombian dessert made with panela (pre-processed sugar), flour, and eggs.  Also “cuka” is a slang word for a woman’s....

"Tinto" is not short hand for vino tinto.  I couldn’t figure out why so many people kept offering me red wine in the middle of the day until, after a long day of class, I eagerly accepted... only to be disillusioned when my colleague returned with a tiny cup of black coffee. 

Flying a kite is harder than it looks. 

The conversational question, “If you were a type of food what would you be and why?” is fertile ground for all kinds of sexual innuendoes in a classroom of 20-somethings. 

Going to a free music festival is less about seeing the bands and more about experiencing the sweating breathing whirlpool pit of Salsa aficionados.  I pretended to be annoyed at the people attempting to traverse the crowd, shoving through the sardine-packed masses, but I secretly liked the silly sensation of being jostled around like a human sock in a giant washing machine. 

Pedestrians do not have the right of way.

Always wait if you can’t initially get the lid off the pressure cooker.  The faint smell of what I mistakenly took for burning plastic caused a minor panic that the lid seal had melted to the pot of our boiling beans.  When we (my roommate Pauline and I) couldn’t open it, we resorted to desperate measures.  In a valiant effort to rescue our hard-labored meal from imprisonment, Pauline set the pot on the floor and curb stomped the lid like a Chicago thug knocking someone's teeth out.  Hear: shotgun fired at close range.  Picture: Pauline standing up against the wall spattered from head to toe in a bath of steaming exploded red beans that looks like dragon vomit. 

“You learn something new every day” is an understatement. 

Ta da!

If there was a circus performance parodying a stereotypical first day of school, today I was the star.

Act One: While maneuvering my bike over some railroad tracks at a busy intersection, I graced the posse of school-uniformed pedestrians with a 45-second dance of arm flailing and one-footed hopping,  in a failed attempt to salvage my balance.  Exit Stage Left with the universal I’m-OK hand signal.

Act Two: After being hissed at by a police officer for trying to park my bike in an apparently illegal spot, I was taking the long cut across campus (I made the mistake of orienting myself by “The Building with Che Guevara’s face painted on it”--as if there were only one).  Suddenly, a stray soccer ball whizzed across a field and smacked me square in the shoulder.  Cue drums: Ba da boom, psh!

Act Three: The curtain opens on a sunny courtyard, strewn with lounging students and food vendors. At last!  My building.  I stride confidently to the entrance steps and... smack.  Was there a banana peel on that first step?  This time I didn’t bother with the I’m-OK hand signal.  I just laughed at my own improvised slap stick routine and walked (on two feet, without falling) to my classroom.

Act Four: Costume change: clown to superhero.  As soon as the students pieced together why there was an obviously American girl in an English class, you could almost feel the ground rumbling as the imaginary pedestal emerged beneath me.  The new assistant!  You would have thought I was performing a Shakespeare play when I was walking them though a reading worksheet.  They adore native English speakers like kids adore their fourth grade science teacher.

Act Five: An actual circus.  As a karmic congratulations for weeks of jumping through hoops and surviving the comedy of errors that was my first day of school, I walked out of class to find a huge crowd circled around spandexed contortionists and jugglers on stilts in the Plaza Che. I stayed to watch and treated myself to an oblea (caramel/fruit sauce/wafer sandwich).  I think it’s going to be a good year.

Mañana

“Bienvenida a America Latina (Welcome to Latin America),” Claudia laughed.

It’s been exactly one month since my English Teaching placement at La Universidad Nacional, 16 days since my arrival in Bogota, and over a week since my first meeting with Maria Elena, my contact and ‘mentor professor’ at the University. I still don’t have my teaching schedule. I went this morning to see if I could observe a class, but getting a concrete answer from someone in the Edificio de Lenguas (language department building) is like trying to wrestle a jellyfish.

I called Maria Elena but she wouldn’t be coming in until later because she was getting her nails done. I asked Gloria the secretary and she referred me to Pilar the secretary who punched in a few numbers on her desk phone and then shrugged her shoulders when no one picked up. Freddy the tech guy furrowed his brow intently at my predicament, held up a give-me-one-sec finger and then literally ran away. Ironically these are precisely the four people who had emphatically told me on my first day on campus, “Cualquier cosa, cualquier duda que tienes, no demores en avisarme... (If you have any problem or any question whatsoever, don’t hesitate to let me know)”

I had started knocking on random office doors when I met Claudia. After she laughed, she nodded knowingly and explained to me that, “Esta es la universidad de mañana. Siempre estamos diciendo ‘Mañana, mañana...’ (This is the university of tomorrow. We’re always saying ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow...)” She urged me to calm down and relax, even though all I had asked her was if Profe Elizabeth had been in yet--I got the feeling that Claudia liked giving this schpeel to foreigners, as a way of demonstrating cultural awareness.

So I smiled, thanked her, and said that perhaps I would see her tomorrow...

Crutches

I hate Walmart as much as any good farmers marketeering Peace Studies major. Naturally, I am enthralled with the idea of buying products directly from the producer or beneficiary (keyword: “idea”). But as a child of the Big Box Nation, I simply cannot help the awkward aversion that instinctually prevents me from approaching the vendors on the streets of Bogota. It’s not a language barrier, not a safety issue, and not even indifference (sometimes I really am interested in buying knock-off sunglasses for 5.000 pesos). It’s a gap between two distinct consumer cultures.

Our friend Karl calls my syndrome “alienation”--a state which I apparently have grown quite fond of. It wasn’t until I lived outside of Supermarketlandia that I realized the comfort I feel inside anonymous fluorescent aisles. I find myself missing the luxury of perusing brands of oatmeal, comparing prices, ingredients, and nutrition information without so much as a word from The Quaker Man pressuring me to buy one. The hairnetted ladies at Costco won’t utter more than a brief impersonal schpeel about their ravioli samples, even after I’ve gone back two or three times. But if I so much as raise my glance at the empananda stand, you can bet I will be personally called out and harangued all the way down the block-- “Oye mona (blonde)! Empanadas! Empandas! Para la gringa! A la orden!”

I flee. The express-lane self-checkout American doesn’t know how to handle actually speaking to a human while buying something.

To celebrate my first payday, I found myself sheepishly slipping through the automatic doors of El Exito--back into the consumer world I understand. Where things have prices (that aren’t based on your hair color). Where you can choose between sweetened and sugar free yogurt. Where the cashiers have change. And there were samples! The whole experience felt like cheating. But I secretly relished it.

...and it gets worse. I bought a food processor to make peanut butter.

What can I say? I like to have a few crutches when assimilating into a new culture.
1. Peanut butter. Check.
2. Exercise. There’s a park and a climbing wall only a few miles from where I live. Check.
3. Jon Stewart. I have high speed internet in my apartment. Check.

Now I am armed and ready to tackle whatever cultural challenges come my way. Bring in on.
(OK, I admit, sometimes I still have trouble focusing my eyes on people’s faces when their noses are only three inches away--this is deemed the appropriate speaking distance in Colombia. But I’m sure I will adjust eventually.)

The only risk

...well, except for the occasional scams, robberies, muggings, kidnappings, and general street harassments.

The U.S. security officer promised that it was not his aim to scare or intimidate anyone.  However, he did want everyone to be aware of the potential dangers involved living in a city of eight million people with more than 50% of the population below the poverty line.

The first portion of his informative presentation was a vocabulary lesson:

Paseo Milionario: A joy ride at gunpoint to a series of ATMs from which you are kindly asked to withdraw the maximum amount of cash.  

FARC, ELC, and AUC: Colombian paramilitary groups.  Responsible for $200 to $500 million in kidnappings.

Scopolamine: Dopamine on steroids.  Side effects include nondiscretionary openness to suggestion (“Back to my place? Ok,”) and interference with the synapses that make memories.

Next he shared some general safety tips:

1.  When someone approaches you claiming to be an undercover cop on a mission to sequester counterfeit currency, call the police station before handing him all of your money.

2.  Don’t let people “test out” your bike.

(and my personal favorite)

3.  If you are being threatened, do not resist...Unless you are being stabbed, in which case resistance would be quite prudent.

But, mom and dad, not to worry.  The Americans that actually live here can assure that living in Bogota only requires the vigilance and common sense necessary for any large city.  Although they do not deny the high prevalence of the risk of wanting to stay.

The honeymoon

Scientists, musicians, athletes, and activists are among them, but the Fulbright Scholar is somewhat a species of its own.  And when a flock of them are herded together in an exotic environment, a peculiar dynamic emerges.

Each is a leader, but also a diplomat. All are intelligent, but none are highly experienced in this particular context.  Everyone feels slightly anxious in the new and unexplored territory, but no one wants to seem nervous or unsettled.  The goal is to appear assertive yet nonchalant.  A typical interaction may proceed as follows:

“Do you know when we’re getting our visas?”

“Probably tomorrow, but I’m not worried about it.  Did you ask Alexandra?”

“No, I’m sure it will work out.”

“Are we going out for dinner later?”

“Yeah, at some point.  Do you know of a place to go?”

“No, we’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, whatever.  Something will happen.”

The key is to emphasize unpreparedness as a way to highlight a near professional level of spontaneity. For example:  

“I didn’t read any of the information packet, I just met a guy when I arrived and it was no big deal.”

Independence without isolation.  Freedom without insecurity.  

According to someone, the first stage of cultural immersion is the honeymoon.  But that only comes after the awkward dating stage, in which The Fulbrightus Sapien attempts to impress The Culture and trick her into thinking he is not intimidated by her beauty.  

But once sufficiently fed and slightly inebriated, pretenses within the group melt enough for everyone to effortlessly soak in the enchanting newness of a foreign place.  A place where spicy brass music plays through all six stories of a downtown restaurant.  Where a birthday is celebrated with a shower of confetti hearts and not one, not two, but three rounds of the Happy Birthday song played by a five-man band.  Where a party is not a party if there is no dancing.  Let the romance begin. 

Fulbright, dimmed.

T minus 4 days until I depart for Colombia (that's ColOmbia as in South America, not ColUmbia University in New York, to clarify a common misconception).


I will be going as a Fulbright Scholar. 


Official (Wikipedia) definition of the Fulbright Program:  Prestigious merit-based grants to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills.  


Actual definition (from what I have gathered thus far): What the government does with all of the non-vocationally oriented LIberal Arts kids who have received its subsidized education.

With all the funding funneling into lovely private universities and the thousands of taxpayer dollars distributed in Stafford loans every year, the State is manufacturing a small army (no pun intended) of young experts in International Relations, Cross-Cultural Studies, Peace Studies, Diplomacy Sciences, etc.  And at the end of the assembly line, the shiny idealists are prime and ready to go out to the battlefield and relate internationally (in a nonviolent way)!  But how can one do so without being perceived as an aimless globe-trotting vagabond?  With a government seal, of course (normally in the form of a Peace Corps or Fulbright polo shirt).


I, personally, have no problem with being an aimless globe-trotting vagabond.  But if someone is going to front the bill for my flight and housing arrangements in exchange for "community development" and teaching English part time, sign me up.


Many brilliant and earth-changing people proudly bear the Fulbright badge.  I hope to join their ranks.  And no one (except maybe Rush Limbaugh) will deny that this world could use a lot more idea sharing between different kinds of people in a non-militant, non-imperialist way.  And for that (and the free trip), I love Fulbright.  I believe in the mission statement.  I believe in the objectives.


What I don't believe in is the religious adoration of a program that is not much more than humans meeting other humans.  I don't believe in the self-congratulatory elitism of a name--no matter what the historical affiliation.  I want to see this institution for what it is: an opportunity to see another part of the world, to learn, and to teach.  Not an automatic one-up card or a gold star of specialness.  


The Fine Print: (they asked us to post this on any web postings we publish during the grant period)
This is not an official Department of State website.  The views and information presented are personal and they do not represent the Fulbright Program or the Department of State.

Differentiation

Fulbright Orientation in Washington D.C., June 19, 2011.

I grew up in the suburbs and I attended a private university in the Northwest.  I haven’t exactly spent a lot of my life as a minority.  But I’ve never felt more like a grain of sand on the beach than I did at this event.  I was surrounded by clones. Every person there was young, moderately wealthy, well-educated, well-travelled in Latin America, bilingual, recent graduates of liberal arts colleges with degrees in Spanish and International Studies.  There was almost no point in introducing myself.

I started to feel claustrophobic.  When we went out at night I was so desperate for a cigarette that I asked every person who walked through the door of the bar.  I don’t usually smoke and I wasn’t craving nicotine, but I had an immediate need to exert SOME kind of individuality--even if that meant casting myself into the “dirty smoker” circle of Dante’s social inferno.   At least it would allow me to escape from the confident and extroverted intellectual broken record conversations about the kinds of cocktails people had tasted in their travels to Bolivia and Argentina.


(Disclaimer: The law of Narcissus tells me that I will almost inevitably grow to love these people, as we have so much in common...and I may want to delete this post from the internet eventually).

And that's why they call it the present

I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the scrapbook my mom gave me as a graduation present. Right on the first page are two juxtaposed photos of me, one from freshman year and one from senior year.  However the chronological contrast is only appreciated by myself and my mother (and maybe people that have personal memories of the captured moments) because any outside observer would undoubtedly fail to note four-year the time lapse of the two uncandidly smiling faces.  From all appearances, I have not changed a bit.

Change is quite the enigma.  Have I changed? Relative to what?

Does my shift in religious/political ideology mean that I (my being) have changed?  Do a couple new hobbies and an ever-so-slightly modified social circle make me a different person?  It’s 1,460 days and several thousand dollars later and I’m still here.  In the same pair of sweat pants.  At my house.  Getting caught up in the same mindlessness of home life: eating, cooking, cleaning, errand-running, to-do-ing.  

I’m still scribbling Notes to Self in the attempt to catch the spills of my brain that seems to be stuck on the perma-momentum track of academic productivity.  Lists of books to read, movies to watch, things to buy, tasks to perform all must be captured and held hostage on the check list until they can be satisfactorily crossed off---lest they be (God forbid!) forgotten. 

But if there is one change I have observed since my return home as the Graduate Alumnus Bachelor Degree Bearer, it is that my fear of the infinite abyss of memorylessness has subsided significantly.  I don’t really make many lists anymore or even journal as much as I used to.

Perhaps it’s apathy.  Perhaps it’s one step closer to attaining the Nirvana of existing permanently in the present moment.  Or perhaps it’s just a phase. 

But if there was ever an idea that has motivated me to live in the present, it is this:

“Steve Graham points out that you and I are ourselves more like a wave than a permanent thing. He invites us, the reader, to think of an experience from your childhood, something that you can remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there, after all, you really were there at the time, how else can you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there. Not a single atom in your body today was there when that event took place. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are therefore, you are not the stuff from which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, then read it again until it does, because it is important.” (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion)