what the world needs now...

If money makes the 21st century go 'round, the economic value of peace should resound much louder for the leaders of our world....

Last week, I had the incredible opportunity to attend a conference at the UN which presented the findings of the Global Peace Index in 2009 with Chris and Jim.  Being back at the UN brought back so many memories of the summer that I spent in NY, attending briefings with diplomats every morning, learning the in's and out's of the UN, visiting consulates and permanent missions every afternoon, talking about every aspect of international relations you can possibly imagine.

The session that we were lucky enough to attend was hosted by the Institute for Economics & Peace.  The Global Peace Index (GPI) is an attempt to measure the relative position of peacefulness of states and regions around the world, based on quantifiable data collected by peace institutes and think tanks and analyzed by the Economist Intelligence Unit, including a variety of measures such as the number of internal and external wars fought, political instability, military expenditure as a percentage of GDP, UN and non-UN deployments, number of displaced persons as a percentage of the population, and more.

It's an incredibly interesting and complex study, only 3 years into its existence, that has examined a huge spectrum of drivers of peace and violence (functioning of govt, freedom of the press, extent of regional integration, life expectancy, primary school enrollment ratio, women in parliament, importance of religion in national life, GDP per capita, hostility toward foreigners/private property, electoral process).  

The presenters of the study led a fascinating explanation of how the study was conducted, how various indicators were chosen to include, how certain countries landed where they did on the spectrum (New Zealand being the most peaceful country among the 144 analyzed, Iraq the least peaceful, Colombia toward the bottom at #130, and the US just below the median at #83), the shortcomings of the study, the economic implications of the findings, and much, much more.  A Q&A followed and the discussion was intriguing.  I'm excited to look more in-depth at the study.

While there were many shocking results and statistics presented to us, I will highlight just three here that describe the Financial Value of Peace:

- Only 4.4% of the global economy is estimated to be dependent on violence

- The annual economic impact of a cessation of violence has been estimated at $7.2 trillion USD

-In peace, $4.8 trillion USD of new business would be created annually

Just something to ponder...

**Defining Peace: The difficulties in defining the concept of peace may partly explain why there have been so few attempts to measure states of peace across nations.  The GPI has defined peace as the absence of violence, a definition most people will agree with, which also allows measurements.

Spotlight on Microfinance in Colombia

I came across an article on Twitter this morning about the arrival of the Grameen Bank to Colombia.  Within Latin America, the Grameen Bank is currently working in Guatemala, Mexico, and Costa on Microfinance initiatives and is now officially getting started in Colombia.  The Economist Intelligence Unit, supported by the InterAmerican Development Bank has identified Colombia as the most advanced country in terms of Microcredit Initiatives over the past year.  

Definitely check out the article - interesting stuff :)

we are a product of all we have seen...

While spending a lazy afternoon in Juan Valdez, sipping a cup of rich Colombian coffee, catching up with emails, the guy at the table next to me looks over at me.   "Excuse me," he asks.  "But are you Colombian?"  Slightly puzzled, slightly amused, as I have no Latino heritage but have often been asked that question, I respond, "No, why do you ask? Are you?"  He tells me that yes, he is from Cali.  We chat in Spanglish, I explain that I actually have lived in Colombia and he tells me that I look Colombian.  I respond gracias and he asks por que gracias?  I'm not sure why that was my response, why I take this as a compliment, but I do.  I've felt for years now as if a part of me is truly Colombian, that I connected with the culture there on a level unlike anywhere else that I have ever been, and while mi sangre may not be Colombian, mi corazon is.

I wanna go where the mountains are high enough to echo my song...

"It's all too common in Latin America, where the divide between rich and poor is usually very wide, to hear stark differences in outlook and attitudes at the table.  When dining with the rich, the poor are often referred to with varying degrees of fear, condescension, and outright contempt.  Unsurprisingly, conversations at the tables of the poor express an entirely predictable desire to see the heads of the rich paraded on stakes.  Seldom do the two strata of society agree on anything besides soccer.

So imagine my surprise to hear - again and again - expressions of optimism, hope, good feelings, and a general believe that things were going pretty well - in Colombia.  In Medellin, no less, not too long ago the murder capital of the world! In expensive restaurants frequented by the well to do, the kind of people whose cars are bulletproofed, who travel with armed drivers - and later - in what was the toughest, poorest barrio in the city, I hear the same thing.  That the government seemed to be doing a pretty damn good job, that things were getting better and better, that the future looked bright - and that it was a very good thing to be Colombian, and from Medellin in particular.

In a world where the bad guys seem to win with a relentless regularity, and where even the presumed good guys appear, usually to be their own worst enemies, it's really gratifying to see things get so dramatically better somewhere - especially a place where at one time, it really and truly looked hopeless.  It is inspiring, when you've gotten used to the notion that some problems won't ever be fixed in your lifetime, to see some of the very worst kind of seemingly insurmountable problems so quickly and effectively improve.  When you see a real change in the conditions and in the human hearts of a place where just a few short years ago, one neighbor couldn't walk twenty yards over without risking death from another, where drug cartels recruited their murderous young footsoldiers by the hundreds, where even the police feared to tread - it makes one hopefully again - about the whole world.

Colombia. Vacation Wonderland? Yes. Absolutely."

- Anthony Bourdain visits Medellin

Tiffany had sent me the link to the No Reservations blog review of their episode shot in Colombia a few weeks ago and I was overwhelmingly impressed with the depth and clarity of Anthony Bourdain's insight into the culture, as well as the simple fact that this hit Travel Channel series had ventured to a country that is still off the radar for so many.

I was chatting yesterday afternoon on the phone with my friend Carol (who had recently ventured out to Queens with me for a delicious, authentic Colombian feast), when she told me to go turn on the Travel Channel because the re-run of this episode was airing.  

I sat glued to the television, feelings of nostalgia washing over me every time the camera panned across the panoramic view of Medellin, through the valley and up the mountains.  My mouth watered as Anthony Bourdain and his local guides visited the markets, learned how to make chicharon and empanadas, and tasted every comida tipica you can imagine when you think of Colombian food.  

Overarching his discovery of the culture through their cuisine, it was evident that his eyes were opened to that simple concept that everyone who visits Colombia learns: Colombia es Pasion.  I was happy to see that he discovered all sides of Medellin that makes it the complex, beautiful city it is... from the Plaza Botero up to the barrios high in the mountains.  He heard the same tale of the metrocable that so many paisas proudly shared with me.  The guides explained to him how the city has been reunited in the past few years, and highlighted the beauty of these "slums", which were once a death trap and are now the signs of re-birth, possibility and the desire that runs through the souls of Colombians to show the world the true potential of their country.

The show painted an incredibly positive, and accurate picture of Medellin, where it has been, how far it has come, and why paisas are so proud of it.  It also inspired another trip out to Jackson Heights last night.

didn't get to heaven, but ya made it close...

Queens is without a doubt the most underrated borough in NYC.  While diversity is the name of the game in every borough of the city, it somehow feels more authentic in the neighborhoods of Queens, a world away from Manhattan to be sure.

A Colombian-American friend of mine (born and raised in Michigan, but has traveled back to Colombia extensively to visit family) has lived in New York for over a year, but had never been to Jackson Heights, the densely Colombian and Ecuadorian area of Queens.  We journeyed out there Sunday evening for some bandeja tipica and jugo, which I assured her would compete with the food that her family cooked in authenticity (- it did).  

Carol was amazed when we walked in a little bakery and she asked the person behind the counter - in English - what time they closed, and the girl simply rolled her eyes and didn't respond, until I whispered to Carol that no one spoke English out here, and asked the girl in Spanish.  While you hear Spanish on the streets of Manhattan nearly everyday, I love that when you go out to JH, it's rare to hear English being spoken.  There's no need.  At Pollos Marios, my favorite restaurant out there, the hostess doesn't even give a second thought that you might not understand when she asks "dos? siguen ariba al segundo piso".  I don't think that the wait staff would know what to do with you if you ordered in English.  I. LOVE. IT. 

We wandered around a grocery store, laughing at all the little things that we had no idea existed in the US - panella, the solid (rather than liquid) dishsoap, the condiments in bags instead of bottles, Mimo ice cream, frozen juice (maracuya, mango, lulo, guanabana....), and Colombian brands of everything you can imagine.  We may as well have been in our local Exito in  Barranquilla.  We even stopped in a liquor store because Carol didn't believe me that you could buy Ron de Caldas or Medellin, Aguardiente Antioqueno or Cristal in New York.  We laughed with some guys at the store who asked US where Ron de Caldas was from; when we said it was Colombian, one of the guys punched the other two, saying that they were Colombian and we knew Colombian liquor better than they did.

Our last stop was back to the bakery, where we stocked up on pastelitos and bunelos.  The pastelito de guava sitting next to my coffee right now tastes exactly like the ones that I had for breakfast at the university every morning.

otra vez...

If I'm not mistaken, Liz marks Badger numero seis who is on her way to Colombia for a traineeship in the past two years. Me, Jess, Jason, Molly, Erin, now Liz. From one amazing city to one amazing country. I'm excited to follow her story over the next year.

The woes of a Barranquillero-Gringo lost in Bogota....

The "culture shock" that a good (American) friend of mine who had lived in Barranquilla for several years experienced when he left the coast and moved to the big city....

Bogota sucks!  Cold, overly organized, not only are people prompt but they expect you to be (???), there's no music playing ANYWHERE, they can't dance, they hardly drink, cars stay in their lanes, people cross at crosswalks and only when the green man appears, and they clear their trays at the food court, the stores have too many fucking choices, and - they're polite - like all the fucking time - they all want something from me, right?  What do they want from me???

oh, and the part that really tickles...

Taxis!

They have these little boxes that keep a kind of count, then they show you on a chart how much you have to pay!

Waaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha!

No tienda domicilio.  No fruteras.  No morning "bollo" "aguacate" "el heraldo" wake up calls.  No tack tack tack Pavlovian dog mouth watering as the butifarra man passes.

I went to get a paper notarized and first of all the whole process only too four minutes (yes, I timed it).  When it was time to give my fingerprint the clerk just handed me the inkpad.  I stared at her dumbly wondering what to do before remembering, way back when in a land far far away where normal citizens were actually trusted, no, expected to place their finger on the ink pad and roll it across the paper ALL BY THEMSELF.  I was giddy.

One afternoon after my nap (they can't take that away from me, not yet!), I stepped out of my stratus seis pupiville apartment to go for a jog.  The air was cool even though the sun was out and I couldn't even break a sweat.  I jogged down a street with trees on both sides before getting to a wooded park where I guy was sitting playing trumpet, another jogging further down the path.  Most surreal - OTHER PEOPLE WERE JOGGING TOO.  What a weird sensation to NOT feel like the village idiot jogging over patchwork cement that looks like it was laid over a fault line.  I sleepily smiled knowing that very soon I would jog past the lampost and back out of the wardrobe doors and awaken from my Narnia-like dream.

And through I'm not a Barranquillero I feel ... "affected" by my time there, I'll end this with a quote from a friend...

"You can take the Barranquillero out of Barranquilla, but you can't ever take Barranquilla out of the Barranquillero."

abrazos to all, 

Chris

My response:

Do you at least have a balcony where you can play your drums or do you have neighbors who will complain about the noise that is disrupting their nice, orderly life?  What about the fact that it's not necessarily a given that every person's house you walking into will have a (or several) hammock(s)?  I can guarantee that iguanas will not roam your new school campus and I think it's pretty safe to say that you will not catch little lizards climbing up your kitchen wall.

Where are the restaurants with plastic chairs?  And when you ask for chuzo desgrenado, they have no idea what the hell you are talking about and tell you that chuzo is ONLY shish kebob.  They drink some shit called Costena, which as far as I am concerned should be called cachaco because the only cerveza costena that I know of is called Aguila.

Be careful if you go up to Parque 93 because there is a TGI Fridays, a Subway, a Hooters, AND a Baskin-Robbins.  You might just think that you were drugged and taken back to Texas.

Buena suerte amigo,

Sarah

Operacion Jaque. CHECKMATE.

The news unfolded before my eyes and I couldn't stop the tears from falling.  I watched the live address by French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, which I randomly caught as I flipped through the channels, as he announced, ce soir, Ingrid Betancourt est libre et en bonne sante sur une base de l'armee colombienne.  Je voudrais d'abord remercier le president Uribe, les authorites Colombiens, et l'armee Colombienne. Que le president Uribe recoive la gratitude de l'ensemble de la peuple francaise.

I heard it in slow motion.  Ingrid Betancourt.  FREE.  Without a single shot fired.  After six years in captivity.  

I turned my laptop on and every single major news source was broadcasting the breaking news.  15 of the most high-profile hostages being held by the FARC - including former presidential hopeful Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans - were just RELEASED.  

I instantly messaged Tiffany to make sure that I wasn't dreaming this.  She confirmed what I had heard was true.  Bogota is already celebrating.  I am still in shock.  This is incredible.  A miracle.  

I can't help but think about everything that has occurred in the past six months.  This is the third time that I have literally not been able to tear myself away from the story as it unfolds - from the international peace protest, to the death of three of FARC's main leaders, and now this.  

Please, please tell me this is happening because I still shaking all over with the possibility that peace is in Colombia's immediate future.

In the words of Ingrid Betancourt, "creo que esta es una senal de paz".

everytime i hear that song, i go back...

Growing up in a flat world of globalization, travelers of our generation have had to deal with the "perception of Americans abroad" when they travel to other countries. Coming from a culture that arguably has the most direct influence - positive and negative - on the rest of the world, just about all foreigners seem to have formed an opinion. While I've never experienced any severe anti-American sentiment, there were definitely times that I felt hostility when I was in Europe.

Colombia was different. At the risk of making a broad generalization, everyone I met was so incredibly warm to Americans. Many had never met someone from the States before and could hardly fathom the idea that someone from the US would actually want to come to their country, a country whose reputation has traditionally been tainted by negative images.

On one particularly memorable bus ride across the country, I caught the attention of a fellow passenger by reading the autobiography of the country most famous author and listening to reggaeton music, acting like traveling from Barranquilla to Bogota was a perfectly normal thing to do - which, by that time, for me, it was. We chatted for awhile, he complimented my Spanish, and I must have given him my contact info, although I hadn't remembered doing so until I received this email yesterday...

Hola Sarah:

Yo soy la persona que conociste, cuando viajabas de Barranquilla a Bogota, via terrestre hace como dos años...cuando leias la biografia de Garcia Marquez.

No te habia escrito, porque estaba viviendo en Italia y el papel donde me escribiste tu e-mail se me habia quedado en Colombia, donde me encuentro en la actualidad.

Estoy en Bogota, si vuelves por aqui, escribeme...

Mucha suerte y que que sigas leyendo los libros de Gabo.

HASTA PRONTO.....

RICARDO

(translation: Hi Sarah, I'm the person that you met, when you were traveling from Barranquilla to Bogota, overland, about two years ago... when you were reading the biography of Garcia Marquez. I hadn't written to you because I was living in Italy, and the paper where you wrote your email was left in Colombia, where I found it now. I'm in Bogota, if you ever return, let me know. Good luck and keep reading Gabo's [nickname for Garcia Marquez] books.)

For some reason this email touched me immensely - the fact that such a simple conversation almost two years ago left such an impression on someone.

temperatures are rising...

Barranquilla officially made me immune to heat and humidity. The temperature jumped up to the 90s this past weekend and the humidity isn't supposed to break for at least a few more days. Sure, it's a little annoying and sticky, but I still spent most of the weekend outside, enjoying the sunshine, not really noticing the sweat. That's all that ANYONE in this city is talking about - how damn hot it is, how they don't want to go outside for anything, heatwave heatwave heatwave, blah blah blah. My mom emailed me - I can't believe it was almost 100 degrees in NYC yesterday! My thoughts were really?? it couldn't have possibly been that hot.

I think there's definitely costeño blood running through my veins.

I know a place where we can dance the whole night away...

...

They love to tell you stay inside the lines, But something's better on the other side...

Back home.


Or something like that.

just looking out your window at the world outside...

The time is winding down and I am already dreading tomorrow morning...

Ay ay ay aaaaaay que bonita es esta vida
y aunque no sea para siempre
si la vivo con mi gente
es bonita hasta la muerte
con aguardiente y tequila..

When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am...

Picking up with the gringos right where we left off has been one of the best parts of this vacation. My Paris girls and I always talked about how it would never be the same to go back to Paris without the same people there to go to "our" places together. Exactly the opposite is true of Colombia. Time stopped and my life here was waiting for me to slip right back into it. With only a few notable exceptions, everyone is still here, life goes on as it always has. I know it won't stay like this forever, but it will take more than a year for things to fade away completely.

I often fear that living abroad will turn into a dream once I return home and I will forget too many of the little parts of the experience that mattered the most. I am asked about Colombia on almost a daily basis, but usually need to sum it up with an overall generalization about what I great experience I had, what a beautiful country it is, how amazing the people are. Coming back here has reminded me of all the little nuances of the city and the culture - good and bad - that took a year to comprehend and to cement the bond that I have with this country. The memories weren't tucked away quite as far as I had feared.

Off to Bogota, where more amazing people await me, more priceless memories promise to be made...because it's Bogota, where everything has always begun and ended. Colombia needs to learn the beauty of low-cost airfare. My ticket from Barranquilla-Bogota cost as much as NYC-Chicago. This country is getting more and more expensive.

Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night
Dance until the morning light
Forget about the worries on your mind
You can leave them all behind
Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night...

what we had was so much more...

I woke up early from the hammock in Melissa's apartment, where I slept very well last night, rather than in the guest room on the rock hard bed that was actually in my apartment last year. The sun is shining over Barranquilla and I look out the windows to the view of the Magdalena River to one side, the Prado neighborhood - where all my friends still live - our frutera, our pool to the other.

By this time last year, I left, wanting so much more. My living situation was far from perfect and I felt restless, wanting to be challenged professionally in a way that I had never found with teaching. I loathed the routine of this city, where everyone knew everyone, our options for going out were limited, and I had all but run out of money to travel. It was time to shake things up. I was ready to move on, first to Bogota, then to New York.

I know that leaving was the right decision at the time, that I had reached a point where I was no longer happy, but it's so easy to come back and wonder why the hell I gave this all up. Countless facebook messages and emails over the past week have included the words "welcome home". I have let myself forget that this is only a vacation. A weekend at Tayrona with the gringos isn't vacation, it's just what we do. Este es mi vida.... este FUE mi vida. Melissa, Patrycja, Bartira and I went out for chuzo last night and joked, as we always do, about the oximoron that is comida rapida [fast food] in this culture. I have an easy day ahead of me of going to the spa for a facial and mani/pedi, buying a plane ticket to Bogota, coffee at Juan Valdez, dance class at BodyTech, and cooking dinner with friends. That was my life. I miss this culture, where things move slowly and easily. I am torn between two homes of the extreme, and right now I dread going back "home" to New York.

paradise, it ain't hard to find
just looking out your window at the world outside
paradise, it ain't far away
here in my head it's just another day
here in paradise

Who says you can't go home...

VISA. It's everywhere you want to be.

except Colombia.

Trying to buy an airplane ticket to get from Barranquilla to Bogota is proving difficult now that I no longer have a Colombian bank account and major credit cards don't sync with online payment systems here. ohhhh Colombia.

Being back here is so easy. So much easier than I ever expected. I know the system, the little intricasies of the culture that took a year to figure out, but that really are second nature. My espanol has come back without any effort.

I missed a culture where things are a little crazy, where you have to argue with the taxi driver to avoid getting screwed over. It doesn't matter that it's a difference of 1.000 pesos (~$.50), it's the principle of things, knowing how the system works and letting them know that you know how things roll around here.

The inside jokes have stood the test of time. I say pasame la botella and the gringos understand the reference. We hiked into Tayrona and I can anticipate the twists and turns of the path, where we need to hike over rocks and how much longer until the trail will open up to the gorgeous spread of ocean in front of us. When it comes to "domicilio-ing", I open the phone book and recognize all our favorite restaurants. It's all so familiar.

Time cast a spell on you, but you won't forget me...

No puedo creer que estoy aqui. Parece como un sueno. Estoy buscando cambios pero hasta ahora todo esta exactamente lo mismo.

I stepped off the plane and smiled to see the Colombian military and Tigo ads. It had been raining just before my flight landed, evident from all the roads in the south which were flooded, children splashing around in the mud. All of the little things that are so ordinary, and that make Barranquilla the pure beautiful craziness that it is struck me in the taxi ride from the airport into the city. I could do nothing more or less than soak it all in. Via 40, Exito, moto taxis, Junior jerseys, Aguila, donkey pulled carts of fruit, the gaudy brightly colored city buses, banderas, piles of rubble from broken down buildings that have probably sat there for years and will not be cleared away for years to come.

I walked passed my old apartment, stopped for juice at the frutera, and headed straight to the Prado to go for a swim. The hotel staff looked as if they had seen a ghost. The amount of time that the gringos spend chilling there put us on a first name basis with most of them. Colombian hospitality never fails as they told me how I had been away for awhile but it was good to see me back. I jumped in the deep end, clearing my mind of everything going on back home. I lay out my towel to soak up the rays alongside the pool and realized that I couldn’t remember the last time that I could PAUSE as much as I do in Colombia.

Stepping back into my old environment immediately made me realize just how drastically I have changed over the past year. The longer that I am back in the States, I find myself feeling more and more like a New Yorker…questioning if I could ever live anywhere else again, now that I have grown accustomed to having the world at my fingertips. Yet Colombia still holds a spell over me that I can't escape. Barranquilla is different from New York in every way possible. Two cities, on two different coasts, each defined by a drastically different type of chaos. Each presents an extreme foil of the other; the me I want to be is searching for the balance between the two.

The emotions are swirling, I try to digest them, and the only one that I can clearly identify is happiness, pure and simple.

Reflections of coming back will continue to develop…

Off to dinner at Crepes and Waffles!

and eventually our theories couldn't explain it all...

Being pulled from so many directions that it's hard to know where to turn my head...

Waiting for the dust to settle, not knowing where the chips will land...

Speaking for myself and others around me, it's hard to take it on faith, stay strong, make the decisions that are tough as hell, but that you know in your heart are right. I knew months ago that I needed a vacation to return to Latin America, relax and refocus, but I never could have predicted just how perfect the timing would be. So much has come full circle over the past year. With everything that has been going on, a few days at Tayrona, cut off from civilization, should hopefully allow me to look within and figure out my next move, determine my priorities, personally and professionally.

Another time, another place...

A year of daydreaming about the Caribbean is quickly approaching reality. Containing my excitement is impossible. Counting down is inevitable.

I can't wait. It seems like we will have a nice group going with us [to Tayrona] so I hope that is ok. That's what you get for sending the mass email ;) Anyway I am counting the days.
-Melissa

We will all be at the airport waiting for you with maizena!
-Chris

Concentrating on work has never been more important. Or more difficult.

It sucks to know that travelers to Colombia can't even rely on Lonely Planet, the only major travel guidebook publisher to have published a guide to Colombia. The author admitted to having never visited the country and having plagiarized information. It's no wonder that we always noticed significant gaps in information about lodging, transportation, restaurants, and more that was common knowledge amongst travelers around the country...

strawberry fields forever...

It's the first day of spring to hit 70 degrees. "Lunch at Shake Shack" was the first thought on everyone's mind when we got to the office this morning. Our office and every other office in central Manhattan. The hour long line was completely worth it.
Spontaneous visit from one of my Paris girls tomorrow.
Just signed up for an awesome half marathon training program...hopefully kicking my ass into shape in time to run the Nike NYC Half Marathon this summer. Our March Madness flip cup and quarters tournament raised over $1400 for this same organization a few weeks ago.
And Colombia is getting closer and closer. Chris warned me that they are all going to greet me at the airport with maizena. ohmygoodness.

en Barranquilla me quedo...

The stupid frustrations I have been feeling lately mean nothing when I know that this is waiting for me in just less than 4 weeks...



...

I'm not done with my traveling, so let's run...

Why American Airlines rocks my world:

NYC-Barranquilla. Bogota-NYC. May 2-11.

A much needed vacation, a puente spent at Tayrona, some sun, salsa, postobon manzana, chuzo desgrenado, AIESEC Colombia 50th Anniversary celebration, hanging out with some of my favorite people in the world...all for a grand total of $474.

Si ayer tuviste un dia gris...

After a week of tensions, threatening to escalate to unsurmountable levels, in which Ecuador, Venezuela, and Nicaragua severed diplomatic ties with Colombia, leaders of the region came together yesterday, in a passionate and emotional summit, which ended with Uribe, Chavez, and Correa shaking hands. I breathed a sigh of relief that the news I had been watching so closely all week had finally smoothed over...

I can't wait to be back in Colombia. Less than two months...

Excuse me too busy you're writing a tragedy...

"Ofende al pueblo colombiano que algunos de nuestros vecinos sigan creyendo que las Farc representan los intereses del pueblo. Mi país reclama que las cosas sean llamadas por su nombre: Las Farc son una mafia narcotraficante, que para nada representa los intereses del pueblo colombiano", dijo Ospina [El embajador colombiano].

Despite Chavez's and Correa's decisions to line the borders with Venezuelan and Ecuadorian troops, Colombia has held their ground that not a single solder will be sent toward either country. Colombia has no interest in starting any kind of regional conflict. At the OAS meeting in DC yesterday, Colombia accepted that it had violated the sovereignty of Ecuador (the organization stopped short of ordering sanctions) and apologized for crossing the border without informing the Ecuadorian administration. While the operation that killed Reyes and other members of the FARC should not have played out as it did and Colombia should be forced to acknowledge that, what about the support that Ecuador and Venezuela have been providing to the FARC, both in monetary terms and in allowing the rebels refuge across the border in foreign territory? The overwhelmingly positive steps that Colombia has taken over the past few months have been unnecessarily complicated by foreign intervention from neighboring countries, with whom Colombians have no intention of starting a conflict. Colombian people have seen way too much conflict in their lifetime; the fact that Chavez is throwing around threats of a South American/Andean war is disgusting.

mi querida pais, estoy pensando en vos...

The headlines are scaring me. There is way to much going on. I can't even keep up with it all or process what has been going on over the past few days. Talking to friends down there only makes me more worried. Saturday's news had everyone rejoicing, only to turn very, very sour 24 hours later as more was revealed. The threats being thrown around are all too real, and I'm afraid to see what will develop in the next few days...

Baila en la calle...

If I had to choose only one thing from Colombia that I loved the most, that made me feel alive, that captured the passionate culture above all else, it was the dancing. So many memories revolve around dancing - carnavals, chivas, concerts, dancing in the streets, dancing around our apartment, dancing in restaurants...there was almost never a time that we weren't dancing.

I went to a salsa class tonight and it wasn't quite the same. NY salsa is different from Colombian salsa. I felt the beat of the music running through me as I always have, my feet naturally fell into step, my hips moving back and forth... and yet for the entire hour, I was off-step from our instructor, whose feet moved too much, and whose hips moved not enough. Just like I learned to speak on the coast and my Spanish is Costeno or nothing, I dance like a Colombian, with a little bit of cumbia and mapale influencing my salsa. I step on the two, not on the one. And I have no intention of trying to change that.

Here's to Barranquilla....

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer...

Never doubt the power of a message of peace. Something small, that quickly spreads across the world. A message that a nation, whose history has been characterized by violence, believes to the core. The idea was sparked a month ago and spread like wildfire through the network of facebook to over one hundred cities around the world.

No mas secuestros. No mas mentiras.
No mas muertes.
No mas FARC.

No more kidnappings. No more lies.
No more deaths.
No more FARC.

It was estimated that a million Bogotanos marched through the main streets to the Plaza de Bolivar, in the center of the city. The image was repeated throughout the country. "Freedom! Freedom! No more FARC, no more kidnappings", drew hundreds of miles of people who turned the streets upside down in 40 Colombian cities, which practically paralyzed the country at mid-day, as had been predicted by the youth who organized the protest through the internet and who had requested that it not be capitalized by any political organization (El Tiempo newspaper)
Un millón de voces unidas contra las FARC. A million voices united against the FARC.

In Barranquilla, 300,000 gathered from Teatro Amira De la Rosa to La Plaza de la Paz - fittingly, the Plaza of Peace. It was the first time ever that Barranquillero left aside a Carnaval event to cry out for those people who are being held in captivity (El Heraldo newspaper).

I told JuanCa that I didn't think there was anything in the world that could stop Barranquilla's Carnaval. His reply - Nuestros deseos de paz. Our hopes for peace. The images are still bringing tears to my eyes.The world has not turned its back on Colombia. More importantly, Colombia believes in itself. Millions have come together to raise their voice and fight back. I hope this is the first of many steps toward a more peaceful Colombia.

YO CREO EN COLOMBIA.

I BELIEVE IN COLOMBIA.

To all my friends in Colombia, I wish I could have been there with you today, in Barranquilla, in Bogotá, in Medellin. You are all in my thoughts. I love and support you all.

Con limon y sal...

My new gym has latino and afro-caribbean dance classes. I love it already. Incentive - a potential trip to my favorite coast in a couple months ;)

The only risk is wanting to stay....

BBC World News declares that in Colombia, "Traveling is Safe"

A new hot-spot for the tourism industry

After 27 years of total stagnation, tourism is starting to flourish in Colombia again.

Marred for decades by drugs, lawlessness and Latin America's longest-running guerrilla war, Colombia's tourism industry is now awakening fast, and turning the country into a new hot-spot for travellers. In historical Cartagena, Colombia's crown jewel on the Caribbean, business is booming. Around the old city, handicraft shop-owners, jewellers and coachmen are more boisterous than ever. Cruise ships have resumed docking in the colonial port, sending a clear signal abroad that, while there is still a great deal of violence in the country, parts of it are safe enough to visit. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines has returned to Cartagena after a 5 year absence.

"The number of tourists has clearly grown over the last couple of years and that's all to do with improved security", says Luis Caballero an emerald trader who owns a business in the heart of the city. Overall foreign tourist visits to Colombia are expected to be up from half a million four years ago to 1.3 million for 2007. The country is currently receiving more than $2bn (£967,000) of foreign exchange through tourism.

'Travelling is safe'

Andrés Delgado and Erika Bruges, a couple who run eco-tours in La Guajira, an indigenous region in the north, say President Alvaro Uribe's policies have made all the difference. "Travelling is now safe in wide swathes of the country." "Soldiers monitor security in roads and highways, and we Colombians are really enjoying this new freedom of movement," they add.

Many here credit President Uribe's tough stance on terror for the improvements. Figures are on his side too; since he took office in 2002, kidnappings have dropped 73%, murders are down by more than 35% and urban crime rates have plummeted. "This country has moved from terrorism to tourism", Uribe recently told delegates of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) gathered in Cartagena for their General Assembly. "It is a great joy to see that the tourists are back." The UNWTO also delivered a clear message through his Secretary General, Francesco Frangialli, that Colombia now offers a safer and more stable environment. "Colombia has to be seen by visitors as a normal destination where people have a normal life", he told the BBC at the closing of the Assembly.

Image problems

But replacing conventional perceptions of Colombia is not that simple. Despite the growth of visits, Uribe's government is aware that in many parts of the world, Colombia still means narco-terrorism.

"Colombia's image remains one of the stumbling blocks for the development of our tourist industry," Luis Plata, Colombian Minister of Tourism told the BBC. "Together with the travel warnings issued by most countries on Colombia, these are two of our main challenges".

Under the slogan, "Colombia, the only risk is wanting to stay" and an annual promotional budget of over $4m, the Tourism Ministry has just embarked on a campaign to improve the international picture of Colombia. The country is also attempting to rebrand itself with the motto "Colombia is passion", a sentiment aimed as much at its citizens as visitors. The authorities are also pushing to stimulate investment in infrastructure by offering fiscal benefits to the private sector such as a tax-free period of 30 years for the establishment of new hotels and the permanent waving of taxes for eco-tourism initiatives. The impact of tourism growth on the Colombian economy is already making a mark.

Fighting poverty

Unemployment is down from 20% four years ago to 10.6% this year. In popular vacation destinations such as Cartagena, that impact has been even higher, particularly on the city's large Afro-Colombian population that lives under the poverty line. "We are facing many challenges," says Minister Plata. "Infrastructures are poor and scarce, and we need to improve international connections, especially air travel." But he adds that the government is determined to push ahead with an industry that has proved to be a great tool to fight poverty. "Tourism demands a lot of labour and not necessarily the most qualified labour. It has tremendous social impact," he says.

In the past, Colombia has not been a traditional hot tourist destinations even for the most intrepid travellers. And that might become its strongest selling point.

If you'd call my name out loud...

Cartagena, Colombia revels in love, sans cholera

CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA -- It was a place that "stood unchanging at the edge of time . . . where flowers rusted and salt corroded, where nothing had happened for four centuries except a slow aging among withered laurels."

That was Gabriel Garcia Marquez's rich description of a town very much like this Caribbean port in "Love in the Time of Cholera," the Nobel laureate's sultry saga of lust and decay.

Cartagena's distinctive character and its postcolonial decline may have provided late-20th century inspiration, but this is no longer a cholera-plagued, half-abandoned metaphor for elegant decadence. Far from it.

Today, this gem of a walled city of 1 million and sometime home of Garcia Marquez is enjoying a tourist boom and a wave of tropical cool, emerging as a chic destination with a literary pedigree in a country better known for cartels, car bombs and coke.

Once a principal port in the slave trade and terminus for gold, silver and rum, besieged by pirates and soldiers of fortune, Cartagena has joined the global "A list" of must-see sites. Frightened off for years, cruise ships are back, daily disgorging souvenir-hunting, camera-pointing visitors in shorts and sandals. Cartagena de Indias, as it is officially known, has become an offbeat convention site and arts festival mecca.

November marks the premiere of "Love in the Time of Cholera," the film adaptation of Garcia Marquez's evocative 1985 novel, an epic tale of pent-up passion and moldering charm set in an unnamed city very much like Cartagena during its period of 19th century degeneration. The novelist held back for years on selling the movie rights.

...

Indigenous people still make the trek from isolated villages to sell woven baskets and pots shaped from gourds, wandering about the twisting lanes of the Old Town like callers from another era. Female Afro-Colombian hawkers known as palenqueras balance bountiful fruit baskets on their heads, a reminder of the city's deep African roots. Street vendors sell phone time by the minute.

Salsa and cumbia music blare from steamy, dimly lighted bars where couples chug Aguila beer and get sweaty on the dance floor. Young lovers hold hands atop the turreted, cannon-bedecked city walls. Imposing doors conceal shaded courtyards, respites from the unyielding heat and humidity.

Around the edges, in districts such as the sublimely named Getsemani, there's still the somewhat seedy hint of an old port town, a place where you can have a good time for cheap, but you need to be careful about the company you keep.

Shacks on the city's outskirts, many housing people displaced in civil conflict, attest to a better-known Colombian reality.

Garcia Marquez, who recently turned 80, is an almost metaphysical presence here where he keeps a home, though he is often away. Most everyone likes to drop his name, typically using his nickname, Gabo. When in town, he likes to remain anonymous, people say, the better to be able to hear the good stories.

...

The making of "Love in the Time of Cholera" here was a decisive moment for the city's comeback image, reportedly only accomplished after Vice President Franciso Santos Calderon promised augmented security and met with the filmmakers, who were eyeing Brazil. Santos, a former newspaper editor, was no stranger to violence: He was one of the victims whose ordeals were chronicled in Garcia Marquez's nonfiction work "News of a Kidnapping."

"There is this tremendous sense of authenticity," director Mike Newell told The Times earlier this year. "You wander around and you realize that he actually was writing about this place, the place that you are shooting in, which is a very strange feeling indeed."

...

Espinosa once labeled Cartagena "a city of legends," adding: "Perhaps the legends that arose in my city were the product of the inactivity of the people, since, for so long, almost the entire 19th century . . . there was nothing much to do other than invent, speak, read and remember."

- L.A. Times

But everything looks perfect from far away...

"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place...like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again."

~Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi

still can't seem to get Colombia out of my head these days....

If we had stuff to say in madison- you have stories in ny....

why do we talk so much and listen so little? why is communication so difficult when we say the same thing in such different ways? why do we run in circles?

the pieces are there, but they aren't in place. am I doing enough to sort them out? how do you turn frustration into results?

the flashes of homesickness have hit hard this past week. those who travel know that homesickness goes both ways, just as much as [reverse] culture shock. patacones and maracuya mojitos at a cuban restaurant, ay ay amor heard on the radio, venezuelan candy bars, passing someone on the street with a mochilla, and other little reminders of colombia that would usually make me smile make me want to cry instead.

little by little, 16E18 is starting to feel like home. it's been challenging, 4 strangers learning how to live together, make decisions, strike a balance, work through the tension ... has led to laughter and bonding. for better or worse, this is home now and i'm starting to settle in. sadly, my hammock is still stored in a corner. hard to predict if that will change soon.

took a 5 hour bus ride upstate. brushed my teeth outside. camped in a yurt. smoked shisha on a roof. partied on a roof. took a boat tour around manhattan. went to a mets game. cheered when the badgers moved up to #5 and cried when they lost to Illinois. ran from my apartment down to the financial district and back to blow off steam. built furniture. painted. saw a chiva in manhattan and decided that is on the to-do list for the next year. experienced apple fest. ate sushi at least once a week. people-watched in union square. turned a year older.


in no particular order, that's life. in a new york minute.

Culture, rather than cocaine, attracts media attention...

Some of the most positive news coverage about Colombia that I've seen, the NYT provides an excellent coverage of this Colombian city that I fell in love with this past year. After countless discussions revolving around how much influence media have on the perception that "outsiders" have of a country, I get goosebumps when I stumble across positive news that is being spread about Colombia. It's a small step, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.

But Medellín’s transformation may be most apparent at night. During the cocaine days, those who ventured onto the city’s lifeless, grid-like streets after hours encountered a Wild West showdown of trigger-happy capos. Now, cafes and bars spill onto the sidewalks, lending a festive and carefree vibe to the balmy evenings. Sprawling nightclubs draw thousands with thumping Latin music that keeps the young crowd dancing until dawn.

On a recent Thursday night at the popular Mango’s (Carrera 42 No. 67A-151; 57-4-277-6123), a ranch-style disco with cowboy memorabilia and waiters dressed to match, an eagerly anticipated three-day weekend was about to turn into a four-day party. A cluster of young clubgoers ordered rum-and-coke cocktails as the rhythms of reggaetón and vallenato shook the foggy dance floor.

It was 3 a.m. but you couldn’t tell by the crowd’s infectious energy. They were clearly in it for the long haul, as if making up for lost time.

So what if you catch me, Where would we land?

Hace exactamente un mes desde que sali de mi querida Colombia. Hace dos meses, todavia no tenia ningun idea de lo que iba a hacer. Nunca habria pensado que estaria viviendo en Nueva York despues de Colombia, mucho menos trabajando por el equipo de AIESEC USA. Hay algo de magia en este ciudad que yo sentia tambien el otro verano que pase aca, un sentimiento que cada dia esta llena de emocion. Quizas por eso que me parece que hace mucho mas tiempo que llegue aca.

Colombia seems like an eternity ago, yet not a day passes that I am not reminded of it in some way or another. After living abroad for such a long time, in a culture that made you feel alive and look at the world around you in a completely different perspective, that's only natural. I had anticipated the severe reverse culture shock that had hit me after a semester in Paris, when I definitely was not ready to leave. This time, transitioning back to life in the U.S. has been much easier than I ever could have hoped for. The overwhelming amount of English was the first thing to hit me immediately, but since I have been enjoying the pleasant mixture of countless languages and cultures that surround me from the moment I walk out my door and step on the subway each morning.

Con un aguardiente en la mesa...two fellow gringo-latinos and I had a Colombian adventure out in Queens this weekend. It was simple, lunch consisting of pechuga a la plancha, arroz, frijoles, y patacones, yet so reminiscent. It was amazing how the little Jackson Heights bakery where we enjoyed empanadas y Postobon Manzana with everyone around us speaking Spanish, pictures of the Transmilenio on the wall, could have easily been back on the coast. A la orden.

NYC seems to be the crossroads of so many different pieces of my life brought together in this moment. In the past week alone, I have be reunited with friends from Colombia, from Madison, from high school. Perhaps that is why I have been lucky enough to feel neither culture shock nor home sickness. Traveling makes the world as large as your imagination can possibly handle and more. This city holds unexpected magic, unlimited possibilities, a little bit of everywhere I have called home.

In the past month, I have been reminded of why NYC is possibly my favorite spot in the world to spend summer. From 4th of July fireworks a few days after returning to the US to street markets, from running in Central Park to outdoor movies, this was how summer was meant to be.

Nada de esto fue un error....

I can't believe this is good bye...

I've touched this place before, somewhere in another time...

Flight number: AV 20
Operated by: Avianca
From: El Dorado - Bogota
To: JFK - New York City
Depart: 28 jun 2007 22:55
Arrive: 29 jun 2007 05:30

It's official. Moving back to the US of A. Flight purchased. Job secured.

Next step: attempting to find an apartment. Not going to lie, that part intimidates me more than a little bit.

For those of you in NYC, from NYC, with connections in NYC ... if any of you are looking for a roommate, have a friend who is looking for a roommate, know of an awesome housing opportunity, can suggest good/not so good neighborhoods, or have any advice to make the search easier ... I would love you forever.

It's a luscious mix of words and tricks, That let us bet when you know we should fold...

Tengo mariposas en el estómago...
I have butterflies in my stomach...

No matter how you say it, I haven't been able to form a coherent thought for the past 24 hours since I found out that I am going to NYC. I decided last night that I should make a "to do" list, considering that within the next week, I will be moving to a new country, to start a new job, turning my world upside down. Yet, all that I could think of to put on that list was:

- buy plane ticket
- meet Diana for lunch
- buy coffee from Juan Valdez

...and then my mind goes blank. Wonderful.

La locura automatica...

Medellin.

Springtime.

I wear my skirts shorter and my hair curly.

I can't seem to escape the frustration that surrounds me, but I left behind some of the stress in Bogota.

Estoy contenta.

The sun shines through the window, there is something different in the air here. Somehow I understand so clearly why paisas claim that Bogota is too cold...in more ways than just the temperature.

If I were from Medellin, I would claim bragging rights as well.

Welcoming "my" Social Entrepreneurship trainees over the past week has been surreal, adding a deeper level of impact than that which AIESEC has already given me several times over, a sense of accomplishment that I have no words to describe. In spite of everything, being in Colombia for their arrival has been priceless.

I am so excited for them to make their own discoveries, create their own memories.

I feel a sense of bittersweet jealousy as well, knowing that they are about to embark on the journey of a lifetime, one that has changed me over the past year and is coming to a close.

I left the coast exactly a month ago, and I have lost count at how many times I have questioned whether or not I am making a mistake, holding out for so long, passing up other - possibly more sensible/responsible - opportunities, for something that I want so much, yet has been delayed for so long. I am scared of the disappointment that could potentially come my way....but the longer that I wait, the more than I invest into this process, the more that I know that it's right, that this next challenge is what I want, what I need, where I can make the most difference...for myself, for others, for AIESEC.

I follow my heart, I have made some of the most important decisions in my life based on passion, not practicality...why change now?

Take my breath away...

La tierra, las montanas, los paises.

Everytime that I return to this city, it's as if a weight is lifted from my shoulders, as if I am seeing it for the first time, as if it casts some sort of magical spell over me. I love Bogota, but when it comes to Colombia, Medellin is, and always has been, my city. I honestly didn't think that I would make it back to Medellin again before I left the country, but as the rolling mountains gave way to the valley of the city and my bus arrived to the terminal this evening, I couldn't have been happier.

Next step: track down two crazy Badgers.

The clouds drifting through the blinds, A half a million thoughts, Are flowing through my mind

Sometimes when you feel as if absolutely everything is going wrong, it's amazing how the little things make such a huge difference. I've been enjoying my time in Bogota since my traineeship ended, but the feeling of putting my life on hold, being in limbo, unsure how long until I know which direction my future will take has been frustrating. Last weekend was rough for another reason, probably one of the worst that I've gone through since I've been in Colombia.

My roommates and the rest of my adopted Bogota fam has helped me stay strong and get through everything more than they could possibly realize. Our Sex in the City marathons, Asian fusion week, long Sunday morning runs when Carrera Septima is closed down for Cyclovia, bienvenidas, despedidas, trainee nights, visits to the MC office to work on the Social Entrepreneurship project, have helped me maintain some sort of normalcy.

I am excited about one last unexpected travel excursion that came up in the past 24 hours. Two Badgers (Jason - start blogging!!) arrived to my favorite Colombian city last night, and two other gringo trainees from Cornell and Denver will be coming in to Medellin next week, all to work as part of the Experience Social Entrepreneurship project. Missy, Bee, Lucas, and I have spent so much time putting this together over the past few months, and it looks like I am going to be able to visit after all. It will be great to meet all of them after the billion emails/msn chats/conference calls, see how the reception process is going, and meet up with some old friends as well. Exactly what I need right now. Change of scenery, change of pace.

burst the bubble....

sometimes i wish i could disappear.
or turn back time.
ignore the reality that seems like a nightmare.
i insist on seeing the good in everyone.
i realize that's naive.
but i believe it anyway.
and this is what happens.
the world flips upside down and i feel as if everything is lost.
when you are least expecting it.
you don't understand, it's out of your hands.
i feel myself wishing i was at home, as if somehow this wouldn't happen if i was at home...but i felt as if this was home.
so now what?

So let me slip against the current, let me slip away...

Camping adventures in Colombia mean sleeping in hammocks on the beach. More than the spacious rooms or the spectacular view of the city, the best part about my beautiful Barranquilla apartment were the hammocks hung in front of the two living room windows, allowing for hours of daydreaming. After months of searching for one that caught my eye (and wasn't 200.000 pesos), Steve, Tiff, and I had a successful afternoon of souvenir shopping at the Artesenia markets en el centro de Bogotá, y por fin compré una hamaca que me gusta (por buen precio también!). Wherever my next home may be, I just need a corner big enough to hang a hammock, because this little piece of Colombia will be coming with me.

Esta es mi cancion de despedida....

Last night's chiva celebrated the upcoming farewell of many in our group who will be saying good-bye to Colombia within the next month. More than just another crazy night out dancing, drinking, singing, and celebrating like most of the chivas that I have been on around Colombia, this one represented some kind of closure, coming full circle to my first chiva night in Colombia at AXLDS last April. It's rare that you are able to return to a country that you first visited for an international conference, let alone to live for a year, and even more unlikely that you will revisit a club that you partied at during a study tour with many of the same people present. Walking into Compostela last night was a strange sense of deja vu, only this time I knew the lyrics to all the songs. Still no news about if and when I am leaving Colombia, but I'm making the most of every moment until that point finally arrives...

newbie blogger headed to the City of Eternal Spring...

Shout-out to Molly, who hasn't even left the country yet, but rocks because 1) her blog is hilarious 2) she was one of my first matches to our Experience Social Entrepreneurship program 3) she's going to have a kick-ass summer in Medellin, and 4) she thinks that I have magical powers.

Keep an eye on her blog for some crazy Colombian adventures this summer...

2600 meters closer to the stars...

Este fin de semana ha representado todo de lo que quiero de Colombia. Fuimos a Andres Carne de Res viernes, un lugar full chevere afuera de Bogotá en un pueblo que se llama Chia. El ambiente y el grupo con quien fui, además cada tipo de música que puedes imaginar, eran una combinación perfecta. Bailé mapalé y cumbia como una Barranquillera verdadera y rumbeamos hasta las 4 de la mañana con una energía que solo puede encontrar en Colombia.
El padre y el hermano de Tiffany están visitando ahora y aunque no sean mis familiares, es super chevere verlos disfrutando de la vida acá. Es que ambos en Bogotá como en Barranquilla tenemos un grupo de extranjeros bastante grande a todos les aman este país, esta cultura, y más de todo, la gente Colombiana. Nosotros hemos aprendido la realidad de Colombia y sentimos en nuestra casa acá, a veces más que en nuestros países. Pero es una oportunidad full rara que podemos compartir esta vida acá con los familiares o los amigos que no estén en Colombia en una manera más que fotos o historias de email. Entonces, cuando algunos de ellos vengan de los EEUU con ninguna idea de Colombia pero con ojos abiertos y discubran la belleza y la pasión y nos digan que por fin entienden por qué estamos tan flices aquí, no hace sonreír más que todo. Aunque no soy Colombiana, tengo un gran orgullo por este país; por una parte, Colombia será siempre mi país.
Como no sé cuanto tiempo más me quedo, estoy disfrutando Bogotá lo maximo cada día. Anoche fuimos a Lobby, un barsitio chevere que ya conocí hace algunos meses, por la fiesta de MC transition. Bailamos, bailamos toda la noche. Yo voy a extrañar la música y el baile más que todo cuando no esté en Colombia. Lo siento en mi corazón, es una gran parte de quien soy. Tocaron un poquito demasiado vallenato, pero de toda manera, que ahora conozco todas las canciones que toocan, y hay algo que decir por esto…que sé bailar cada genre de música como una costeña, que puedo compartir una risa con JuanK, Patricia, y Lore cuando escuchamos cualquier cancion de una artista Barranquilla. Y por supuesto que todos bailamos uno o dos roll calls en el centro del club; es inevitable cuando salgas con un montón de AIESECos :)
Un mensaje a todos del MC Colombia, sea saliente o entrante: yo he tenido la oportunidad a trabajar mucho con algunos de Uds, otros solo conocí pocas veces, pero todos son gente increíble con una pasión que me inspiraba muchisima. Yo les deso suerte, alegría, y felicidad, lo mejor de la vida en todo lo que hacen.

Setting the pace...

I have always found solitude in running. Not to race, but just for the escape that it brings from the rest of my life. Not running toward, not running away, just running. After 4 years of having the Lakeshore paths only moments away whenever I had a free moment to escape down to the trails around Monona or Mendota, my running routine was put on pause since I moved to Colombia. Between dangerously high temperatures, insane traffic, and broken sidewalks that almost guarenteed a twisted ankle, running outside in Barranquilla was out of the question. Granted, I went to the gym often, but I detest treadmills with a passion, spinning round and round and never really going anywhere. Since I arrived to Bogota last weekend, I have quickly settled into a different daily routine, one that I have instantly grown accustomed to. Yesterday morning, Steve pointed me in the direction of Parque Simon Bolivar, the equivalent of Bogota's Central Park. From the moment my running shoes hit the path, the crisp mountain air filled my lungs, and I turned on my iPod, I felt my muscles spring to life and I was off. Pushing through the altitude difference that made it difficult to catch my breath, I found an energy reawakened inside of me that had been missing for far too long. I may never win the race, but may I never be forced to stop running...

Investing? Colombia may just be the next big thing...

Extreme Investing: Inside Colombia
An improbable journey from crime capital to investment hot spot. Can this boom last?

- Business Week

All these places have their moments, with lovers and friends, I still can recall...

I managed to hold back the tears for the past week until this afternoon. As my plane departed from Barranquilla, destination Bogota, I finally opened the goodbye card that the UNINORTE LC had written for me at the wonderful despedida they threw me on Thursday.

A week of goodbyes and emotions finally caught up with me and the tears started to fall. A year in the life of a trainee is worth a lifetime of memories. I cannot thank all of you enough.

Camilo, Pedro, Luchy - I will never forget meeting all of you at AXLDS and the surreal feeling of seeing all of you again when I arrived in Barranquilla last July, realizing that sometimes people come into your life for what you think will be a short moment and stay much longer than you ever could have hoped for. I will keep practicing my football skills. CHECK.

Ferkho - Yo te entiendo. Por fin. Como me dijeron, parece que hablo Costenol PERFECTO ahora.

JuanKi - mi hermanito. Stay out of trouble. Even if your big sister isn't there to keep an eye on you. I will continue to tease you. siempre.

Alex, Bartira, Adele, Elena, Patrycja - for laughing with me through everything that we put up with in the language institute, from horrible computers to crazy morning classes to entrevistas to lunch at el Tunnel, working with you girls was priceless and I love you all.

Juanca - I will miss our chats outside the office. Muchisimas gracias por todo tus consejos y tu amistad.

Mau & Lorena - my OC, it was a pleasure to work with both of you and put together the best trainee weekend in all of Colombia. Thanks for helping to make CARNAVAL one of my most memorable experiences this year.

Aleja & Marta - my two best recruits. I love you girls so much.

Vanessa - don't go hiking in Tayrona without me...you might get lost!

Newbies - I have enjoyed seeing you grow so much in just a few months and am excited to see what comes out of UNINORTE over the course of the next year. From pre-zonalito when you first met the trainees by surprise to the Zonalito weekend in Pto. Colombia, it has been a pleasure to get to know many of you. You all have so much potential and passion.

You have all made this year so memorable and I am so lucky to have met all of you. I arrived 10 months ago is some crazy Caribbean city and thanks to all of you, I am now happy to call Barranquilla "home". AJA UNINORTE!

Badger Invasion

I just found out that 4 fellow Madtown AIESEC'ers are on their way to Medellin. Brett is on his way next week (!!) to visit, Jess is going to be working at EAFIT as part of the GoinGlobal PBOX, Molly and Jason are both part of the new Experience Social Entrepreneurship initiative - Molly with UNDP and Jason with Corporacion Grupo Vida. I'm grinning like a fool, so excited for all of them to experience the country and culture that I have grown to love as if it were my own over the past year.

Sun-kissed

I think I am the poster child for people who refuse to listen to the warning that even if it is cloudy and overcast, you can still get sunburned.

Back from a much needed weekend of fun in Cartagena, rosy pink, relaxed, but increibly nervous about the week ahead of me.

Home stretch....

casi-colombiana...

Andrew: WHAT
Andrew: for real?
Andrew: where you going to be?
Me: heading back to Madison for a month or two
Andrew: i like forget you're american a lot

not the first time I have heard that...

Trying to put together a puzzle...not sure if I have all the right pieces...

All good things must come to an end. The better they are, inevitably, the faster they fly by. You hold on as tightly as you can, try to live in the present rather than lose yourself in the moments that have already turned into memories or the uncertain future that is rapidly approaching.

I blinked my eyes and suddenly find myself counting down the days that I have left in Colombia. One more weekend excursion to Cartagena...then to Bogota, where I began and to which I always seem to return...et après?

Scared to admit that it is time to leave, time to say goodbye, hoping that I will not be gone long, scared by the thought that I need to make plans gambling on what is still unknown...all I can do is hope that it will work out for the best...scared by the unanswered questions because for once, I know exactly what I want, but I'm not sure if I have what it takes to make it happen.

what are YOU doing this summer?

Experience Social Entrepreneurship: Colombia & Brazil

looking for an amazing summer traineeship experience? want to practice your Spanish or Portuguese skills, experience la vida latina, and have a major impact on individuals around you? want to know more? email me for details!

"I need your most tantalizing and captivating picture of Colombia.
To be used for internet marketing."
-Andrew

Say what?

So ... a picture is worth a thousand words + 9 months of traveling + thousands of pictures = ...one picture?

As I flip through the photo albums, I have no idea where to begin.

Do I choose from Barranquilla's carnaval, representative of the passion of Colombian people, the festival traditions that span the country, the music, and the dancing?

Or maybe a photo from the coffee region, a symbol of the country's economy and culture, and the mountain ranges that traverse a third of the country?

Perhaps the Plaza Bolivar in Bogota, the center of Colombian politics, national pride, and the site of so many historic events?

What about the stunning beaches of Tayrona, the Caribbean national park, so carefully preserved, bordered by lush jungle that is stil home to some of the indigenous communities who trace their roots back deeper into history than most of the Colombian population?

Or the colonial coastal city of Cartagena, declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site?

How do you choose ONE picture to represent an entire country as diverse as Colombia?

"just ask yourself what would single handedly sell people on coming to colombia"

easier said than done...

Are you ready for some....futbol?

Junior v. Nacional

After living in South America for 9 months, I finally have the chance to go to a futbol match this week between Barranquilla and Medellin. I don't think that I have attended a large sports game since I was back in Madison. I have heard that the rivalry between these teams runs pretty deep and that the famous Metropolitano Stadium, where we attended the Shakira concert, can get pretty rowdy. Results and pictures will be posted :)

update:
Junior 2 - Nacional 1

It wasn't Camp Randall Stadium, the fans weren't singing "If you want to be a Badger", we weren't sitting in Section O, but last night's game was still pretty damn priceless.

I used to sit and watch the pouring rain...

It rained two days ago, for the first time since late October. This was the first weekend in months that it was too overcast and rainy to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon tanning at the pool.

I probably explained the arroyo phenomenon months ago when I first arrived to Barranquilla, home of the craziest rainstorms I have ever experienced, anywhere. The brilliant city planning, or lack thereof, has left the fourth largest city in this country with no sewer or drainage system. It's also below the level of the Magdelena River, which runs alongside the city and eventually empties out into the Caribbean at Puerto Colombia. Hence, when it rains, it not only pours, it also floods. Solution? Many of the major streets were built at a steep slope so that the rainwater is directed downward in the correct direction to empty out the city. The arroyos are the rivers that form in the streets as a result, causing traffic standstills for extended periods of time, as the possibility of being washed away for trying to cross one of the arroyos is not unheard of.

Silly me, I naively assumed earlier this evening that once the rain had finally let up, I was safe to venture outside. wrong. Determined to pick up some ice cream from Crepes & Waffles (anyone who has been to Colombia knows they have the best ice cream in the country) for our girls night in, I hopped on the bus that would drop me off a mere 3 blocks from the restaurant.

Once I got off, I realized that I was trapped on a corner between two arroyos that still had not stopped. I walked almost around the entire block, finally deciding to roll up my jeans and cross the street where the water seemed a little shallower. It never really looks as deep as it is. I stepped off the curb and the water rose half way up my calf. So much for keeping my pants dry.

I made it safely across the street, only to find myself in the same predicament a block farther up. The restaurant was across the street...almost there. This one was much easier...until without realizing it, my flip flop slid off and out of my grasp. Trying not to slip, I ran, half barefoot, down the block, dodging the crazy BQ traffic, looking like a fool who can't catch her sandal. I finally snag the flip flop, but not before my jeans are soaked above the knee.

Chin up, hold onto the last shread of dignity as I walk into C&W, looking like a complete mess, order my ice cream and head back to Melissa's apartment.

All in a day in the life in Colombia...

It's all in your hands, when do we begin?

GOAL: 50 US SN's --> Colombia & Brasil...let's make it happen.

I have recently been engaging in some very excited conversations regarding this initiative. While I was not able to attend AXLDS, I was excited to see the results that it generated. Many people back in the US and here in Latin America are working hard to create some awesome exchange opportunities. The timeline is pushing down on us, but considering the passion and experience of those involved, I am not worried. Personal motivation? I'm just excited for more people to experience what I have over the past year...Colombia es Pasion :)

saber que se puede, querer que se pueda.

A step in the right direction? Too soon to tell...

Colombia backs ELN ceasefire plan (bbc)

Colombia's government has agreed to a temporary ceasefire proposed by the country's second-largest rebel group, its senior peace negotiator has said. Peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo said any accord with the National Liberation Army (ELN) would not begin until rebels ended their campaign.

No specific details of the "temporary and experimental" ceasefire have been agreed yet, Mr Restrepo said. The ELN proposed the ceasefire agreement on Monday, saying it was ready to begin temporary disarmament in an effort to create a viable atmosphere for peace.

"We accept the proposal that the ceasefire be experimental and temporary," Mr Restrepo said. "Once the ELN halts its violent actions, halts the kidnappings and frees the hostages it holds, then the government will immediately cease all type of military offensive against them."

Correspondents say the ELN - some 4,000-strong - is not regarded as a big player in the civil conflict, which has pitted left-wing rebels against the state and right-wing paramilitaries. However, the government is keen to remove the ELN from the equation so that it can concentrate on the more powerful Farc, with whom it has refused to talk, and the drugs trade that fuels the fighting.

...more indepth Spanish analysis on BBCMundo...

THE ELN
Formed by intellectuals in 1965
Inspired by Cuban Revolution
About 4,000 members
Mainly carries out kidnappings and attacks on infrastructure
Listed by US and Europe as terror group

I'll find my day, maybe, far and away...

I miss Wednesday nights at Brats and Thursday nights at Bros.
A-bars. shisha.
Snowstorms.
Unlimited coffeeshops.
My roommates. Rollerblading.
Late night drives. Late night runs.
The passion that an entire university feels for a football team.
Complaining about walking up Bascom Hill.
My Paris girls and our reunions.
Spending afternoons on the terrace. Babcock ice cream.

I know that when I leave I will miss salsa dancing.
Crazy bus drivers.
Our pool at the Prado. Llamada guys.
Fresh exotic fruit.
Spontaneous excursions all over the country.
Living close enough to a beach to go whenever I want, even if I don't always have time.
Learning phrases in Portuguese, Polish, German, and Patois.
Complaining that it's TOO hot in Barranquilla.

Leaving bits and pieces of my heart all over the world.
Bittersweet. I haven't even left yet. Caught between somewheres.

Within the past 24 hours, I have received 3 emails from @ers back in the States who are interested in doing traineeships in Colombia.

VERY COOL.

in the news...

Car bomb hits Colombia police HQ

A large car bomb has exploded in front of police headquarters in Colombia's south-west city of Cali, the first such attack in a major city for four years.

Officials said the blast, which killed one person and injured more than 30, was most likely the work of Farc, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

But drug traffickers, paramilitaries or common criminals have not been ruled out as suspects (BBC).

We're spoiled...

Colombia undoubtably has the ability to capture the hearts of all foreigners who discover it. As it was after Christmas vacation, everyone has returned from their Semana Santa excursions to other Central and South American countries and one common thread is revealed in all of our stories.

"x-country, y-city, etc. was great, we had fun, it was beautiful...but there is no way that it can compare to Colombia. The Colombian people, the culture, are pretty much unlike anywhere else in the world".

yeah, we are pretty damn lucky to be here :)

It's a small world after all...

I love the connections, the way that people are brought together through this organization that we have all made a part of our lives.

Scenario uno:
Xiomara - member of my LC in Madison, from Medellin. I spent New Year's Eve with her family in Buga, small town in the mountains north of Cali, she left shortly afterward to attend the same study abroad program in Paris that I did Spring 2004.
Ivan - former LCVP X in B'Quilla, matched my traineeship, currently doing a CEED for AIESEC France.

A couple weeks ago, I was chatting with Ivan on msn and he mentioned that he had met a friend of mine. As I searched my brain trying to think of any AIESEC'ers who I knew in France (none), he said that Xiomara had stopped by the MC office in Paris to visit and meet some AIESEC'ers there, realized that there was someone from Colombia, figured out that they both knew me.

Scenario dos:
Katy - my AIESEC twin, took over as LCVP Event Coordination, just returned from AXLDS, and *hopefully* doing a traineeship in Colombia sometime in the near future.
Camilo - one of the UNINORTE @ers who I met at AXLDS last year who everyone remembered for sleeping onstage during opening plenary, recently elected LCP UNINORTE.

me: i hear that you met camilo from uninorte?
Katy: we were roomies on the study tour!! he has a video for you from me, he was like..SAY HI TO SARAH
me: did you meet a lot of the colombian delegates?
Katy: ooomg yes..i fell in love with them, they were first ones i latched on to

make the world your comfort zone? DONE.

Ghost town...

Spending Semana Santa (Holy Week/week preceding Easter) in Bogota has been a very interesting experience. We had expected that museums and other tourist attractions would have limited hours and that we may not be able to visit as many places as we would during other times of the year, but what we had not expected was how EMPTY the city has become. I have never walked around a huge cosmopolitan capital city and wondered where all of its 9 million inhabitants had disappeared to.

Yesterday, as it was Good Friday the Zona Rosa (one of the usually busiest neighborhoods in Bogota, where many of the best bars, restaurants, and shopping malls are located) was SILENT. When we headed down to the Candelaria however, we were shocked to see the streets and sidewalks packed with people. I dare say that the crowds rivaled those of State Street in Madison during Halloween. The Candelaria is the historic and cultural center of the city, home to government buildings, museums, and of course, dozens of churches and cathedrals. People were pouring in and out of the churches attending mass, street vendors were suddenly selling prayer cards and roseries, processions were led through the streets and more.

Having been raised in a Catholic family (and yes, 9 years of Catholic grade school), I understand many of the traditions and much of the history that is associated with Holy Week. However, having been raised in the States with such a diversity of religious beliefs, it is fascinating to witness these types of religious celebrations in a country that is overwhelmingly dominated by a single religion, and to see how much it filters into the daily lives on an entire nation. The Catholic Church has played a significant role throughout the history of Latin America. I do not wish to argue whether or not this has been a positive or negative role, as I believe that religion is a very sensitive and personal topic, but rather just to comment on how visibly and deeply engrained into the culture that this has become.

Raindrops keep falling on my head....

We survived our adventure into the jungle, which was one of the most unique trips that I have ever taken. We really did swim with pink dolphins in the Amazon, fished for pirahnas, watched the fastest moving sloth you could possibly imagine as our guide climbed up into the tree after it, and held caymens (type of alligator). Our rubber boots were a laughable attempt to "stay dry" on our hikes through the rainforest when we ended up crossing water that inched higher and higher, to our thighs, above our waists, and finally deep enough that we needed to swim across. Blair, Julia, Melissa and I had the lodge to ourselves for 5 days and we enjoyed every minute of it.


Melissa and I arrived back to Bogota yesterday evening for the second half of our nice long spring break. As much as we loved the rainforest, it was nice to return to civilization...away from all of the misquitos...wash our nasty jungle laundry and enjoy some fine dining in the Zona Rosa. Bogota remains my jumping off point, I have been here several times, and despite a few unlucky incidents that several of us have had here, this city becomes more and more appealing each time that I return.


I realized earlier today that yesterday was exactly one year from the date that I had first returned home to Madison from Colombia. So many memories come back as I recall the first time that I arrived to Bogota last year and like others, I feel a pang of jealousy thinking about others who were able to go to AXLDS this year, hopefully having an equally life-changing experience. My life has changed so much since my first encounter with Colombia last year. I smile as I wander through the city and remember my initial discovery of different spots in the capital city, each time that I have returned since then, and the wonderful people who I have spent time with here.

My time in Colombia is winding down quickly. What comes next remains to be determined, my future still seems to be one large question mark. For now, all that I can do is cherish mi vida colombiana, for I know that it will be one more memory all too quickly....

In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

Suddenly before my eyes, hues of indigo arise...

My duffel bag is sufficiently overpacked with books for the 18 hour trek to and from Bogota. My iPod is charged and I have scored some dramamine to knock me out on the overnight bus ride halfway across the country. Plans have been made to crash with a trainee in the cosmopolitan capital for a few hours before our flight takes off Saturday morning to the Amazon. I managed to find my vaccine card in the mess of my closet that confirmed that yes, I will be good to go play in the jungle and will not contract yellow fever. I even talked my VP finance into giving me an advance on my salary with the argument that there is no ATM access where I will be going. SPRING BREAK = t-7 hours. PSYCHED.

if all you dreamed were new, imagine the sky high above, in caribbean blue...

Barranquilla, pure and simple, the little things that I have come to take for granted but that capture the essence of this city. Seen through the eyes of JuanK, Barranquillero, through and through, as well as a few other amigos...

...

When theres a shadow, you follow the sun...

Starting to get goosebumps, butterflies in my stomach, the building anticipation that every travel addict has come to know and love as you prepare to depart on your next adventure. The borders between Colombia, Peru, and Brazil will blur, thoughts of teaching English left far behind on the coast, as my fellow gringos and I fish for Piranhas and swim with pink dolphins. By this time next week, I will be playing in the jungle. My attention span could rival that of a 6-year-old's.

accidentally came across this link....

read all the way to the bottom :)

ZONALITO 2007

Digo que esta fin de semana fue un full “AIESEC weekend”. Todo la comité, tan newbies como viejos fuimos a Playa Mendoza por el “zonalito”, una conferencia parecido a lo que llamamos ROKS en los EEUU. Para mi el evento tuvo mucho exito y fue super bacano. La energia e entusiasmo de los newbies eran increible – siempre me alegre muchisimo ver la gente nueva aprendiendo sobre la organización y trabajando ya con mucha pasión, realizando las oportunidades.

El primer dia, Ferkho y JuanK, nuestro querido MCVP X, habian preparado una sesión para Bartira, Micaela, y yo como las trainees sobre un tema un poco dificil – todas las cosas malas de Colombia, digamos el “taboo”. Hablamos de la historia de las drogas, las carteles de Medellín y Cali, la vida diaria en Colombia durante el tiempo del poder de Escobar, la Plan Colombia, los aspectos negativos y positivos de la gran ayuda de los EEUU en la conflicta interna, la evolución de violencia politica y las guerrillas, las condicionnes politicas e economicas causaron la subida de los paramilitaries, porque la situción ha mejorando poco a poco, y mucho más. Ellos respondieron a todas nuestras preguntas porque digamos que es facil defender todas las cosas bellas que vemos en nuestra vida aquí contra los estereotipos horribles que mucha gente tenga sobre este país, pero es igualmente importante comprender que todavía es un país donde bastante malo ha pasado y por qué. Muchisimas gracias a ellos por su paciencia y deseo a compartir su conocimiento con nosotros, aunque pudo haber sido muy difícil.

Bueno, además de todo el trabajo duro, esta fin de semana fue super chistosa. El sitio era tan hermoso, con una playa mejor que tenemos en Puerto Colombia, super limpia, tranquila, y grande. Bailamos mucho como en todos los eventos AIESECos, hicimos las presentacionnes culturales de los EEUU, Bolivia, y Brasil, jugamos un poco de futbol americano, y reímos mucho.

Pues, lección de la fin de semana: no dé papaya.

it's no fairy tale, take it from me, that's the way it's supposed to be...

I hate goodbyes.

Yet this nomadic, aiesec, lo que sea, existance seems to inevitably lend itself to a continuous stream of farewells. Without a clue as to the if, where, and when you will meet again, I force myself to remain optimistic albeit the tears that threaten to fall.

I believe that I am who I am, and where I am, today in a large part because of the people who have come into my life. The people who have challenged me, who have pushed me, who have INSPIRED me. The people whose lessons have remained deeply engrained into my being long after we are separated, often by hundreds of miles of land and ocean.

I had been dreading tonight's goodbye for quite awhile. How do you let go of the person who has been your closest friend since the moment that you arrived to a place that once was completely unfamiliar but has slowly become home, the person who has been there for you through the highs and the lows, who understands the foreign culture which have emersed yourself into and a lifestyle which no one "back home" could really comprehend from emails and blog entries alone?

And so you take a deep breath. You know that if your paths are meant to cross again they will and you appreciate how much richer your life is because of that person. The flip side of the curse of having your friends spread out thousands of miles away across the entire globe is simply that....no matter where in this world that you find yourself, you are at home, because that is where your friends are.


thanks for being there for me alex. love you. prost.

topping the charts...

Looking for an exotic beach destination for your next vacation? We have one of the best, according to Guardian Unlimited...

2. Tayrona national park, Colombia
I've never been as instantly impressed by a beach as I was the moment I set eyes on Tayrona. After a 40-minute hike through the forest, I was expecting to see a classic Caribbean beach, all white sand and calm turquoise water, perhaps a few cabanas for the tourists. Instead I was greeted with a wild sea crashing on to rocks the size of houses that are dotted along the untamed and semi-deserted beach. In a country with a "healthier" tourist industry Tayrona would undoubtedly be a major resort, but as it's in Colombia the virgin rainforest cascades down the mountainside right on to the sand. And there was no one on it save a small community of backpackers who sleep in open-air hammocks.

Where to stay: Under the stars in a hammock strung between two palm trees.

The next big move, destination: UNKNOWN

I get so excited when I hear about my fellow nomads' exciting plans for the upcoming semester, as they plan study abroad, traineeships, and other crazy excursions. This one will be heading in my direction this summer and I would love to be able to visit this one.

Now that the excitement of Carnaval has passed, it seems that my time here in Barranquilla is rapidly spiraling toward its concluding moments. I realize that I still have a few months left, but at the same time, I ONLY have a few months left. Spring break will be upon us in less than a month, and I know that the time after that will pass even more quickly.

It has been just about a year since I first stumbled upon this country which has now become home. Odd. I find myself in a strangely identical predicament to what I was going through at this time last year...pondering what my next move will be. I am not ready to leave Colombia, but it is rare that you are ever really ready to leave a place that you have fallen in love with. Eventually you need to let go and be open to what will come next, because otherwise you never would have gotten to where you are. I have no idea if it is the right time for me to let go of Colombia.

Job hunting is starting to wear on me. It becomes so much more frustrating when I am uncertain of what I am looking for. Impatience. Uncertainty. ANTICIPATION. EXCITEMENT.

Where will I be a few months from now? Only time will tell...

cuz that's just how I roll....

you can bet your ass I am dancing in Colombia.

...

Batalla de Flores y Gran Parada de Tradicion

Weekend of a lifetime....and the people who made it all worth it

...

CARNAVAL DE BARRANQUILLA Part 3

A culture, a tradition, a source of pride, a way of life.

Barranquilla's Carnaval is considered to be the largest festival in the country, one of the largest in the world, a mixture of the Afro-Caribbean-Latino culture rolled into one 2-month long celebration.

During Carnaval, the racial and cultural diversity of Barranquilla becomes blurred. People no longer view each other in shades of black and white, but rather in every color of the rainbow.

This is a scene dominated by makeup artists, fashion designers, and beauticians, who are faced with the challenge of designing the most vibrant, elaborate, and all-around over the top costumes, headpieces, hairstyles, and makeup patterns.

Everyone is white and everyone is black, everyone is beautiful, everyone is Barranquillero.

Whether 2 years old or 92 years old, there is no excuse not to be dancing. The spirit of Carnaval means quite simply that there is no excuse to be left out.

Poverty does not matter, nor does crime, nor sadness, nor any other harsh side of reality. Carnaval is meant to be felt, to be lived, to be embraced.

La Reina, the Monocucos, the Marimondas, the Negrita, the Torito, Joselito.
The cumbias, porros, mapalés, gaitas, chandés, puyas, fandangos y fantásticos merecumbés.
The Batalla de Flores, the Gran Parada de Tradicion, the Parada de Fantasia.
The Festival de Cerveza, the Festival de Orchestras.

Each character, each creation, each dance, each comparsa, each parade, each concert, has its place. Each reflects something strictly African, specifically Spanish, exclusively Caribbean, exceptionally COLOMBIAN.

CARNAVAL DE BARRANQUILLA Part 2

The trainee weekend idea was sparked 3 weeks after I arrived in Colombia when I made my first of several trips to Medellín for the Feria de las Flores. More than the parades, the parties, or the Antioquian city that I have since come to know and love, the diversity of our crowd in Medellín made the weekend one-of-a-kind.

Shortly before Christmas, I brought up the idea of hosting our own trainee weekend to Camilo and Lucia. After subsequent trainee weekends in Medellín, Cali, and Manizales over Winter Break during which several people had expressed interest in coming to visit BQuilla, I returned to the coast determined to reunite with everyone one month later.

Per the freak-out nature of a few of my previous entries, the planning of the event was nerve-wracking and exciting all rolled into one. From the early planning stages, it was evident that Mauricio, Loren, and I had a ton of work ahead of us. If we were going to do this, I wanted to go all out. I became frustrated at times with conflicting work styles imbedded with cultural differences more than I have ever come across in my job. Yet somehow through the mixture of communication and miscommunication, reservations and cancellations, emails and text messages, Spanish and English, ins-and-outs of event planning, every detail of the event fell into place at the very last minute, as you always will happen. From the minute that the trainees, LC and MC members started to arrive from around Colombia, I knew that I was in for the best weekend ever.

USA, India, Russia, France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Mexico, Bolivia, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Brazil, Israel, Canada, Germany, and Colombia.

I was reunited with some of my closest friends here, people with whom I have shared adventures all over Colombia, who have inspired me and who have been some of the most amazing and passionate people I have met since I arrived last July. I met so many new friends, both @ trainees and other random nomads that had met up with the others along the way. I have each and every one of them to thank for making the experience what it was.

I could not have imagined spending Carnaval with anyone other than you guys .... muchisimas gracias :)

CARNAVAL DE BARRANQUILLA Part 1

As the last few trainees and I watched the concert last night in Barrio Abajo, sporting our sombreros bolteados, sipping on Aguilas, too exhausted to even move our feet, let alone dance, the Barranquilla Carnaval 2007 came to a close. We slowly made our way home, saying goodnight and goodbye to each other and to one of the best experiences many of us have had during the past year in Colombia.

Quien lo vive, es quien lo goza.

Until you live it, you really cannot understand it. Any expectations that I had for Carnaval based on the stories of others, any idea that I had formed about the festival based on the energy that I had experienced during the pre-carnavals, paled in comparison to the real deal. I am still in awe of it all. I have considered Barranquilla for home for quite awhile. I love my lifestyle here, I love the people, and I love how much they love to be Barranquilleros. But until a foreigner has seen the Carnaval for themselves, they have not really seen Barranquilla.

Mi historia de la carnaval va a necesitar muchas blog entries...

a parade through the precarnaval extravaganzas...

...

You take it on faith, take it to the heart...

Curled up in my not-so-comfy office chair, wishing that I had a nice tall latte to power me through the day but settling for a tinto. Arrive to work by 7 am but not planning to have much time for work today. AIESEC has once again taken over my life. frustrated, worried, anxious, excited, confused, nervous, stressed, DETERMINED....I have about every emotion possible running through me right now. My mind has been racing all week. I have to believe that, despite everything that makes me want to think that I am in way over my head, I am going to be able to pull this off. I refuse to give myself any other option. Running on PASSION...Pushing forward....and I'm off....

And that road keeps on calling me...

This is BIG.

26 registered for the TRAINEE WEEKEND starting Friday.

5 more trainees pending travel and work arrangements.

4 AIESEC'ers from Venezuela who want to join us.

12 more hours left for even more people to register.

4 days of CARNAVAL celebrations.

Is it bad that I am looking forward to going to the spa to recuperate after all of this OC work is over more than the actual event itself?

deep breath.

What it is...

DANCED in a parade danced as a MONACUCO, attacked everyone in sight with espuma, left speechless at the surreal feeling of being caught up in the heart of the carnaval. PARTIED in Santo Tomas amidst thousands, showed Gopi the beauty of the chuzo, passed around the 'guardo, attempted to avoid the macaena and water balloons. SMOKED the shisha in the courtyard of my apartment, chilled at the frutera with Arthur, Jean, and Gopi at 4am. SWAM in mud, got stranded in the middle of nowhere. COOKED an American style breakfast, an Indian style dinner. Fell asleep in the hammock watching FRIENDS, surrounded by amazing friends, knowing that the next two weeks are going to continue to be the ride of a lifetime.

Don't fade away 'til the morning light...

I may no longer be a college kid, but working for a university means that it is often easy to pretend otherwise. Keeping with tradition of the past four years, spring break is destined to be an adventure. After NYC, Italy/Spain, Florida, and Jamaica/Melgar, what could possibly be next?

LAS AMAZONAS

We are off to Leticia, a small town by Colombian standards (population comparable to the good old WB) that spills across the Colombian/Brazilian/Peruvian border as our jumping off spot for a week in the jungle!

10 days and counting....

Pre-Carnavals have been well underway for several weeks. I doubt that anyone in this city has been able to avoid at least one espuma (foam) or macaena (cornstarch) attack. Even more impossible to ignore is the sense of excitement that has been building across the city, from Puerto Colombia down to Soledad. If you are in Colombia right now, Barranquilla is THE place to be.

Planning a Trainee Reception Weekend during the 2nd largest Carnaval in the world has been quite a task thusfar, especially considering the other two OC members keep reminding me that I can't even imagine what I am getting myself into until the official festival is underway in about a week and a half from now.

Loren and Mauricio have been taking care of the in's and out's of scheduling the weekend to correspond to the best parades, events, and parties in town. Coordinating registration and logistics has been perfect for me, since I already know most of the trainees who will be coming and have been convincing them to visit since our last rendez-vous in Medellin/Cali/Manizales. My first visitor(s??) is arriving this afternoon, and more should be on their way soon.

I am definitely high on the excitement of planning another big event once again....it's been awhile. After several failed attempts of people telling us that all reservations had been booked weeks ago, we finally managed to come across a chiva to kick off the trainee weekend. AIESEC'ers don't generally like to hear that things are impossible. Next step, finding places for all of our guests to crash. Flashback to Halloween in Madtown 2005.

This Carnaval buzz is definitely not conducive to lesson planning...

Life gets a little messy...

... Precarnavals rock my world.

The Nomadpad of BQuilla...

My roommate and I have decided that we should open our own hostel. Since the first of the year, there has not been a single night where we have not had at least one visitor (...usually more like 4 or 5) crashing at our place. The extra beds, couches, and hammocks have proven quite usful and I love always having dinner guests. We are *booked* through the end of February, but always have space for one more. Any one else destined for one of the best CARNAVALS in the world this year?

I've paid my dues....

No need to dread another semester of tediously teaching English grammar to a class of 25 students who would really rather not be there....

Ce semestre je suis prof du francais niveau 6!

WOOOOOHOOOO!

WORLD, HOLD ON

And so the adventure began…

Medellín

Medellín is magical and captivating, cosmopolitan and enthralling. It is hard to believe that a city as amazing as this one has had such a dark past. Paisas boast about their city, but they have earned the bragging rights. Each time that I return to the city of eternal spring, I find it harder to leave. Joana and I arrived Saturday afternoon, at which time we met up with about a dozen other trainees that had gathered from around Colombia to celebrate Christmas, and I did not depart for my next destination until a week later, several days later that I had intended to stay.

The trainee community around Colombia is something that I have treasured over the past several months. AXLDS reunions, groups of @ers working on PBOXs, and numerous LC-organized trainee weekends during ferias have lent themselves to strong bonds forming amongst the trainees across this country. Even though I started off with the intention of “traveling solo”, I found myself surrounded for 4 weeks by amazing people from all over the world who have also become enchanted with the magic of traveling around Colombia. If there is any way to escape the touristy-sight-seeing-travel-guide cliché of traveling, this is it. Having so many friends around you to go out every night is just an added bonus.

The first afternoon of the trip was spent with the Accion Social crew that the Alcance Social PBOX has been working with. We headed up the mountains via the fancy-schmancy MetroCable to some of the poorer barrios where an afternoon event had been organized for hundreds of kids who live in the area. Seeing the smiles on their faces as we finger painted, played twister, sang Christmas carols, covered the ground with sidewalk chalk art, played soccer, ate ice cream, and taught them simple phrases in English for hours was priceless.

The MetroCable is an innovative addition to the already impressive metro system that exists in no other Colombian city and just one of many things that impressed me about the development of Medellín. Only a few years old, the ski-lift style tram has connected two opposite spectrums of a city and has somehow turned the slums into a tourist attraction. What was once a dangerous and hard to reach area high up in the mountains now sports paved, tree-lined sidewalks with street markets selling snacks and artisan crafts. Close by is a huge library that is being built, and posters show plans by the major and city council to continue to construct parks, schools, and a cultural center over the next few years. (Better yet, the current mayor of Medellin who is responsible for all of these amazing plans studied for a time at UW-Madison!! Gotta say it, once again, pretty proud of where I am from and everyone else who comes out of that school). While I was in Medellin, I was in the middle of reading "News of a Kidnapping" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (awful, but fascinating recount of 10 journalists kidnapped in the early 1990's). It was strange to realize that the descriptions of such terrible events that occured a decade and a half ago during the time of Escobar took place in the same city where I now enjoyed sitting in cafes with friends and wandering through various neighborhoods, much the same as when I lived in Paris. I am constantly impressed by Colombia’s potential, now even more so by the genuine effort that this city seems to be making in investing in the people, in the parts of the community that are in the direst need.

I spent Christmas Eve with Diana, one of the closest friends I had made at AXLDS last year, and her family. We spent hours running in and out of different grocery stores, in search of everything needed to cook an amazing feast that evening. We were determined to finish off the meal with a touch of American dessert…absolutely no apple pie could be found, so we eventually settled for a Sara Lee strawberry cheesecake. Following Christmas Eve mass, Diana, her younger sister and I slaved in their dad's kitchen for hours (…there was plenty of Bailey’s and salsa music and fireworks off the balcony over the skyline of the city, so it wasn’t too bad! ) on our amazing dinner that lasted well past midnight. Her family welcomed me in so sincerely that I did not for a moment have a single regret about being “away from home” for the holidays.

I felt at home. There was no white Christmas, but there was also no lack of Christmas spirit in this city. I had heard tales of the Christmas lights in Medellín, which like so many things Antioquian, were claimed to be the ”best in Colombia”. One night, several friends and I headed down to the river to admire the display of lights which was an artwork unlike anything that I have ever seen before. This year’s theme was “Regions of Colombia”; the sidewalks lining the river were packed with people admiring the light sculptures in the shapes of the castle in Cartagena and monuments of Bogotá, all leading up the hill toward Pueblito Paisa. The entire display was beautiful.


Cali, Pance, and Buga

I finally tore myself away from Medellín, but only in time to catch the very end of the Feria de Cali. I joined up with the rest of the group once again for a day of basketball in Pance and a night of impressive professional dance performances in one of the salsa capitals of the world. I ran into Patrycja and Torstan, two of my coworkers from Poland and Germany, randomly for the third time of the trip...at Parque Lleras in Medellin, the bus station in Cali, and now at the concert in Cali. I guess that my fellow foreigners and I really do stick out in a crowd of thousands :)

Every day in Colombia is a reason for a party, and holidays spent with Colombians are one more reason to go all out. For most of my time in the southwest of the country, including my New Years celebration, I opted toward Buga, a small town about an hour north of Cali. Xiomara, a friend who I had met in Madison, had invited me to spend the 31st with her family when she went back home to Colombia to visit over break.

Their finca atop the mountain was packed with relatives and more delicious food and shots of aguardiente than anyone could possibly manage to finish off. A muñeco, something resembling a scarecrow filled with firecrackers, stood in the yard and was set on fire at midnight. The tradition represents leaving behind anything negative from the past year. After this we lit a large hot-air balloon made of tissue paper, which is supposed to carry your wishes for the New Year up to the sky. We may have had a few problems actually getting it off the ground, and each failed attempt landed the balloon in a tree instead of flying over the edge of the mountain as we had hoped, but the idea seemed nice anyway!

I relaxed at the finca for a few more days, spending hours reading in the hammock or playing with Xiomara’s cousins, driving to the other side of the lake for ice cream, and jetskiing in January, which made me happier than anything else.

Zona Cafetera

I had traveled to the far opposite corner of the country, much closer to the border of Ecuador than to the Caribbean. I left Buga for the coffee region of the country as I started the return trip toward the coast. The three states of Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío, which comprise this region, are the smallest and arguably the most beautiful that I have seen anywhere in Colombia in terms of scenery.

I spent time in several locations, but Manizales and Valle de Cocora were by far the highlights of this region. Colombia has more puentes (3 day weekends), ferias, and carnavals that anywhere else I know of...luckily for travelers, many of these fall between December and January.

The Manizales LC sponsered a Feria Trainee Weekend for which they would provide food, accomodation, AND reimburse our travel costs if we participated in their Global Village. Sweeeeet deal. We put together around 15 stands representing various countries, Arthur and I cooked up some Buffalo Wings (relatively mild by Brats standards, but set the Colombians' mouths on fire), and crowds of people came by to enjoy the event. Being located in the middle of a park when several other events related to the feria were taking place was ideal, as we had people lined up outside the tents before we even got started. Better yet, when we closed down the tents for an hour over lunch and again at the end of the day and started to dance @roll calls, the crowds lined up, watching in awe as we busted out to Tunak Tunak and Bailar al Ritmo Vuelto. The day was exhausting, but never to the point that you don't have a little extra energy to dance.

The rest of the weekend included a chiva, a bullfight, and hours of being lazy at Juan Valdez coffeeshop with the other trainees. Originally a way to transport agricultural products from one pueblo to another, chivas are now also used as party buses. Driving through the streets with a folkloric band on board, dancing and drinking and shouting to passersby, the chiva eventually drops rides off at a club or bar to continue the party.

Going to the bullfight was an ... interesting ... experience. I had never seen one before, and it was as gruesome and cruel as I had feared, yet I was glad that I saw it. One of the LC members came with us to explain the in's and out's of what was going on, why the sport is important to Latino culture, and the differences between bullfights in Manizales, Cali, and Bogota. I still cringed at every bull that was slaughtered and I think that our group of foreigners were amongst the few people in the stadium not cheering like crazy at the spectacle.

Valle de Cocora was simply breathtaking and proved once again why Colombia has been called the World's Best Kept Secret. The National Park is characterized by the tallest palm trees in the world and the mountains eventually lead into Parque de los Nevados, which contains the tallest mountain peak in the country. I explored the park, hiking and horseback riding in silence, without seeing a single person for hours on end. I have said it before, but I will say it again...the diversity and natural beauty of Colombia is simply beyond words, and I do not mind for a second that it has not been overrun with tourists.

The last few days of my trip, including Armenia, Salento, and Cocora, were rough as I tried to ignore the nasty food poisoning that I had picked up at Global Village, ironically enough. I finally made it back home to the coast, pumped with antibiotics, to relax with Steve and Tiff, my visitors from Bogota, for a few days. It was good to be home....from the trip of a lifetime.

Let that city take you in, let that city spit you out...come on home

As much as I try to squeeze my eyes shut, put off the inevitable, and savor the moment, the reality is that my wonderful bliss of traveling around Colombia for weeks on end has just about wrapped up. I have come full circle and find myself back in Medellin, the city that more than one person has referred to as my *real* hometown in this country. Sunday morning, I leave for the coast.

I started this adventure about 20 days ago and have managed to make a lifetime of memories that spanned the gap between one year and the next. Thanks to the wonderful trainee network around this country, as well as countless amazing Colombians who have touched my life, this month has by far had the biggest impact on my life thusfar into my traineeship.

Love, tears, music, laughter...From one corner of the country to the opposite, 8 cities and pueblos, countless hours spent in buses and cars...I've had it all.

Half of the time we're gone, but we don't know where...

Two overpriced holiday season no student discount bus tickets to Medellin in my hand and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. My bags are packed and I am almost ready to go. The adventure is about to begin. With a month of vacation ahead of me, the possibilities are endless. Spending an international Christmas in my absolute number one favorite city in this country and leaving the rest up to fate. I like this idea of traveling without a definite destination and just enjoying the ride......

Happy Holidays everyone!

Your laughter's still ringing in my ears...

Dozing in and out on my beach chair in Pto. Colombia, relishing the idea of not returning to UNINORTE for nearly a month, an all too familiar scent caught my attention. The sweet subtle mixture of smoke and apple. I whipped around and quickly spotted it behind us. Time to go make some friends.

"Donde compraste esto? Me gusta mucho, pero nunca he visto aca en Colombia."
"Hay un restaurante arabe, aqui en Barranquilla."
"Que sabor tienes? Manzana?"
"Si."
"Podemos fumar con uds?"
"Claro."

Thus began the afternoon of shisha on the beach. They laughed when I told them they weren't packing it right and asked with doubting expressions if I knew how to do it better. They were impressed with the Madtown shisha knowledge. The barn would have been proud.

Santa Marta y mucho mas....

A few days ago, as we were all hanging out at Melissa's making pancakes for Saturday brunch, Elena (trainee from Italy) and I realized that we were amongst the few who were left in Barranquila before most of the crew started to disperse that day to Chile, Germany, Costa Rica, Peru and other destinations for break. What to do, what to do....go out of town, of course! My tan is starting to fade - a trip to the beach was in order.

An hour later, two phone calls had been made - one to a trainee in Santa Marta and another to the MarSol transportation company on the coast, we had thrown a couple swimsuits in our bags and were on our way. The usual one and a half hour ride to Santa Marta took about double that amount of time, for who knows what reason, but we finally made it to the smallest of the three main cities along the Caribbean coast. The city of Santa Marta is bordered by the pueblos of El Rodedero and Taganga, a resort town and a fishing village respectively, all three of which have the awesome beaches that are lacking from the port city of Barranquilla.

Elena and I met up with Julie, a trainee from Belgium, and a few of her Colombian friends for the last few hours of sunlight and swimming in Taganga. We devoured delicious homemade pizzas on the beach and laughed at the Christmas lights that were strung up everywhere. I am often frustrated to find that regardless of the mix of extranjeros and Colombians, the limited knowledge of many foreigner's Spanish makes English the common language even though we are in South America. For once we spent two days speaking almost entirely in Spanish. sweet. I badly need the practice. While geographically close, everything about Santa Marta is a world of difference and it's nice to shake things up a bit.
Just beyond Santa Marta, there are countless beaches along the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada mountains that eventually blend into Tayrona National Park. We woke up early the next day, determined to find the infamous Playa Cristal, whose claim to fame was sand as white and smooth and water as clear as the San Andres and Provedencia islands. Getting there was an adventure since everyone that we talked to had a different idea about where exactly it was or how to get there. In the end we had taken no less than 5 means of transportation .... city bus, on foot, hitchhiked on the back of a truck filled with bricks into the entrance of the park, walked some more, negotiated a cab ride through the winding bluffs that reminded me of Wisconsin Dells (duck ride, anyone?), and once we had gotten to the sea, hopped into a motor boat in order to reach our destination.
I love the beaches of Arecife, la Piscina, y el Cabo at Tayrona. They are natural and preserved, unspoiled by tourists, vendors, or cruises docking along the shore. While many Colombians know Tayrona, each time that I am there, I feel as if I have discovered something beautiful and exotic that very few people even know exist.

After this weekend, these beaches could not even compare to Playa Cristal. The mountains had hidden away a beach that we found almost impossible to reach. The last leg of the journey is impossible to reach on foot. There are no maps or road signs to these kinds of destinations, only a whisper from those who have seen them and pass the secret on to a few other lucky people. The tropical fish circling around us gave the sense of being in an aquarium and even without goggles, it was possible to see straight down to the floor of the sea, some 10, 15 m. below us.

sigh. relaxed. content. sunkissed. I may not have snow for Christmas, but this is a perfectly acceptable substitute :)

Optimist to a fault?

Since I first came to Colombia for AXLDS, I have been astounded by the warm welcome that I have felt here. The culture, the music, the dancing, the people and their tendency to disfrutar la vida, have been unlike anything else I've experienced before, anywhere. Something inside of me became eager to defend a country that wasn't even my own, to say, yes, I feel safe here! no, the media isn't always right! there is so much more to the story than just the stereotypes! I have spent the past 5 months seeing as much as I could of the country, listening to the stories of how proud Colombians are of their country, and trying to translate that to people back home. Whether through pictures or dialogue or my blog, I have tried to convey a sense of the magic that I have discovered in Colombia.

As I had expected, traveling back to the States a couple weeks ago was quite a test of how well I was able to communicate my experiences with others, many of whom had never given a second thought to the "drug and kidnapping country of the world". I was genuinely happy by how many people were interested to hear what I had to say. At the same time, I learned what to expect as I was posed the same questions over and over and often felt as if I was having the same conversation over and over. I found myself instinctively sizing up my audience, and trying to determine what kind of prior biases they likely had when shaping the way in which I told my story. I wanted so badly for people to see the good in Colombia and to possibly change their opinions, even if only the slightest amount that I wonder if I too fell into the same trap of only presenting one side of the story. I brushed over the sure, there still are a lot of problems that will take a long time to resolve and quickly switched gears to focus on the but really! the situation, political security, violence, whatever you want to call it has improved so much! things in Colombia are so much better than they were even 5 years ago before Uribe was elected! With most people I spent so much time focusing on how beautiful and diverse the country was, the music, the festivals, the beaches…

Why was it that I felt it wasn’t my place to tell the horrific side of the story that does still exist in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Colombians? The conflict is complex and horrible, and I still only understand the surface of the history. If I live here, and I can’t even understand it, how do I attempt to explain that to others who don’t have the slightest idea of the context? I could never in my lifetime imagine what it has really been like to live through something of that magnitude. Was it that I knew it is easier for people to accept the negative, to resign themselves to the idea that there is no hope, only violence and poverty than to challenge what they had previously held as a truth? I have countless stories to tell, a lifetime of experience gained in less than a semester, yet not a single word that adequately describes such a complex culture.

Sure, there are things that I hate about Colombia. Yes, that is strong, but it is true. There are dark sides to every culture. I hate how machista the society is, how unequal relations between men and women are and the lack of respect in these relationships. But I still feel uncomfortable, as an outsider, a foreigner, someone who still does not, and never possibly could come to understand the culture as someone who is born into it. I understand that I will never completely understand, so I tell myself that it is better not to judge. I hate when others make generalizations and assumptions about my country and my culture, and I do not want to come off as the ignorant, arrogant American who has come to do the same thing in their country.

I feel as if at times I try to hard to see the good that I become to hopeless optimist who fails to see the sides of the reality that I don’t want to see. Students at the university often make comments about how you don’t have any need/business to go to that part of the city or talk to those people. And by you, they mean anyone who is foreign enough or wealthy enough to be working or studying at the university. From the first time I heard these comments, they have bothered me. The society is so unbelievably divided, in such a literal sense that I could draw a line between the North and the South sides of the city and tell you where the wealth is and where it is not. I have never before experienced the lack of a middle class and the prejudices and divisions that go with it. But in a sense, the students are right. It’s easy to ignore the other side of the story. Colombians live as if everyday is New Year's Eve. I go to my job everyday at the nice private university, in my nice air-conditioned office, and eat sushi in our cafeteria. My friends and I hang out at the pool of the fanciest hotel in town where we have “memberships” just because we are gringo teachers. Note – not all teachers have access, only the foreigners. I get off the bus each day in one of the nicest, safest neighborhoods in Barranquilla and go home to my tall rise apartment building with a top story view over the city, while the rest of the crowded bus heads down to the not so nice South side of town.

Do I simply try to see the good in things because that’s how I wish that the world was, or deep down am I as cynical as everyone else? I know that things aren’t great. Far from it. My students always ask me why the rest of the world has such a negative view of Colombia, and the most simple answer that I can ever come up with for them to understand is that when people do not know about a place, all that they have to go on is what they are fed by the media and other sources, so they don’t hear the positive sides of the story. About Colombia or anywhere else. The media may show only negative stories, but I feel like I need to keep reminding myself that this is the reality too. And it is scary as hell. It’s so easy for the foreigners to look the other way and just enjoy the posh clubs, gorgeous beaches, and friendly people. Am I in any position to tell the story as I see it if I don’t know the reality? Don’t sugar coat the reality…but what is the reality anyway? This was a weird entry…too many thoughts…

¿Por que Colombia?

If you want to see the Caribbean, go to Cuba or Dominican Republic

If you want to see the Pacific Ocean, go to Chile

If you want to see The Andes, go to Ecuador

If you want to see The Amazon, go to Brasil

If you want to see the pre-columbian cultures, go to Mexico or Peru

BUT if you want to see all these things together, your destination is definitely COLOMBIA

Would you light my candle?

If you believe that there are 12 days of Christmas or 4 days of Carnaval, you are wrong. Perhaps that is harsh, but it’s the truth. Both of those celebrations started two days ago with Las Velitas.

I returned from Bogotá about a week ago and since I have been back, I had heard mentions of Las Velitas everywhere I went. Colombia is traditionally a very religious country, so it made sense that we had off of work on Friday for the Catholic holiday of the Immaculate Conception. Knowing Colombia culture, it also made sense that religious holiday or not, this was just one more chance to rumbiar y disfrutar de la vida. I got butterflies in my stomach as I was walking home from the gym Thursday evening and crossed the courtyard in front of the church next to our apartment complex. From blocks away I had heard the carnaval drums and flutes. As I got closer, I saw the crowds of people already gathered, singing and dancing, watching the performers, energy running through all of them. From the view out our 8th story apartment, Alex, Sarah, and I enjoyed the view of the dozens of dancers, dressed in extravagant, brightly colored costumes, dancing to Shakira…yes, just like the dancers in the music video. Carnaval had started. Later on, salsa, samba, and cumbia versions of Christmas carols began and entertained us as we were getting ready to go out. There may not be snow, but Christmas time is also here.

We partied long into the night, dancing at Rico Melao until we could barely stand, and then dancing some more. It is impossible to sit still for more than a moment without getting caught up in the music. Around 4am, people started to leave the bars and we drove over to Compadres for some greasy (delicious) empanadas. The most traditional aspect of the Las Velitas festival is that after you have partied all night, you light candles at sunrise. In true Barranquilla fashion, just about anything can be bought on the street, so as we drove out of town, we pulled over to a corner and bought a dozen lanterns and several boxes of sparklers from one of the street vendors. Alex and I were starting to get sleepy and dozed off in the car a few times as Ricardo drove us out of Barranquilla. It was almost 5am, but we would make it in time.

Just passed Puerto Colombia, we arrived to our destination: the beach. We drove right up onto the sand and with the sound of the waves crashing behind us, we lined the candles up on the beach, placed the lanterns over them, and lit the sparklers, just as if it were the 4th of July. We danced on the beach to the music streaming from the speakers in the trunk of the car and stood at the edge of the water, in awe of everything around us. The icy cold water splashed my legs, sent shivers up my spine and goosebumps down my skin, but in Barranquilla, we never complain when it’s cold because it is something that happens so rarely. I watched the ocean for what seemed like hours. Colombia is full of mystery that demands no explanation and beauty that is far beyond words.

The sun eventually came up, though it was too foggy to have really seen the sunrise over the mountains. Behind us, and down the beach as far as I could see, were huts with thatched roofs. People started to emerge, simultaneously eating breakfast and raking the sand smooth. A few nodded and said Buenos días to us, the strange combination of two Colombian guys and two gringo girls now kicking around sand, splashing in the water, and laughing as the guys tried in vain to teach us capoeira.

I was home by 8am and spent most of the day asleep in my hammock. With each day that I spend in Colombia, I am more and more convinced that it is possible to laugh more, to love more, to dance more, and to live more here in a day that some people do in an entire lifetime…

break it down for me, tell me how you see it...

One of the shortest but funniest conversations that I had while I was back in the States was with an old high school friend who I hadn't seen in years but ran into while grabbing coffee at Starbucks back in the WB...

Tom: So, you graduated, right? What have you been up to?

Me: I am actually working down in Colombia right now, teaching English and French at a university there.

Tom: Are you serious?! That's awesome. Ok, so I will be the first to admit it, most Americans don't know shit about a place like Colombia. But you're living there, you know what it's really like, so tell me the truth....are the stereotypes true?

(pause...as I was waiting for the ever so common drug related questions that I had been posed so many times...)

Do the guys all walk around dressed like that Juan Valdez coffee guy and ride donkeys??

Me: (once I stopped laughing) No, no they don't.

Tom: Dammit. That would have been pretty sweet.

Me: But we do have guys that ride up and down our street every morning in donkey-drawn carts selling fresh avacado and yelling "AGUACATE!!"

Tom: Awesome.