Weeks 8, 9, and 10: more Bogotá, awesome side trips, and Stage 3
Life on the road is taking on its own form of normalcy as we head into our sixth week (of ten) in Colombia’s largest city. Jake has kept busy with meetings around town, remotely leading his team in Williamsburg, and occasional runs up the local mountain. Rachel is holding down her own remote-job, doing some writing, and brushing up on her counseling knowledge. Both are enjoying salsa classes a few times a week and not enjoying as much the daily Spanish-learning grind.
‘Normal’ life has been diverted a few times recently with some thought provoking side trips and adventures which I’ll share briefly here.
Week 8: Ciudad Bolivar
A few weeks back, Lily invited us to join her as volunteers at a VBS in Ciudad Bolivar one of Bogotá’s roughest neighborhoods. The school was actually a former Compassion International project before funding was pulled a few years back. I can’t comment on the validity of the reason for the funding withdrawal. However, it was certainly compelling to consider the impact on 1,000+ kids when, inexplicably to them, the American company which funded their education yesterday, won’t tomorrow.
A supportive and engaged community has rallied to keep the school’s doors open, but they are undeniably struggling.
That thought aside, it was a beautiful, crazy, chaotic experience hanging out with these kids. There was a certain wildness you don’t usually see en masse at middle-class US youth events. But, that’s to be expected. These little guys are growing up in poverty and instability and violence and you could see it in the way they interacted — a bit more fighting, a bit less compliant and obedient, a bit more mischievous, searching for boundaries which they’ve never consistently found in their young lives.
However, at the end of the day, they were kids: playful, energetic, resilient. They sat through the object lesson because they knew — if they were good — they could eat the marshmallow and gramcracker which somehow resembled Jesus and our lives respectively. They watched the English-language Bible-story, but were mainly captivated by the silly cartoon, saying who knows what. They more or less behaved and complied and repeated memory verses, when told, but most visibly enjoyed and engaged during the 30-minute session where they got to play soccer and jump rope outside.
Essentially, they were kids. Real, wild, fun, resilient kids who had been through alot, but still pretty much acted like kids. It was beautiful. And tiring.
Week 9: La Guajira
A few days later, we boarded a plane and headed out to La Guajira, South America’s remote, northern-most desert peninsula. We were there for Jake’s work to observe some refugee programs in dusty Maicao and the chaotic border crossing with Venezuela at nearby Paraguachon.
For those not aware, there is a major humanitarian crisis in Venezuela resulting from hyper-inflation and lack of food amongst other things. The government of Venezuela officially denies there is a problem, but the people are ‘voting with their feet’ literally pouring over the borders in an effort to get out.
We spent one morning with the Norwegian Refugee Council listening to recently arrived refugees tell of their journey, the reasons for their departure, and the difficulties faced in their new home.
Many of these new challenges result from their unregistered status in Colombia. Without official documentation of their entry and registered refugee status, it is very difficult for Venezuelans to gain access to the humanitarian services offered by the Colombian government and supporting humanitarian groups.
Typically, when we hear about unregistered immigrants in the states, we think about clandestine border crossings, overstayed visas, families separated in internment camps, etc. No such dramatics are needed here.
Colombians are no strangers to being forced to flee their homes into neighboring countries and the Colombian government has admirably opened its doors to the incoming Venezuelans. However, many of these folks don’t even own a passport (obtaining one in Venezuela is very difficult and expensive).
Moreover, the border crossing at Paraguachon (one of the three major ones between Colombia and Venezuela) is entirely unguarded and unmonitored. We know because when we went to take a look, we walked straight through into Venezuela without even realizing it (Rachel realized it). Yes, Jake exchanged money for some worthless Venezuelan currency as proof.
After our time at the border was finished, we stayed in Guajira a few more days to explore the desert. There was some beauty, but for the most part, it was a fairly sad, thought provoking time — both due to lingering thoughts of the refugees entering this desolate desert from Venezuela a few miles to the east and the dire situation of the people indigenous to the area. Rachel artfully encapsulated our thoughts on the region here.
Week 10: Medellin and Guatape
After a short week recovering back in Bogotá, we headed to Medellín to celebrate our anniversary. 1999’s murder capital of the world may not come to mind as an ideal, romantic getaway, but this is a city on the rise. We’ve been to very few cities which could match Medellin’s natural beauty, varied and tasty cuisine, lovely people, and sheer excitement to see tourists.
We took a (highly recommended) free walking tour, ate delicious pizza, rode all over town on one of South America’s few metros, and took a cable car out to a beautiful park high above the city.
It was encouraging and beautiful to experience this city and its lovely Paisa people who were so so excited to see tourists finally returning to their city after many years of tragedy and violence.
It was also somewhat concerning to see the onslaught of what Jake has started calling ‘tripadvisor inequality.’ Essentially, he is bothered by the phenomenon whereby nice places that cater to western, hipster tastes and style become hugely successful on the basis of online reviews from tourists with money. Other, more local places, struggle and fail right next door. Its partially just survival of the fittest in a market economy, but with an extra mean streak of ‘Western’ culture dominating the local.
The trend offers a paradox. On one hand, tourists (and their money) are lured to the city in the promise that they’ll find a little taste of home in an exotic locale — good for local people, but says something kind of weird about the tourists. Less good for the local folk is that this tripadvisor economy trend incentivizes abandonment of their unique, authentic culture in pursuit of instagram friendly facades serving globalized cuisine — rendering Medellin hotspots indistinguishable in many ways from those in San Fran, Portland, Amsterdam, Chiang Mai, etc. Those who refuse to play the ‘mono-culture’ game are left behind.
Small rant aside, Medellin was a blast. Yes, we indulged in the tripadvisor economy, but not without some hearty discussion. After a few days in the city, we headed out to the colorful, tranquil, remarkably beautiful, lake town of Guatape and its adorably competent local tourist industry (mostly supported by Colombian weekenders). On our anniversary, we: climbed the 740 steps of this super odd, Dr. Seuss-esque rock structure with a phenomenal view; had some terrific coffee, breakfast, and bandeja paisa; shopped in a lovely market; cruised up and down gorgeous mountain passes on a motorcycle; and finagled our way on public transport back to the airport for our return trip to Bogotá. It was a delightful and exhausting celebration of our sixth year in committed love.
In sum, anyone visiting South America should put Medellin and Guatape at the very top of their list. With $400 direct flights from the states, the remarkable beauty, fascinating history, and (relative) preservation from over-tourism, it is hard to justify missing out on these destinations if you have any interest in this part of the world — or just legit cool places in general.
Week 10 and beyond: Daily life, Stage 3, and needless complaints
As we near the three month mark abroad, we both are decidedly hitting emotional Stage 3 regarding life in Latin America. We find the frustration comes in waves, but have enjoyed calling each other out when the rage hits.
The taunting, unobtainable heights of linguistic fluency — and what that word ‘fluency’ really means — has certainly sped things along. More even than the difficulty of language learning itself is the surprising difficulty we’ve encountered finding time to practice. If work or travels or whatever get in the way of our study routine, even for a few days, we can feel ourselves regressing. And what could be more frustrating than getting worse at Spanish while living in a Spanish-speaking country?
I’ll tell you what is worse: waiting for things.
Ultimately it is the slowness, the difference between our American expectations of how long things should take and the norms here that breaks us down. With Jake, this most often occurs at restaurants. Somewhere between the 30 and 50 minute mark of waiting for food, he starts looking around expectantly and theorizing about when it might be appropriate to ‘cut our losses’ and grab some Ecoli-infested street food instead.
Rachel on the other hand, is most deeply disturbed by the length of time a line or ‘queue’ as the Brits say, takes to process. “Oh, three people with 5 items each checking out at the grocery store? Why shouldn’t that take 45 minutes…every time?” Not a joke.
Aside from having our confidence in language learning dashed and our patience tested to (and past) its very limits on a daily basis…we are actually having a pretty good time. Colombia is a fascinating, complex, unbelievably diverse, and beautiful country. In the end, I’m pretty sure its going to win us over.
Ok, fine. It already has.
