Tales From a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia

Monday, June 25, 2012

It's All About the Finger Strength

When considering the public transit system, I think Forrest Gump put it best: It's "like a box of chocolates, SOMETHING JUST JUMPED UP AND BIT ME." With that said, I believe I had the most...fulfilling bus ride the other night. I was waiting for a bus sometime in the early evening. It had been thunder-storming all day, but at the moment it was only drizzling. I saw my bus approaching and hailed it down. All I could see was a congealed mass if Colombians on the front step. But the bus had stopped, so the driver expected me to hop on. I wasn't about the let the guy down, so I clung on to what available hand bar and foot space was available and away we went. Needless to say, it was a tight squeeze. There was quite a bit of hardcore spooning going on. It was getting more intimate than I'd care to admit, but maybe it was just me. I'm not a smoker, but I felt like I needed a cigarette after that. Anyway, the ride itself was memorable in many different ways. The roads on the way to my neighborhood are in poor condition, so I had to employ my vulcan death grip to ensure I didn't get thrown from the bus as it swerved to avoid massive pot holes, oncoming traffic, stray dogs, hostile donkey carts, etc. The great part about dangling from the edge of this speeding bus was the fact that I could take in this majestic storm front. Because of the heat and humidity here, when it storms, there is constant thunder and lightning. So here I was, using all my finger strength to clutch my vicarious hold on the bus, lightning perpetually lighting up the entire night sky, soft rain gently spritzing my face, a giant blue strobe light placed by the door flustering my senses and possibly causing some slight astigmatism, and giant speakers playing inaudibly loud music at every turn. Total sensory overload. I was taking it all in when I noticed we were going to skim a roadside mango tree. Luckily, I was able to pull myself together and duck before a branch could have laid me out. Toward the end of the ride, the bus emptied out, but I remained on the step because this experience was too good to give up.

This morning, I awoke in a lake of sweat, as opposed to the wading pool of sweat I have grown used to. I noticed that my fan wasn't going, which could only mean that the power was out. Now, there are pros and cons of "the light leaving," as they say here. Although the outage leaves me without my beloved, cherished fan to pleasure me with its glorious blows, the neighborhood is much quieter due to all the speakers being nullified. I took this opportunity to read in the hammock in the back patio. Shortly thereafter, I heard someone playing loud music nearby. I checked again and the power was still out. I figured they must have a battery powered stereo or a generator dedicated to ensuring that the party never stops. I tuned it out, as I have become increasingly better at, and continued reading. Then, in Colombia's seemingly constant one-upmanship, a Cumbia band started up a couple of doors down. I had to say that I did not expect to my neighborhood play that card so far in the year from Canaval, in which the majority of Cumbia is played. Touche. I have to say, in that scenario I felt similar to the man from the classic Twilight Zone episode where he is the last man on Earth and he is left to his books with all time in the world, but his glasses fall and break. THAT'S NOT FAIR!! THAT'S NOT FAIR AT ALL!!


Thursday, June 14, 2012

Where is My Mind? or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chaos

This is another piece I did for the Peace Corps Colombia newsletter.




I am not a particularly verbal person, which means that here on the Coast, nobody ever listens to me. Ever. So I am usually left with only my thoughts throughout the day. Here are some of them:

  • What is that banging outside the window that has just woken me up at 5 am? Oh it's just my host mom cleaning off the bars on my window by hitting them with a rag. OK then, back to sleep.
  • Good morning, Mr. Butcher Man. What a great day to be cutting meat on a stump of wood. Mmmm, smells great. I'll see you tonight for dinner, random cut of meat sitting out all day.
  • Come on, school doorman. I've been out here knocking for five minutes. What could you be doing right now? Your job is to open the door for people, not too hard, right? Please open the door; it's so hot out here. It should be a crime to be this sweaty before 7 am.
  • I'm just going to wait outside this classroom until my co-teacher shows up. What's that, little student? You're inviting me inside? Do you hear the noises coming from inside the classroom that sound like animals fighting over a carcass? No thanks, I'm good out here.
  • Ah, finally my co-teacher shows up. Now I can go in the classroom. Let me just take a seat at the desk and- hey, wait, where did you go? You were just here. Got me with the old Bait and Switch again. Clever girl.
  • Oh textbook, how I loathe thee. We are required to follow you, but you teach these children words like wakeboarding, minestrone, croquet, and Personal Digital Assistant before they are able to conjugate in the simple present. Really? They stopped making PDAs over ten years ago.
  • You want me to do what activity with the kids? No, that's a stupid idea...but since you never told me what we were going to teach today and I have nothing prepared, I guess I'll have to go along with your pointless activity. You win this round.
  • Man, that kid is really going to town picking his nose. He's about two knuckles deep and he couldn't care less that other people are watching. Atta boy. You go on with your bad self. Your kind of gross bad self.
  • All right teachers, it's time for our planning session. I don't know when you all decided that this would start off as a game of hide and seek, but you guys are good at hiding. Getting all the teachers in the same room at the same time is like herding cats, and I only have two co-teachers.

But despite all this, I am finding the balance between things I can change and things that I just have to go along with. And it's important to find this balance, or else you'll start to lose and mind and before you know it, you'll be nailing pancakes to the wall. It's happened before.