Kill the Vegetarian (A Sort of Part Two)

This week's a bit of a continuation of last week's entry and about something I've been thinking about for some time, but have been a bit hesitant to bring up more than a handful of times, normally after some beer and guaro. But today, I'm coming clean.

There's no easy way to say this, Internet, so I'm just going to blurt it out: I'm questioning my vegetarianism. For those of you who don't know, I've been vegetarian for over twelve years. The original impulse was something natural, of feeling that something wasn't right, and over time, I explored that impulse to see what was under it and now have a whole range of reasons ranging from animal rights to world famine to personal health and environmental conversation. Even still, I've never advocated vegetarianism as a one size fits all lifestyle, especially for people with other dietary restrictions or for whom it would otherwise be legitimately unhealthy.

I was vegetarian through my whole time in Spain, despite the instance of many a Spaniard that it wasn't healthy or that "ham isn't meat." (Yeah, okay...) And here in Colombia, I've continued to not eat meat, but some things are throwing a bit of doubt into the mix... For example, last Friday, my department at the university had a big lunch with everyone as an end of the semester celebration, and while some professors were nice enough to talk to the waiter and try to get things sorted out, there was a course or two that I simply had to just skip. While I wasn't very bothered by this—it is my choice not to eat what they want to give me at a meal I'm not paying for—the stares I got were a bit unnerving. They all seemed to say, "Why isn't he eating? What's wrong with him?" I worry that it even comes off a bit snobbish or quasi-anorexic, which is bad when you're trying desperately to integrate into a culture. On one hand, it's like "Man up, Adam! You have principles, and you're standing by them! Who cares what they think?" But it's not just what they think that I care about so much. It's how much I'm missing out on. Food is such a big part of nation's culture, and I'm unable to partake in about eighty percent of it. The question is whether this is worth the life of another animal. Or, perhaps more to the point, what is worth the life of another animal?

Not to mention whether I could actually put that in my mouth.

I'm also a bit nervous about my health. Up till now, my health has not only been sufficient but thriving. There was some time in Spain where that wasn't true, but my dietary knowledge wasn't as good and there's always a general learning curve to locating good vegetarian food in any new place. Yet here in Colombia, it's different. While there are more vegetarians than in Spain, there is not more vegetarian food, especially vegetarian food at an affordable price. I've lost about sixteen pounds since I've moved here. Most of it seems to have been fat, so it's fine for now, but what am I going to do when I want to stop losing weight (which is soon)? It's a struggle to get in the recommended amount of protein for someone who lifts weights without too much fat or carbohydrates along the way. This leaves very few options for food throughout the day, and a diet without variety isn't normally a very good idea. (I should mention that it's higher than what's needed for the average, sedentary person. Most of you eat way more protein than you need.) I've also been sleeping a lot lately, which was the first sign back in Spain that something was not right about my diet, but this could have something to do with the 4:30 am wake up time for those 6 am French classes. Thank goodness I had my last one on Friday.

But the problem of my health is a legitimate one, and at what point has it affected me enough that I should switch? Is it when I can't support more muscle growth and therefore my health, while no longer equal to a meat eater's, is still sufficient to be "okay"? Is it when I sleep too much and lack energy? Is it when a basic metabolic panel comes back lacking in vitamin B or iron? Where is the line? I'm going to make an appointment with a doctor in January to start investigating once I'm back from Christmas break traveling. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to tell me how to run my life and what to eat, now's your free pass to speak your mind. I know some of you are absolutely dying to.

But for this limited time offer..... YOU CAN BE!

Kill yourself.

I've recently come to a realization on my journey to adapt to Colombian culture: I need to kill myself. No, no, no. I don't mean commit physical suicide but instead to commit suicide of the ego. Yeah, I know, so obvious, right? But it's one thing to understand this in words, as an intellectual concept, and another to know it by experiencing it. It’s like how I can tell you that in the vacuum of space no one can hear you scream and you get the idea, but you don't really get it until you're there, in a space suit, faced with an unspeakable horror that’s hungry for some hoomunn in its tum-tum.

Where is the tum-tum on this thing exactly?

Since the madness that was studying for the TCF has stopped, I've slowly been working back into a steady meditation schedule. I knew since I arrived that this was something I had to make time for more than ever, and at first, I did. But as life often gets in the way of life, it fell by the wayside in between the traveling, the four hours a day studying French, and the time consuming efforts of simply being a stranger in a strange land. But now that I've taken that test (and did better than I ever expected!), I'm free, and it’s time for it to become a priority again.

Meditation has always helped keep my mind in order. I have a tendency to overpower myself with my own thoughts: I create arguments in my head, relive memories (both pleasant and unpleasant), and can even sometimes experience psychosomatic pain if I imagine a potential injury too vividly. In short, my imagination is hardcore powerful, yo.

Unspeakable horrors await you in that darkened and forlorn place ...

This has its upsides. A powerful imagination leads itself to creativity and innovation, to storytelling and theatrics, to solutions for problems in life. The downside is that sometimes it can have a life of its own. When I started meditating, it became easier to see thoughts for what they are: They are to the brain as beats are to the heart. They have only as much substance as I give them, and their illusions are broken once you see what’s underneath them.

So what does this all have to do with overcoming culture shock? Well, since I’ve been meditating more, I’ve started to see through some of these recurring thoughts patterns. I’ve realized that a lot of these thoughts come from a place of, dare I say, entitlement. For example, when I’m walking down the street, and a group of people are coming the other way, I expect them to move to one half of the sidewalk so I can pass. This would be considered the well-mannered thing to do in the US. For the record, I think it’s considered the well-mannered thing to do here too, but the social pressure to do it seems a lot less. This desire and my subsequent anger or annoyance (whose severity depending on the day, weather, and whether the other person was cute or not) comes from a place of expecting them to do it, as if it were somehow unequivocally written into the fabric of the universe that people should move to let others pass. But there’s nothing there. There’s nothing that says that people have to or even should move for me. What objective means is there to say that they should move rather than I should wait? It’s nice that people do it, but no one says that they must. (Alternatively, no one says that you must take that exact path every day either.) How are these things decided other than by cultural norms, which ultimately are just patterns that emerged over time? The pattern to move out of the way when someone comes toward you showed a strong winning in the United States. In Colombia, not so much. And that simple is how the arepa de choclo crumbles

.

I’m doing my best to start to see things this way, to realize that what’s conscientious and mannerly to me has little to do with any sort of logic and all to do with the commonly accepted patterns of behavior in the United States. This is an imperfect process. I’m still not there. I still feel a very vivid mix of frustration, anger, and disillusionment when Colombians cancel plans an hour before we’re supposed to meet, show up an hour or two late without phoning or even just don’t show up at all. And believe me, I’d like to. This is probably the single biggest barrier to my making friends here because for me, the disrespect I see this as is nearly intolerable. But here, it’s not disrespectful; it’s normal. It’s how life works. And my choices are to poison myself with anger or take up the opportunity to cut through another layer of ego as I search for my original face.

The Most Magical Place in Colombia

Colombia is the country with the second most holidays in the world (after Argentina), which means at least once a month, sometimes twice, you get a day off. Additionally, these days almost always fall on Fridays or Mondays, so it's always a long weekend. When they don't, they, depending on where you work, often form a puente, which means bridge, as in we're just going to be build a little bridge of days off into the weekend because we have our priorities straight. This happened when I went to school in Spain as well, and I really think the US should get on this train as soon as possible. But with such consumerist phenomena as Black Friday, I'm not sure that's going to happen anytime soon.

Just cross this magical bridge to the weekend!

As you may have picked up from my past complaints, I'm a bit jaded toward Colombia. For all my complaining, I don't hate it. It has some really nice qualities, but I don't really buy into the magic that I think some of my cohorts do. There's frustrations, culture shock, annoyances, mistreatment, and other unpleasant things, and I keep it all in perspective. Complaining about it is a means for me to get it off my chest, to get past the stage of anger and move on to a place where I can start making peace with the reality of the situation. I don't feel any need to sell you on what a wonderful adventure this all is and how great every moment is supposed to be (according to... someone...); I'd much rather include you in on what's happening, of how difficult it can be adapt sometimes and how effortlessly it happens others. In short, I need to be real with you in order to be truthful to myself. After all, worthwhile adventures are often quite difficult, prone to moments of despair, and not always smiles and cholados. Meanwhile, mmmm cholados. More good Colombian food.

In any case, when I took advantage of this past long weekend to visit a city I had heard a lot about as being a magical, relaxing place called Villa de Leyva, I naturally was probably not the most receptive critic, but with Villa de Leyva, I absolutely fell in love! It's the first place I've been to in Colombia that I was just absolutely enthralled by. Villa de Leyva is not, on paper, a very impressive city. It's small, centered most around a main square, and there's little to see or do once you get a few blocks away from said square. But the scenery, the misty mountains, the colonial architecture, the bungalow style hostel I stayed in, the relaxed atmosphere and the extreme friendly, small-town people, were overwhelmingly delightful.

While I was there, I didn't do much. I met two girls in the hostel who were very friendly, Kati from Germany and Lauren from Texas, and a guy from Bogota and his friend who were in town for a film festival. I ended up seeing one film in the festival, Tierra en la lengua, which was good but very, um, independent. The grandfather protagonist, Don Silvio, however, is very interesting, alternating between comical and disgusting, and the changes in his character as his body betrays him are interesting to watch develop. The ending is sudden but fitting.

I also visited some small museums. My two favorite were one that was based around Antoni Nariño, known for translating The Declaration of the Rights of Man among other political and military feats, and the other was an art museum, where I played one of my favorite games in which I use pictures to free write short stories. Here's the one I liked the most of the two or three I wrote, which at the end, without my intending to, seemed to reflect the changes in the way children view their parents as they grow up.

Click to see a large view.

Beyond the festival and museums, I mostly sat in bars, enjoying the atmosphere, reading more of Cien años de soledad. But it was there that I met friendly, interesting people. One was a table of two older ladies who offered to buy me a coffee after I finished a meal, but I declined, and the other was two Colombian women who had come in from Bogota and wanted to know what I was reading with such interest. We talked for a while, and then I finished my canelazo (something like a Colombian hot toddy), and I went on my way. I hiked in the mountains, pausing in a moment of complete hipsterdom to practice my katakana among the trees. In short, I did nothing of any real consequence, and that's exactly what I wanted.

Throughout my time there, I kept thinking it would be the perfect place for a honeymoon or at least the start of one, and I dreamed of having the money to start a business, probably a small store that required little attention, while I stayed in that town, retreating from the world, translating some good literature and occasionally writing a little something of my own. It wouldn't be a bad life at all.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Hey, everyone. I decided to do something different this week. I finished a long translation project that got pretty grueling to do toward the end, and to partly celebrate and to partly remind myself what I like about translation (you know, so I keep doing it), I decided to translate a poem I've wanted to translate for a long time... Sólo por ganas.
It's a poem by San Juan de la Cruz, a mystic Catholic. Though I'm not really Catholic or Christian at all, I've alwayd found this poem touching. I translated it preserving some of the rhyming and keeping to a 5a,8b,5c,5d,8b scheme with a nice rhythm.

Actually, I made one error that I only noticed after I had recorded, so you better bet I'm going to just leave it to the intrepid reader to find rather than rerecord this shit.

No.

For how little time I had, I'm pretty happy with the results. I recorded an audio clip of me reading it if you'd like to hear the rhythm out loud.

La noche oscura del alma De San Juan de la Cruz   Canciones del alma que se goza de haber llegado al alto estado de la perfección, que es la unión con Dios, por el camino de la negación espiritual.	The Dark Night of the Soul By San Juan de la Cruz Translated by Adam Wier Songs of a soul joyful for having reached the highest level of perfection, union with God, through spiritual negation
En una noche escura con ansias en amores inflamada, ¡oh dichosa ventura!, salí sin ser notada estando ya mi casa sosegada. A escuras y segura por la secreta escala, disfrazada, ¡oh dichosa ventura!, a escuras y en celada, estando ya mi casa sosegada. En la noche dichosa, en secreto que nadie me veía ni yo miraba cosa sin otra luz y guía sino la que en el corazón ardía. Aquesta me guiaba más cierto que la luz de mediodía adonde me esperaba quien yo bien me sabía en parte donde nadie parecía. ¡Oh noche, que guiaste! ¡Oh noche amable más que el alborada! ¡Oh noche que juntaste Amado con amada, amada en el Amado transformada! En mi pecho florido, que entero para él solo se guardaba allí quedó dormido y yo le regalaba y el ventalle de cedros aire daba. El aire del almena cuando yo sus cabellos esparcía, con su mano serena en mi cuello hería y todos mis sentidos suspendía. Quedéme y olvidéme; el rostro recliné sobre el Amado; cesó todo, y dejéme dejando mi cuidado entre las azucenas olvidado.	On the darkest night With amorous longing inflamed, (O blessed fortune!) I left unnoticed, My house now having been tamed. Darkly yet safely, Slipped down the ladder unespied (oh blessed fortune!) Darkly, cunningly, My house now being pacified. In the blessed night, In secret, completely unseen, And seeing nothing With no light to guide But the one that in my heart gleamed. It's what guided me Yet truer than the midday light To where awaits me One I knew so well, To where no one appeared in sight. O night guiding me! O night kindlier than the morn! O night who joined both Lover, beloved, Beloved in Lover reborn! My bosom, whose flow'r That only for him is it kept, Is where I stroked him And the cedar boughs Blew cool air as he lay and slept. The wind through crenels As gently his hair I did comb, And his hand serene Wounding my collar, Shook all my senses to the bone. I stayed, I forgot, My face on the Lover reposed, All stopped, I let go Of cares and of woes That in the lilies laid disposed.

Adam and Alexis Do Nirvana

Last week I had an adventure in nature with my favorite partner in crime, Alexis, here in Colombia. You might remember from a previous entry about one of the best parties in Cali, which, as luck would have it, is having a repeat this Halloween weekend. We went to a nature reserve called, fittingly, Nirvana.

Alexis lives in Palmira, which is a city right outside of Cali. I'd never been to Palmira. It's not mentioned in my guidebook, so I didn't have high expectations, but like I've mentioned before, it's not always in big cities that you'll find adventure. And I think that's especially true for Colombia. Nature here is, in all its mega-biodiversity (that's an industry term), amazing.

All the nature!!!

On the way, I read a little bit of Cien años de soledad (A Hundred Years of Solitude). This is literally the fifth or sixth time I have started this book over. Something has always interrupted me and stopped me from ever continuing again: School assignments, moving apartments, ambulance sirens, shiny objects, food. But I'm determined to finish it this time. All 450-ish pages. It's a gesture to the Colombian gods to show them that I'm making an effort in hopes that they'll bless me with more vegetarian food options or less crowded rides on the MIO buses or drivers who give the right-of-way to pedestrians.

Once in Palmira, I met up with Alexis, and we went into a small corner shop for some food. I tried to order a papa aborrajada, and it went something like this:

"Buenas tardes."
"Buenas tardes, me gustaría una aborrajada."

"¿Qué?"

"Una aborrajada."

"¿Qué?"

That's when I turn to Alexis with helplessness in my eyes, and he orders for me. She tells us to hold on a minute.

"Why doesn't she understand me?"
"I don't know."

But yeah, I do know. It's because I'm foreign, and I don't speak Colombian Spanish... Or maybe she was just a fucking idiot. 

I guess that was a little mean. If I say "just saying" at the end, does it sound less mean?.. That woman was a fucking idiot.... just saying...

Okay. Maybe with a smiley?... That woman was a fucking idiot... just saying... J

Good enough.

"¿Usted es de aquí?"

"No."

"¿De dónde es?"

Should I tell her the truth? Should I tell her I was from Jupiter? Should I pretend I like I don't understand?

"Es un secreto." 

And then I smiled diabolically as I locked eyes with her and took my potato.

It turned out to be a good potato, so she was safe... for now...

After that, we took a gypsy cab to somewhere outside of Palmira and began a long, uphill walk to the nature reserve. It took us around two hours in the midday sun, but it was worth it because... BUTTERFLY GARDEN!

They were everywhere! All sorts! All sizes! Even chrysalises! It was wonderful, but as I was marveling over the butterflies, especially this big blue one that was intent on playing with us for a while, something was chilling me to the bone: the call of some apparently large bird. Birds are psychotic creatures and are not to be trusted under any circumstances. Take it from me. I learned the hard way.

Eventually, I worked up the courage to face my fears. I had to. The butterflies were watching, and I'd never live it down. It turned out there were caged parrots near by, and we even exchanged a few words together. And though they seemed friendly and I almost believed they might have even been well-intentioned, benevolent birds, I knew that deep down, under those rainbow feathers, lied a heart of darkness filled with an ancient evil that dates back millions of years. How else do you think all the dinosaurs went extinct? Some say meteors, but I know what really happened. Murdered. By pecking. I've seen the truth in their beady, emotionless eyes. The eyes of a killer.

Need I say more?

After that, we hiked through all sorts of stuff. Hobbit-like, earthy underpasses, narrow paths on the sides of mountains, and a little native hut that someone built and put cardboard cut outs of indigenous people inside looking upset with their lot in life. And who can blame them really? I mean, I'd probably be pretty depressed if my people were massacred too. I got upset for a week when a rain storm destroyed some potted plants I had put outside for some sun once. That's about the same thing in my book.

And after about five hours of hiking, we had climbed high into the mountains, and the view was amazing, and for a moment, the woman who made me feel ridiculous, the failed attempts at reading Cien años, the suicidal drivers, the rude people pushing me on the MIO, the wickedness of all avian-kind didn't matter. There was just this great expanse of green and blue, clouds and dirt, animals and plants. Life. Without the bullshit.

Who Here Loves A Good Standardized Test?

Well, a weight has finally been lifted from my shoulders. Last Friday, I took Le Test de Connaissance du Français as part of my TAPIF (Teaching Assistant Program in France) application. Most people applying have the luxury of just sending a college transcript with a few years of French courses and a recommendation from a French professor and call it a day, but since all of my French courses were in either high school with the incomparable Mme. Donley or in independent language insitutes (shout out to Jordan, Mouda and Julia at Fluent City in New York!), I have to take another route: standardized testing. What fun.

The TCF is like any other standardized test with time limits, multiple choice questions, lots of pressure, and bubble sheets. I arrived at the French Aliance about a half hour early since I had never been to the northern branch in Cali, and they seemed pretty strict about not showing up even a minute late, a refreshing change of pace in Colombia. After I had checked in, I felt myself starting to get nervous. The big day had finally come. But I knew my nerves would be a surefire way to sabotage, so I turned on some Coeur de Pirate. Because I challenge anyone to keep stressing out with that cute little voice singing in your ears. And sat there, waiting for the next thirty minutes, watching other people arrive for their tests, all of us collectively freaking out but unsuccessfully trying to play it cool.

At 8:45 a.m., we were allowed to enter the room. And by we, I mean me and one other guy. Apparently everyone else was taking the TCFQ. Why? I have no idea. I guess Quebec should be prepared for a Colombian invasion because there were quite a few people taking it and it's only good for immigration applications to Quebec.

When he entered, I greeted my companion in Spanish, and he greeted me back in French, so I made the only possible conclusion I could from his "Bonjour:" "Oh shit, this guy's probably like fluent and shit. What the hell am I doing here?" But I had already relinquished my cellphone to the proctor and with it, Béatrice Martin's voice. So I did the only thing I could think to do: I counted my breaths. Applied Buddhism.

The proctor, who was quite friendly and strangely familiar, explained that the oral section would be first.

Aw, shit....

I wish I could tell you how I did, but it really all a blur. Actually, the moments I remember where when I became a bit unfocused, wasn't listening to the clip (which we only get to hear once) and kicked myself as I let my subconscious guide my pen to whatever answer magically seemed right, like a kind of French dowsing. I had practiced this section before on Radio France International's website, but I didn't realize how fast paced it would be. My strategy of being able to skim the choices before listening went out the window about every other question, and I can't really tell you how I think it went. Maybe that's a small mercy on some nameless guardian angel's part; I'm prone to mental flagellation.

After that was a quasi-grammar section, which I suppose went alright, and then reading comprehension, which was pretty easy, relatively. Suprisingly, the guy who had inadvertantly intimidated me into nothingness with one word couldn't finish the reading comprehension. When the proctor called the end of the test, I was casually checking my answers, and he had begun to beg for more time. And I remembered how useless it is to go around comparing yourself to other people.

I left the test feeling "okay," which is acceptable considering that the questions ranged in difficulty from A1 to C2 on the Common European Framework. Since my evaluation at the Alliance put me at B1.2 and my aim for this test was B2, quite naturally, some of it was going to be out of my reach. Now I have to wait between one and two months to see if this feeling is justified. Those were the two difference answers I got when I asked how long they would take.

Now that this test, which has been looming over me for months, is over, I'm looking forward to my new freedom. Up to now, and since about the time I arrived in Cali, I have been taking almost two hours of classes Monday through Friday at 6 a.m., meaning I wake up around 4 a.m. every day. (See also: dedication.) Then in the course of the day, I have been doing two hours of practice, mostly listening comprehension. Lather, rinse, repeat for two months. But no more, folks. Sweet freedom. More time to explore Cali and Colombia. But what do?... I hear there's a cafe in San Antonio playing French movies every night this months.

I Just Gave My Last Fuck

AM I PRETTY YET?

My life is finally starting to take off here, everyone. And it's about fucking time! My job at the Pontifica Universidad Javeriana is now in full swing with all conversation clubs, office hours, class visits, and private coaching sessions are set in a routine. But that's not all, folks, I've got all sorts of fun things happening: The Test de Connisance du Français is coming up this Friday, and I'm studying really hard, like four hours a day hard, and actually noticing a big improvement in my listening comprehension and speaking abilities! On the physical fitness front, I'm running pretty regularly again, saving Abel Township from zombies as the one and only Runner #5, and you would be surprised how good some zombie busting is for relieving stress. I've also decided to start doing bar workouts because I'm getting a little bored with plain old weights these days. Besides, all the hot guys in the park I run at are doing it, and I want to be one of the cool kids too. I'm also trying to wrap up the translation of The Russian Nights, which fell into purgatory amidst all the life changes. God bless patient authors. And last but not least, I'm starting to feel comfortable living in Cali, which is leading to less withdrawn, hermit-like activity and to getting out of my apartment more.

A big part of why I'm feeling more adapted here is because people have stopped trying to speak to me in English as much. You might recall a past entry in which I expressed some frustration about this, particularly when I speak to someone in Spanish and the response (of a few different people) is been, "No hablo inglés." I started noticing a few weeks ago that this hasn't been happening, and I've been trying to think of why that is.

Wisdom from the RDJ

I think a good deal of it has to do with confidence. I'm a lot more confident about my Spanish skills than when I first arrived. It's funny because for the few months I've been here, I don't feel like I've really actually improved all that much, just that the rust that has accumulated since Spain has finally been dusted off. Ironically, my nervousness, in part, was due to fearing that they would respond to me in English, which I think created a self-fulfilling prophecy. My nerves made me speak poorer Spanish than I'm really capable of and because of that they would speak to me in English. I was also afraid that I would use words they didn't use or that they use in a different way than I've been taught. However, you can only give a shit about these kinds of things so long before you're just like what the fuck ever man. And I think it was the moment that I didn't care if an accidental tío or vosotros slipped out or that some ignorant Colombian would respond to me in English or tell me they didn't speak English was the moment that things started to improve. Just goes to show you how pointless worrying is.

Now flash forward from the basket case of nerves I was to last week when I was ordering something at my school's cafeteria, and some guy was like, "Where are you from?" (in Spanish). And of course, I was in my head like, "oh shit, here we go again...."

"The United States."
"And what are you doing here?"
"I teach English."
"What level?"
"No level. Just conversation clubs, private lessons, visits to other classes, things like that."
"Ooh, how long have you been here?"
"About two months."
"And you already speak this good of Spanish?"

"Oh, thank you.""Where did you learn it?"
"Oh, I studied mostly in high school and college. And then I lived in Spain a little bit, but not very long."
"Oh wow, and your parents, where are they from?"
"Indiana. The US."
"Oh wow." To the girl at the register: "And look what a nice accent he has."

And me in my head: "Well, that's a first."

That had never really happened before. Normally the only people who tell me I speak Spanish well are guys that are hitting on me, and of course, I don't really believe them because, you know, sex. And then it came to me: I didn't give a single shit that whole conversation. Like not even a little dried up turd that has stayed too long in your intestines so your body reabsorbed all the water from it. Not even a fart.

So beautiful, so free....

And that's when I realized that almost no one speaks to me in English anymore except my advanced students and the other English teachers (for obvious reasons). All because I couldn't be bothered to care anymore, because I gave up. Paradoxically, like a Chinese finger trap, the moment I stopped struggling was the moment that it all started working out.

Don't get me wrong. It still happens here and there. There are still people who have made up their mind that I can't speak their language simply because of the way I look or because I made a tiny mistake when my mouth is moving a little faster than my brain, but it's at an acceptable level and I don't walk around constantly feeling like an outsider. It's not that I "feel Colombian," like some other people claim when they move to new countries. I will never feel Colombian. I will never be Colombian, but I feel allowed to participate, and that's all I wanted all along.

This is Not an Entry (Ceci n'est pas une entrée)

Hey, everyone. I had an idea for an entry and it was a really good one, but it's been a busy week. Good busy. I'm exhausted. But good exhausted. So I decided to do something a little different for this week's entry. I have this playlist that was intended for someone a while back, and I've thought about sending it to said person for the last three months. The thing is that when you think about something that long you sometimes lose your nerve. And sometimes you start to wonder what's the point. I don't think there's any point to send it. I'm not sure what I'd want to accomplish by sending these. I don't think it would end up in anything good.

So suffice it to say this collection of songs will remain unsung to the ears for which I intended them. But I worked hard on it, and I thought I'd share it with you all. Why not? It's some good music. Perfect for, ahem.... certain occasions...

Maybe these songs will reach their destination after all. As far as I am concerned, I'm doing nothing more than holding out my hands and allowing the wind to pick them up and carry them off to wherever they may land, germinate, and perhaps, if they're lucky, bloom.



If this playlist doesn't work for you (i.e. you don't have Spotify installed), click the button on the top right corner, and it'll give you a link to listen at. Or click here to listen with Spotify's webplayer.


Till next week, mes amis.

Culture Wars

"What's your favorite thing about Colombian culture?"

Someone asked me this recently, and I was like a deer caught in headlights. My brain worked overtime to try to come up with something, anything, just a little bit of some positive experience that I could grab a hold of and use.

Fortunately, someone mercifully changed the subject, and I was off the hot seat, but the experience stayed with me, and I kept thinking about it

I started to wonder: Do I in fact like nothing about Colombian culture? Though as soon as I posed myself this question, I felt its lack of truth. If I hated being in Colombia so much, why is it that I have no desire to leave?

Then I tried another line of questioning: What is Colombian culture? I had no idea how to answer that. How does one even begin to define a culture from nothing more than their own subjective experience? Considering the uniqueness of each successive experience in a day, how do I begin to organize them into data sets about which generalizations can be made? And is total objectivity even possible? Are we only able to say something is cultural by comparing it to our own?

For example, if I am in the mall, and people seem to be completely and utterly spatially oblivious, do I chalk that up to:a) Colombian culture?
b) a pan-cultural thing wherein everyone automatically forgets how to walk in malls?
c) a characteristic of Colombian culture that also, by chance, is similar to American culture?
d) or is the vividness of my frustration in these instances causing me to remember those more than all the times that someone actually acted like I existed and let me pass by without saying con permiso three times?

I started to really think about this the more I heard people try to discuss Colombian culture. It seemed that often someone would recount a particular instance and then end it with "Yeah, Colombians are really _____." Because I sometimes wish I were a mentat and can't help to automatically think about sets of premises and a conclusion in terms of what little training I have in logic, I realized that:

1) Ca (Ana is a Colombian.)
2) La (Ana arrives late.)
3) Ca>La (If Ana is Colombian, then Ana arrives late.)
∴ ∀x(Cx>Lx) (Therefore all Colombians arrive late.)

is a total fallacy. A "hasty generalization" to be precise, which is a fitting name.

I think part of the problem is that statements about culture tend to be too narrow. "X culture likes this," "X culture doesn't really eat that," and so on. The problem with these sorts of statements is that they don't leave a lot of room for an individual's manifestation of a particular cultural characteristic. It takes a lot more work, time, and compassion, but I think there's a way to rephrase these thoughts in a way that are not only free of judgement but allow them to maintain their truth as each individual in that culture expresses them in a certain way.

The problem with this is that it takes significant time to gather a lot of data and effort to think through it without falling prey to some sort of mental bias. And patience and work are things that humans are often adverse to. We'd much prefer to leave it as something simple and move on to the next thing. But I've come to penetrate Colombian culture, among other things, and this is my strategy.

Yeah, sorry...

It's something I'd recommend even within the United States, with all our different cultures trying to coexist peacefully and, truthfully, not doing to great of a job at it. This is how the capacity for empathy is built, little by little, and this is how I'll be able to one day not be so frustrated by all sorts of little things here. In fact, even just yesterday, I caught myself thinking, as I walked down Calle 5 from the mall to my home, "Maybe this isn't so bad. Maybe I am getting used to this after all."

So what is my favorite thing about Colombian culture? Maybe it's ability, more so than other cultures I've experienced, to challenge me to think about myself, to realize that perhaps I wasn't as open-minded and free-thinking as I used to believe I was, and it's gift of an opportunity to push those bounds a little farther.

Oh, and the food. I mean, an aborrajado with a jugo de mora en leche.... ♥...

Spreading the gospel of Keyboard Cat

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might have noticed a bit of dissatisfaction with my time here, and if you did notice it, you'd be correct. Things are moving very slowly here, which is just a bit how Colombia rolls, but there were also several interruptions: the department head was abroad for the first week, my advisor got in a car crash the second week, holidays meant the school was closed for a few days, then my step father died in the third week and I had to take a week off to go back to the US. Now there's another interruption: an enrichment week in Bogotá with all the other Fulbright ETAs. This means the main core of my responsibilities here won't have started until a few days shy of two months after I started my job. And considering I like my job, that sucks. That sucks in a very big way.

This is nothing against Fulbright. Most other ETAs are well situated in their programs by now and hopefully are having the blast I expect to be having. But it just so happened to strike at an inopportune time for me. On the other hand, it's an all-expense paid trip for a week in a nice hotel with fun people, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Lately, though, things are getting more interesting around here. This is partly because I've kicked my advisor out of the driver's seat, and now I basically go around organizing my own stuff and then tell him later. For example, this week I stopped by two different organizational meetings for the English teachers here to introduce myself, and by the time I left, I had scored myself a whopping eleven class visits!

Yesterday, I had five in one day. I spent the day running around and left the university at seven o'clock, which makes for a long day when you're up at four in the morning. By the time I got home, I was so tired I couldn't do anything but buy an arepa with cheese, stuff it down my gullet, and fall down face first on the bed and pass out. It was my most rewarding day here yet.

Even better is that I think I made a good impression on most of the teachers and students, which bodes well for getting students to come to the conversation clubs, which was my primary reason for making so many visits this week. I did my best to take another professor's advice and try to teach them about the interaction between culture and language, the kind of things that they won't find in a text book. Since they were in a technology unit, I decided to teach them about texting and internet acronyms because it was one of the more confusing things for me when I first started making friends in Spain. Like how was I supposed to know "x" meant "por"? I mean, I see why now. "Por" is used in the same sense as "times" as in "two times three is six," hence the use of a multiplication sign to stand in for it. But when you first see it for the first time, you just kind of wonder if it's a typo. 

I spent the second part of my time talking about United States internet culture, particularly different words and a few things that hadn't seem to become international phenomenons, such as the words "derpy" and "troll," explaining the internet obsession with cats (such as cat bread, grumpy cat and keyboard cat), and using the "ermahgerd" meme to explain not only explain how speech is often written phonetically on the internet ("2morrow" or "gr8") but what Goosebumps books are and how memes work in general, which ended up leading to this gem.

I was happy that I noticed that I was even teaching the teachers a few things. I noticed some would write things down so that they might incorporate some of this stuff into their future classes. It's great to think that I not only educated some students under the guise of showing them YouTube videos about cats and how to text like a pro but also helped some teachers develop their curricula further. Of course, there were some teachers who were less receptive than others to my presence, and with the ones who I sensed didn't really want me there, I did my best to just talk about conversation clubs, do a little bit of an activity, and then get the hell out of dodge. It is, after all, my way to not stay where I'm not wanted (re: New York). But if this was any indication of how conversation clubs are going to be when they start, I think we're going to have a great time. Things are about to get a whole lot more interesting around here.

The Rubulad of Cali, Colombia

One of the things I've been trying to figure out here in Cali is how to have the kind of nightlife experience that I like, which has changed a lot over there years. I used to be a nightclub person, and over time, I started to prefer bars with a fun atmosphere. I'm not sure if that's because I'm getting older or if New York made me do it because all the nightclubs seemed to be closing down and no good new ones were taking their place. Whatever the mysterious reason, that's the way it is. But when I do want more of a party, in New York, Rubulad (and other parties that wish they were Rubulad) was what I went for.

Rubulad in the Church

If you're not familiar with the magic of Rubulad, allow me to explain. It was a group that moved around locations throwing kind of free-for-all parties with electronic music. My two favorite locations was an abandoned church in Bedstuy and a big public school in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. They sold cheap beer (PBR.... the champagne of hipsters) and liquor, people came in costumes (which they often got a discount for doing), and there would sometimes be art installments. I remember my friend Frank and I sitting entranced in a room of the school location where they were projecting cartoons on the wall while someone played discordant piano music live.

I know. You're gagging on how hipstery and pretentious this is, but I loved it.

So I didn't quite need to find anything similar here in Cali, but well, I did. Alexis, a friend of mine from a neighboring city, came in to visit. We we're supposed to go play Tejo, a game where you through a rock onto another sort of rock and try to get an explosion to occur. It's a traditional game in Colombia. But when we got there, all the fields were busy, so we just drank beer, watched, and decided what to do next. After some aimless wondering around San Antonio and Alexis looking through Facebook, he told me about a party called convulxion, and while I wasn't super excited at first, I didn't have anything else better to suggest, so I thought, "Why not?"

We killed a bit of time in Granada, going to Cool (which was barren at 7:30) and then to Imaginaria, which is always fun to visit for their cocktail list. By the time we finished there, we walked to the bordering neighborhood, which is where convulxion was.

When I got inside, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a giant, two story room. There was pool, which no one seemed to take advantage of, a DJ booth with crazy scenes being projected behind it (lots of 90s and Nintendo nostalgia mixed with utter randomness) and some nice music playing from the first DJ. There was a makeshift bar in the back where they sold Poker (kind of the PBR of Colombia) and shots of whiskey. For a small charge, you could bring in your own bottle of whatever from the outside, which we eventually did. The placed also reaked of pot. Which is fine with me.

The people were almost all alternativos, and the second DJ who played was absolutely amazing. By the time she was well into her set, everyone was moving, somne stoned, some drunk, some both, many half-naked and everyone dripping in sweat. I looked around and realized there I was: In the midst of beautiful anarchy, where no one was normal and no one had expectations of how you should act, a place where being foreign was no more out of the norm than having your whole body tattoed or your face pierced. And I finally got a moment to relax.

convulxion

Colombian Frogger

Here in Colombia my morning goes as follows: I wake up before the sun at 4 o'clock in the morning. I take about an hour to take a flash shower in cold water (because there's no other option), fix my breakfast and pack my lunch. I then stare at the ground for a good fifteen minutes to mentally prepare myself for the day. When ready, I go to French class, which technically starts at six but in actuality starts at 6:10, and then after class, I walk to work.

When I saw I walk to work, you might think I stroll down streets lined with sidewalks. Perhaps a few stores. Maybe a few early morning joggers and people with dogs. You might think I walk through a field as a shortcut. Something like that.

No. In actually it's more something like this.

A game of human Frogger

You see, pedestrians do not have the right of way in Colombia. Ever. Even when there's a stop sign or a red light. Sometimes, if the road's aren't busy, it's not uncommon for someone to decide that they're no longer into waiting for the light to turn green and they just go for it. Because.... ganas. Addionatelly, stop signs are treated more as yield signs, though I'm not really sure what they yield to. Definitely not me. They kind of slow down and roll through it and then speed back up. Meanwhile, despite running stop signs and red lights, Colombians are always late. Always. Bring a book, or you'll regret it.

You see, parts of the road to work lack sidewalks, and when I get to those parts I have to use the bike lanes. Curiously, I don't encounter a lot of bikes in the bike lane, but I do often end up face to face with cars who are trying to use it to cheat past traffic jams. It's pretty alarming to see a car barreling toward you with nowhere right or left to go. It's also pretty frustrating where you're in a lane that's not meant for cars. (PRO TIP: That's what that bike painted on the ground means.) Normally these attempts to cut everyone in the traffic jam line are pretty fruitless. As far as I can tell, what time they gain in passing the cars, they seem to lose when they have to find a way to merge back into the actual traffic, often unexpectedly because there's a pedestrian or a bike or they need to make a turn. I'm not sure what these drivers think.... Like it's this magic lane reserved only for them so they can get to work late before everyone else. I don't know. Maybe next time one has stopped dead in front of me with no where to go because I have no where to go and the traffic was already jammed up to begin with, I'll ask. Or punch the car, which is what I normally fantasize about doing.

This is the stuff dreams are made of.

This isn't something unique to the road to work. This is everywhere. I was walking through a parking lot, and even in the United States, parking lots can be a place where suddenly all bets are off and people drive wherever they want, don't signal, just do whatever. In Colombia, since the road is often like that to begin with, traversing a large parking lot can be upsetting. Once I pulled the stop sign hand out on someone. I had to. Otherwise, I would've just stood there forever waiting for someone to let me walk. (PRO TIP #2: They will never just let you walk.)

Please?

This all reminds me of when I first came to New York and people would stand in the street waiting for the light to change. I thought they were crazy. I remember I wouldn't get close to the sidewalk because I was afraid a car would hit me. Flash forward about a year and I was standing in the street waiting for the light to change like all the rest. Maybe eventually I'll learn to stop caring and just walk right out into that street like I have the right. And maybe I'll stop viewing Colombian drivers as lunatics with latent homicidal tendencies. I sure hope so at least. It'll make the walk a lot more pleasant.

Das poop

So remember when I said cultural adaptation tends to come from the little things that you don't expect rather than big ones that you can foresee? It's the little changes to your daily life that attack your sense of normality and make you really feel out of place. Things you take for granted. Like grilled cheese, ziplock bags, or pooping.

Yeah. You heard me. Pooping.

Allow me to explain.

For the first few days, I lived in blissful ignorance of how to properly poop here in Colombia, and I continued to do what I've always done: Feel nature's beeper buzz, go to the bathroom, [details deleted for a somewhat family friendly audience], grab a wad of toilet paper, clean myself, throw the toilet paper in the toilet (hence it's name), and then flush. This is not how you do it here in Colombia.

During orientation, I was informed that I've been doing it all wrong. And not just wrong like "they're all going to laugh at you," but I could have possibly clogged up some pipes, which is never a pleasant affair. The water pipes here in Colombia are not as wide as back home, and that gives the toilet paper a hard time when it goes through them. As it turns out, this little trashcan that I had never noticed before by all the toilets in every bathroom, public or private, is for that very purpose.

You put the toilet paper in the trash can.
(But I don't recommend drinking them both up.)

When I found this out, I was embarrassed. First because of the cultural and practical faux-pas, but then later when it came to actually doing it, to put my dirty toilet paper in the trash for all to see. I mean, it's like private. It's so private that it normally stays in my body where no one can see until it's ready and then I go in a small room by myself where no one can see it, and then dispose of it as fast as possible. I mean, not even I see too much of it. I also didn't want to broadcast to the world exactly how efficient or inefficient my digestive system was working. Let's suffice it to say that some days it ain't cute.

Will today be the day
it happens to me?

Perhaps related to this, many bathrooms don't have toilet paper in them. Or so I've been told. I haven't experienced this personally, but every time I'm in a new bathroom and don't think of this possibility till mid-act, fear pierces my heart, time stops, and I stick my hand into the dispenser wondering if this'll be the day that my number is up. Fortunately, so far, I've been okay. What I have experienced a lot of bathrooms not having are toilet seats. Yeah, toilet seats. In the US, when a toilet didn't have a seat, it normally was a bar, and I think the idea was that it was only supposed to be used for doing number one, and doing number two was discouraged, but here, I don't think that can be the case because... 1) There's toilet paper and 2) It's literally like every public restroom everywhere. I mean, is it a germ situation? Is it cheaper? Did one guy do it in an attempt to be avant garde and edgy, and everyone followed because toilet seats "weren't cool anymore"? I don't know. I also don't know what the typical Colombian does in lieu of not having a toilet seat. Squat? Perch? I'll spare telling you my personal solution. Maybe I'll start a survey and get back to you.

However, because to be human is to be adaptable, I'm already pretty used to all of this. So much so that when I had to visit the United States for my step-father's funeral, I kept hesitating over the garbage with my tissue before realizing I could put it in toilet and flush it. In fact, I overcame all embarrassment from the toilet paper-in-the-trash thing pretty quickly. Now it's just routine, which I suppose is ideal. I fold it over and then no one's embarrassed, no one has see it, and no one has to deal with a clogged toilet. Y vivimos felices y comimos perdices.

Saying good-bye to Walter Patrick

Last week I had to something completely unexpected: I had to step foot on United States soil before June 1, 2015. And it was to do something I had expected but still thought would never come: My step-father, Walter Patrick, passed away. When I left for Colombia, he was on hospice care and a decent amount of morphine, but he was still cognizant most days, and when he wasn't, I normally chalked it up to the massive amounts of painkillers he was taking. I can't promise you I'm going to get the details right, but his problem, as I understood it, was basically advanced emphysema made worse by a back injury he sustained after he had a violent coughing attack one night, and then further complicated by a devastating case of pneumonia. After fighting with the pneumonia for some time, he was eventually rushed to the hospital, where they induced a coma in order to allow his body to rest, and when he was taken out of it, his physical therapy proved to be so taxing that it sent him back into another coma. When he awoke from that one, his care was switched from restorative to the ease-your-suffering variety. All this happened while I was away, still living in New York, and it was one of the things that influenced me to come back early.

I officiated their wedding.
On the left is his oldest son, Wally,
and behind my mother is
my sister Samantha.

Walt and my mother met and got married after I had already moved out of the house, and I only saw him on visits back. A week here, another there. And slowly, over time, we got to know each other. Toward the end of his life, he told me he viewed me as a son. I think I would have viewed him as a father if I had known exactly what that meant. My father and mother divorced when I was about five, and when I was about eleven, he moved to Colorado. I didn't see him much after that. I don't really know what a father is. I get clues and hints, through my relationship with my Uncle Steve and without a doubt through my relationship with Walt.

In the month before I came to Colombia, I was living with him and my mother in Indiana. She needed help taking care of him, and I wanted to see my family before I left for a long time. It was in that month that I grew even closer to Walt. I helped care for him when my mother was tired, getting him Pepsi and Kool-Aid and those brownies he positively addicted to, he bandaged my ankle for me when I twisted it so badly running that I walked with a limp, we had heart-to-hearts, watched Bunnyman, and I even remember giving him a stern pep talk when he was starting to get down on himself and life, asking me and my mom what the point of planning was when there was so little time left or why bother to leave the house to his beloved casino when all it did was making him sleep for the rest of the day. I found myself, in idle moments, trying to plan the viability of a trip back to the United States around Christmas time, if I could afford it, when would good dates be, maybe I'd go a little bit before Christmas to not disrupt other plans but we'll check the prices and see...

According to him, it was
the very definition of ambrosia.

And then that message came. And there was no more hope of seeing him at Christmas. There was no hope of seeing him again. The message came, and for me, it was as good as hearing he had already passed. I would never see him again. When I left, he told my mom, "This might be the last time I see Adam." When she told me, I said, "Maybe. We just don't know, I guess." But deep down, I had believed he wouldn't go so quickly. My mom told me he was outside in his Hoveround, washing the side of the house a few days before, and when I had left, he seemed to be able to walk farther and farther using his walker. On good days, he had been able to stand himself up.

Ever see a guy in a Hoveround spray a house
with a high powered hose? It's a sight to behold.

He passed only a few hours after my sister's message. And this time I wasn't in New York but in Colombia. I felt so selfish and so helpless. Selfish for being here when maybe I should be there and helpless that so far away, there was so little I could do. I've been trying to teleport for years (don't ask) and that would have been the perfect moment for a break through. But alas, this is real life: I don't have mutant powers, teleportation is not (yet) possible, and when people die, they don't wake back up. I left to Indiana a few days later.

I spent a week in Indianapolis. After a twenty-two hour door-to-door trip, I arrived home, stayed up with my mom talking way past bedtime, and the next day we had to be at his visitation. When I saw his body, I went into a state of shock and disbelief, which dammed up my emotion and isolated me from feeling the emptiness of the house without him in his bed in the family room, without his wisecracks and wit, without the constant stream of Cops and People's Court on the television. And that shelter of emotional dysfunction is where I stayed until the funeral, when the fact was no longer deniable, when I had to face that Walt was gone.

I'll miss you.

Click here to read his obituary.