Signing Off

Well, folks. This is it. I leave for the United States Wednesday, and tomorrow is my last day with access to a computer for a week or so. I've decided not to continue writing while I'm in the US. Just too many other projects that I want to be able to focus on. I will be back mid to late September with entries from France most likely, so it's not really good bye, just see you later.

Speaking of good-byes, I had a giant round of them two weekends ago when a lot of us in Fulbright got together, rented a country house a few hours from Medellin, and hang out. It was one of the most fabulous weekends in Colombia yet. Good times were had by all. There were much merry-making and fun, and I'm glad that it was my last trip in Colombia. Highlights included a day trip to El Peñon, a swarm-of-locus-like invasion of bugs which some helpful, neighborly toads came by and cleaned up for us, monkeys dancing on power lines, and a game of King's Cup in which I realized I have incredibly poor reaction time. Also, there was wine. It was the first time I had wine in about a year. It was delicious.

But really, that was just the beginning. This whole week has been about good-byes, and I realize how much I hate them. It always feels like you're leaving something unsaid or undone. The good-bye never feels real until years later when you look back and realize that you never did see them again and you probably never will. Until then, it's just another see you later, like the end of any other day.

I prefer to just disappear, and really, it's what I would do if I had my way, but I know that other people want to say good-bye, that sometimes they need to, and so I do my best. But for me, that's life. People are here today and then, suddenly, they're not. Sometimes you get to say good-bye and sometimes you don't. It doesn't make too much difference: There's always something left unfinished. There's always something you wish you said or learned or experienced. Even here, even now, there are reasons I wish I were staying in Colombia. Are they enough to keep me from leaving? No, but I have them all the same. There were still things to explore, about the country, about myself, but the tragedy in life, at least for someone with my sort of outlook on it, is that you can't experience it all in one go. You do your best, and when it's over, it's over and you just hope you did it as completely as you could. Do it completely, burn it up, leave no trace.

So, to those of you who have been faithful readers, how do I say good bye to some of you?

The Good-Byes Have Started

Like really in your face...

Well, last weekend I took a trip to Manizales to say good bye to one of my friends here, Julián. He's the one Colombian person that I felt like I really connected with and a good deal of why I believe that paisas are the best Colombian regions and cultures. In most areas, Colombians tend to be very-in-your-face: loud, brash, intrusive. Julián was none of these things. He's the only person in the country I've met that I could describe as gentle and kind. Most of my encounters with Colombians, especially caleños leaves me viewing them as bulls in an emotional china shop: very clumsy and brash, which I think comes from not really considering how their actions or words might impact someone before they say or do whatever they probably shouldn't say or do. It's a kind of ignorance. I don't mean that in the sense that they're stupid, but more that they are unaware. It's that kind of ignorance that brings bliss, which I suppose answers why they're considered to be one of the happiest countries in the world.

Julián, on the other hand, exhibited all the characteristics I value in a person: intelligence, thoughtfulness, tranquility, humor, playfulness. He was a reminder of all the good things in Colombian culture: hospitality, curiosity, and national pride. Colombians are generally very proud of their culture, but instead of his pride leading him to think that it was some unique snowflake whose dimensions I would never fully grasp, it lead him to want to share it with me as much as he could, through typical dishes he would make me and bits of history and background he would share with me here and there as something came up. I only had the opportunity to visit it him twice since the time that we met back in my tour of the coffee region, but every time I made it out there, he brought me back from he edge when I was dangerously close to writing the whole country off. So when he messaged me and asked if I wanted to come visit for the holiday, I took him up on the offer.

The weekend was a super fun time. Friday night, we went to a kind of cutre gay bar and got drunk as hell on the open bar. (Yes, I know. I'm kind of mixing Spanish words with talking about Colombia, but that's how I do.) The music was shitty and we kept telling each other that, but we danced to it anyway because it was better than the alternative. On Saturday, we took a nighttime trip to the hot springs just outside the city and chilled out while some boxing match was on. Although Facebook and all its munchkins kept trying to tell me it was the event to see, we never figured out what the big deal was. Sunday I returned to Cali, but before I had to make the five-hour journey back home, we went to ride horses. While he got up on that horse like he had been born on it and was riding all-around, it and my first time and took me a little bit to feel comfortable. I was on the back of a powerful living animal with its own brain and everything, and I find that nerve wracking. Unfortunately, I think the horse could smell my fear and was not willing to work with me in an equal partnership of mutual understanding. This became clear whenever I tried to steer him out of the pin to go along a path and he kept shaking his head and making sounds and occasionally spitting out grass. (Rude!) He felt lazy, and I can respect that. But it was only going to be for like fifteen minutes. So when Julián asked if we should keep the horses past the thirty minutes we originally asked for, I said no, and we went back to his house to eat.

Speaking of which, he's a fantastic cook.

Listen, basically you need to know this and only this: Julián is Colombia's gem, a veritable diamond in the rough, which is why it was hard when I realized I would be saying good bye to him within a few hours. I don't leave until June 3 from Colombia, and this was happening on May 3, a whole month beforehand. I didn't realize the process of saying good-bye would start so soon, but here I was, in the middle of it and with the person that I would find the hardest to say goodbye to because I might never see him again. Sure, there's others I'll have to say good bye to. (I'm looking at you, fellow Fulbrighters! Especially you Caitlin Strawder!) But it's well within the realm of possibilities that I'll see a lot of them again. The chances of me ever setting foot in Colombia after I leave is very minimal. Though not impossible, I can't think of why I'd come back. I definitely don't want to live here, and I think my bitter experiences are going to repel me from visiting for vacation. After all, would a vampire go to the Vatican for its vacation? You see my point.

So how did I handle this very difficult moment? I just said good bye and went off to the bus station. I'm not sure how to really deal with good byes other than to say them, but I'm always left wishing I had said something I didn't, even if I don't know what that was. So that's it, first and probably hardest good bye down.