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.

Vegetarian Food Hoarder

Hello, my name is Adam Wier, and I am a food hoarder.

Yes, you heard me right. Food hoarder. I hoard food and only food.

Here's the deal, mes amis. If you don't already know, I'm a vegetarian, and much like when I went to Spain, one of my biggest problems adapting here in Colombia is finding things to eat. Often times, locals aren't too much help. In both countries, vegetarianism hasn't really taken off like it has in other places in the West. So when I ask where I can get vegetarian food, I'm normally told that "such and such place has great salads!"

Seriously?!

How would you feel if I told you, "Oh, don't worry, we don't have any meat, but you can just have a salad!" I would be just as woebegone as you.

I can't speak for other vegetarians, but I know that I don't really eat primarily vegetables and fruits. I mean, I'm not angry at vegetables or fruits. If they happen to be in whatever I'm eating, that's great, they're allowed, they can stay here, but I mostly go for other stuff. Like dairy. Not that protein is really a problem for your average vegetarian (iron and B-12 might be a different story), but dairy products tend to be a good source of it. But that aside... you've like heard of cheese, right?!

Of course, I go for somethings that aren't really meat substitutes per se but are the staples of a thriving vegetarian diet. Tofu, seitan, tempeh, and other things that if you ask a person in a grocery store in Cali about, they'll look at you like you just asked them where the glardivarks are. (And I don't know what a glardivark is, so don't even ask. It's probably not a vegetable though.)

In any case, this week I made a breakthrough in finding food, which brought the situation from red alert to a cool green. As a warm up I found a vegetarian sandwich with seitan at my university's food court. And with a lot of help from my roommate Luisa, I found about a gazillion different flavors of tofu at Carulla. And then thanks to my adviser at the university, Roger, I found some seitan that's even cheaper than what's sold in the United States!

Thanks to fellow Fulbrighter in Bucaramanga,
Eddie, for the meme. Check out his blog at
http://ciudadanoglobalcitizen.blogspot.com/

So when I found this bounty, I did what any other animal facing the threat of starvation would do.... I stockpiled. And I did indeed pile a stock! When I looked at my bank account, I clutched my pearls for dear life. A decent chunk missing. Vegetarian food here is often a bit on the expensive side, and I eat a lot. Put the two together and you got trouble. There's no reason to worry. I still have plenty of money till pay day, but man, I felt it. I also have a full fridge. And that feels pretty good too, especially after SALADFEST 2014, also known as Fulbright orientation week (see left).

That brings us to this morning. As I was cooking some eggs for breakfast, I started trying to figure out the next time I could go to another store someone had recommended. Maybe after work today? Maybe tomorrow? I opened the door to get some milk to pour myself for and looked at all the food I had in there. Several bags of milk (not a vegetable), about thirty eggs (not vegetables), a few stacks of tofu (also not vegetables), arepitas con queso (still not vegetables), some olives (okay... vegetables), and a freezer with two large packages of seitan as well as a few other odds and ends (all, I assure you... not vegetables). Enough food for a few weeks at least. I had no business buying more. And that's when I realized it: I'm a food hoarder.

And with that came the sudden realization of why. And of how freaked out I am. About everything. Because that's how it is when you're a stranger in a strange land. And stuff like that hits you especially hard when it encroaches on something so vital and familiar to you as your eating habits. Amassing food was a means to feel in control again, to feel like I've got something under wraps, to think that everything's going to be okay, and that life will begin to find a bit of regularity and familiarity again. And it is, but the thing is buying all the tofu and seitan and whatever in the country isn't going to make that happen faster. It'll come with time, and that's all there is to it. We should never underestimate the wonderful ability of humans to adapt to their surroundings, no matter how much the environment might change, but we have to have the confidence to give that ability the space and time to work. So, tonight, there are no more shopping trips, no more searching, nothing. Just eating some good food in my new home...

...and some anime.

Food Fight MiniMix

In case you can't tell, the next entry is about food.