Almost there now!!!

I write from a patch of floor across from gate E-12 in the George Bush airport in Houston. I have been sipping an over-sized, over-priced Starbucks hot chocolate while I wait for time to go by. 

I reckon I'm 2/3 of the way there (Vancouver Island being my final destination this Christmas), and it's been a relatively smooth ride so far. My departure from Manizales was, almost predictably, hampered by the weather. The Manizales airport is a delicate, delicate creature...it is only opened between dawn and dusk, and the generally accepted wisdom for determining whether or not your flight will leave is to look at the Morro Sancancio (a rather large hill and landmark in the city) and if you can see the top clearly, you're good to go. If Sancancio is obscured by clouds, you're screwed. I estimate that during the rainy season, you are screwed approximately 50% of the time.

With that in mind, it was no real surprise when my flight was cancelled and re-routed through the nearby city of Pereira. "Nearby" meaning a 1hour and 40 minute drive through the mountains, but all the waiting and bus-riding is worth it, because though the flight to Bogota is only 40 minutes from Manizales (less than 300km), it would have been a minimum of eight hours in a bus, and during "Landslide Season", as a friend calls it, it would most likely take much, much longer.

After losing my boarding pass and having to have it re-printed we boarded the bus for Pereira, where I was grateful that they did not play Christmas music, as would be expected this time of year, and as they do every morning on the bus to school. (Christmas music in the Coffee Region actually has nothing to do with Christmas as far as I can tell, but instead is a particularly irritating variety of music that I think of as their version of "country", and is more often than not dripping with sexual innuendo.) Instead we got to listen to the radio airing of the local soccer team's game. The commentary sounded like a cross between an auction and an orgasm. Blah blah blah blah blah (incomprehensible screaming) Electrodomesticos! (Home-electric appliances! - what does this have to do with soccer?) And then in the final minutes of the game, a crescendo of the game is going to end, The Game is Going to End, THE GAME IS GOING TO END!!!!!  And then, when victory was confirmed, incessant screaming, followed by many thank-yous, particularly to god.

The poor taxi guy struggled for a good long while to find my hotel in Bogota, though he is hardly to be blamed. I have generally found that it is easier to find destinations in Colombia by using landmarks rather than exact addresses. The hotel, for example, was supposed to be located "across from the American Embassy", or at Calle 22B, #44C-09, according to the previous address system. (What the new system is, I have no idea, but I hope it is better than this one). So this is supposed to mean that on street 22B, approximately 9 doors down from the its intersection with Carerra #44C, the hotel would be waiting for me. But of course we could not find anything resembling this address, and instead drove around in circles in what we guessed to be the correct area, until we saw the sign. It was across from a park. 

I should have known when I saw the outside of the place that it was going to be an interesting stay. I rang the bell and waited for the oversized, windowless metal door to be opened in a notably hesitant manner. My room was more expensive and more disgusting than I had expected. One of those places where you don't want to touch anything, you know? There were hairs everywhere. The desk chair looked as though it had been hand-constructed out of plywood with some fabric haphazardly stapled on. The really fantastic part was when I looked in the bathroom though. Where did this come from? Attached to my no-frills manky room was a retro bathroom almost the same size, done out in faux-marble,with a massive shower unit (with stairs in it!), complete with faded lime-green towels with cartoon ducks on them, and a wardrobe big enough to store most of my belongings. The ceiling tiles were falling down and the doors were falling off their hinges. What it did not  have was hot water.

The lack of hot water was not really a problem though, as I neglected to set an alarm and slept in, leaving no time to shower anyway. Ugh. At the airport I "raced" through the check-in line, the tax-exemption line, the give-you-back-some-money-though-I'm-not-entirely-sure-why line, the security line, the leaving-the-country-stamp-your-passport line, and the second security get-into-the-gate-waiting-room line.

Upon landing here in Houston, I sought out a location for my first meal since yesterday morning. I ended up, if you can believe it, in the Fox Sky Box Sports Bar. (It was either that, a 50s diner, or a seafood house, and this place happened to be closest to the ATM.) The Fox Sky Box Sports Bar has no less than 27 televisions for me to watch sports on! And you know how much I love sports!

I have managed to occupy myself for almost five hours so far, and have only three more to go! My Kindle ran out of juice, so I'm off to find a book that does not require electricity.

Merry Almost-Christmas!!

Travels and Candles

There are many, many reasons to love working in Colombia. The one that comes to mind right now is the national tendency to have a lot of holidays; I am coming off a string of almost uninterrupted 4-day weeks which has made the lead-up to Christmas seem a)very quick, and b)not nearly as crazy as normal. We had a day off for American Thanksgiving (not a national holiday, as you can imagine), for All Saints Day, and the Independence of Cartagena...

One of these long-weekends however, was enjoyed only by myself as I made my quarterly trek to Medellin for a check-up. The news was good - blood tests all came back normal, and my ever-pleasant doctor says I shouldn't worry. 

Being in Medellin was great, not just to hear a specialist tell me I am healthy, but also because  it satiated to some degree the wanderlust that has been nagging at me lately. I've been craving new a lot, perhaps because Manizales has been so dreary. So I went to see Harry Potter (in English!!) and did a bit of shopping and generally enjoyed being in a different environment for a couple of days, before making the somewhat treacherous trip back home.



I tried out a new hostel this time, in the Poblado area. I would definitely stay there again!



A stream that runs through el Poblado - this is usually just a trickle of water...



What do you mean, too much? In Medellin there is no such thing!

Rain is not just unpleasant and miserable, around here it is a destructive force. Apparently this is the worst winter in over 40 years, and as a result, the highways are not in great condition.  It is 180km from Manizales to Medellin, and on a good day you could cover this distance in maybe four hours, in a car. In a van, when the road is washed out in several places, I discovered, this takes closer to seven hours. We passed under several of these signs on the way:

In some locations it was that the land above the road was not stable, and in one location the warning applied to the land below the road which was at risk of sliding down the mountain, presumably taking with it whatever vehicles happened to be crossing at that moment.  The road had sunk several feet here, and I was less than enthused to be following the massively heavy tractor trailer shown above. 

In several places traffic moved in only one direction because of lanes covered in mud and debris. Below you can see the road has been cleared, but all that mud on the right-hand side of the road used to be part of the hill on the left-hand side.

Whatever the conditions of the highway, the journey is unquestionably beautiful.



Somewhere between Medellin and Manizales.



A little store/home along the highway.

Our most recent four-day week, however, was not a long-weekend but instead an interrupted work week - we had this past Wednesday off, to celebrate the Immaculate Conception. I'm not sure how exactly this ties in with the tradition of lighting lanterns, but that's what we did on Tuesday night. I was fortunate to be invited to celebrate Noche de las Velitas (Candle Night) with some Colombian friends. We lit the home-made lanterns at the house, before heading out into the city to ooooh and aaaah over the lantern displays in other neighbourhoods.


My Colombian family.




The maid built all these lanterns using plastic pop bottles and tissue paper. Inside, the candles are stabilized by a bit of sand. And then, after lighting them, we just leave them there, burning, unattended, for hours...



This was also the coldest night I have ever experienced in Manizales. I have no idea what part of the city we were in at this point...



All in all, it has been a pleasant few weeks. I can't wait to get home!

The Countdown in On!

It's been on for a few weeks now, actually...

Relief... or, It's About Bloody Time

The past few months in Manizales have looked mostly like this:

On some days, it was as though the fog and rain dials were being adjusted, but every other type of weather dial remained firmly in the OFF position. Rain and fog. Fog and rain.

Then last weekend, something absolutely glorious happened:

I'm sure you can imagine that sunshine after months of cold and wet is deliciously therapeutic.

Hopefully this will start happening on a more regular basis now - I didn't want to have to start getting jealous Canadian weather. That would just be bizarre.

Traitor

Not a great day, frankly. The dull ache/tingling feeling in my shoulder that I have been trying to ignore for the past two weeks decided that today was the day to make itself Ignorable-No-Longer. By the time I got to the gym tonight at 7:30 the pins and needles had progressed down my arm into my hand, and pain was not far behind.

Fortunately, the gym has an on-site sports physician who was able to see me right away. Treatment: no more shoulder work in the immediate future, ice after all exercise, heat every night, pain meds and anti-inflammatories (in capsule form for now, but injections are the next step if this doesn't work) and physical therapy starting ASAP. We barely do any shoulder work - how did this happen?

Of course, the pain isn't the problem. The tingling is annoying, but that's not the real problem, either. The real problem is what this does to my mental state. It would not be an understatement to say that I am hyper-vigilant about my health. I treat my body well - I feed it good things, and exercise it regularly. I should feel good. And gym time is my therapy; it is far more reassuring than talking to a psychologist because every workout is evidence that my body is well. A successful workout is almost as comforting as good blood results. It is not supposed to damage my body, and any deviation from FEELING GOOD tends to throw me into a bit of a panic.

Even if it is logical that I have been pushing myself and have tensed/pinched something as a result, there is still a part of my mind that wonders...is exercise really the cause of this, or am I more susceptible because something else is going on in my body that I don't know about yet? 

I know that it is hard to understand why this would bother me so much. I know that the problem seems obvious, and therefore silly to worry about. I know that I can't let fear dominate my reaction to everything relating to my body/health (or any other area of my life, actually). Most days, all this logic and sense keeps me in line, however today has been an exception.

Tomorrow will be better. Bring on the Dolonime.

I've Left Canada and I Can't Get back!

Alright, so I'm not lying on my back in the bathroom crushed under the weight of my own walker, but when it comes to Decision Time, I feel almost as helpless as that little old lady in the LifeCall Commercial. (Please say you remember those adverts!)

For the literal minded, I concede that there is nothing physically preventing me from moving back to Canada. I could go, but just because a plane will take me there doesn't mean the move is a logical and financially viable idea. Since I've thought of almost nothing else for the last few weeks, I feel fully prepared to outline my arguments, however after careful consideration I have decided that a visual representation will be more effective.

If I move to Canada, this is more or less how I imagine things will look:

Now...in case for some reason you can't decipher what's going on here, I will break it down for you in a way that doesn't require my spending another hour pissing around on Gliffy.

CONS

• I live in a box
• This is because I have no job, and therefore no income
• The box is a mess because I have no cleaning lady
• The box is also a mess because I have no job so I just stay at home and make more messes
• I am alone in the box because I don't know anyone except my sister and her boyfriend, who are both at work...also, they can't stand the mess
• My parents pay the rent and the bills because I have no job
• So I'm 31, poor, and still dependent on my (kind, generous, amazing) parents who, while they love me, are frustrated because I won't just take a job as someones secretary "to tide myself over" though I'm pretty sure I'm not even qualified to do that

PROS

• I don't have to go to work every day! 

Ha ha. Okay, the real pros:

• Not far from the box are several members of my immediate and extended family
• I have a bathtub
• Stick-me doesn't have to wear eighteen layers to keep warm inside the box 

Of course it is possible that I am exaggerating the difficulty in finding employment as a teacher in B.C. This article doesn't seem to think the situation is so dire, as long as you are a specialized teacher or are willing to relocate to the sticks...which I'm not.

Now, I know you were looking forward to seeing my Stay-in-Manizales illustration, but circumstances have prevented me from creating one. Here is a Manizales CON for your consideration: it hasn't stopped raining here in weeks. The weather report says the daily high is around 16 - 18 degrees, but they mean for the 10-minute period every morning when the sun deigns to put in an appearance. Lows are 10 - 12 degrees, sometimes colder at night, and may I please remind you that heating of the air to keep people comfortable does not really exist as a concept here. Just put on another sweater. Or, if you are me, crawl into bed at 7:00pm and refuse to get out (or to draw any more pictures) - on principle. It's just too bloody cold to do anything, end of story, and it's hard to think of anything nice to say when I can't feel my nose.

So the staying arguments will have to wait. Not for too long though - Decision Day is the 13th of December. I am certain only of one thing: when I left Canada five years ago, I had no idea it would be this complicated to get back.

Home is Where Your Stuff Is

So, I moved to a new apartment a couple of weeks ago. The exact reasons for the move are too long and silly to be recounted here, so I will skip to the important bit:  I have left my beloved, bright, open-concept (damp, freezing cold, cramped kitchen, studio-style) apartment for something that I feel has a similar energy, minus the lime green and plus a few bedrooms.

After a quick calculation, I reckon this is my 11th 'home' in the last 5 years, not counting interim months spent at my parents' place over summers. That's not as bad as during the Uni years, but it's enough. All part of the lifestyle choice, of course, but there is nothing to make you loathe moving like having to do it over and over. As part of my resettlement deal, at least, I was spared the task of actually carrying anything myself, though I did feel a pang of guilt as I watched the two movers haul my every personal belonging up the five and a half floors to my new place.

Apartment hunting is sort of a bizarre experience here. Not because the places are any worse than anywhere else I've looked -  I'm sure horrendous apartments are an international phenomenon - but because the outsides of the buildings are particularly deceptive.  



Any or every one of these unappealing boxes might secretly be  harbouring spacious, beautiful, modern apartments but from the outside...there is no point in even hazarding a guess.



For example, this is a relatively new building:

It looks okay, right? There is no way you can tell by looking at this building that on the inside there are entire apartments with no windows looking onto...outside, where every single window displays a view of a very cozily located wall. It would be like living in a ceramic-tiled cave.

Of course it's difficult to escape this interior window business altogether, as it seems to be a very common design feature here. My own bedroom window looks out onto someone else's front door. Eeek.

This arrangement is especially entertaining on the central stairway, where I walk through half a dozen different conversations on my way up or down. And you hear things. Laughing, coughing, MSN messaging, dish washing...everything.



Perhaps because of the lack of sound barrier (virtually every room in my apartment has a window looking out onto this echo-y sound vortex) everyone has been quiet and respectful, for which I am infinitely grateful, though I don't doubt the day will arrive when someone has a party and I will get all uptight and gringa about the disturbance.

For now though, it feels like a good fit.



Smile

Blood results are good. Eight months down, 52 more to go!

I Hate Neighbours

At the moment in school I am just wrapping up a unit about Neighbours. Neighbours live in your neighbourhood, maybe in your conjunto. Maybe they go to school with you. Maybe you want them to die, just a little bit. That wasn't in the Unit Plan though. That's just me.

My selfish, thoughtless, horrible neighbours had yet another party last night. It woke me up for the first time at half past one, and finished around four am. I know this, because I was up for most of it. Their last party (less than a week ago) I'm pretty sure doubled as a rehearsal for some kind of theatrical performance. Last night's event on the other hand sounded as though it was inaugurated with a dance contest. My best guess: a fusion tap-break dance team vs. an imported group of Maori Haka dancers. Then the whole thing degenerated into a typical drunken sing-along, which was slightly less irritating than the agressive floor-stamping, but no more conducive to sleep.

I have complained to my Colombian friends here, who have all informed me that it is part of the culture to simply be more tolerant of noise. They are used to living in close quarters, and everybody loves a party. Let them tolerate then. This morning, I have cranked my television up to VOLUME 90 and while I think I am going a bit deaf myself, at least I am certain it can also be heard by the assholes upstairs, possibly even disturbing their attempts to sleep it off. I am hoping that they were not so drunk as to render themselves unconcious - I want them to enjoy my sharing of MTV's early morning selection.Queen is up right now. Not bad.

I know it's immature. But after 4 hours of sleep, my mind isn't capable of conjuring upn anything more sophistocated than eye-for-an-eye justice to address this very tiresome situation. I'm just disappointed that I can't stay here for the next three hours to slowly increase the volume to 100 and bang on the ceiling with my broom a bit more. I'd be worried about 'escalating the situation', but I'm out of here tomorrow anyway. More on that next time.

Marching, Marching, Marching...

It's hard not to have a good day after being escorted to the bus stop by a marching band playing one of the peppiest tunes on the planet. The ants go marching one-by-one hurrah, hurrah! The ants go marching off to work hurrah, hurrah!

I happen to live half a block from the Batallon - I'm not even certain what the equivalent word in English would be (not having a huge army presence in Canada, I guess) but it's the place where the soldiers live and work and play in marching bands. The batallon sits just a bit down the mountain from the sidewalk I tread every morning to the bus stop, and this morning my passing coincided perfectly with the marching band's tour - soldiers in fatigues playing tubas and trumpets like there is nothing they would rather be doing at seven a.m. 

This is way better than coffee!

House Guest

This is Uva (Spanish for Grape) though I have more often heard her called Kittycatcita by her affectionate owner and my friend, for whom I am kitty-cat-sitting this week.

My cats growing up were savvy beasts who supplemented their Meow Mix diet with whatever beasties they hunted out-of-doors. Mice, obviously, birds often, once a chipmunk, once a snake... They liked to roll in the dirt, and stay out all night, and would sometimes line their catch up on the sidewalk outside the front door, so we could compliment them on their prowess and total domination of 'Mousy-Land'. They were not particularly cuddly creatures, except the hermaphrodite one (odd, but true) who would sometimes try to hump your leg.

Uva, on the other hand, is the softest, cleanest, sweetest, most cuddly kitty I've ever met. (Though I heard she did make fast work of a bird not too long ago.) She doesn't use her claws when she she does that cat-kneading thing on you, and twice I woke in the night to find her using my arm as a pillow. The other 57 times I woke though, she was doing something less cuddly and decidedly more playful (read: noisy).

She battled it out with the cow rug, had a little nibble on a cardboard box (brought especially for that purpose), investigated every square inch of the bookshelf, re-arranged my attempt at a potted herb garden, and stripped my larger plants of some of their more unnecessary lower-hanging leaves.

The plants weren't doing particularly well anyway, perhaps they will thrive better on my second attempt.

Despite the mess, and the sleeping thing, I think we're going to be good buddies!

Barrio Ballet

I actually went out and did something cultural last night, and it felt sooooooo good. It was a last minute arrangement - someone at school asked if I wanted to go see ''some dance thing''. I generally enjoy ''dance things'' so I accepted.

When I was little, my mom used to take my sister and I to see the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. It was an event - a trip to the big city, our fanciest dresses...We saw classics like The Nutcracker and Swan Lake and Giselle. Friday night's performance was also a ballet, but nothing like I remember (though I did wear a dress, which I haven't done in years...) The Instituto Colombiano de Ballet Clasico from the city of Cali, here in Colombia, presented two shows. The first, featuring electrotango music, was called Tangueandonos, and was choreographed by an Argentine.

Here is a sample

The second part, twice as long as the first, told the history of salsa dancing, which is one of the defining characteristics of Cali region. I was a bit confused at first when women came out in full English garb dancing to what sounded like Greensleeves, but apparently Salsa dancing has its origin in traditional European dance. The story after this is a confusing mix of African and Cuban rhythms which I have yet to sort out. The end result though is a different version of Salsa in each area where it is played and danced, and Cali is famous for its salsa dancers. It is natural then that they would want to tell its story, and while I had some doubts about how well salsa and ballet would go together, I thoroughly enjoyed the show, and the company.

Level 3: Identify and Eliminate

I reckon it's a bit like a video game, this getting rid of bugs business. You have to beat a series of increasingly difficult 'levels'.

I never had much patience for video games.

Level One, as I suspect is often the case, was a bit of a gimme. The dozy flying beetle-bug things which took over my apartment briefly in the spring sort of disappeared of their own accord. Since they didn't bite we passed our co-habitation in relative harmony, though I can't say that I was sorry to see them go.

Level Two I defeated only two months ago. Flea bites were fairly easy to identify, and you've already had an account of my victory. It was a tedious process, but not particularly difficult.

Level Three is presenting a whole new series of challenges. First of all, what the hell causes bites like these??

I haven't seen a single bug, yet my body is covered with these itchy welts, neck to toes. Preliminary Internet investigation suggests that these are bedbug bites, but when I went to get the appropriate spray to begin the notoriously difficult process of getting rid of bedbugs, I discovered that nobody here is really familiar with this particular bicho, and there are no toxic chemicals especially geared toward its demise.

Sooooo....I am sleeping on the couch, and still suffering the occasional hit. By Level Ten I swear I will be fighting off pterodactyls, a spray can of EXTERMIN in each hand.

I am considering an alternate strategy this round though - evasive action. It looks like I will be moving to a new apartment, and my plan is to leave all the flying, crawling, bloodsucking critters behind.

Let the new owners enjoy their company. Ha. Suckers.

The Health Gamble

Sooo... that time of year that all foreign-hire staff dread is approaching. Decision Time. Re-sign the contract time. Have a little panic over where your life is going time. Have a massive anxiety event over health-insurance time.

Wait...I think that last one is just me.

Here is the dilemma: I want out of here. For a number of reasons that I don't feel up to detailing right now, I want out. For the record, none of them relate directly to my job, and if I could pick the school up and transfer it to somewhere else, I would do so. Of course reality rained on that little parade, so I must come up with a different plan.

So, just go! Right? Easy.

Except that it isn't, really. Never mind the student loans I'm still paying off and the fact that it's practically impossible to find a teaching job in Canada; while those things scare me to death, they are reasonable risks that I am hesitant but ultimately willing to assume. The real problem is Health Insurance. Here in Colombia, while I am employed, I have excellent coverage. If I got to Canada, I have piss-poor access to Health Care (compared to here) and that's after a three-month waiting period.

I am not assuming the worst, but I'm not prepared to ignore what is a very real possibility either. Allow me to play out the possibilities as I see them. Maybe I am missing something.

1) I stay in Colombia, with my present employer. I have health insurance and the peace of mind that comes with it, and I will enjoy my work even though I don't really want to live here anymore. The work is good. The everything else is not, really. If I get sick again, I'm covered, and the only problem is that my family would have to go through the drama of coming down here to care for me again.

2) I give my notice in December and plan to go home to Canada in July. If I get sick between December and July I am treated here until my contract ends when my insurance presumably also ends, and I am fucked. Being sent home at this point doesn't do me any good because I have no insurance there either, and who knows if I would be in any condition to travel anyway.

3) I give my notice in December and go home to Canada in July. If I get sick before the three-month waiting period has passed, I am fucked. And unemployed.

4) I give my notice in December and try to find a job somewhere else in Colombia, on the condition that my health insurance policy is transferable. (Is that even possible??) The only thing is, there is no way to know if this will actually be an improvement.

I realize that I cannot make all my life decisions based on whether or not I will relapse. But it seems absurd to me to risk losing my access to health coverage at this particular point in time. (And please, please don't say it will be fine!!)

Obviously I don't have the money to pay for this kind of care out of my pocket, and while my parents have said they will help if it comes to that, I'm simply not willing to allow them to bankrupt themselves to pay for something that I could be getting basically for free if I make the right choice.

Help?

Love and Friendship

Today is Love and Friendship day in Colombia. This is their version of St. Valentine's Day - a highly commercialized extravaganza of hearts and streamers and sweets, except that it encompasses friendship and all varieties of love rather than limiting itself to the romantic version.

With no personal experience to guide me, I can't comment on the degree of pressure to perform or provide within romantic relationships in the form of grand gestures and/or gifts, but I did see a number of highly agitated men running around the grocery store this evening with bouquets of flowers, looking as though they wished they had been organized and sensible enough purchase something for their wife/girlfriend/lover/mother earlier on in the day.

How Colombian couples, families and friends manage this day will likely always remain a mystery to me, but I can tell you we celebrate at school, and believe me, we are steeped in love there.

Our 'theme' at school this year is Put a Little Love in Your Heart, and perhaps surprisingly my thoughts on this do not run toward the cynical, at least not where the students are concerned. I do love my students, and I'm allowed, even expected, to show it. If I did not allow a child to hug me, for example, people would probably blame my gringa-ness and forgive me, but I suspect it would be considered a flaw. (I once had a parent accuse me of not loving her son enough, though in her world complete permissiveness and lack of boundaries = love...so I suppose by her standards I didn't love him...)

We celebrated on Thursday by wearing Love and Friendship colours and getting the kids all hopped up on sugar. I want to say that it was fun, but mostly it was exhausting. I think it's easier to 'love' 18 children at once when we're following the standard routine.

(in our love and friendship non-uniform gear)




(outside a 3rd grade classroom - too much love? Haha)

Chiva time

This is a chiva:

It is a modified sort of bus which was traditionally used in rural areas to transport people and their belongings, and they are still used in this capacity in many areas. The streets of Manizales, however, is not one of them. To me, chiva means bus on which one is allowed and even encouraged to consume vast quantities of rum while listening to live music and yelling at strangers on the street.

Though I would like to make clear that I prefer to leave the yelling bit to others.

The chiva above was actually the vehicle which hosted our annual staff Chiva Night two years ago, shortly after my arrival to Colombia. It was a very successful night out.

(On the chiva with my friend and roommate during my first year in Colombia)

This year's event was, for me at least, a more sedate affair. We boarded the chiva and were given liquor, in the form of a rum-box. Think: juice box, but more powerful.

The band actually rides in the bus with us, playing two different types of drums, a clarinet, and a shaker-type-deal. Though I could not tell you what this type of music is called, I can provide a little sample:

The Colombians seemed familiar with all of the songs and sang along, but it was a little tricker for the 'gingos'. I was fortunate enough to have the words of one of these songs translated for me...That mound is lovely. I will give you anything to climb the mound..please say yes, tell me yes... But peppy, and with drums!

We travelled ever-so-slowly from one end of the city to another, and at one point the chiva pulled over and the party spilled out onto the sidewalk for awhile, so the Colombians could get their groove on. I ate a lollipop.

The band's abrupt return to the bus signalled that the tour was to resume, so we boarded as well and meandered in the direction of the club where the second part of the party was to take place.

As with many of the events that take place here though, I felt more of an observer than an active participant. This was fine arrangement on the bus, but was less enjoyable inside a nightclub at 9:30pm, so I bailed and got a good rest in preparation for my new exercise classes Saturday mornings - dance and tone - woohoo!

Personal Harassment, er...Training

I had my first appointment with my personal trainer yesterday after school. $100.00 for eight sessions this month - I reckon this is a worthwhile investment, and if it goes well I can carry on next month.

It is HARD. This is what I'm paying him for, of course; to work me until the world goes blurry and I have to lay down while he goes to fetch "aguita" and quietly prays to the god of chubby gringas that I will recover without any drama. Which I did.

After the sweat-fest on the elliptical trainer, we moved on to The Machines. I have (in the relatively distant past) been acquainted with weight-training apparatus before, though I don't recall the machines having had quite so many levers and safety switches. I pushed, pulled and squeezed for half an hour, and was set free.

Everything hurts, which is good, and I'm going back for more this afternoon. We're supposed to be talking about goals, and choosing 'target areas'. Ha. I would have assumed that the answer to this would be fairly obvious: Yes, I want to lose weight in my...ankles.

If I have enough energy, I'm supposed to be going on a Chiva Tour tonight, but more on that later...

It's just a birthday...

Me: ____, when is your birthday?

Sweet Little Boy: 2003!

Me: Yes, but what month were you born in?

Sweet Little Boy: 2003!

Me: Yes, that is the year you were born. But what month? Mes? Month?

Sweet Little Boy: Ju.....

Me: June? July?

Sweet Little Boy: Yes!

Me: But which one is it?

Sweet Little Boy: Either is fine.

Me: No....you were only born once. Do you know which month you were born in?

Sweet Little Boy: ... ... ...

Me: Here, take this note to the office and ask the secretary to write your birthday down for you.

January. That sort of sounds like Ju.....

Three Good and a Bad

Sorry sorry sorry.

I haven't renounced technology, become a hermit, or relapsed. It's just...that thing, that our mothers taught us, you know: if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, well, it's hard to overcome this brand of intense programming, so I've been keeping my mouth shut.

But now, I am once again prepared to say things 'nice'.

Nice Thing Number One: I had a visit with my doctor in Medellin yesterday. The importance of this cannot be understated. My test results were great. I am now 1/10 of the way towards being 'cured'. (Five years without relapse = cured.) Also worth noting is the fact that I happily travelled over five hours each way in a crowded and sweltering van to sit with this doctor for half an hour and talk about all kinds of things, most of which were not related to my health. It was totally worth it. I shall leave you to your own conclusions regarding what this implies.

Nice Thing Number Two: I have joined a gym, and am reminded three to four times a week how good it feels to be doing exercise again. Except on Sunday mornings. The gym is in a shopping mall, and one side of the gym is actually an open space which looks down into a food court. Sunday mornings they clear out the tables and install a priest with an offensively loud stereo system, blasting Jesus crap powerful enough to drown out the sound coming from my generations-old mp3 player. At the time I had a little chuckle because really what is more offensive - Eminem ranting about some guy looking for a slut of f**k in his hummer truck, or...being force-fed Christian rock music? Tough call. So no more Sunday mornings and sweating for Jesus.

Nice Thing Number Three: Book Club! When I took this job two years ago, a major factor influencing my decision to accept was that my boss told me that we would have a book club. I think this was more influential than the promise of mountainous country-side or ample prep-time. The club itself did not materialize until this year, and we had our first meeting last weekend. The book we read was not spectacular, but meeting with others to talk about it was. Nerdy, maybe, but very satisfying.

Nice Thing Number Four: Erm.... nope. There is no number four. But since I said three nice things, does that buy me one not nice thing without being accused of rampant negativity? I am getting tired of this place. It has been cold and raining a lot, which wouldn't be a huge problem if my moods weren't somehow directly connected to the weather. I am already counting down the sleeps until the Christmas Holiday so I can go see my family. Did I really get better only to be able to spend the vast majority of my free time in almost complete isolation? What the hell was the point of that? So clearly, this area needs some fixing.

Something else to consider; in my class right now we are learning the Five Ws. Who, What, When, Where, Why...The boss will be looking for decisions regarding contract renewal before Christmas, so all of these questions must be applied to my own life in a rather serious way in the near future. (And we mustn't forget 'How', which despite its contrary nature in not beginning with the correct consonant, is perhaps the most important questions to consider...) I am overwhelmed by the enormity of these questions, so for now I am mostly ignoring them. We'll see how long I can keep that up.

How to Make Vegan Chili in Colombia

STEP 1: Find a recipe.

STEP 2: Visit numerous local grocery stores and try not to feel like an idiot when the store clerk looks at you as though you are one because you've asked for help finding the tofu.

STEP 3: Purchase tofu substitute Carve (almost like carne - the Spanish word for 'meat') - soy vegetable protein which looks like a cross between croutons and dog food.

STEP 4: Visit numerous local grocery stores looking for chili powder. When this fails, harass a friend until she agrees to share some of her imported stash. Promise to repay after Christmas holidays.

STEP 5: Hit the grocery stores again, this time in search of kidney beans. After reading seven different labels and determining that all canned kidney beans are pre-mixed with pork products, purchase a pack of dehydrated "red beans" and just hope that they are at least similar to kidney beans.

STEP 6: Get kind of frustrated with the whole process because 3 days have gone by and you've already used up the other ingredients you thought were going to be put in the chili; have something else for dinner and follow it up with a nice big glass of wine.

STEP 7: Soak the "red beans" for 24 hours, during which time you must go out and purchase all of the other ingredients again.

STEP 8: Ask the maid to cook the now only slightly pink-ish beans for the requisite 4 to 6 hours until soft enough to be edible. (It is not a good idea to attempt this step on your own, because last time you tried to cook beans, you nearly burned your apartment down, remember?)

STEP 9: Screw the recipe - make the chili using whatever ingredients they had in stock at the grocery store.

Step 10: Enjoy - it was worth it!

Burns and Bugs

I booked my Grand Canadian Tour from my hospital bed back in January before I knew when school would be getting started again (or if I would even be able to go), and as a result came back to Colombia about 10 days early and have been hanging out mostly with myself. What have I done since my return? Have I made good use of my time? Erm...no.

In addition to watching the entire first two seasons of House (that's 46 episodes, people) my first major accomplishment was to nearly burn my apartment down. On Monday, I went for a leisurely walk then met a friend for coffee. A passing comment of hers brought to mind my carelessness, and I must have looked pretty shocked, because she asked "what, did you leave a pot on the stove or something?". Well yes, actually, I did. "You're kidding," she said. Nope. Gotta run. I grabbed the first taxi I could and hung my head out the window looking for billowing smoke from my neighbourhood... no firetrucks...no people milling in the street...no smoke. Outside, that is.

When I opened the door to my apartment I abandoned the small wisp of hope I'd been entertaining on the way home that somehow I had remembered to turn the element off, then forgotten that I had remembered. Instead, I found my pot of beans, extra black now, filling my home with stinky, stinging, clinging smoke. I am an idiot.

The clean-up after that particular mistake is ongoing. My laundry room is hip-high with every piece of clothing I own here, except the items that have already been washed and aired. My sheets, blankets, and pillow covers, were among the first things to go in, so I could at least sleep without inhaling the smoke stench up close all night. It took two days (no dryers here!) but by Wednesday afternoon my bed was made with crisp, ironed, fresh-smelling linen. There is nothing like a clean bed, right?

Except now, I've taken all the bedding off again, and done this with it:

Why, you ask, would I do this? Any guesses? Well here's a hint:

Not chicken pox. Flea bites. (These are some other victim's bites, but mine look pretty much the same.) And they ITCH like the dickens.

My first year here I also had fleas in my bed, as did my roommate in hers, and I was mortified - how would I have picked up fleas? But everyone said that it's normal around here, it just happens. Same with the cockroaches and termites, and the lethargic flying beetle-type creatures that I was finding by the dozen flying around my plants but seem to have vacated of their own accord. Just part of the Colombia experience. At least now I know how deal with it.

So, to sum up: the lingering smoke odour caused by my stupidity has now been covered up by the overwhelming chemical stink of the product I am using to fumigate my sheets (hence the industrial weight garbage bags), bed, mattress, and everything around it. My beautiful little apartment, my peaceful little corner of the world, reeks.

I can't help but wonder if I'd stayed in Canada for another week or so, might I have avoided this mess? Hmmm...a kind friend pointed out that at least nothing worse happened, and for that I am indeed grateful. In the meantime, I'm off to find a nice smelly candle.

Auto-Prescribed Monthly Blood Check-Up

Success on the first try! I can't even remember the last time anyone got blood out of me without multiple attempts.

Results are good, though this never comforts me as much as you might expect. It is, however, one month closer to five years without relapse = cured.

A cautious WooHoo!

Home, sweet home. Though 'home' is sort of a tricky word for me. Perhaps it should be place-where-most-of-my-stuff-is, sweet place-where-most-of-my-stuff is. Especially my bed.


13 beds in 30 days...it wasn't a quiet, lay around and do nothing type of vacation. Getting around to new and familiar places, and seeing people I haven't seen in ages as well as my my family was fantastic, invigorating. It also made fresh in my mind the things I miss about Canada.


In addition to the important people, who would obviously rank Number One on any such list, here are some of the other little details about Canada which I found myself appreciating over the holidays.


1. Bathtubs. Yes, even in summer, a proper bath is a beautiful thing!


2. Indian food, Thai food, Chinese food, er...Canadian food? Flavour...variety...perogy pizza...yuuuummmm...


3. Long summer days. But not their wintertime companions, ie. short, cold, dark, miserable days.


4. The forest. The smell of it, mostly...


5. Fully stocked grocery stores. Whatever you might want is consistently available. What luxury!


6. Clothes that fit. This was a theory, more than a practical experience on this trip though. I would have bought some clothes if everything in the shops weren't ugly at the moment. I found things that fit, but they were hideous. No clothes for me.


7. Respectful live-and-let-live attitudes. People mind their own business, for the most part. It's peaceful, and unobtrusive, and ever-so-helpful.



Of course, being in Canada made me miss things about Manizales as well...



1. Speaking and listening to Spanish.


2. J-walking. The little green man has no authority here. Rules in general are more flexible. I like that.


3. The mountains Yes, I know that Canada also has mountains, and they are beautiful, but these mountains have a different feel.


4. The climate. Never oppressively hot (Mississauga in 30+ weather!!), nor miserably cold. It's all Baby Bear's porridge around here - just right.


5. I can actually afford to live here. This is key!


These lists may actually come in handy over the next several months when I have to make The Decision. To stay, or to go? And if the answer is 'to go', then to where?

Colombification of my Brain

In the few days since my arrival in Canada I have noticed, with varying degrees of embarrassment and sometimes surprise, that the assumptions I make about the world around me, and my manner of interacting with it, have been influenced by my time away.

The first incident actually occurred at 5:00am in Mexico City after two consecutive nights of very little sleep. Speaking Spanish in such a state is a hopeless affair, so when I approached the Information Guy in the Mexicana Airlines check-in area my sluggish brain defaulted to English. Sort of. "Sir, already I have the boarding pass, I just want to drop off my suitcase. Do I have to make that long line over there?"

This being the literal translation from Spanish to English, I figured the Mexican guy would get it and anyway I couldn't be bothered to correct myself. He didn't bat an eyelash as he directed me to a shorter line. (I am still not certain though if he was helping me or punishing me for my impatience, since he sent me to the 'Special Circumstances' line which was so slow that the man in front of me eventually turned around and kindly suggested that I might try taking some deep breaths and counting to ten...)

Several hours later Mel collected me at the Vancouver airport (see above) and we commenced our journey northward. Driving down a skinny little street, Mel asked me if she had room on my side of the car. "Yeah, you could fit two motorcycles in there!" was my helpful reply. (Though upon further observation, motorcycles here are BIG. You could probably only have fit one Canada-sized motorcycle in that gap.) Mel just looked at me funny and pulled through the tight spot, pushing the barrier of the invisible space-bubble that all vehicles here seem to travel in.

Mel and I drove on, and in the afternoon we saw signs for the approaching Hell's Gate tourist trap. My sensible sister suggested that we shouldn't ride the little cable car across the river because we didn't want to arrive late for our dinner with her friends in Merritt. I added that I didn't want to miss the scenery by traveling at night. It was 4:00p.m.



Yesterday my sister and I, with our grandparents, went on a little tour of the Penticton-Naramata area. It was hot-hot-hot so we decided to stop at a beach to dip our feet. I agreed immediately to this plan thinking we could get some cold drinks from one of the many vendors who would inevitably be at the beach on such a nice day. I imagined little carts full of juices and ice-creams...that would make sense, right? In Colombia you can't get away from these guys. In Canada, it would seem, they are not so easy to find. (I was also shocked by the lack of other beach-goers. Our only company at the first beach was a stray peacock who was admiring his reflection in a parked vehicle...)

We ended up visiting two beaches in the area and no such vendors were present. The second beach, however, did have a permanent kiosk where a friendly teenager sold me a JUMBO Mr. Freeze which hit the spot. While I ate it, I mulled over what had become obvious to me: it was time to turn my brain ON and remember where I was, because I suspect that mildly culturally disoriented will quickly take on the appearance of just plain ridiculous.

But at least I'm not speaking with an English accent anymore, right?

The Papers of Life

Living the ex-pat lifestyle has its perks, but today I would like to focus on one of the more tedious aspects of living abroad - excessive paperwork and dealings with local bureaucracy. Now, what follows is likely true to some degree or another in all countries, but South America is special.

I realized several months ago that my passport was going to expire sometime this summer, but it seemed a distant and frankly low-priority issue at the time. Then I got back to Manizales and was getting settled in a school, and having a social life, and it escaped my mind. It wasn't until May 14th that I finally sent my passport application to the Canadian Embassy in Bogota, where, upon arrival it was promptly misplaced for two weeks. (This I learned after calling to confirm its arrival, not having received any word from the Embassy.)

Meanwhile, my work visa and my cedula (Colombia identification) were set to expire...this week. Thursday, to be exact. And they couldn't renew my work visa (which needs to be done in Bogota) until my new passport was issued, and they couldn't renew my cedula until my new work visa was issued. Without these it is unlikely I would be readmitted into the country. And I leave TOMORROW.

So last week the foreign staff coordinator, the school's lawyer and myself concocted a plan: a messenger would be hired to collect my new passport from the Embassy in Bogota and take it to the DAS (department of administration and security) in Bogota, where the school's lawyer would be waiting to complete the paperwork to get the visa issued, and then bring it all back to Manizales. Simple, right?

Except...the new passport isn't valid until I sign it, and they won't put the visa in unless it's valid.

We quickly revised... the messenger could collect my new passport and send it on an airplane to Manizales, where I would sign it, and then we would send it on another airplane back to Bogota.

But... it rained for three days straight, which meant the airport was closed, which meant no passport...(no visa...no cedula).

In the end, I think the lawyer had to stay a couple of extra days in Bogota, and my passport arrived (I am afraid to ask how, or when exactly) and after an hour in the Manizales DAS, and eight different attempts at putting a fingerprint on a page (no, that just won't do! Try another one. No, no, no, it's smudged. Don't push too hard, this is no good. We'll have to do the form over again, and try some more...) I now have all the necessary items stowed in my backpack for tomorrow's departure. And, I can leave a fingerprint like nobody's business.

I knew all along, of course, that it would work out in the end. I've had my run of bad luck, at least for awhile, so missing my trip home was never really an option. The universe wouldn't dare f**k with me again so soon.

Some random thoughts

Someone asked me yesterday what I had learned from my cancer experience. This is a fair question, but a rather big one to tackle in a passing conversation in the corridor at school. I kept my answer sincere, but brief. I guess...I've learned to take ownership of my life.

Lumbering through the limbo of severe illness, it was difficult to feel I was the owner of much of anything. My body belonged to the doctors and nurses who cared for me, and my mind had become a foreign entity, struggling to fulfil the one command that everyone (including me) felt compelled to issue at regular intervals: be strong, for just a little bit longer, be strong...

So when the treatment was over, and my doctor cautiously confirmed, "Well, that's it. Theoretically." I felt ecstatic, but I also felt this tremendous pressure. I get to live, so I owe it to...the universe to do it right. No more fear, no more excuses.

In practice, this has meant taking a serious personal inventory and trying very hard not to shy away from the results. This is an ongoing process in which certain things need to be changed, while others can only be accepted. Uncomfortable questions are faced, responsibility is assumed, and along the way hopefully a large quantity of mental garbage can be disposed of.

Ten years ago I had a picture of who I thought I would be, and I am nothing like I predicted. Ten months ago I had a notion of who I thought I should be, and the disparity between that idea and the reality was oppressive. Somehow, cancer has given me the strength to shake off these ideas and begin to form new and healthier ones, on my own terms.

(A bit of a downer for the last day of school, no? I should be celebrating. But this is where my mind is, so I thought I would share.)