Mi Despedida

I remember reading my friend Julia´s post like this one a few weeks ago, but hers was called "Signing Off." I am leaving, but I can´t honestly guarantee I will stop writing, I just like rambling too damn much. Although my blogging will most likely be less frequent and also less interesting. But don´t despair, you can count on future travels that will inevitably invigorate my blog once again.

It´s weird to think that I´m already leaving. I´m excited to see my friends and family, move into my new apartment with my awesome room mates, and I´m happy because I just conseguired (some verbs are just better in spanish) called: Campus and community non-profit technology coordinator; at the same time, I will miss this place with all of my heart.

My flight leaves tomorrow at 10, I get into Chicago at 8:30. I know I will write a more sentimental post when I get back, but right now the Taganga water is still hating on my system.

OMG

so, today was probably the most stressful day in my colombian life thus far, seeing as I only have 3 days left, let´s hope I max out here. It´s only the second time I´ve cried while I´ve been here (haha the count is probably up to 10 now because I cried on a few occasions today), the first time this summer was when I got really sick 3 days after I got here, and the events that caused today´s crying are as follows:

I was supposed to have an appointment with the DAS to get my visa stuff fixed at 7:30 this morning, but aiesecers called me last night to say we had to change the appointment because they forgot to get a form they needed from the bank (only for me, they got it for jason), and I was going to have an appointment in the afternoon. However, I woke up to a phone call from Jason at 9:00 that started out, "Now Molly, I have some bad news, I got the papers I need to leave, but they wouldn´t give you an appointment until August 31st, so you can try going down there but you probably are going to have to change your plane ticket and leave after August 31st." (when discussing this later this evening Jason said: "yeah I kept talking because I was waiting for you to like get upset." Then my brother chimed in, "yeah, there was quite a bit of crying that went on immediately after she hung up the phone.") Which is very true: the next hour I spent calling people trying to figure out what I could do, while intermittently breaking down and saying: "What am I going to do, I have to start school, I have to move into my apartment, I can´t afford to change my plane ticket??!!" I´m glad Ben was there to moderate and to remind me: breathe, composure, exhale.

Quite a few Colombians were like: "well can´t you just like start school a little later?" mm no, it doesn´t work quite like that.

Keep in mind: today was the last day I could have an appointment because it takes a day to process, they´re closed on the weekend, I leave early monday.
So finally we had most of my papers together and we were walking to the DAS to meet Andrea, who had the rest of my papers, when she called me and said the DAS is closed. She did not tell me quickly enough that they were only closing for 3 hours for lunch, and I had already began jumping up and down on the sidewalk saying no no no, and eventually collapsing into the grass to cry a little more. It was quite the dramatized breakdown, and I hope that some Colombians saw it just to add to their preexisting notion that Gringos are in fact crazy.

Anyways, we went at 2, where one woman told us we needed an appointment, another one told us to wait in line, and one finally said: "You never needed an appointment, you just need the paperwork, come in now." This same woman told the next guy (who came for the same thing as I did) that he wouldn´t be able to get an appointment until sometime in September. For a government agency, this place was astoundingly arbitrary, as they were all just making up rules as they went along. I had to meet with this mean woman who Jason accurately described as "under qualified for her job;" her job was taking finger prints and typing a little bit on the computer. She made me sign about 16 forms and asked Andrea about 7 times if this was my first time to Colombia. The she entered my name into some computer documents, where she would randomly decide each time whether she wanted to put 1, 2, or 3 spaces between each word as she slapped the space bar with her thumb. Then she finger printed every single one of my fingers on both hands: TWICE. The second time was on the back of some sheet, I don´t think it was legit, I think she just wanted more opportunities to slam my fingers into the ink and then slam them onto the page.

Anyways, since I "didn´t know how to speak spanish," and this woman clearly didn´t know how to speak english, seeing as she had no idea she was wearing a shirt that on one half in english said: "feminine club, TOTALLY feminine, royally feminine" and on the other side, diagonally: "INDIAN RAGS INDIAN RAGS INDIAN RAGS" (what does that even mean?) Andrea and I were able to make comments like: "She is really stupid, her hair is really ugly, she is kind of a jerk."

What a drama filled day. Everything is fine now, I just have to go pick up the papers tomorrow. Looking back this is kind of funny, I kind of sound like a drama queen, but man I was already feeling pressed for time before school, and that just pushed me over the edge.

anyways: people should leave more comments, because comments validate my blogging existence.

La Costa

Just got back from the coast: it was glorious being in the sun and on the beach; sad we had to cut it a few days short. We went to Cartagena, Santa Marta (Taganga), and Tayrona National Park. Today I´m not feeling so hot because I drank the water in Taganga when I probably shouldn´t have...but because I made so many trips to the bathroom on our 15 hour bus ride I did discover that the security rail had a core made out of black light-glowstick...so everytime I went in the bathroom it was like my own little personal rave.

other things I liked from the coast:
-sitting on the old walls of cartagena, watching little kids play soccer
-meeting up with Eduardo an AIESECer from Cartagena and their trainee from Holland
-sitting in a bar that was playing gloriously bad 80´s and 90´s songs while projecting their videos onto the wall, all of the Estadounidenses were very entertained by this, the trainee from Holland kept saying: "Let´s go to a party place." (with the accent of Heimlich, the caterpillar from A Bug´s Life)
-Going to Tutuomo, a mud volcano, you go swimming in it, and it is honestly one of the most bizarre densities that I have ever felt, you couldn´t drown in it if you wanted to
-Andres, the guy who drove us to the mud volcano, calling me "casi paisa," which means almost from the region of Antioquia (Medellin), which is certainly an improvement from the gringa and a half bidding I got when I first arrived.
-The man in cartagena walking around with a scale, asking for money if he weighed them. He came over by us and I assured him in Spanish, that Jason, Ben, and I all already knew that we were quite big...he laughed every time he walked past us after that.
-Ridiculous bartering that went on with the street vendors, Jason convinced a man to sell his bracelets 10 for 10 mil with no intention of actually buying them.
-The man that Jason and Ben bought cigars from they bargained with for like 15 minutes, when he finally closed the a semi-good deal, he said, "Good thing you brought your friend along (me), I gave you the deal since she´s so cool." hahaha
-Getting to Taganga and finding out that all the hostels were full so we had to sleep 3 across 2 mattresses pushed together in the office of the hostel Techos Azules.
-Finding a little scorpion in our room the last morning at Techos Azules
-Sleeping outside in hammocks in Tayrona
-Tayrona being the most beautiful beach I have ever seen
-Swimming in the Caribbean for the first time
-The creepy man in Taganga who would inexplicably pop up EVERYWHERE we were...we saw him like 5 times the first night we were there
-Feeling extremely dirty, and legitimately being so, and talking to the man next to me on the bus when he told me, "Stay here 5 years, we call this clean."
-The man on the beach in Taganga who told both Ben and I, "Let me rub this coconut oil on you, it´s so good it will turn you Black in 3 monthes."

I might be forgetting some things, but that´s all for now...I can´t believe I´ll be home in 5 days.

yeah...about that

well here's something I wasn't expecting...I became an illegal citizen in Colombia as of Sunday. When all of my Colombian friends here hear this they think it is quite funny. My friend Will said, "Wait, so you came from the United States to Colombia, and now you're here and you're here illegally." Yup, you got it right on the button. Then he chuckled very loudly, and said, "That is really funny."

When I got here they stamped a miniscule entry stamp, and within this little centimeter by 2 stamp it says that my visa here only is for 60 days. I don't know why this happened, because in every book I've ever read, and on both consulate websites you are automatically granted a 90 day tourist visa upon entry. This was supposed to be fine because we're just here basically volunteering, for less than 90 days. Anyways, Jason and I's visas were only good for 60 days, so now we have to do all of this stuff like get little pictures taken on white backgrounds, make copies of our passport photos, passport stamps, exit airline tickets, proof letters of what we were doing from AIESEC and our employers, pay a fee (which the AIESEC here is paying because it wasn't our fault) etc. etc. and have a meeting with the DAS (which is normally where Colombians have to go in order to obtain documents to travel to surrounding countries confirming that they are not felons) Now, I have to cut my coastal vacation short by 2 days. Needless to say I was a little upset when I first found out, and sometimes it's okay to yell naughty english words in the colombian streets because they don't understand anyways.

I asked what would happen if we just stayed in the coast and didn't go to the appointment...they told me we'd get deported...I said deported where?...they said the U.S. ..and I said well yeah that's where I'm aiming to end up anyways.

But apparently if I choose that route I will never be allowed in Colombia again, so I'm going to the meeting. I'm going to the meeting and I have to pretend like I don't know any Spanish, because if you know Spanish they take you alone in a room and probably pseudo-interrogate you. But if I don't "know" Spanish I get to have my little friend Hoyitos do all of the talking for me, and she'll talk for Jason too, I guess so our stories match up perfectly? I mean we don't really have anything to hide.

We went to the DAS office yesterday to schedule an appointment, and I had to start the acting. I felt bad as I had to whisper chau gracias to the cab driver. I couldn't pull off not speaking the language, I think I probably seemed more deaf than anything, as when the guy said me prestas tu celular (sounds like sell-oo-lar) I stared at him blankly (you know since I don't know any spanish) I turned to Andrea and said, what? haha, later I realized that even to the non spanish-speaker celular probably pretty clearly translates to cellular. haha I'll have to work on my acting, just can't turn it off and turn it on like that.

Maybe I should keep my acting how it is, because if I honestly got anymore famous I don't think I could handle it, haha jk. But I forgot to include that I interviewed on TeleMedellin last week...and a woman came today who wants to interview me and others for a program about the importance of speaking more than one language....haha I was like would you call what I do in Spanish speaking? but oh well, at least I try. But anyways, the interview's on Saturday and I'm going to be on the coast.

Well, the first half of my post sounds shady mcshaderson...but fear not, I don't think it's actually too shady, I mean kind of...but I should be able to leave the country, fingers crossed! Dad/CB don't cry when you read this, it will be okay.

Guest starring: Benjamín

Hello, readers of Molly´s blog!

This is Ben, Molly´s brother (for those of you who don´t know me), writing from the living room of La Familia Salazar, in the neighborhood of El Estadio in Medellín. I told Molly that I'd write a guest post for this whole 'not lost in translation' business, so here I am.

I got here on Tuesday night after being picked up at the airport by Molly, Federico, and Antón. Molly started jumping up and down when she saw me through some windows while I walked to Immigration--but this was after she thought some other guy was me, so I'm not sure if the excited jumping was for me or the guy next to me. In any case, Federico and Antón are great guys, and their picking me up from the airport was a good indication of the friendliness of all the people I've met here, friends of Molly's and complete strangers alike.

Note: Although Luna did bark at me for a long time when I got here, we´re friends now. I can't be sure of it, but I think our friendship may have something to do with me giving her some of my breakfast the next morning. Shh, don´t tell.

I spent the next couple of days exploring the downtown area of Medellín--it's a great city with beautiful newly-constructed parks, a museum full of excellent Botero paintings and sculptures, and the people, as I said before, are extremely welcoming. They're also curious, as evidenced by the stares I draw everywhere I go. The staring wouldn´t be all that remarkable except for this: they make eye contact! Long and unfalterting, they seem to be searching for something they can´t see in my height and blond hair. It´s extremely refreshing--I can walk around Evanston/Chicago for days on end without a stranger looking me in the eye. Although I can't be sure of their motives, I have a rough idea, and I like to think this speaks well for the people of Medellín.

I arrived at the right time, as the city was in the middle of a week-long party. The second night I was here, we went to a Bossa Nova concert in El Parque de Los Pies Descalzos. The music was great, and I got to meet a lot of Molly´s friends from AIESEC who are living in Medellín. I can´t say enough about this group of people. They've welcomed me as one of their own--I think Molly deserves some credit for that (¨Molly´s a great person, so I suppose her brother must be alright.¨)--and I've gotten to know most of them better in the short time I've been here. The work they're doing to improve not only themselves, but this country, is truly wonderful.

This weekend was a blast, with Saturday featuring a day-long event involving a parade of horses (some of which were carrying stereo systems of the large-ish variety), and a lot of drinking in the sun. Minus the horse parade and plus a water polo match, I felt like I was in college. Sunday was a beautiful day for the parade of the silleteros. Also, I'd like to clarify Molly´s statment that we had great seats for the parade. By ¨seats¨ she meant ¨spots for standing in close quarters with a bunch of people for a few hours,¨ and by ¨we looked much hotter than she was,¨ Molly meant ¨Ben was sweating all over her.¨

Anyway, it's been a great week. I'm leaving tomorrow for Cartagena with Jaime, a fellow American traveler whom we met on Wednesday, where Molly and Jason (and I think Mauro and maybe others?) will be joining us on Friday. I'm excited to hang out on the beach, but I'm already looking forward to coming back to Medellín for the last few days before I go back to Chicago.

So ends the guest post of Ben. Gracias por su atención.

Oh I'm excited

I'm excited because this is the first time in a long time my computer is letting me publish photos to my blog!
So in that case: here I have a shout out to Lucas Florez (sorry, I've owed you this shout out for a while, haha), and Cynthia Newell. Woo AIESEC.

Silleteros

Mi Corazon es Paisa

I love Medellin. I love Colombia.
Cynthia left today which made me start thinking about when I'm going to leave.
I feel like it's my duty to convince other people to love Colombia, too.
As much as I feel like it's going to be a whirlwind from the time I get back to when I start school and I wish I had more time, I also wish I had more time here. After two and half monthes I still feel like I have so much to learn about this place and the people here. I guess that just makes me know for sure that I'll be back here in the future.

I guess it's not my job to convince everyone to love Medellin if the New York Times can do a little bit of the work for me:
"A Drug-Runners’ Stronghold Finds a New Life":
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/travel/12nextstop.html?ex=1344571200&en=c0d855a9e50ad873&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
(Thanks Ariane for heads up)

A nice article about Medellin-- make sure you click through the photo slide show, too.
"...An eagerly anticipated three-day weekend was about to turn into a four-day party. A cluster of young clubgoers ordered rum-and-coke cocktails as the rhythms of reggaetón and vallenato shook the foggy dance floor."
The article was mainly accurate: minus the fact that they don't drink rum and coke COCKTAILS here, cocktail would imply that the rum and coke were at some point mixed together in a cup. They swig straight from the bottle here; or if you're lucky they'll give you a cup with ice.

Besides that, Ben and I got awesome seats for the Silletero parade on Sunday. People come down from the surrounding mountains with their silleteros (flower arrangements, designs--some made into statues, figures, words, it's crazy!) carried on their backs. It was amazing to see these old women carrying these massive flower arrangements on their back in the really hot weather! It's normally really difficult to get seats, so we lucked out. I'm also not normally one for flower arrangements, but this blew my mind.

Not to mention that the two hour waiting period before the parade was an accurate representation of Medellin in my mind. First, people talked and laughed about how tall Ben was and how they couldn't see over him (It's nice to have a little of the pressure taken off me, but I told him not to worry since I have hands and feet on permanent display at the freak show of Medellin) Then, people stared at us as we spoke in English and the woman next to us gave us her paper fans because she insisted we looked much hotter than she was (in both senses, haha jk). Then, I answered my cell phone and was talking with one of my Colombian friends, which caused people to stare a whole lot more as thoughts of: what is this Gringa doing speaking Spanish, I can't believe it! Soon enough, we were chatting with all of our neighbors, and the woman who had given us the fans also wanted to give me a yellow rose. I'm not exactly sure why she had it with her: woke up that morning thought: "I think I'm going to meet a nice foreigner today" but I took it happily none the less. People were surprised to find out that I was here for more than just the parade, and that I had actually been working here all summer. Then these complete strangers offered us water from their bottles because we seemed pretty thirsty. haha, things like this happen literally ALL the time, it's lovely.

We're leaving on Thursday for the coast, it's considered the Caribbean, how cool is that?

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Gallactica.

I tried to write this post before, but it wouldn't let me post it for mysterious reasons unbeknownst to me.

excerpt from an email from my brother:

Dwight Schroot: Are you excited?
Ryan: Yes.
DS: Are you very excited?
Ryan: No.
DS: Okay, you're just excited.
later...
DS: I'm very excited.

am i excited? yes. am i very excited? yes. bears. beets. battlestar galactica.

The message of that post was Colombia should get ready...but Ben's here, and I think Colombia's handling it very well.

On the other hand Luna, our dog, is not handling the situation very well. Ben thinks that Luna knows that he hated her before he ever even met her. Because, when we got to the house at like 12:30 (at night) after getting Ben at the airport, Ben stuck his hand down for Luna to smell....and she freaked out when he was like five feet away from her. It was so bazaar...granted Luna isn't a one bark wonder...and she proceeded to bark at extremely high decibel levels for the next, at least, 19 minutes. It was a little ridiculous. Ben said he wanted to kill her. I also wanted to in that moment. haha.

Anyways in other animal news: Lupe has now stopped pooping in showers (I think that is mainly because she doesn't have access to the showers) she now pees everywhere in the house....and the oh so delightful and familiar smell of cat pee (thank you wishbone) have once again taken a hold on my life. Dad, I'm beginning to think that you shouldn't have gotten rid of Wishbone, you should have just gotten rid of me...I seem to attract cats that pee in inappropriate places in my life.

Time has gone by so fast: I only have a week and a half left of working...then we're going to the coast! Cynthia already leaves on Monday, crazy! Alexandria leaves on the 25th, Jason and I leave on the 27th.

We had a global village on Monday where our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bagels and cream cheese were quite a hit. We also taught key english phrases like: foshizzle my nizzle (thank you lucas for that lovely suggestion). Pretty much everyone that stopped at the U.S. table wanted to know what we thought of President Bush...um, yeah. Then we had our closing party on a chiva....and this chiva was so much better than the one that I went on in Manizales, I stayed awake for the whole thing! It was quite fun(ny) and entertaining. For some reason the Colombians decided to drink a lot that night. Whenever I think about it, I just start laughing.

oh and p.s. dad: I heard from a little bird that you've been spreading rumors that I've been drinking a lot, and the word alcoholic may have even come up?! what's that about. c'mon now. I know when your laughs get a joke you like to tell them again, but that joke is just inappropriate...you should have come visit me and you could've seen me in action at work...talk to ben, he sat in my office all morning!

p.s. SYDNEY: we all know you want to leave a comment, and I think you should definitely do it. :)

Fiasco

So, our cat Lupe Fiasco, has a problem: she poops in the shower. So to avoid this situation we started closing all of the bathroom doors, obviously. Anyways, before this I never really was one to lock bathroom doors...I mean it's a closed door, take it for what it is and don't go in. This posed a problem, seeing as now all of our bathroom doors in our house here were shut all the time, so you never could tell. Anyways, I had to learn to start locking, but I still don't lock it if I'm just brushing my hair, teeth, arreglando, etc. However, every time the dad of mi casa would walk in on me brushing my hair (just for clarification: I was fully clothed) or anything, he would lecture me about how I need to lock it, and proceed to demonstrate how to close the door and lock it for the next 5 minutes, he was very serious about this topic. Sometimes he gave me the lecture and demonstrationg unprovoked, while I was watching TV or something, since it's across the hall from the bathroom, naturally it's a good time to remind me, no?


Anyways, this morning Mr. Antonio Salazar forgot to lock the bathroom door. For so long I would knock on the door, and very slowly open it. But after so many lectures, (I figured he's gotten to everyone in the house) I just flung the door open, counting on the fact that it would be locked if someone was in it. However, it seems Antonio forgot to lecture himself, because he didn't lock the door! I definitely saw way more than I bargained for, and did one of those shrieks/gasps that you have no control over and have no idea is coming, it's just a reflex, so it always sounds really weird. Well, anyways, I thought about waiting outside the door for him in order to lecture him about what he'd just done, and teach him how to close and lock the door. But I refrained...there's a good chance that would've been only slightly awkward.

In other news: Feria de las Flores is starting this weekend! It's a huge festival that draws people from all over Colombia and the world. http://poorbuthappy.com/colombia/post/flower-festival-in-medellin-2004/ It's a website from 2004--but I figured you'd get the idea better from that because it's in english, rather than the updated spanish versions!

I saw my first large group of foreigners this morning as I was getting on the Metro for work. It was quite obvious as about 10 of them stood in a group, all with their own maps out, looking very confused. In my head I cackled and said, "I may be a gringa, but I already know my way around, suckers!"

In fact, I'm such a stellar gringa that yesterday I gave a woman directions successfully in Spanish, and she approached me for the directions! I still can't decide whether it's a little game people like to play with me or what, but people always ask me for directions, information, the time, everything...and I'm sure I probably look like the least capable person of speaking Spanish for blocks. Sometimes I think the people are more interested to see if I can speak at all than what time it is, oh well, I'm successful maybe 68% of the time (that's a rough estimate)

oh, and just for clarification, in case anyone doesn't know what a gringa is: It's used for foreigners. Some people say it's only for people from the United States, others say it's for any foreigners. Most people here say it doesn't have a negative connotation...but in a lot of Spanish speaking countries it definitely has a negative connotation.

ok, paz afuera amigos! (that's the spanish version of peace out, I don't think it works as well)

ohh Teresa

"can i just tell you that every day your blog isn't updated i die a little bit inside?"
-Teresa Welsh

Well then...I don't update all the time because sometimes I think that all of my ramblings aren't funny to anyone besides me, or my family (example: see last post and it's comments). I am the girl who upon rereading wall posts that I write to other people I usually start laughing again (and of course I laughed the initial time I wrote them also). Anyways, Alex says that that's not allowed...whatever al pal, I'm not the one with an "alone" laugh. (oh the awesome things you find out about other people when you live in a 6 foot by 6 foot cubicle with them for a year.

So the other day I was thinking about how great Colombia is, and it was solidified by the radio choice when I got into a taxi at the Exito to go to my house. Check out this line up: Radiohead-Creep, I don't actually know the title or artist information on this one but it's the "You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals so let's do it like they do on the discovery channel," and the finale: Bob Marley-No Woman No Cry. I don't think it gets much better than that (haha okay, it can probably get a lot better than that, but not on the radio).

While at the Exito I found some calling cards that weren't charging me 1.00 a minute, so I finally talked to some family and friends after a month. But, after my intial call to Alex (thanks Al Pal for saying that receiving a call from me was making you jump up and down, "No really, I'm jumping right now" (and squealing, but I heard that on my own) the padre of mi casa said he needed the phone. He kept the phone for the next hour making no phone calls, and receiving no phone calls. I went back to him and said, are you still waiting for a call, or can I use the phone. He handed me the phone and said, "Five minutes! Five minutes!" I said, "Oh I haven't talked to my family in a long time, so I can call them tomorrow because I'll probably want to talk to them for more than five minutes." He kept thrusting the phone in my hands and saying, "FIVE MINUTES!" I was starting to get mad thinking, "you listen here sir, I have not talked to my family's real voices in over a month...they are in a different country, and I am here alone, all I want to do is say a gosh darn hello how are you en vivo, so you give me that phoen for at least SEVEN!" haha I didn't actually say that, but that's what I was thinking. Finally, I realized what his hang up was, he said "only five minutes, it's expensive!" To which I said, no...I have a calling card that goes through an 800 number, it's free. He still kept saying 5 minutes (because he doesn't trust my spanish, haha) But when cata explained it to him he said fine. No sir, I have not been making international phone calls off your landline. sheesh.