A thought

So, I've been having a lot of deep thoughts in the shower recently. 

There's something about a nice, cold shower when it's real hot and humid out to get the mind going. Of course, in Cartagena, Colombia, those are the only kinds of showers taken!

I wish I could remember all of those deep thoughts when it comes to actually sharing them with friends and family. But I would like to share one today that I think also helps contextualize my experience here.

One such thought came when I was chatting with my host mom, Nydia, this week. As I have said, Nydia is a wonderful woman who further proved her wonderful-ness to me the other day when I got food poisoning (for the second time!!) and lay in my bead in a helpless heap of a mess, and she went to the store and bought me pedialyte and brought me a little cup of it every hour to be sure I didn't get dehydrated, then made me soup. (So mom, don't worry, I am being taken care of!)

Anyway, Nydia was telling me a little about her past. She and her family are actually from the interior of Colombia. (OK, sorry, another sidenote here: I know that Colombia seems small to us Americans, but it's actually pretty big -- like, the size of a few Californias. It takes about 20 hours in a bus to get from where I live to Bogota. And the cultures on the interior and the coast are SO different. The coast is loud, full of music everywhere, different traditions, different accent. So moving from the interior to the coast would be like moving from Colorado to the South). 

Being the naive gringa I am, I asked Nydia if they moved for work or family or a change of scenery. She explained that she and her family were displaced by guerrilla violence in her pueblo about 15 years ago. Today, things are better. As Nydia explains it, a recent Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, really kicked the shit out of the drug cartels, and cleaned up a lot of places. Most of the country operates freely from the influence of cartels, save a few very remote areas, plus some areas where the Colombian and Venezuelan borders meet. Still, there is a great deal of "petty" corruption in Colombian government. And a pending government peace deal with FARC -- once the largest and most dominant trafficking group in the country -- probably won't result in the kind of justice that Colombians are hoping to see.

But what struck me the most as I talked with Nydia was the fact that this was her recent past. I wasn't talking to someone who had fought in World War II or even Vietnam. This wasn't a roundtable history discussion or anything like listening even to my grandparents talk about their lives during warfare. Nydia is young. She is old enough to by my mom. If I were her daughter, I would have moved with her, at about the age of 15, to get away from incredible violence just a house or two away from my own. 

That realization really brought home to me what it means to be a Colombian today. While things are improving at an incredible rate (I'm currently trying to remember some stats to tell my visitors, like the ridiculous amount of growth that this country experienced in just a few years), the wounds here have just begun to heal. Politics in Colombia is always personal, because everyone here knows of someone who was hurt, physically or otherwise, or even killed because of drug violence. It is incredible and heartbreaking.

But it is also why, if you pick up any guidebook or a book on Colombia's recent history, it will surely mention the "resilience and hope of the Colombian people." It sounded phony to me the first time I read it, but it does accurately describe the mood here. The amount of hope and optimism, from Colombia's public schools to hearing the taxi drivers talk about their neighborhoods to listening to speeches from Colombia's local and national representatives, is overwhelming. Really, the people here aren't just hoping for a better future -- they are counting on it. 

There are a lot of problems in the U.S., from government to cultural issues that really burn my butt. But when I think of everything that Colombia has overcome in the past few years, and the optimism that they have for the future, it's hard not to feel spoiled. A lot of the problems that we have in the U.S. are problems because we don't have things like drug trafficking, horrible infrastructure, and a government that just now learning how to operate as a true democracy. Our problems, in some ways, are a luxury.

OK, stopping with the mushy gushy stuff. I am tired of writing so I figured I would post some pictures of the time I spent in Bogota and Chia. Chia is the little farm town where I spent most of my orientation. The entire group stayed in little dorms and spent 24/7 together. We definitely got to know each other really, really well! 

 This is the farm house in Chia where the whole group of 23 stayed, ate and took most of our sessions.

 The backyard. Some sessions were outside! Sorry it's blurry.

 This is Dante, one of the dogs who lived on our farm :)

 This is the church at Monserrate, a 10,000-foot lookout above the city of Bogota.

 The view from just outside the church

 Bogota is ridiculously huge! You couldn't even see where the city ends. About 9 million people!

 The Plaza de Bolivar in Bogota

 I am an idiot and can't figure out how to rotate. One of the many churches in Bogota!

Fernando Botero is easily Colombia's most famous artist. He always draws/sculpts/paints really fat people haha. His museum in Bogota is free!

 Tried to get a shot of one of Bogota's many cool looking streets in the Candelaria neighborhood

 This is the view from the church in Chia, which is perched on a hill after climbing incredibly steep stairs! It became our morning workout.

 The Chia church (notice the makeout session on the stairs)

First taste of Aguardiente, Colombia's specialty liquor, in Bogota with many World Teach friends. Aguardiente is like a clear, better tasting version of Jager. Colombians chase it with water!