Back to Juan Valdez

Walking back from the park late tonight, a Colombian taxi driver and asked me for directions in my neighborhood. 

"Oye primo, ¿sabes donde queda... carrera 26b15 con la 72?"  

"Uff, pues por allí, a la derecha y después a la izquierda," I say, wondering why in the world this guy thinks that I, in my Colombia PFG shirt (cuffs rolled to the elbow) looking like a proper gringo, should know where this small, very specific road was. But I did, and I thought that was cool. It made me realize that I've been living in Barranquilla for nearly two months now, and I love it. This prompted a domino effect of my memories from the days in this place. And now I'm typing… 

I have met fantastic people, and apart from getting pick-pocketed in La Guacherna of Carnavales, my experience has been all positives. Barranquilla is a city on the Caribbean Coast -- a city where when you and your friends are out one night and eat anything, be it street food or at a restaurant, you're never the only one eating your food. This has, at least, been my experience. Going out with, or simply being around, Colombian friends means that nothing that is "yours" is actually yours. Everyone shares food, takes a sip of that, and buys each other beers. Riding in a car with five other barranquilleros translates to "listen to four different GPSs giving the driver different directions, in a shout -- in rapid, costeño Spanish -- with loud music that's not being turned down to reduce my anxiety". It's a country where students can hug their teachers when entering the classroom, where your haircut might come with a free whiskey, and everyone dances like they're the hottest person in the world. Seriously, the Colombian people have more confidence than any other people-group I've ever gotten to know. It's just a happy place to be. 

I have this routine, nearly every day. It all starts with being woken up by a raspy, tired voice shouting, "Aguacateeeee!!! Paapayaa, Mango, Aguacateee!!!" in a way that sounds almost like a song -- because these street venders have been walking these neighborhoods selling avocado, papaya, mango, and more for years. They've been shouting the same three words…for years. I can't imagine what those words would sound like, or mean to me, after years of shouting them -- hearing them -- for years. My other curiosity is why people need avocados, mangos, and papayas at 7:00am. Anyway, the routine takes me from the house, walking, to the university where I've been studying and doing some work as a translator and helping with English courses. From the university I get on a bus that costs 1,600 pesos (1,700 on Sundays and holidays). That's around 80 cents. This takes me to the corner of 46th and 82nd. From here I walk to a frutera, a little cafe-style building (or tent) that sells cheap food (empanadas, pastelito, papita, palito de queso, and more). These places also have cold, fresh fruit and all natural juices -- they only cost around 80 cents. The best afternoon snack I've ever gotten to make part of a routine: empanada de pollo and fresh carrot juice. Then, I walk to my second home here. Juan Valdez.

Juan Valdez is essentially the Starbucks of Colombia (though way cheaper). I say that, not really pleased with the comparison given my inclinations towards Starbucks, but it's the best I can do. Just think burgundy umbrellas instead of green ones. It's harder than you might imagine to find really good coffee here, despite the country's reputation for really great coffee beans. Medellin has better options. Anyway, back to Juan Valdez. I go almost every day and order a tinto frio, an iced coffee. This got weird looks for a while when I ordered, but after a few weeks the employees would laugh behind the bar when a new barista didn't know how I liked my drink -- not that its even complicated. Coffee + Ice. Iced Coffee. But hey, goal in life to become a "regular" somewhere so I didn't have to verbalize my order: √. 

I met some cool guys at the coffee shop several weeks ago, and meeting up there everyday became another "regular" in my routine. Sebastián, David, Nicolás, Mauricio, Samir, Juan P, Julian, Juankie, and a few others. It was always a bummer when I couldn't make it because of a class. Whether it was the beach, the castle at Salgar, or bowling (which isn't a "typical friday night" here like it is back…well come to think of it, it might just be me) we made a lot of fun memories -- and lost a few thousand pesos at the casino. (That's just a few bucks, nothing crazy.) They are a group of guys who like to sit around and talk about whether or not the soul exists. The morality of humankind, classic movies and worthwhile documentaries. These guys are in, from everything I've deduced, a music war. That sounds weird, but it's cool. They guard their music, even while showing it off. When someone finds a really great song, they play it in the room or in the car. When it blows everyone's mind, hardly anyone asks about it. Because in a way, that's his song. That's Sebastian's song. We listen to it when we're with Sebastian. This has gotten me into the habit of actively looking for new music -- something I've never been good at, and usually rely on Brooke Quinley for. 

I live with my former professor's family here, in the neighborhood of El Silencio. Germán and Yesenia are married (Germán is my professor's brother). Yesenia is a really good cook, and I can honestly say that if it weren't for her lunches, my diet here would only consist of those empanadas, carrot juices, and tinto frios. She makes the best arroz de zanahoria I've ever had. They take good care of me, and since they're in the English classes that I've been helping with, we have a really cool language exchange going on. Germán is one of the best Spanish teachers that I've ever had. He is incredibly patient. Every now and then, Germán and I get to go out -- always memorable. I've learned loads from them, beyond from Spanish. For example: we have sometimes have ants come around the sugar jar, and one day a few of them got onto Yesenia's lunch plate before she went to eat it. What did she do? She turned on one of the gas-stove-eyes and sat the plate near it. As the plate heated up, the ants were less motivated to eat, and more motivated to get the hell off the hot plate. Brilliant. That's life here though. One time, I let a loaf of french bread go stale. I got in trouble. 

Part of me wanted to be like, "Hey I'm a grown man, I'll let the bread mold if I want to!!!" 

But as I suppressed this reaction to my reprimand, as my dad always suggested was the better option, Germán told me, "En esta casa, tú no botas la comida. Aquí, comes lo que compras. Hay gente en el mundo sin comida. ¡No botes comida!" In this house, you don't throw out food. Here, you eat what you buy. There are people in the world without food. Don't waste!

It's a country that has seen corruption, poverty, and violence. The country itself is safer and safer. Even though thirty years has changed a lot, these values of resourcefulness, caring for each other, family, and togetherness have not changed. People gather, people laugh, and as one friend recently told me: 

"When you're together with your friends and your family, that's the time to be happy. It's not a time to be sad about your problems, because everybody around you has problems, but being together allows you to step away from loneliness, sadness, or worries. Because you're together. As long as you're together, what's there to be sad, lonely, or worried about?" 

People here don't have the same, weird concept of "personal space", "my stuff", or "alone time". When someone calls you to do something, or to ask you for help with something, it isn't interpreted as an encroachment or demand of "my valuable time". When your neighbor wants to play salsa music on max volume until 4:00am, you're okay with it. When the same neighbor wants to have his salsa band practice on the front porch at 8:00am the next Sunday, it's just Fernando being Fernando. That's what it boils down to. People know how to live together here. Homes are full, from grandchildren to grandparents, all living in one house and probably pooping in the same toilet. Sharing one shower. I have a friend whose house keeps 11 family members… one bathroom. I used to have arguments over the shower with my sister, and we're only two. I used to be paranoid about using the blender here at any hour, even during the day (because I didn't want to bother anybody), but I realized what seems to be natural to my host family: if you want a juice, you have to use the blender to make it -- so, I'm not going be be bothered if you want blend a whole pitcher while I'm watching TV… I'll probably do the same thing to you tomorrow when I want juice.

(the fruit and juice here…so good)

It just makes me think about how finicky most American's can be about "personal space" and "personal time". Someone is welcome to argue with me (I don't know why anyone would), but I'm going to say that humans were meant to live in community. Not as the islands unto ourselves we can often be. Living in community, sharing a bathroom, learning compromise, sharing meals, talking instead of watching TV, walking to the park, or playing music together…this is community. This is relationship. Giving and taking, fairly and balanced. Taking care of each other. It could be grandkids hanging out with their grandmother (who lives with them) instead of going out with friends. It could be taking a thirty-minute bus to see a friend who's sick. Or it could be taking an over-talkative gringo into your home, letting him live with you, taking him to the hospital when he's sick, around to the local pool halls, and sitting up with him until midnight because he won't shut up practicing Spanish.

Colombia, and its people, is warm and contagiously upbeat.  

It's hard to pull together all of the experiences on paper, though I know nobody is asking me to. These though, these few things, are some of the highlights. Some of the things, places, and people that I will miss when I leave for a few months. But July I come back -- for a year. I look forward to being coming back to my routine then, after this time that I'm spending here and relationships I'm establishing. It will be cool to be able to come back home in a way. To come back to Juan Valdez.

Note from Street 82

What has happened when you would rather be dreaming than awake? What was the marking moment when the desire to wake up became the desire to linger, to breathe - to dream. I am worried at the revelation that struck me today, in the park and watching pigeons. I wish I were dreaming. Moment to ponder. What? I’ve never said that before. I’ve always been the person who says, “I must be dreaming,” because I’m, by what I thought was nature, a very happy and optimistic person. But no…I wish I were dreaming. The real has become not only painful, but seemingly hopeless. Just for me, I think. Everyone else still has a shot. I think I crossed some point of no surrender. My boots are wet with the waters of the Rubicon, which I crossed all too willingly.

I got some life-altering advice the other day. Well, not advice, but rather a question was posed that I had never considered, and its implications made me uncomfortable. I have a tattoo on my wrist that says precáre, which, in Latin, means ‘pray’, in the form of a command. A few days ago, a young guy asked me about it. I told him, and he said, “Oh, so you’re really religious”. I said, “Well…no, not at the moment.” He looked at me oddly.

"Okay, so I got the tattoo at a time that I really needed a reminder to pray. It was important to me then that I had it, and I’m glad that I got it."

"But you said you don’t pray."

"Well…I don’t pray now, but I know that I will again someday."

Here it comes, the question.

"If you know you’re going to pray again someday, then why don’t you just go ahead and stop wasting time?"

Poof. I was not dreaming when he asked me that. At least I can tell the difference. This was one of those uncomfortable moments when someone figured me out and could see enough to speak to something important. If I already know that I’m going to pray again, why don’t I just go ahead and start. Typing those words was easy…way easier for me than actually doing it. I’ve contradicted so much of my presupposed truth. Strayed so far from the track of the race. I have lost my moral compass…and God’s phone number.

Of course, you can’t lose God’s phone number, can you? That’s the most frustrating fucking part. For example, you meet someone and go on a date. It doesn’t go well, and you pretend “not to see” her number fall out of your wallet and into the toilet…in tiny pieces. That way, when you don’t call back, you don’t feel bad. Even if you regret it. Even if you realized that she was the best woman you could have asked for, you lost her number. It doesn’t matter anymore. You have no choice, so you just let it fade into memory. Unless you run into her at Target.

That’s what scares me to death. The thought of bumping into God in public, somewhere unexpected. Around some street corner that I walk every day, and he’s just standing there. Smiling, drinking coffee, and smoking a cigarette. He sees me, I know he does, and he knows that I see him. The awkward side-step. Leave. Leave. Leave. You can’t leave, he knows where you live!

Okay, side-step the other way, towards him. Lift the newspaper in your left hand awkwardly, waving and giving a head-nod. And that’s it, you’re stuck. In those last few moments, as long as it takes for you to walk the 10 paces to him, you think about everything you’re going to have to leave behind. Think about the people, the habits, the lifestyle, the self-importance. You know that after the first cup of coffee, after that first cigarette with God, you won’t want to leave. You’ll want to stand on that corner and drink coffee with God all day.

Maybe that’s what would wake me up. God suprising me on 82nd street. I imagine how that encounter would unfold. I can’t decide what I would want more. For God to just come at me swinging over how much I’ve fucked up and squandered. I would deserve it. Would I want Him to talk? To scream? To cry?

And what would I do? The first thing that came to mind was: run. At first glance it’s not the worst option. I might get away for a little while. Buy some time. Second option. Play dead? Hide?

Can you move when you see God? I don’t think so. I can only imagine, based on my extensive Sunday School classes as a child, that God has some kind of force-field thing that makes everyone freeze in his presence. It’s not a painful experience. That would be out of God’s character. If God had a Pokemon card, his power would be called something like “Radical Repemption”, and its description would be “God overwhelms you with Unconditional Love and binds you with Chords of Forgiveness. While you are technically able to walk away, you will remain Overwhelmed and Bound for the duration of your life. These effects cannot be annulled, by power of man or otherwise.”

I was never very good at Pokemon.

None of this is an issue when I’m dreaming. I don’t know how, but after all the terrible things that my eyes have seen, my dreams remain places of peace and joy. Night terrors do not find me. I have practiced and honed the ability to wake up to a noise, to go to the bathroom, and however many minutes later return to my dream as if pressing Play on a VCR. The people in my dreams are the people I long for, and they are nearly always in the mountains. I do not dream of these city streets. I dream of a trout on the end of my fly rod and John ‘Bear’ Moore watching from behind his pipe, downriver. I dream of traversing icy northfaces and sitting on my Mamaw’s front porch. I dream of driving through the Great Smokey Mountains in my little truck, windows down and Alabama on the stereo. My dreams are everwhere I’m not. In my dreams, I am what I am not.

Lester Burnham woke up one day. He quit his job, started working out, smoked a lot of weed. He woke up and found himself. He remembered his life, the goodness of it, and for a fleeting second was happy. Before the repressed, homosexual marine next door shot him in the back of the head. Here begin the series of questions. Why did the neighbour have to shoot him? Why did the marine get his gun? Why did he reject his son? Why did he reject himself and subject his family to the miserable life of mortifying self-oppresion and denial? Why are any of the characters as broken as they are? Why are we broken? In real life, why are Lester Burnhams miserable and people driven to the damage of repression and lies.

Fuck.

I don’t want to wake up when I’m 40. I’d like to wake up soon. I’ve been sleeping for a while and I’m getting tired.

The Sound of Longing

I just sat down at my tablet to do some reading. I'm currently in the bar of the jungle lodge I've been working at for the past few months. Looking out the window, banana trees and dense jungle are the forefront for cloudy, Panamanian skies. The room I'm in is decorated with funky paintings of pit vipers and colorful amazons. There is no backlit Budweiser sign behind the bar, but a collage of piecemeal flattened Balboa cans. My setting is not my usual one. I am not at home.

I put on my headphones and opened TuneIn Radio. This has been my closest replacement for Pandora, which doesn't work outside the U.S. I selected Bluegrass as the genre of radio for my little study session. I opened up my notebook as the music buffered slowly -- jungle wi-fi can be a bit dodgy. The music came on, and the plucks of a banjo hit home. All of a sudden, I was holding my little cousin Zoey and dancing around my Mamaw's kitchen. Somebody had just come in from smoking a cigarrette, and Mamaw was pulling a muscedine cobbler out of the oven. Emily was making everyone a cup of coffee while Papaw flipped through the guide on television. It never seemed to leave breaking Fox News, football, or the Gaithers. Uncle Clyde was outside laying in the grass, head propped up on a gentle hand, smoking a filterless Camel. Either barefoot little kids would be falling over him, giggling, or he would be playing fetch with someone's dog. Three or four men were huddled around the open hood of a truck or the antlers of a winter buck. 

Traveling around the world, meeting new people, and experiencing different cultures. All of these things thrill me. I love the nomadic lifestyle that my backpack has opened me up to. I have loved all of my trips, and I'm constantly dreaming of future adventures. With that said, while I'm away the pull of home gets stronger every day. Familiar scents, tastes, or views make my heart actually ache a bit with longing for home. Talking to my family over the phone or Facetime help, but it was pretty rough around the holidays. It seemed like every time I talked to Mom she was with the family, all gathered together. I've watched Dale, my sister's dog, get bigger and bigger with each video call.