nomads
Think about
where you are
who you are
and how who you are relates to where you are
running in and out of doors
been doing that a lot lately. A lot of different doors. Of buses mainly.
Back in Bogotá, almost back in Santa Marta again. Cannot get enough of the life on the caribbean coast.
These days have been challenging, but highlights abound. "Fighting" with Pipe in a supermarket about which detergent to buy ("ahhyyy noooooo, este huele a MIERCOLES!!"), passersby must have thought that we were some recently married couple... if they only knew! Intense intense times with my dream team, beautiful teamdays in Paipa with Iván's white Renault. F1.
Running out of the next door now. The office door. Jude is in town for a day!
nutrition of the coast
growing up, I have always associated summer (aka sunny warm weather) with eating fresh fruit, especially strawberries, and for lunch not more than a salad, or some vegetables. Reasoning from my Mom: in this heat your body cannot deal with heavy food.
Well, here I am, in what is probably 10 times the humidity and the temperature we had back then, eating my 43rd "dedito de queso", a heavenly deep-fried twisted dough stick filled with cheese. Or empanadas. Deep-fried.
For breakfast patacones (from green platain), cheese and some kind of sausage. All three as deep-fried variations.
Leaves me to interesting thoughts about the wisdom of my Mom... she is a nutritionist. Or even more interesting thoughts about the Colombian coast of the Caribbean.
from the coast
after a comfortable 18 hour bus ride arrived at a legislative meeting of AIESEC Uninorte. Next morning before coaching, a martial arts class on the shore outside of Barranquilla, followed by the day with the highest consumption of coke in my life. No wonder Barranquilla somehow reminded me of the United States.
Now live from Santa Marta. Very different feel. I can smell the sea.
and so it happens around the world
this last weekend something happened that took me by complete surprise.
We were out walking around the centre of Bogotá, most of my team plus Sämi and Abhinash, enjoying the sights and specialities. Before entering the crowded café "Puerta Falsa" (crowded and humid from heating up Tamales, chocolate and agua panela all day, and famously 190 years in operation) we were joking and laughing about how many delegates at IC asked Pipe about his "international experience in Colombia"... and how a girl told him that she only figured out that he is Colombian when she saw him dance. People let me tell you: not all Colombians are dark and short.
Searching for space in "Puerta Falsa", however, we ended up on a long table mounted against the wall on little stools, close to a table where four 25-(or-so)year-olds were waiting for their food. Meanwhile Pipe explained the menu to Abhinash in English, and that attracted the four waiting patrons' attention. They started laughing, and calling out: "aja, gringo, gringo, gringo!" to Pipe, and on the background of our previous conversation, we all burst out giggling.
This continued for a while, with the quartett trying out their not-so-polite vocabulary in English, mixed with internal jokes in Spanish that turned sour quite quickly. We realised they were drunk. Louder and louder, the girl among them then blurted out: "blancos de mierda!"
Stunned and hurt, Jenn and I jumped up immediately (jeje, we must be sisters after all), she telling them furiously that we all do understand Spanish, while I could just repeat what she had just said with the strong urge to use more than just words. Quickly the others pulled us back on our seats, and we decided to be very quiet. And shocked. This was the first time this kind of thing ever happened to me, and I could see the shame on the faces of my beloved Colombian friends that I have felt so many times when seeing similar scenes in Germany, Switzerland, or the UK. I realised that this is not just something that happens in Europe, but all over the world.
While we quietly sipped our hot chocolate and agua panela with cheese, the group behind us rambled on, only to be stopped for a bit by another patron of "Puerta Falsa" who came upstairs, the face red in shame for the behaviour of his countrymen.
As the group left, they were loud enough to let us know that they would "wait for us in the street", at which point Pipe called the police. Of course they arrived way after they had left, but at least we felt like we had done something...
Walking through La Candelaria we then tried to analyse the behaviour... did they feel threatened by the presence of "white people" who are fortunate enough to be able to travel freely around the world? (she assumed we were from the USA, and probably would not get a visa if she tried, not to speak of the costs of traveling) Did they feel that we were taking something away from them, something that belongs to them, something that should not be touched by anyone?
A lot has to be done. Not just us "nomading around". Opportunities for everyone to move freely all around the world, education, dialogue. But how? and will this be enough?
Start with ensuring that everyone can develop her or himself, and feel content with what they have? That way they would not feel threatened at the sight of someone "different"...
