Word Vomit
So, how´s attending a family funeral for cultural immersion? Andres´grandpa, who we lived with, died yesterday morning. He´d been real sick for a couple months and spent all day in bed since I´ve been here. It´s strange because Andres was going to come with me to work at 8am, but when I went to wake him up, he said he was too tired and would meet me later. So, he was able to be there for his grandpa´s last moments. His grandparents have taken care of him his whole life—they are more his parent than his real parents that split when he was real young and lead new lives with new families. The wake was last night, and all of the extended family came to the house. A ton of AIESECers showed up for support, so Andres knows we´re all here for him. I´m going to be staying at a friend´s house for a couple of days while family stays at Andres´. This is a situation where I really wish I could speak in English, it´s kind of hard for me to express sympathy in Spanish.Other than that, last Friday was the opening conference for the official launch of our project. It went really well—about 80 people showed up for it. The conference was divided into three sessions. The first was a debate between three people in different sectors about the current situation of Cartagena. The second session was lead by a woman from Ashoka about social entrepreneurship. The third session described AIESEC and its accomplishments on an international, national, and regional level. Andres introduced the project, and Marilene and I both gave about 5 minute presentations on what we’re doing and why. I had a speech prepared and practiced, but when I got up in front of everyone and started talking, I couldn’t remember anything and just started blabbing. Everything else went really smoothly…we spent a ton of time interviewing children at the school that I work at and at the foundation where Marilene works and making a video to show the reality in Cartagena and then showing AIESECers in action. I’ll try to post the video, it turned out really well.
After the conference, we all went out for Chinese food and then headed over to an AIESECers house to hang out. And by hang out, I mean drag mattresses out onto the roof and drink beer and listen to the neighbors’ vallenato music. Beautiful.
Sunday was Andres’ birthday. I’ve decided that birthdays are a bigger deal here than in the US. You don’t just get a “Happy Birthday!” on Facebook, you get a paragraph, and a phone call, and probably a card and a hug too... Angie and I took Andres out for lunch and ice cream, and I finally got to see Bocagrande (the touristy side of Cartagena). It definitely has a different feel to it than the residential area I live in…high class hotels, familiar stores, clean sidewalks, lots of, um, Americans. We had a birthday party last night which was really fun. Learning to dance…I’m so white. I really like the LC here, and I’m glad that I feel like I have real friends already. It makes it a little easier not to be homesick and missing good times in Madison.
I started helping out with the English classes at the school I work at, which has been wonderful. All the kids are super friendly, and it’s really fun to interact with them. Two girls have started to come eat lunch with me and help me learn “costeñol” (the Spanish slang they speak here on the coast). A boy also made me a CD and wrote “From: Luis, To: You” on it because no one can remember my strange name.
Two things:
I’m still trying to adjust to how slowly things move here. The other day, I tried to take my sweet time when meeting a friend to go shopping, and I showed up 15 minutes after the time we’d planned on meeting. She came 45 minutes later.
There’s definitely a stereotype that Americans have a lot of money. I think Andres has tried to spend more of my money than I have. He’ll point stuff out and say, “This is really cheap for you, right?” and then sort of expect/hint that I pay for it. After converting to dollars, it usually isn’t cheap for me. Most things cost about the same. It’s kind of annoying, and I try to emphasize that I took out loans to come here, and I’m not really even spending my own money!
posted by Erin @ 9:16 AM
2 Comments:
It's interesting that they all assume you have cash to throw everywhere, since you're American. Obviously that's a common misconception in other countries about our own, but I spose that they think if you spent almost $1000 to get to Colombia, your money MUST have grown on trees.
Weird that Andres thinks you should buy him things. Meena's guy buys her things left and right!
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