Return

I'm back in the US.

I already submit my final report to the Colombo on the different places I was working. Here's the list, without the report's details:

Manizales

• University of Caldas: A week-long series of workshops with undergraduate theatre students.

• ‘Punto de Partido’ at Teatro Los Fundadores: Two weeks of workshops with teachers, students, and members of the theatre group Punto de Partido in a studio space in the basement of Teatro Fundadores.

• Fundacion Contacto: A series with workshops with ‘Titiri Clown,’ volunteer clowns who visit hospitals.
  

• La Casa de Cultura, Neira: A week-long series of workshops with students interested in theatre and active with the theatre group there.

• Grupo de Teatro Colegio Alfonso Hoyos: A full day workshop with the school’s theatre group.

• Wilson Mejia: I taught two workshops with classes normally taught by Wilson Mejia, one with 6-8 year olds, another with 13-16 year olds.

Medellin

• Institución Educativa María de los Ángeles Cano Márquez: A two month process of weekly workshops, with over forty high school students focusing on conflicts in the community of Granizal, followed by a performance for the Colombo Americano’s youth festival ‘Arte e Escuela.’

• Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola: A two month process of weekly workshops with twenty-five high school students focusing on their school community and identity formation, followed by a performance for the Colombo Americano’s youth festival ‘Arte e Escuela.’

• Circo Momo (Jovenes): One class weekly with students, for this organization that teaches circus skills, drumming, art, etc., to children, many who come from backgrounds of conflict.

• Circo Momo (Docentes): One class weekly with teachers who work at Circo Momo and other organizations that work with children.

• University of Antioquia: Two four hour workshops with undergraduate students in the class ‘El Cuerpo Habla’ taught by Angela Chaverra. The University was closed down during the time I was teaching, so we had class in a room in the Museo de Arte Moderno.

• Nuestra Gente: Two workshops with the teachers/actors of the theatre group Nuestra Gente.

• Arte e Infancia: Two workshops with a program of the Colombo Americano for children 7-13.

• Colombo Americano Integrated Skills Class: One class with advanced level English students, mostly high school students.

• Centro Diagnostico: Two workshops at a transition center for children coming off the street.

• Mujeres Que Creen: A full day retreat at a finca in San Vincente for thirty women discussing women’s rights and ecology.

A list of where I've worked does not begin to summarize my experience.

I have many people to thank, but my most important thank you goes out to Juan Alberto Gaviria, for giving me this opportunity, and all of his support throughout.

My last night I went to a show from Matacandelas called 'O marinheiro,' by Fernanda Pessoa. Three white masks hover in darkness over a corpse, howling lamentations, accompanied by occasional flashes of light onto the background and a frightening soundtrack. Reminiscent of Beckett's 'Not I,' it was quite static, with no movement other than the faces distorting. Then I went over to Taller 7, head out to Carlos E. Estrepo, and had my last night of Salsa in Medellin. I may have learned to speak Spanish, but I definitely still haven't learned how to dance salsa like Colombians do. I had planned to head up to Castilla and to another party in Poblado as well, but a car was picking me up at 5AM to go to the airport, and I was already collapsing, so I called it a night a little after 2.

The airport in Medellin has 11 gates. My ticket said gate 12. I waited and watched a line form, clearly with some other confused Americans, around gate 11. I arrived at my assigned seat, and an old Colombian man's eyes met mine, with a look of begging and guilt, as he sat in my window seat. Of course I said nothing and took the aisle. In the middle was a Louisianian-Colombian in the country for his mother's funeral, who recounted his family history over the course of the flight.

Transferring flights in the Miami airport with CNN blaring, surrounded by white people, sipping 15% cranberry juice and biting into a flavorless apple, that cost together as much as two full meals would in Colombia, it occurred to me what organization gains and loses. I wanted to note down the melody of a flight attendant's vocal pattern over the loudspeaker.

There's something I genuinely love about leaving. Goodbye means the time has come. Goodbye means you're ready for it. I threw away the boots I bought just for this trip, the only shoes I had my whole time there. I put on corduroy after three months in the same three pairs of jeans. I washed my hair with my sister's shampoo. I went out for a fancy steak with my parents.

I could write about how these three months feel like a dream now. I could write about how dramatically these three months have changed me. I could write about all the people, all the places, all the ups and downs I encountered in Colombia. Nothing I could write would really do the trick.

I have a few regrets, but they crumble in the wind.

I don't believe life has a purpose. But I believe there are potentialities that can be fulfilled. Ways to break past the little fragments and touch the whole. I can't help but feel closer to that mission.

I'll return to New York, to a life familiar yet also unknown. If you've read this blog a little bit while I was down in Colombia, I want you to know I appreciate it. It's been a great way to me to communicate without writing a bunch of separate e-mails, and for me to reflect on my experience while having it. I look forward to seeing everyone again. Maybe I'll start another blog for my next adventure.

Yo no se manana, yo no se manana. Quien va a estar aqui.

Un abrazo, ciao!

Cueva de Los Guacharos

A purely touristy but purely enjoyable trip to Rio Claro. I rode a series of zip lines along rivers, went kayaking 12km, then went on an awesome three hour trip to a cave made totally of marble. Gorgeous. Marble all around. It was surreal. And in the cave live these blind owlish birds called Guacharos, that screech horribly and zoom about the upper parts of the cavern. It is a little over an hour going through the cave itself, along a flowing stream, climbing, sometimes swimming through. In the middle of the cave, in the largest cavern, we turned off our flashlights and sat in silence for a minute. Pure black and rushing water. How incomprehensible things are at their most fundamental. I felt a child's delight crawling through this marble cavern.

Most people stayed in the hotel Refugio right on the reservation, but I was in a cheaper hotel 3km down the road. The first day I walked from the bus stop to the hotel, but there is an intersection right near it where people wait with there motorcycles to give cheap rides, since there is no taxi service in the area. So I'd hop on the back, and ride on up to Refugio for a few mil.

On the same cave trip there was Marcus from Queens, his Colombian girlfriend Maria Isabel, a British guy, Bill, doing research for his company 'Journey Latin America,' and a Bolivian fellow, Migro, traveling the upper part of the continent following the routes of Che Guevara and Simon Bolivar. I went with Marcus and Maria Isabel to Doradal, the town close by for dinner, delicious Bagre caught right from the river, then flagged down a bus with them to head back to Medellin, because I had just run out of money and there was no ATM in town, so I had no choice but to return.

Mucho Conocer en Guatape

Back in Medellin just for the night after two days in Guatape, then tomorrow to Rio Claro.

I decided to go to Guatape because it was not a very long bus ride from Medellin, and there is a very large rock there, La Pierda de Penol. Or as they call it in Guatape, El Penon de Guatape. Penol is another town next to Guatape, that somehow has itsname associated with the rock, even though the rock is in Guatape, to great displeasure to those in the rock's 'correct' town. People are proud of Guatape. You see the letter 'G' and part of a 'U' on the rock, because the town started to paint on it in order to make its rightful owners clear, but they were unable to finish due to the difficulty of rock-side painting.

The rock is quite an anomaly. I've never seen anything else like it. It's just a huge chunk of granite sticking up in middle of this valley, probably formed by glaciers melting. Going on hikes when I was little, for some reason I always wanted to climb to the top of the big rocks. I guess all that's changed is my rocks have gotten bigger.

On the walk over, there was a full rainbow, from one island in the lake to another, and since it was my first time being able to see both ends of a rainbow touching the ground I was quite tempted to go over and look for some gold. I was really stunned by how beautiful is was, and just how odd that rainbows occur as they do. I went up this very large rock to a 360 degree view of the small valley that has only within the past twenty-five years become spotted with lakes. A dam was built close by that flooded the valley and simultaneously created the tourism industry there. I hung out up there for a while, felt great, considered what the hell I was doing traveling alone in the pueblos of Colombia, felt great again, then I got down and went into town.

After scouting the potential hotels, I went to the lake shore and went on a boat ride. Before I knew it I was handed a beer and was sitting with this family getting to know them. It turned out they were the family of Elmer Arismendy Florez, the ex-mayor of Guatape, and owner of the boat we were on. They were all overflowing with friendliness towards me. The boat rocked with salsa and we had some guado as darkness came over the lake.

They offered to put me up in a room in their house for less than the hotel. A large house. Back on land I had some more shots, of rum now, with the wasted ex-mayor. He told me I was allowed to tongue kiss his twin daughters but anything more and he would 'chop it off.' Before he went to sleep he set his son Emmanuel as my nighttime Guatape guide. Incessantly he repeated the same set of phrases for a couple minutes, about how his son would show me around, and I wasn't to leave his company, somehow forgetting he had just said the exact same thing, with different accompanying hand gestures every round. We drove to the place of a friend of Emmanuel's, some others quickly arrived, and the guado made its rounds. Although it was Halloween there were not a lot of masks and costumes. One guy who went by the name 'La grua' which means 'The Crane,' had on a disco wig, and Juan Diego, who said he was a National Geographic photographer from Medellin, had some type of make-up on I think.

We went out dancing. In a small town people know each other, so I met a whole pile of people. Most families just come into Guatape for weekend, and live in Medellin the rest of the time. La Grua introduced me to one girl, named Sarah, who with salsa blasting and a shadow over her face said she had to leave, but thought I was good looking, and would like my phone number. I haven't written about this part of my experience of Colombia before in this blog, but what happened in Guatape I feel obliged to share. So I gave this girl my phone number, not thinking anything of it because I would be leaving the next morning.

In the morning I was unable to leave because a desrumba, small avalanche, had blocked the only road leaving town. I had breakfast with the ex-mayor's family, met some more of the extended family, and spent some time just hanging out and getting to know them as I waited for news of the street being cleared.

Around lunch time I got a call from Sarah, asking me to come meet her in a part of the town a little far from where I was, about thirty minutes away. But her voice was hard and cut; uninviting as she offered me an invitation, with a luke warm sugar-glaze fading in and out. I had planned to leave soon and the ex-mayor's family had now offered to drive me part of the way to where I needed to go. As I expressed my hesitation, she gave me instructions for the taxi I ought to take. I didn't have a lot of money, wasn't sure if there was the correct ATM in town, and wanted to make sure I had enough to get where I was going. If she was right close by I might have gone just for a minute, but since I didn't actually talk to her the night before, I didn't really feel like going the distance. Then she offered to send a car to where I was to pick me up. That was when I knew something was wrong. Her voice made me unsure, but this made me scared immediately. Nobody sends a car. She said a car would pick me up in front of a hotel near the town center. I said I really wasn't sure what I was doing, this family I was staying with was leaving, and I didn't have somewhere to stay. She immediately said I was obviously invited to stay in her house. Nobody is that forward or that fast, even Colombian women. I said I had to leave town that night and that my ride was leaving. I thought I heard someone else's voice in the background telling her what to say. I hung up. She called back and I didn't answer. She continued to call back. Then she called from a different number, I answered, and she immediately said she had already sent the car to the hotel and it was waiting for me. I was glad I didn't tell her where I was staying. I explained my situation to the people I was with, and when she called back again I gave the phone to someone, and he make quite a good joke over it, putting on his best gringo accent, making sweet talk, and after she hung up in reaction to the sound of the entire family bursting with laughter, she didn't call back again.

But I needed to leave Guatape. The road was cleared, and I decided not to wait and leave with the ex-mayor and his family in their car, but to get out of town on the bus a little bit sooner, with a few members of the family. They had tickets, I didn't, and the bus was full, so for the first bit of the ride I sat on a bucket up front with the driver. The idea that there was some car driving around the town center looking for me was unnerving to say the least. I initially planned to go straight from Guatape to Rio Claro, but I didn't feel going into a new place at night without a specific place to stay was a good idea, so I returned to Medellin, a stop along the way, to stay in a comfortable place.

Trick or treat?