Ugly with Great Personality!

Well life is back in full swing only its 100 times better than it was just a short 5 months ago. It sure has taken a long time to truly settle in, I had no problem settling when I went to Ecuador, but this has been an entirely new culture shock experience. This is why it is so much more worth while to go abroad for more than 6 months, you spend the whole first half trying to settle and get used to it and right when you feel settled, comfortable and at home its time to get on an airplane, have your life shattered against the walls of your return, and try to settle back into the mold left for you at home which you may have outgrown or shifted within. The return is often times almost harder, it is important to find people who have experienced the same extreme shifts and who understand where you are at mentally, emotionally and physically.


Its been absolutely wonderful having all the visitors I have had the past 2 months. Of course Lloyd and Leona showed up right before my birthday, then the next weekend Ursula and Sasha, two fabulous Pitzer ladies on a wild and fun adventure through south America showed up. It was so wonderful to synthesize Colombia life, Pitzer life and Elk life. Mixing and synthesizing these aspects of my life has always been a challenge, but I find it happening more and more often creating in me a stronger sense of who I am, where my experiences have lead me and my strengths.

Elly, Steve, Ursula, Mary, Me, Sasha and the french girl at a night out in parque lleras!

 Leona ended up sticking around a little bit longer than expected due to Brazilian visa issues. She came back to Medellín from Bogota and we did a Karaoke night, and headed to Laura's (Alex my roommate's girlfriend) family's finca in Guatape.


If I haven't already explained the finca deal here in Medellín let me do so briefly. Finca's are a huge deal here, most family's have a finca in some rural area outside of the city. Some are small family inheritance actual farms and others are huge mansion style country homes. Regardless of the style of the finca they are generally used to get away and relax from city life or to rage and party all weekend long. I had one finca experience in October that I would like to pretend didn't exist that was in the style of the latter. But this weekends finca experience was the former, and just what all of us needed. All of us (Meg, Leona, Lloyd and I) are from small rural (ish) towns and city life really wares on you maybe even without realizing it. Laura's family is "bien campesino" meaning they like rural life, they like being in el campo. So they have a few fincas outside of the city. This one was a sweet small and ordinary house sitting atop the hill over looking mountains on one side and the lake or dam of Guatape on the other. It was far from civilization with only a few neighboring finca's owned by family and friends that Laura's family had sold off to them.

The finca looking out at the lake and our jungle mobile that we travelled in. When we were leaving, it was dark and the headlights didn't work. Luckily they kicked back into gear. 

On the way to the finca.

We all sighed with relief as we (finally) got out of the car and breathed in chill fresh air, there were frogs and crickets sounding away and the sky was completely dark. Black, black, black, with millions of beautifully twinkling stars. It was like looking up at the sky in Elk... except a slightly different orientation in the sky. We spent the night drinking rum and coke (our personal favorite at this point in time), staring out into the sky and the mountains lit up by the waning moon and talking about life happenings, funny stories, Colombia, the Paisa way of life, personal experiences and general all around life. It was a truly beautiful night. We spent the next day relaxing in the sun, smelling the grass, listening to the birds and swimming in the surprisingly warm lake during a rainstorm. It was one of the better weekends I had had in a long time and the best part was not spending an entire day hung over and lazy due to late night dancing extravaganzas.

morning walk to the unbuilt house. poses! 

Leona and Gracia lounging in the grass. 

In other news I'm officially back at work and loving it. (what a change!?) Nothing in my schedule has changed and nothing in the English department has changed, in fact i just keep learning more reasons for why it struggles, but my state of mind is changed. I am positive, I am confident and I understand how classes work, how the students are and I am familiar with the various lessons, subjects and readings in the god awful book. I am loving teaching and back to thinking that it is what I would like to do in my future, despite moments when I never wanted to step into an English as a Foreign language classroom.


I am also dancing my little tooshie off and enjoying it fully! I dance 4 days a week. Two 1 hr salsa classes with my favorite instructor/would be love of my life Norman from Cali, a 1.5 hr ballet class which is hilariously amazing and fun, and a 1.5 hr contempoafro class on friday afternoons which I absolutely adore!!! Its the best dance class i have taken in a long time.. its hard core, i'm always sweating and exhausted at the end and i have to go buy kneepads for the class.. hard core amazingness. Leona went to the class with me last friday, we had a blast and have been dancing ever since, bringing back the days of tap... (there might be an epic return to tap when i return back to mendoland). I've been dancing and i've been happy, its been blissful.

Gracia looking ridiculous and hilarious.

The apartment has life in it now, which makes Alex and Laura have life and enjoyment in them. Our relationship has totally changed and I think they are pumped to have us all around. We have been eating together, cooking together and grocery shopping together, it actually kind of has the family feel I am used to in a house. A lesson learned: I like living with people in a happy communal family atmosphere. Alex has decided he wants to use this opportunity to really practice English and he's been doing a great job at speaking with us almost every day in English. English teaching has really taken on a whole new shape in my vida colombiana. Furthermore, better energy in the house and the fact that lloyd absolutely adores the bull dog Gracia she has now started to seriously grow on me. She's pretty hilariously ugly and pathetic pretty much hideous, but she has a great personality!! She really does! As Alex says she is "una chimba de perra" and true, she's a pretty cool dog. I found myself growing more fond of her after I learned of the timely passing of dear old Mr. Buddhi. Lately, spending time with Gracia has just triggered so many great (and hilarious) Buddhi moments. Gracia still is a puppy though and still good at getting into mischief which gets really annoying at times, but she's truly getting better and growing up. Its actually pretty entertaining to have pets in the house, especially cause Lloyd and I are pretty good at making fun of them.

Alex and I at the finca. 

I was hoping to  keep this post short as a slight update to my much improved vida colombiana. :) Lloyd and I bought a blender yesterday so we've been smoothie-ing it up and with all the fruit here its quite fun, cheap and delicious! ok, time to eat some beautifully colorful stirfry with quinoa! yummmm...