the little things.

I had been thinking about how I wanted to write a blog post about the little things you create in a life and how strange it is that a life that is so real and rutted is suddenly gone?


Little things like the smell of the hallway of my apartment building, and the much stronger smell of my apartment. The sounds of the birds that hang out right outside my bedroom window, which is also above my head and sounds like they are flying into the room at least a few mornings a week.. they are pigeons, colombian style of course, which are actually much cleaner and more beautiful. A refined beauty and equally natural beauty, much like colombian women. The distinct sound of each door of this apartment. The sounds that initiates  any good aguacero, and the temperature drop. The smell of urine in the various places i frequent often, the walkway on the way to my bus stop, also coincidentally where homeless people pass out all the time, right in the middle of the sidewalk, just doesn't make sense, maybe its especially warm or something. The distinct smell in each of the three corner stores i frequent, and how i kind of have the same relationship with each of the families that own these stores. The smell of the pool, the english classrooms and the centro de idiomas. I was thinking about all these little things that have consistently been in my life here no matter how different the other aspects of my life were, it was a year of phases.  Tonight I had a realization of one other small thing. 


The tree outside our front balcony of the apartment. Particularly in the last four months I have developed quite a relationship with this tree, I have no idea what kind of tree it is but it  flourishes in unison with the weather. In the "verano" parts of the year the tree is a bright bright green, it creates long pea like seed pods and when the hot strong Andean sun hits them they heat up and pop sending seeds flying into its surrounding, including our balcony. On a hot, sunny day in a quiet moment on the balcony you can hear the pop, pop, pop of the seed pods. As it started to rain a bit more and the temperature dropped a degree or two the what we might call "otoño" or fall that only lasts a week or so.  There might have been a short period of flowers, but I am having a hard time remembering. The tree then changed to bright fall colors... orange, brown, red, yellow and green. It has now started to heavily rain again, el "invierno" and tonight i noticed that the tree is super lush. So lush, the lushest you could imagine it, it looks as if it is dripping green leaves. Beautiful.


On the eve of my last month in Colombia, its the little things I've been thinking about.


Much like the shifts in the trees cycle, my life this last year has been in shifts. Shifts of a short period of normalness. Then everything would change and the much used word "normal" takes on another meaning and continues to be a great joke, sometimes simply making too much sense, agreeing with all the idiosyncrasies of life. The development of this year and the plot of my colombian story have developed in phases. And in all those phases there were the little things.


But life continues to feel relatively normal and pleasant. Its a pleasant little life I've been living these past months and sometimes it feels like it could just float on and on, but theres a feeling in the air that i will soon be floating away, floating home. In fact, I believe Colombia will come to the perfect close. Things, people, pastimes and places have slowly begun to ex out of my life as my life slowly shuts down. But the amazing place about this city and this country is that there are always more amazing places to discover, things to do, people to meet, stories to hear, and things to learn.


This last weekend we went Guatapé. We being, team M plus a few. Its surprising that as bonded as team M is, we travel separately. This was our first time travelling as a team M unit. It wasn't just us of course, we had a few randoms and extras. Keko, meg's very 420 friendly, big smiled, likes to have a good time boyfriend has been visiting for about a week now and will stay about another week, Iñigo, a spaniard working at the engineering university up in Envigado, makes a good Spanish tortilla we ate three of them this weekend. Damien, Iñigo's roommate, a French dude doing his "práctica"/internship at the same engineering university and takes many candid pictures. Daniel, Elly's "parce" from the international program at the university she works at. Daniel has become quite a dear friend to the group over the past 10 months. I had some good laughs with dear Daniel. And for our Saturday night barbecue we were joined by a french random, Charly, who has been travelling for three years, definitely had the travelling bum feel to him, you can tell he's seen many things and places. That was our crew and it was a great weekend. We had a barbecue, climbed the Peñol, ate lunch, went on a 2 hours boat ride throughout the lake, went swimming, and learned about and saw quite a few of Pablo Escobar's 300 fincas in the area. So crazy. Quite a wonderful weekend, my camera is unfortunately pretty broken so I didn't take many pictures, but I will have to steal some from my friend's.  


It is pouring rain, once in a while i see a lightning strike then hear the roaring thunder. Its 11:30 I think its time for bed or atleast time to head in that direction.


See ya'll in one month.

the falling action

I have now started to write my next blog post 3 times and every time I get halfway through, get frustrated or lose inspiration and give up. The first attempt was a description of last weekend's little getaway to the Eje Cafetero (coffee growing region) for Meg's birthday, which was amazing, but not stories I felt I was able to reflect on for my blog-post, but a weekend full of Colombia reflections, wine, masks, host springs, horseback riding, "willy's" (jeep cars used to transport groups of people), waterfalls and green green mountains and scenery. 

Happy Birthday Meg!

hotsprings in the rain :)

there's just something about waterfalls... 

awesome...

hoseback riding in valle del cocora

they say they are some of the best paisajes in the country (but my camera is pretty broken right now)

we rode horses to this waterfall. 

Another attempt was a long list of things about Colombian that I won't miss, the plan was to make a list of both things I will and will not miss but it kind of just turned into a frustrated rant about all the little things in Colombia that drive me crazy. There still might be a post to come following this theme though. I made another blog post attempt in which I tried to describe my life, the current happenings in it and my thoughts on it all. All the before mentioned posts were failures. Truth is I have to be in the right state of mind to truly write a good post that actually expresses how I feel and the trials and tribulations of la vida Colombiana. I think I'm in that state of mind now. 


Reflecting back on the failed attempts to post over the past few weeks, I'm realizing that I haven't really realized or been able to pin point my actual thoughts and feelings. I've been feeling kind of emotionally numb. Well that was until yesterday. Yesterday I got the confirmation email from the Fulbright travel agency confirming my flight home to SFO June 1st. Although I've had that date in my head for a few weeks and I've known how imminent it is, having it set in stone and confirmed made it that much more real and that much more exciting. I was jazzed, I turned up the reggae music I was listening too, danced around and informed anyone who would care that por fin I was officially coming home!! That night I celebrated by going to karaoke night, where I belted out all the lyrics to California Love and Sweet Home Alabama, feeling so much patriotic pride and excitement it was almost uncontrollable. That excitement and the general fact that I will be on California soil in just about 40 days has pushed me from the limbo-land of feeling numb and just kinda gently floating through my last days in Medellín into full blown "I-am-totally-over-this"-Serena mode. Anyone who knows me well at all, or who was close to me during the end of college, high school, middle school and even sort of Ecuador knows what this mode is like. Its a sort of apathetic, parallel universe that I push myself into, where luckily time ticks by, nothing new happens, I don't search for adventure, I fall off the face of the social planet and I just get comfortable in my own little bubble, ruminating and reflecting. Right now my universe consists of salsa, porro, ballet, afro, pilates, spinning, treadmills, swimming, yoga, tv shows, movies, veggies and an occasional glass or bottle of wine. Its not a bad place most of the time, but it often does feel like I'm just wasting time away and thats never a good feeling. But then again, thats kind of how Colombia has been for me this entire year, at least now I have something exciting and tangible to look forward to and at least I am filling my time with the three things that have kept me sane this year: dancing, swimming and wine. Truth is I'm over it. Colombia has done all that it can for me right now and this experience needs to come to a close. Honestly, I've been slowly shutting down the Colombia experience since December when I went back to Ecuador. This was followed by three months of visitors, many amazing days, moments and conversations with Lloyd, a trip back to the USA and trips around Colombia. I was also the happiest I've been in Colombia during the past five months.................


Coincidence? I think not. In the past five months, having spent time with dear friends from home, my parents, my Ecua-family and friends, an incredible family week in Florida, and relaxing in the ocean I was reminded of how wonderful and enriching the simple life I live in California actually is. It reconfirmed how my friends, both those from Elk and Mendo and the handful of wonderful friends I made at Pitzer, are truly the most important thing in my life and without them I am only a fraction of who I really am. They make me the best I can be, they make me happy, they make me proud and most of all they keep me real. I have missed all of them more this year than I ever have before, I have never felt the pain of missing someone so strongly and I have certainly never wished more that teleporting actually existed. Not to say that I haven't met some amazing people here in Colombia, but they haven't been my people. 


This year has arguably been one of the most difficult years of my life, but it has also been important. It has taught me many important lessons and more than anything it has pushed me into yet another stage of maturity. In its own way I think (and I hope) it has prepared me to face the "real world". The thing about going home to Elk though is that as much as I glorify it in my mind no matter where in the world I am, its not always rainbows, sunshine and smiles. Being home is actually really difficult for me sometimes. I often feel like I don't belong there, I am often frustrated by the small town mentality, I don't feel understood, like no one understands everything that I have experienced and seen and how it has changed me, and I feel trapped, like I'm living in a happy bubble while I know that out there beyond the redwood trees and dramatic cliffs there is a world where most people live difficulty, where to use the title of a popular classic 90's film "reality bites". Lets be honest, for the most part life on the Mendocino coast is bliss, it is its own paradise, where money seems to grow on trees for many of the residents, where despite the crappy fog people still are happy, where you can live the healthiest life-style ever, where you can meet people from all walks of life, where you can live miles and miles away from your neighbor, there are no freeways, no sky-scrapers, no pollution and where community becomes family. But sometimes it almost seems surreal and sometimes this bliss, this bubble, is frustrating. Truth is, many of the people living in this region came to live here after having come to the realization that reality does bite sometimes, even in Mendocino, but the bite is a little more manageable when you are surrounded by all the physical and internal beauty of the Mendocino coast. Or people, who have travelled far and wide, experienced life at its fullest and lowest and have always found their way home to the tranquility, beauty and Mendo love that hugs the cliffs like the summer fog. So yes, home is a magical place that has nurtured, supported, polished and defined who I am and all that I have done, it is a place that warms my soul and if I don't end up living my life there I will only settle for the most similar place I can find. But sometimes I feel stifled and misunderstood there, like no one knows who I am now after Pitzer, Ecuador and Colombia, like I still somehow get squished back into the box I fit into in high school. But what I have come to realize is that no one will ever really understand all the experiences, moments and people who have come in and out of my life in the past five years and how they shaped me to who I am today, because they weren't there. The only person there for all these moments was me..... Lloyd has always told me how important it is and how liberating it is to travel by yourself. This has always scared me, but this year I have done it a handful of times. Lloyd explains the importance as the ability to be able to make decisions based on no one else but yourself. Although this sounds selfish (and selfishness is my least favorite quality in anyone!) its about knowing who you truly are and being ok with it. Because in the end there is no one else, its just you. You are the only person who is always there, who always understands and is there to catch you when you fall. Its important to recognize all the truths about yourself, both the good and the bad and deal with them and play with them as they come and go. This I believe is a major purpose of life and a nearly infinite process. 


Taking this realization and my new relationship with myself away from Colombia, I step back into a place that is dangerously familiar armed to face the "real world". Now one (I have even been known to argue this point) could argue that Mendocino/Elk or the life I live there is not the "real world" but the truth is that its a big part of my world and for me its real. And that is what has been the hardest most frustrating part of this past year abroad, I have felt like I am living in a dream world, in a place where whatever I do has little to no repercussions, where I can be or pretend to be anyone I want, where I haven't worked more than 20 hours a week, where the temperature is consistently a perfect 75-80 degrees, where rainy season means I have to take taxis more and be sure to never leave the house without my sombrillo (umbrella) and where the word "stress" has almost lost full meaning. It has been a dream, a really long dream. 


But in the end, when it is all said and done the bad memories kind of fall deep into the back of your mind, filed away and the memories that remain are all the best, and it becomes a time you forever reflect fondly upon. 


So yes, I have lost most motivation in my life here and I am ready to go home. Its like a plot, I hit the climax months ago and now I am sliding down the curve through the falling action almost arriving at the resolution. But this year has been filled with so many enriching moments, reflections, experiences and people that I think have affected, changed and shape me in more ways than I realize now when I am longing for redwoods, rivers, the Pacific and my people <3 

Semana Santa

Semana santa pilgrimage in Barichara.

Church in Barichara.

Semana santa is the week leading up to Easter, and the entire country is on vacation. Most people just have off Thursday-Sunday but schools take the whole week off. The high season for all touristy spots is Christmas and the New Year and Semana Santa. Everything and everywhere is una locura. Flights are expensive, hotel prices go up, busses are full, hostals are full, city streets are so full of people you can't move and it is impossible to snap a picture without some annoying colombian doing a stupid pose in your frame. To my surprise, Jueves y Viernes Santo (Thursday and Friday) are more important and a bigger holiday than Easter Sunday. Busses stopped running Thursday and Friday, terminals were closed, people were flooding out church doors and there were pilgrimages to church. Yesterday, Easter sunday, as I rushed to the grocery store to buy some supplies for my Easter dinner with Jessy I was thinking about what everyone I know and love in the US was up to on Easter sunday. I was imagining pastel colors plasted in every store and restaurant, colored eggs, colorful easter baskets, peeps, the smell of egg salad (vomit), stuffed animal bunnies and chicks and any other adorable little animal, little girls with pig-tails and pretty floral print dresses, young kids hastily searching for candy and of course the queenie's egg and a family dinner (we usually have lamb or something). For most people in the United States Easter has entirely been taken over by hallmark. Most children who don't have religious families or backgrounds don't even know the real reason Easter is celebrated. Sure people still go to church on Easter, and watch religious plays and treat the holiday as it should be and always has been, but consumerism has again taken over this day in an overwhelming way. I couldn't tell if I was sad to not see pastel colors vomited over everything yesterday or if it was kind of refreshing.

Since Semana Santa is the only week of vacation before summer vacation students and families with kids eagerly try to "aprovechar" (take advantage) of the week off. Since I had just spent three weeks travelling around and having vacation I didn't find it necessary to sprint off to some other side of Colombia (or another country). I spent the first half of the week with Lloyd as he packed and got ready to go home. Then I got on a night bus to the Santander region by myself. The plan was for two friends to meet me Friday morning but due to semana santa craziness they couldn't get tickets and I was left alone in San Gil. But it was a blessing in disguise, I had the greatest time ever travelling by myself. A skill that I've been trying to nurture and build and I finally felt like I may have semi-accomplished it! I actually kind of wished I would have stayed longer.


Santander is a region of Colombia bordering Venezuela and neighboring Antioquia and Boyacá (Bogotá region) known for lots of outdoor adventures, eating hormigas culonas (literally ants with huge asses) and goat and horse (yummoo). The town of San Gil was flooded with mostly Bogotanos and almost every bed in the city was taken. I luckily got taken in by a super kind couple (Colombian woman, Swiss man) with a hostal who squeezed me in on a blow up mattress. I spent the weekend, running, hiking and swimming and it was so amazing.

view of valley from Barichara.

view of Barichara from up the hill.

One day I went up to a little town called Barichara known to be a beautiful Colonial towns where many Spanish films and Telenovelas have been filmed. It was very charming and Bohemian and I took a bazillion pictures. Another day I went to a river section called El Pescadito (the little fish) which was incredible. The geographic features in this region are insane. Its about the same elevation and climate as Medellín but the mountains are almost more square and clearly made of a different geologic substance as the dirt is often a reddish color. Santander is where the Andes plummet into deep, dramatic, beautiful canyons as a few very large and powerful rivers run through the region. I could have sat and stared at the mountains for days.

colonial colors with color accent.

the church in Barichara.

checking out the view

I love the old colonial look, so much history right there.

more colonial Barichara

El Pescadito is a river that flows over amazing rock formations, creating natural waterslides, waterfalls, deep swimming holes and just all around beautiful formations.

hiking to el Pescadito

family party time at el pescadito!

 Again since it was Semana Santa this place was packed with families, young hippies smoking weed, tents, intertubes and fires with pots of sancocho. Sancocho is a soup made from chicken broth, its very simple and very traditional. It is made on the streets of poor neighborhoods as it is cheap and easy to make. As I watched these families and groups of friends cooking their sancocho on the fire, swimming in the water, taking pictures and hanging out I couldn't help but laugh to myself. In the US when we go camping we bring hot dogs and hamburgers and maybe corn to throw on a fire, simple things that are easy to cook. We don't lug a huge pot to the campground and make soup! But Colombians are very strict in what they eat. Fast food like hot dogs and hamburgers are what you eat in the cities, and on the street, they are like delicacies and most people's favorite food. Soup, rice, meat and potatoes is a normal lunch, so you must not stray from the norm even when you are out in the wilderness camping. Colombia is strong in their traditions something I truly admire, but also something that cracks me up.

the upper part of the river where i decided to hang out

 Another reason I found myself laughing to myself was the excitement these people had to be where they are. Grown men were literally acting like 11 year old boys jumping and diving off the rocks into the water, laughing at their friends as their legs separated diving off rocks, the canyon echoed with the sound of belly flops, and then running back up to do it again. I watched men do this for hours and hours. Meanwhile the girls and women were up on the rocks, cooking the sancocho, combing their hair and posing like slutty super models for pictures (a thing that drives me crazy.. the way people pose for pictures.. especially girls). Another thought that had me laughing to myself as I watched these Colombians utterly enjoying themselves. Another thing that I had to notice, was their swimming abilities. This is something that has had me laughing since I got down here since I spend most of my time at the pool, but I would safely say that if Colombia was flooded the entire population would be killed not by impact but because they cannot swim. Now I realize that I happen to be from a family that has swimming and water sports in the genes and I come from a community where we were taught to swim at the river as young children so to me it seems like an obvious skill but there are certainly Americans who can't swim or can't swim well. But Colombians are on another level, and the funniest part about it is that they are so into it and think they are swimming so well. But thrashing your arms around and throwing your head back and forth is not swimming my friends. I watched a man jump in the water and swim to the edge literally looking like a dog, definitely the best doggie paddle i've ever seen! Yet another (and the last) burn I would like to make on Colombians is their choice of swimming attire. How can it be comfortable to jump in the water fully clothed when you have a bathing suit on underneath? Or how can it be comfortable to wear underwear underneath your bikini bottoms? I watched a girl who had been roaming around in her bikini for hours, put on a pair of long grey leggings and then jump into the water??.......???......... WHAT!? How does that make any sense? How can there be a reason for doing that? Maybe they are hoping to be warming? Maybe swimming in clothes has something to do with body consciousness? But Colombians do not need to be body conscious, they are naturally hot (most of them) and they have the worst diet ever (super lucky). Americans are way less body conscious and we are like the fattest people out there!!  Maybe they don't have money to afford a bathing suit? I'm just not sure, but it just is so uncomfortable to swim fully clothed. This reminds me of another hilarious swimsuit moment. Months ago when I was in Cartagena with Meg and her boyfriend Keko I was eager to head to the beach. But Keko responded that he didn't have his swimsuit. Meg and I looked at him and his outfit (nylon sport shorts and a tshirt) and we were like "dude just swim in those, you are wearing shorts!" Keko got a very surprised look on his face and laughed, "these?" he said "no, no these are for the street not for swimming!" Meg and I looked at each other and laughed explaining to him that that is the normal bathing suit for boys our age in he US. Later when we were alone Meg said to me, "you should see his real bathing suit, its essentially skin colored underwear." Speedos are definitely still totally in down here. This all goes into the category of cultural things I will never understand, along with why both Colombians and Ecuadorians like to cover themselves in sand when they are at the beach and then run around and play soccer like sand monsters... do they not chafe and itch?

I also went to a waterfall with these two awesome Swedish girls. I really wanted to see these waterfalls and I thought they were going to be truly amazing and they were quite breathtaking but they were so over-run and full of tourists I couldn't handle being there for more than 15 minutes. It was an unfortunate trip because it took an hour to get there and back and I only stayed for a few minutes because it was like a zoo of annoying Colombian tourists who moved at a snails pace hiking to the waterfall and they were pushy and cut you off as you tried to climb up to the waterfall. 

cascadas de Juan Curí. 

The trip was just what I needed, to get out of the city (its really been getting to me lately) and be one my own, with my own thoughts and my own decisions. 


My time is rapidly coming to an end. I will be home in less than two months. Its a bittersweet thought but in general I know its time to go home. 


Happy Easter to all, and happy spring.. see you in less than 2 months!!!! ahhh so exciting!