Well, I’ve been in Medellín now for 5 days, so I figure I ought to write something even if it’s not super exciting. I’ve learned a lot since I’ve arrived, but I haven’t seen much (sorry for the lack of pretty pictures). The first two days I stayed in a very quaint hotel and on Friday I moved in with a family, which so far has been really nice; the family consists of a mother and her two daughters and two other exchange students. Gloria (the mother) has been very accommodating and helpful. She has even lent me a cell phone, which is one less thing I have to buy.
Thursday was my first day of work. Let me just say that we hit the ground running. I was picked up at 8:00 am, had a meeting at 9:00 am, 9:30, and 10:30, then impromptu coffee meeting at 11:00am, another meeting at 2pm and another at 3:30pm. All of which were either with very important people (i.e. the Dean of the school or the Director of the research center) or very knowledgeable individuals who are helping us understand the Colombian context of depression and suicide. My first day was a very full day and I was given enough work to last for several days; I have two books to read and two datasets to begin working on. For those of you who might think that I am going to have 2 months of vacation in Colombia, you are wrong. I will be working my @ss off! But it’s excellent experience and I’m prepared for the challenge.The other challenge: speaking Spanish. Well, I am doing a good job of immersing myself and I feel like I’m getting better each day…however, there is much work to be done. This is further complicated by the fact that I am now learning yet another type of Spanish (Colombians will tell you that it’s ok because it’s a superior version of Spanish compared to the rest), with new slang. Here are some new Colombian words for your enjoyment:
- Rumbear: to go dancing/partying
- Lolear: the act of going to a mall to walk around, with no intention to buy anything = window shopping.
- Pues: not a new word in my vocabulary, but here it is added to the end of many sentences to make it flow better…even if it doesn’t make any sense.
- Biloso: proactive
- Pica Placa: because Medellín is congested, each car may only be driven on certain days of the week (like in MX city). This is called pica placa; the days of the week that you can drive is based on the last number on your license plate. Of course, how people with money get around this rule is by buying another car…
Speaking of rich people, Medellín also has a very interesting social class structure. Medellín divides the neighborhoods by socioeconomic status and assigns each neighborhood a number from 1 to 6; Six being the richest and 1 the poorest. There are a couple good things and a couple bad things about this system. For example, if you live in an “estrata 4-6” neighborhood, you pay higher prices for utilities in order to subsidize the cost of utilities for those in estrata 1-3. However, obviously your neighborhood indicates our economic status, therefore there is pretty much open “classism” in the city. While I think this happens in the US as well, there’s not an assigned status; you know the rich and the poor neighborhoods, but there’s not a number assigned to them. I don’t know how I feel about it all, but I guess it’s just a different way of setting up a city. I am living in el Poblado—estrata 6, which is why I am paying almost as much to live here as I was to live in Atlanta. But it’s also considered the safest part of town… (this sentence is thoughtfully inserted for you parental-types that might be worrying about me). I will be visiting some rougher areas, but I will be with someone from the university; they want me to get a more holistic perspective of the city.
Friday night Claudia’s cousin, Natalia, took me out to where all the restaurants, bars, and night clubs are, it’s called Parque Lleras. I met her boyfriend and we just hung out for a couple hours talking and people watching. Parque Lleras would be like taking all the bars and clubs in one city and placing them within a 6 block by 6 block area; pretty cool, but also kinda crazy. Apparently, the fad these days is for bars to offer shot specials (3 shots for $5) and for people to bar hop, taking shots at each place…hmmm…you can imagine this place at 3 am, right? Well, I didn’t stay that late to witness it, but I did get to listen to live salsa and have a strawberry mojito ☺ The signature drink in Colombia is Aguardiente, but thanks to Claudia smuggling this anis flavored drink into the US in 1997 (do the math and don’t act surprised), there is no need for me to try this drink now and embarrass myself in public when I start wretching from the taste. It tastes like Ouzo or Sambucca (to me it’s sorta nasty), although Natalia says people drink it with mango juice, which maybe in that case could be tolerable.
Today Natalia invited me to a family luncheon where I was able to enjoy my first typical Medellín (Paisa) meal. I had chicharron (imagine bacon ½ an inch thick), plantains, avocado, and bean soup with rice…heavenly, but heavy too. Needless to say, I needed two cups of coffee to follow that meal. Then Natalia took me to the mall to “lolear.” While going to the mall is probably not my idea of sight seeing, it was very impressive. The mall is partially open (which makes sense since the weather is always pretty nice here) and where it’s closed, there are many windows so it’s bright inside. There were also a lot of rides for the kiddies…my favorite was like a hamster-like ball for the kids. Basically, a pool with a floating cylinder that you could put your kids in and pay to have them just roll around the pool. This amused me, but was difficult to explain to Natalia in my half-assed Spanish. When I got home from that mall, Gloria and her daughter were going to the other mall up the street, so purely for the purpose of Spanish practice, I went to the mall again. Remember, I really don’t have money to spend, so the mall is not the best place for me! But I’m working hard to keep speaking Spanish and will do whatever it takes!During many of our conversations at the mall, Gloria asked me if I had a boyfriend. This seems to be the question of the year, but anyway…I said no and she said that I could find one here. In fact, MANY of the exchange students that have stayed with her have had such LUCK and have found significant others while studying here. Apparently, Gloria (and several other of you who shall remain nameless) think this is a spectacular idea…
Sunday I woke up and went for my first run in the city. On Sunday morning they close off a major road for 6 hours and allow people to walk, run, and bike through the city—it’s called ciclovia. It was really nice to get out and run. I went with one of the other exchange students that lives with me who speaks no Spanish (pobrecito). He’s Norwegian, tall, blonde and with blue eyes. The pair of us attracted quite a bit of attention and many stares. He told me today that he didn’t know that plantains were not “bananas” and had been eating them raw with meals…Gloria realized he was doing it this morning and almost died of laughter. Eating raw plantain would be like eating a raw potato…he was sort of embarrassed, but they don’t have plantains in Norway, so you can’t blame him.
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