Que mas?

It has been a while since I blogged, but a lot has been going on. I’ve decided that I begin to experience culture shock at about 3 weeks; that seems to be the point when all the little things start to get to me. It’s not even so much that I miss Atlanta (although I very much miss all of my friends), it’s more that things here start to piss me off. Last weekend I went through a tough time and I think there were several contributors. First, relations at the house I WAS living in were a little touchy. I knew when I moved there that I was paying too much for what I was getting, but it seems that there are also a lot more rules of the house than were initially stated and the rules made living there uncomfortable. I suppose it’s hard when hosting foreigners is your living…but it became neither a fair nor a friendly place to live. I moved today to another apartment where I’m paying half as much and have a lot more freedom. Additionally, the woman I’m renting from lives alone and I think she enjoys the company…at least I assume so since she talked my ear off this evening J Hopefully, this will improve my Spanish somewhat too.

I spent most of last weekend sleeping. I didn’t end up being sick, just exhausted from everything: the work, my living situation, and acclimating to life here. Luckily, after I got 36 hours of sleep, I returned to my regular self!

Work has been going well. We’re supposed to start interviewing kids in two weeks or so. I’ve also been able to run some of my statistical models, which is pretty interesting for me since I’m a nerdy public health student. Mostly, I’ve been enjoying lunch with some of the ladies here in the office. There’s a group of 5 or 6 of us that eat lunch every day together. Recently, I’ve been bringing a little notebook with me to lunch to write down all the new words I hear them say. I think they get a kick out of explaining their slang to me, especially the words and sayings that they KNOW they don’t teach in school. Here are a couple new words for your enjoyment:

-All of the following are used to describe ugly women:

1. vagre

2. zapato (yes, shoe)

3. guayo (cleat)

4. loba (wolf)

5. cuerpo de sirena, cara de iguana (body of a mermaid, face of an iguana).

-Chillona: cry baby

-Chucha: a big rat / an armpit / a shitty person depending on the context

-Sunga: a woman who steals other women’s boyfriends or husbands

-Cuna: a cougar (a woman who likes younger men in case you’re not familiar with the English slang)

-Hoochie Barbie: an old woman who does not dress age appropriate and has had a lot of plastic surgery in order to try to maintain a younger appearance.

-me echó al agua: would be like saying “he put me out there.”

I noticed that most of the slang they taught me referred to women and most of it was not so nice…so I’m going to ask them for more slang used to describe men. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Last night Eirik and I wanted to celebrate my last evening in Maria’s house, so we went out to Parque Lleras and met up with his Norwegian friend Ida, as well as her new Colombian friend Jather. We were having a pretty chill night and spent most of the evening at a bar just talking (actually, I was talking, but Eirik and Ida fought most of the time). However, for some reason, Eirik decided it would be a good idea to buy us two rounds of tequila shots and I’m pretty sure that they are the reason I felt like @ss hole today. Gratefully, those drinks didn’t stop us (well, at least me) from enjoying the rest of our evening. Once the bar closed, we walked to another small bar that was playing music (we couldn’t get into any of the clubs because Eirik was wearing shorts). Eirik continued to drink himself into oblivion, and for some reason was angry at the world. In the meantime, I had fun dancing with Jather and several random strangers J

But after Eirik finally puked on the floor, we decided it was time to go home. He insisted that we shouldn’t leave for him, but us foreigners gotta stick together and I didn’t want to put him in a cab alone in his drunken state. Although he fought me, I reminded him that he would take care of me if I needed it and that seemed to calm him down. Today when I left the house at 12:30 pm he still hadn’t got out of bed, with the exception to throw up four times. Poor Eirik. Unfortunately, my hangover kicked in at about 1 pm and so the first thing I did when I arrived at my new apartment was run to the bathroom. Lovely. After getting up close and personal with the toilet, Eli (my new housemate) showed me some basics about the house, gave me my house keys, and left me to my misery. I slept for 3 hours and woke up feeling a lot better. Later Eli gave me a little something to eat and made me hot chocolate J We talked for a couple hours, which was really nice. Now I’m ready to pass out and am looking forward to a fun day tomorrow (minus the tequila and hangover).