Of darkness, ants, and aliens

Not quite two weeks into my ten month stay here in Bucaramanga. Everyday I walk the streets of this city, waiting to wake up. That is, I’m waiting for it to finally dawn on me that I’m actually in Colombia. It will happen soon enough I suppose. Once everything quits being new. The other day I had my first real dose of culture shock. I walked a few blocks from a friend’s house back to my apartment. But it was dark. And I walked by myself. It was an unintelligent thing to do. One of the main pieces of advice we were given over and over again is to never walk alone at night. My apartment wasn’t too far away. Only about a 10 minute walk. So I consciously made the decision to walk home alone. Nothing happened. I was fine. But the whole time I felt nervous. I was anxious with every step. At that moment I became acutely aware I had forfeited of one of the primary freedoms I have back home. Wandering around by myself is one of my greatest joys in life. In Butte I can wander almost anywhere, anytime I want. I can do such things to an appreciably lesser extent in Colombia.

Sorry for being heavy. On a much lighter note, I have some food related adventures to report. Trying new foods is a hallmark of cultural exchange. Here’s a list of new things I’ve eaten since coming to Colombia:

1) A cheese-guacamole-caramel quesadilla. It was all right…but guacamole and sugar don’t really mix that well. It would probably be ok with just cheese and caramel. Really healthy, too.

2) Pig foot soup. Yep. It’s a type of bean soup with a pig’s foot (bones and all) put right in there. This dish was served to me at a family dinner, so I tried to choke down a few bites to be polite. And I did, but just barely. I’m hoping I won’t have to repeat this experience.

3) ‘Hormigas Culonas’, which literally translated from Spanish means ‘Big-Assed Ants’. These ants are a specialty in Santander, and one can buy them by the bag.

4) Hot Chocolate. But here they put slices of cheese in their hot chocolate. Super good. Definitely going to continue this practice back home.

I ate one of these. It tasted like popcorn

The other night (early morning, rather) I was at a party and I noticed that most of the people at the apartment left a little bit of their drinks in their cups when they were through. I asked why this was. My friend Miguel Angel explained to me that in Colombia it is a common tradition to leave a little bit of your drink left over to share with the ‘almas’ or souls who happen to be wandering around. I immediately sensed the opportunity for cross-cultural exchange, so I tried explaining that we have a similar concept in the United States. But unfortunately I wasn’t able to translate ‘pouring some out for the homies.’ Looks like majoring in Spanish in college didn’t get me that much after all.

Other than that, things have been going smoothly here in Bucaramanga. Today I worked with some fourth graders on pronunciation (e.g. for ‘walked’ we say ‘wawk’t’ not ‘waw-ked’). After that we talked about polar bears and dinosaurs. Two of my favorite subjects. Later in the day I gave a presentation about transportation in the United States to some 9^th graders. But our discussion quickly digressed from planes, trains, and cars to whether or not there is a government cover-up at Area 51 or if it’s a hoax. The jury is still out, but popular opinion in class 10C at Instituto de Las Caldas says that aliens do indeed exist.