By the first weekend I was starting to panic about two things, the level of expected food consumption and the possibility of suffocation from motherly embraces. I thought travelling halfway across the world alone was an independent thing to do. But far, far away is reality and my Colombian family. There have been one or two rather amusing episodes which I’ll now recount.
The mother, Myladys, is caring, kind and delivers considerable over-compensation for the last 8 years lack of mothering. When I enter the house or exit my room into the shared living area I am followed about wherever I wander. This includes almost coming into the toilet with me. Every time I say something she approves of she squeezes me. Sometimes a part of me and sometimes all of me. I felt a strange reluctance to improve my Spanish because of this. I’m not quite sure why I tense up so much, as if every fibre of my English body is against it.
The episode with the toallas. On the third day of meeting her she followed me into my room. My Spanish has improved a little since but at the time most communication was being made through actions. Grinning and with raised eye gestures, she whispered, “toalla”, “toalla”. I just stood. She put her hand between her legs and started hopping and grinning more and repeating “toalla”. She looked me in the eye. I gaped helplessly hoping for the love of God that she wasn’t trying to ask me about what I thought she was trying to ask me about. I decided to play dumb. She called her daughter into the room to use the dictionary. In slow but never-the-less comprehensible English came “sanitary towel”. I could only frown, “Si. Por que sanitary towel?” The next day there were two sanitary towels lying on my bed when I came home from teaching.
Some food-related episodes. The day after the day I was given a bowl-full of the-day-before rice and meat at 8:00 am, I waited two hours before going to el bano. By this time I contemplated if long-term early avoidance of rice and meat could cause long-term bladder impairment. After visiting el baño I was given a bowl-full of nondescript fried carbs/oily pancake thing and deep-fat fried chicken and she watched as I ate.
The mother, Myladys, is caring, kind and delivers considerable over-compensation for the last 8 years lack of mothering. When I enter the house or exit my room into the shared living area I am followed about wherever I wander. This includes almost coming into the toilet with me. Every time I say something she approves of she squeezes me. Sometimes a part of me and sometimes all of me. I felt a strange reluctance to improve my Spanish because of this. I’m not quite sure why I tense up so much, as if every fibre of my English body is against it.
The episode with the toallas. On the third day of meeting her she followed me into my room. My Spanish has improved a little since but at the time most communication was being made through actions. Grinning and with raised eye gestures, she whispered, “toalla”, “toalla”. I just stood. She put her hand between her legs and started hopping and grinning more and repeating “toalla”. She looked me in the eye. I gaped helplessly hoping for the love of God that she wasn’t trying to ask me about what I thought she was trying to ask me about. I decided to play dumb. She called her daughter into the room to use the dictionary. In slow but never-the-less comprehensible English came “sanitary towel”. I could only frown, “Si. Por que sanitary towel?” The next day there were two sanitary towels lying on my bed when I came home from teaching.
Some food-related episodes. The day after the day I was given a bowl-full of the-day-before rice and meat at 8:00 am, I waited two hours before going to el bano. By this time I contemplated if long-term early avoidance of rice and meat could cause long-term bladder impairment. After visiting el baño I was given a bowl-full of nondescript fried carbs/oily pancake thing and deep-fat fried chicken and she watched as I ate.
I feel quite ashamed of this emergent fussiness, like every sitting is an ordeal. One day I was given something seemingly breakfast-like. 2 boiled eggs in a bowl with bread. The eggs were oh-so-salty. Like two rotund sea creatures. And the bread had oh-so-much sugar. It was like a kid at school had put sugar in the salt shaker. I took to playing psychological games in my head, “mmmm sugary salty eggs, my favourite food. Salt and sugar together are yummy. mmmmm”.
Every day I eat lunch with a different family. The idea behind this is so that we are not a burden to any particular family and so our presence is shared in the community and increases cultural interaction. Every time I enter the house where I stay Myladys tries to make me eat and drink and appears upset if I refuse to eat or drink. Every day I or laura, or Alex explained that we eat lunch with another family and we couldn’t possibly eat bowlfuls of rice and grisly meat because, as Alex explains it, ‘hay no mucho espacio en mi stomago’.
I brought a big Cadbury caramel chocolate bar with me because apparently Colombian chocolate is bad. Seemingly the mother knows it too because she ate all of it.
The father is a fervent communicator. He offers hugely elaborate but equally hugely indeterminate actions to aid comprehension. I particularly like his drawings. One evening I was going to another family on the outskirts of town to teach their children in exchange for dinner. Here people get about on ‘motos’. There are men wearing luminous orange vests who taxi you around on mopeds for a nominal fee. The father, Carolos, did not think it was a good idea for me to get on the back of just any-old moped. I agreed. He chose a driver he knew and took the man’s phone number and gave me his phone number. The evening was quite a success. After getting a little lost trying to find the address I taught two young boys and they coloured in stuff and I ate nice food and it was all very nice. When I got home later Carlos explained that I mustn’t get a moped with a person who doesn’t know him because they will take me to another part of town and rape me and murder me. To ensure I understood he made an impression that I’d be keen to forget of someone both raping and murdering me (I think by pulling my head off).
So as not to alarm you, there is not any especial risk of this. People here suffer somewhat from paranoia. We are told to wear sandals in the house in case we cut our feet, and the father suggested I take my earings out before I swim in the sea in case they rip my ears off.
Sitting at the table one morning, eating my bowl of fried carbs (property unknown), it came to my notice that the parents were watching a TV show in German. By now, thinking the pair of them was at least a little loco (crazy), I didn’t think much of it. They probably watch programmes in German all the time. What do I know? Still, I was sure they didn’t know any German, yet they watched it quite contentedly, expressionlessly. After some time one of them turned to me and asked if I was enjoying the programme.
I said, “si, esta bien. Pero, no hablo Aleman”
“es Aleman”?
“si”
“No ingles?”
“no”
The channel was changed.
Everything here is surreal. A friendly student at the school caught me in the street and I helped him with his English HW. He and his little sister walked me home at 10pm and he offered to give me a piggy-back for the last 100 yards. Living and teaching in a pueblo (village) here means:
Not needing a door key because there’s no such thing as all family members being out of the house at the same time.
Having plenty to do but also plenty of time to do it.
Students offering to give you piggy-backs.
Having iguanas come into your classes.
Students and teachers going to class if they fancy it or going home if they don’t.
Being related to, or knowing, everyone else in the pueblo.
All the women being called Myladys or Ladys.
It's also so hot and humid that you can't wear make-up because it just melts off your face, and you seem to sweat even in the shower.
I learnt the past tense. Story-telling makes more sense now.
On Friday night we discovered there was a boxing match. I have never been particularly interested in the idea of watching boxing, thinking it would be both violent and boring. It was violent but not boring. It was actually very exciting. When I got home we had a family bonding session. The daughter, Milagro and her cousin, who also lives with us, put on some music and started dancing. Dancing in Colombia is like nothing I've ever seen before. Reggaeton. They danced together (very close) and the daughter pole-danced whilst the mother clapped. In all it was very enjoyable, if not again surreal.
Not needing a door key because there’s no such thing as all family members being out of the house at the same time.
Having plenty to do but also plenty of time to do it.
Students offering to give you piggy-backs.
Having iguanas come into your classes.
Students and teachers going to class if they fancy it or going home if they don’t.
Being related to, or knowing, everyone else in the pueblo.
All the women being called Myladys or Ladys.
It's also so hot and humid that you can't wear make-up because it just melts off your face, and you seem to sweat even in the shower.
I learnt the past tense. Story-telling makes more sense now.
On Friday night we discovered there was a boxing match. I have never been particularly interested in the idea of watching boxing, thinking it would be both violent and boring. It was violent but not boring. It was actually very exciting. When I got home we had a family bonding session. The daughter, Milagro and her cousin, who also lives with us, put on some music and started dancing. Dancing in Colombia is like nothing I've ever seen before. Reggaeton. They danced together (very close) and the daughter pole-danced whilst the mother clapped. In all it was very enjoyable, if not again surreal.
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