Gab, Gabo, and 2012

First and NOT most importantly, I'd like to report that after 2 1/2 months of consuming a diet of butter, grease, sugar, and carbs, I've managed to remain more or less the same weight, probably because of the daily miles I try to walk, a pastime which has the twofold benefit of saving me money and keeping me trimmish.  


On to more riveting news: I had the privilege of visiting one of Gabriel García Márquez's ten siblings, Lijia García Márquez, in her house not far from where I'm staying.  If you're not literary minded, you should know that Gabriel García Márquez is considered by many to be the most important author in all of Latin American history and one of the most important of the 20th century, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his magnum opus One Hundred Years of Solitude.  Plus, he is my favorite author, and I have read quite a few books. I first met Lijia in a nearby panadería on my first morning in the barrio.  I could tell at once that she was quite garrulous, even for a Colombian, when my host mom repeatedly kept trying to say good-bye and she would repeatedly begin another dramatic parley, not much unlike grocery shopping back home.  It wasn't until after we left that Naifir told me she was GGM's sister, and I was shocked-- her shoes weren't shined, nor her dress new, and she was shopping at my local panadería!  According to the biography of GGM I'm reading, he has turned down interviews offering $50,000, so why, I wondered, would his family be living in the conditions of the average city-dwelling Colombian?  


When I arrived with my Spanish teacher, Joao, and mama Naifir at the appointed time, Lijia came to the gate feverishly dusting a statue of an eagle while profusely apologizing that her house was not clean enough for visitors yet.  I figured this was a polite way to decline the visit, but then she began inquiring if I knew anyone back home who would be interested in buying some family photographs so that she could purchase medicine for her diabetic, convalescent husband.  She had tried calling Gabo, as GGM is affectionally referred to, but his wife, that "hija de la puta," wouldn't put her through.  Evidently, GGM's wife and the in-laws don't get along so well.  Anyhow, we returned after an hour or so and were finally invited through the gate via a shout indoors from her husband, a typical Colombian man, who while his wife was in the next room amorously told me I resembled a telenovela star and that I was "a poem, a beautiful poem."  


While we continued to wait for Lijia, I snuck this shot of her living room--

Also, here's a popular family photo.  There are several versions of this; I saw two different ones in Lijia's house and there's another version in the biography I'm reading as well.  They apparently cut and paste different people into the photo according to their own personal taste, but in all Lijia is just to the left of Gabo, who is at top center in the white guayabera.  

Lijia finally emerged in a formal dress, freshly bathed and frantic that she couldn't buckle the strap of her heels.  I felt odd that she was really that preoccupied about her appearance.  During the visit, I found her to be sincere and entertaining.  She was difficult for my Spanish teacher and me to steer conversationally, as she answered one question by first telling another story that would help you to know the background to another story which would lead to an answer to the question.  She whispered and looked behind her as she told us family "secrets," different versions of events I'd read in the biography by Gerald Martin.  This Latin Americanism struck me as distinctly cultural.  Martin says in his Introduction that during the initial interviews for the book as he was beginning to research and make inquiry into the author's life, Márquez told him, "Whatever you write will be the truth."  There doesn't seem to be a value on one single truth here; it's all dependent on the storyteller, their perceptions and current whimsy at the time that determines which version you'll hear.  The actual event doesn't even really seem to be the focus; there's value in simply the telling of a story.  


After three hours and only getting an "answer" to three questions, it was time to go.  As to why Gabo doesn't support his family more than what would be expected in such a case, I can't really say.  For one, I don't know if what I'm told is really the truth, and secondly, I don't want to betray my new friend's confidence. Lijia is excited to have me back next week to show me more pictures and is even more excited that I'm going to Cartagena where more of her family resides, including Gabo at times.  She is eager to introduce me to two other brothers and their relatives and has even inquired whether I could possibly live with one of them during my service.  I'd be tickled to meet more García Márquezes, but whether Lijia's invite is just a story, I won't know until I get there.  :) 


The next day, I visited a pueblo where two Peace Corps Response Volunteers are working in the area of disaster relief.  During this year's rainy season, Atlantico, the state of Colombia I'm living in, suffered flooding that was reportedly worse than Hurricane Katrina.  The region experienced in one month a year's worth of rain and hundreds of thousands were displaced.  Volunteer Bob Arias works with the children and Shirley Sherrod focuses on the women in a pueblo called Campo de la Cruz.  What is their work?  Sewing is Shirley's guise and popsicle sticks Bob's.  Shirley comes with a new pattern or blanket she's working on to show the women while the youthful 73 year old Bob introduces new trinkets, all the while socializing and, of course, laughing.  Truly though, their work is in simply bringing the women and children together after facing the traumatic flooding of their homes.  Because most of the community's men go to Venezuela to work during the year, these women endured this frightening upheaval alone with their children.  Yet, as an outsider coming in, I couldn't really tell that these people had recently been in life-threatening danger or had experienced any great loss.  They, in Colombian fashion, were all smiles.

Well, mostly all smiles.  :)

Lunch with Shirley and Bob (not pictured).  Even though it's sweltering, we still eat hot soup for lunch.


Today is New Year's Eve, and Naifir is currently working on a sancocho, or a big-ass soup.  The ingredients are many and the flavor will be strong.  I just saw some chicken feet laying alongside some other meats and vegetables to be added.  I'm hoping for a serving sans feet tonight where I'm sure I'll be seeing more of this--

Naifir pouring whiskey.


I'm ready to ring in my first full Colombian year.  In GGM's biography, Rodrigo García Márquez, the firstborn son, says of his upbringing, "There were two things you just had to know.  One was the great importance of friendship.  There was a huge emphasis on the sheer fascination of other people and their lives.  It was my father's drug.  You had to know about their lives and all their business and you had to share in other people's experiences and share your own with them... We were brought up to be completely unprejudiced, except in a couple of significant respects.  Firstly, Latin American people were the best people in the world.  They were not necessarily the cleverest, they might not have built a lot, but they were the very best people in the world, the most human and the most generous" (GGM: A Life).  


I welcome a year of sharing in the lives of the "best people in the world!"  Truly, they are among the most generous I've known.  To Colombia 2012!

On lice and happiness.

When traveling to a foreign country, one can expect, at some point, to get sick... and that the sickness will then be over shortly after popping some Immodium or whatnot.  Well, I have been sick.  It's been nothing extraordinarily dangerous or severe, but I have underwent an onslaught of minor afflictions, one after another.  First, the expected, um, digestion issues- 5 days in length, oh yes, followed promptly by a throat infection with a fever to top.  Just as the throat infection was beginning to clear up, I got the worst sunburn of my life. (I am completely to blame and have learned, aha!, that the sun is more intense when closer to the equator).  Seeing it is evidently gasp-worthy.  Now I have gone from a deep scarlet to looking like I have a rare skin disease as the tanned skin gives way to new pink blotches.  And, just as the blisters and effects of solar overload were wearing off, it turned out that the persistent itching at the nape of neck was... LICE!  I don't want to whine, or overly whine because I think I already am, but imagine all of this combined with two months of intense longing for familiar friends, a loving dog, and a healthy diet with only temperate amounts of carbs and fried foods.  At hour 23 tossing on my children's mattress that may or may not be infested with lice, I found myself wondering, "Why am I doing this again?"


Cut to Colombia: the coastal region where I'm serving has a poverty rate of 47%, and poverty here isn't quite the same as what we may think of as poverty in the US.  Further, Colombia ranks among the top 10 countries in the world with the greatest inequality of wealth distribution.  Yet, according to BusinessWeek, Colombia is the world's third happiest country!!


http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/08/0819_happiest_countries/9.htm


I don't credit this achievement to the rise of tourism or the literacy rate as the article does, but to the Colombians' very unique joie de vivre.  They never need a reason to have a fiesta, though they do have many with 19 national holidays, and they are always surrounded with a real sense of community.  Plus, they absolutely love to dance; I mean, they really, really like to dance here.  It is not unusual to see Naifir, my host mom, dancing the vallenato or salsa with her mop.  Dancing begins early, as many schools devote the first two months of school- not to scheduling or classwork- but to dance rehearsals for Barranquilla's carnaval.  


Cut back to me on the flimsy foam mattress.  Why am I doing this?  I recall a group of British blokes I met at a salsa club last week traveling through Colombia who asked me the same question.  My answer is usually pretty standard, but this time I answered, while trying to concentrate on my salsa steps, white-like, while they, even more white-like, sat on their barstools sipping whisky, "Because back home, you can go through the wealthiest parts of town, and people aren't happy.  You don't see smiles, and if you do, they're probably forced.  But here I've seen people living with no running water or who are living in the most basic of conditions-- and they're all smiling."  I knew coming into this that likely I would receive much more from Colombians than I could ever hope to offer them, and already this has been my experience.  I may teach them how to teach and speak English, but they are teaching me how to be happy.  So after I combed those eggs out, I welcomed the salsa music blaring in from the street and... smiled.


By the way, I am going to Cartagena!  This is a dream of mine about which I'll write more later.  


Here I am learning my site assignment on Thanksgiving day-

  My first arrival at the school I'll be working at for the next two years-

In Cartagena, pre-sunburn-

And my novio Santiago.  Sometimes we play Spiderman, crash the toy motorcycle into the other carefully aligned toys, and put the bucket on your head.  We have a special understanding of each other, and he always leaves me with a sweet kiss.

Thank you, friends, for remembering and supporting me during these next two years.  Receiving emails of encouragement go a long way during these sometimes troubling times.


Leaving you in happiness nonetheless,
Amanda