Sweat and Backstreet Boys

My skin knows two states: damp and dripping. I’ve stopped using lotion altogether because moisture is not a problem and moreover it adds to the sweat. Sweating and pounding my Nalgene bottle, I sit next to Colombians who comfortably eat hot soup while wearing long sleeves and pants. If someone’s dress or skin color isn’t an instant give-away on if they’re Colombian or foreign, just a simple glance at the size of their pit stains is the next best indicator. The heat isn’t the problem, it’s the humidity. Conditions are supposed to get slightly cooler until January, at which point they will increase, leaving death by April conceivable.

On Thursday, five other PC trainees and I visited our first Colombian school. In exchange for teaching them a song in English about the US, students from the school reciprocated with quite the performance. As we ate empanadas and drank coconut milk, it started out with a blast from my middle-school-dance past as a student serenaded us with Backstreet Boys and Train songs. Next came the seven year old ballerina, dressed in what I can only describe as a borderline stripper outfit, doing a dance to a Lady Gaga/Katie Perry remix (take Turkey’s conservative dress and reverse it here, but that’s for another blog post). Finally, for the finale, about thirty 10-14 year old girls danced to several traditional Colombian songs. They were amazing! Everyone seems to be born into humidity and salsa here, and therefore are naturals in terms of perspiration control and dancing. The visit made me SO excited to start in working at a Colombian school! The staff and students were exceedingly friendly and enthusiastic that we were there.

Family and dance time

Supposedly the wireless internet at my house will work one day but who knows. Hope this explains why I haven’t been able to respond much to emails, googlevoice, facebook or skype; it’s not that I‘ve forgotten about you already!

My host family is so welcoming and fun, and I feel really comfortable with them. My papa, Ricardo, teaches 8^th grade math. My mama is Carolina. They have two boys Ricardo Andres, 13 years, and Carlos, 10 years. Ricardo has 8 other siblings and Carolina 9 others, so other family members are often at our house or we go to theirs. Jesus, 7 years, is their cousin who lives with us Mondays through Fridays. Family time includes playing soccer (me getting schooled by a 7 year old) and American football, watching TV (dubbed Disney channel programs and American Idol-esque takeoffs), making origami, coloring pictures, playing dominoes, sharing music (out of all my songs, Michael Jackson, Enrique Inglesias and Dandy Yankee are most in demand) and playing hours upon hours of card games (UNO been a big hit along with others I’ve taught them such BS (“Mentiroso” in Spanish, if you will) and Go Fish).

The hardest part so far has been the food. It’s not that Carolina is a bad cook but more that the Colombian diet is on the starchy, carbohydrate, have-you-ever-heard-of-a-vegetable side. Breakfast usually consists of a ground corn in some form with fried plantains or cheese and whole milk or juice. Lunch is always a heaping pile of rice, with a tiny bit of iceberg lettuce, meat, and juice. Dinner is usually the same, note the especially mountainous pile of rice. In retrospect, the Chinese rice bowl that I got in Panama City before arriving in Colombia may not have been such a great choice. All that being said, the fruit juice/fruit is amazing. I’ve also tried cow tong and cow stomach soup to my list of delicacies.

Although I insist that unlike Shakira, my hips can lie and furthermore I can’t gyrate as Colombians do thanks to my lack of culo, everyone is determined to teach this gringa to dance. Saturday was a neighbor’s birthday party and I danced one-on-one with what I assume was each and every person on my street well into the night. There is never a moment in my barrio (neighborhood) when I can’t hear music. People set up gigantic speakers in front of their houses and everyone, old and young, dance the night away. Furthermore, unlike our backyards, everyone has a front patio area, and it’s common for people to set up chairs outside their house or right in the middle of the sidewalk to people watch and talk for hours. I love it! There are sooo many different types of Colombian dance, each linked with unique music type. At this point though, they look and sound the same to me.

Our Peace Corps group remains an amazing ensemble of people. We’re together every weekday. Spanish classes are from 8am until noon. After lunch we have job training and other logistics from 1-5pm. It’s pretty exhausting, but the material is stimulating and working with such energetic people means never a dull moment. Time is flying by, and furthermore the plethora of Peanut M&Ms here makes the adjustment that much easier!

The first 3 of 820 days living in Colombia

Our Peace Corps group is fantastic! There are 23 of us from all over the US. I’m the only Coloradoian, although a couple have lived in Washington. The oldest is in her upper 60’s and the youngest are 4 who just graduated from University; the majority are between 23-31 years. Many people have either previously taught for a year or two abroad (like me) or are have a masters or PHD and have taught in the States for years. Everyone is super personable, energetic, motivated, entertaining, intelligent, and we are all so excited to be here.

Currently there are 77 countries where the Peace Corps serves and over 8,000 volunteers (over 200,000 since its beginning). The Peace Corps was in Colombia from 1961 (it was one of the original 5 countries) until 1981. It pulled out because of escalating violence and a volunteer was kidnapped. However intimidating this may sound, today areas of Colombia are safe. Peace Corps came back in September of 2010 with response volunteers, aka volunteers who previously completed their 2 years of service in another county in order to start-up the Colombian program. My group is the first 2 year group back since 1981.

Although the program is new to Colombia, the Peace Corps staff here know what they are doing. Everything is well prepared and organized, and furthermore, despite their wealth of knowledge the staff remains unintimidating. The director, Geroge, has worked previously with the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Peru. There are several Colombians who will be our Spanish teachers and we will have Spanish lessons almost every day from morning until lunchtime for the next 3 months. My Spanish has definitely come back just in being here a few days and I feel confident with my level so far, but I am so excited about how good my Spanish will be after these 3 months! Afternoons will be spent doing training for our job, going over security in Colombia and learning more about the culture.

Our first 3 months in Colombia will be intensive training six days a week and living with host families throughout the city of Barranquilla. Home of Shakira, Sophia Vargara and the MVP of last year’s World Series, the second largest Carnival in the world (next to Rio’s), several universities, and 2 million people. My eventual site placement (where I will spend the remainder of the next 2 years) will be in Barranquilla, Cartagena or Santa Marta. All three cities are on the northern Caribbean coast. Costeños, or the people who live along the coast, are supposed to be more relaxed, open, love to party, lots of music and dance. Everything is green and humid, especially since it's the rainy season until January. That being said, it doesn't feel nearly as hot as I thought it would be.

I'm meeting my family who will host me for the next three months tomorrow and then will get into a more regular routine. I've heard that they live in "humble" conditions, so although PC has said that many families have internet, I may not have much access and furthermore don't know how much time I can afford at an internet cafe... During training months we're only getting 10,000 pesos per day from Peace Corps, which is about $4.50.  Awesome. If you need to get a hold of me, my email is christinakuntz87@gmail.com. I also downloaded google voice, and my number is 720-608-6172--you can leave me a voice mail or text me and I can get them from my computer and text/call you back for free. My skype name is christina.kuntz

Miami, aka little Colombia

Thanks to my new roommate, I have successfully created a blog. I promise to try and keep this guy updated; however, you, the reader, should also promise not to set your expectations of my blogging abilities too high.

I flew from Denver to Chicago to Miami, where I will be until tomorrow morning. Highlights of the 7 hours it took to get here include: sitting next to a 400 pounder with BO, eating lots of American food and speaking English to my heart’s content, and finally Peter Forsburg!... yes, he was on my flight from Denver to Chicago. And despite urges to shove his fiance out of the way and scream "I love you", I settled for a classy "congrats" (on retiring his career/jersey #) as we passed each other and made eye contact for 5 whole seconds.

Part of me really cannot believe that I am doing this whole moving to another country without knowing anything/anyone again... however, I am so much less nervous than I was for Turkey (talk about taking a random chance). It wasn't really until yesterday that I started to think about how long 27 months seems. At the same time and despite momentary insecurities, I know that this is really what I want to do and I am SO excited to begin! Colombia will be my 17th country I've visited in the past year; how lucky am I!!! There is definitely a now-or-never type of mentality.

Evidently Spanish has taken over Miami, or at least the mile stretch from the airport to our hotel. People evidently assume it is my first language as I have been addressed in Spanish as much if not more than English, all signs have Spanish before English, and I just had brunch at "Cafe Latina" across the street. If the flight attendant hadn't announced "Bienvenidos a Miami" when we landed and if I didn't know any better, this could be Colombia.

I've only met one other volunteer (although creepily stare down everyone in the hotel wondering if they also might be with the Peace Corps), who is my roomate. Jessica, UCBerkely, from LA is super nice so far (and blog savvy) and it's been great to adjust with her before meeting the whole group--in an hour!