Carnaval!

February 17-20 was Carnaval in Barranquilla! Holy crap. Next to Rio de Janero, Barranqilla hosts the world’s second largest carnival. I stayed with my previous host-family, and it was great to be back on my old street again playing dominoes, drinking beers, dancing with all the neighbors, and generally spending time with my family. Carolina, my old host mom, makes and sells carnival gear from shirts to jewelry, head bands and scarfs and decked me out with some of all of the above.

                Saturday started out with the main parade, which included the more typical floats, sexy dancers, detailed and vibrant costumes, and traditional dances. There were also some unexpected costume appearances, such as Hitler, Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush, FARC, transvestites galore, KKK, and hundreds of black-faced men and women. “Los Negritos” are people who literally paint their bodies and faces black, growl like monkeys and apes, and dance with their tounges out… as long as you are dancing, in costume AND in Colombia, evidently anything goes. Flour and foam were thrown and sprayed all over everyone.

 

               

                That night three friends and I watched J. Alvarez and Marc Anthony preform from 10 feet away. We met a guy who works for Marc Anthony and our free tickets he gave us turned out to be front row (not even row—this was too classy, we had front couches), surrounded by the wealthiest of Barranquilla (and may I add the most silicone I’ve ever seen—every woman had fake boobs and butt), and allowed us to be total posers (didn’t know a single song of Marc’s). Furthermore, after the show we got to go back stage and ate a bunch of his leftover pizza. 

                Saturday some friends and I met my family (aka about 30 members) at another parade and watched procession after procession of amazing dancers.

                The night ended with a Cumbia concert and roughly eight hours of dancing.

I was going to come back to Cartagena on Tuesday, but come Monday morning it was evident that Colombian party stamina is just not something that my American roots have taught me. How do they do it?!

Over three weeks down and I couldn’t be happier with my site placement. Although I would have been happy wherever placed, I owe the Peace Corps Placement Officer big-time for giving me this school, family and neighborhood.

The city center of Cartagena is within a stone wall lined with cannons and next to a castle/fortress built by Spanish conquistadors to protect the city. After colonial rule, Cartagena became a major slave trade port of the Americas. Between these two eras, the center has turned into a cultural and historical hodgepodge of museums, statues, events, churches, universities, plazas, and tourists. Walking the narrow, colorful streets lined with restaurants and cafes it feels like I’m back in Spain. Moving away from the city center and along the coast and close-by islands are beaches, snorkeling, windsurfing, high rises, hammocks to lounge in, beer to drink, papaya to eat, beautiful people to people-watch. There are several towns on the outskirts of Cartagena; most have exclusively Afro-Colombian populations and furthermore their own language, music, dance, and food derived from African originals.

 

I live about twenty to thirty minutes away from all this, and while I am delighted it is so close, I am very happy to be somewhere that is more Peace Corps-esque (I have not had water nor electricity for the past two days, for example) although still very Posh Corps compared to the otherwise bucket shower, hut dweller, hole pooper image. Instead I am living in another central area, but where Colombians, not tourists, go. I am a ten minute walk from all of Cartagena’s major stadiums, including a soccer stadium used for World Cup qualifiers, a bull fighting arena, two huge tracks, an Olympic size swimming pool along with three other smaller training and diving pools (I about cried of joy the first time I swam there!), a karate and gymnasium center, and finally, a baseball field where the Cartagena team plays. It’d be hard to find such quality facilities in the US. I have no excuse not to work out or to go to professional sports games. Furthermore, I am within walking distance of two gigantic shopping centers and malls in addition to bars, restaurants and nightclubs galore. It takes me one minute to walk to work. Being bored should not be an issue.  

After two weeks of teacher meetings (including going Catholic mass, watching “Freedom Writers” the movie, general overviews of school policies, lots of socializing) I am in my second week of “classes”. However, teachers still do not have schedules, classes and sizes have yet to be determined, and students are still enrolling or don’t come the first two weeks. Until I get a schedule, my job has basically been socializing, getting to know the school’s system, and observing classes. I have an amazing group of English teachers to work with, and not only them but all faculty have been so welcoming. I was assigned the largest school out of all Peace Corps volunteers (nine English teachers, and over 1,000 students), and so like the city of Cartagena, I will not be running out of things to do at work. Aside from going out to shop, eat and drink, I’ve climbed “Pie de la Popa” (a 30 minute hike to a monastery overlooking Cartagena), and gone to a fried food festival (as if every day wasn’t already fried food day in Colombia) with teachers.