Bambucos

A beautiful and coquettish traditional Colombian dance demonstration that was part of an evening of music and videos about traditional music and dance from various regions. This was just one couple, apparently during the Bambucos festival there are tons of gorgeous dresses and everyone dances barefoot and it's spectacular! (That seems to be a favorite adjective around here.)

Water in Bags, Gloves on Hands

Some of the stuff we don't have back at home doesn't really surprise me too much - like the fruit stands and street vendors. Some stuff though, I never would have thought of, like all the things they sell in bags - water, milk, jam, ketchup, mayo, soda. Sometimes it's like - "I'll have a liter of soda/juice in a big plastic bag please!" and they fill up a bag like you'd use at the grocery store for veggies or bulk items, tie a knot in the top and there you go, empty it into a pitcher when you get home!

And then last night, we went to quite possibly the best restaurant EVER. Well, best in terms of my amusement value. We were driving home from visiting some friends of the family and G's mom asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner. I said, as I do at home quite often when asked the same question, "food". She laughed and started listing off different options. I jumped on "potatoes" because they were something I hadn't had in a while, and she said something about "oh wait, darn, we don't have (something something)" and I said, "french fries?" (something I hadn't had since I've been here) and at that moment we were driving by a little fast food chicken place called something like Pikoriko.


G's mom dashed into the grocery store across the street while his dad and nephew VM and I went in. It was very similar to a McD's or any other fast food place, plastic seating, tile floors, white walls with huge pictures of menu items, and a little net covered play place for kids with a bunch of climbing tubes and a ball pit. VM immediately started playing on the play thing, and we sat down and a girl came and brought us menus, which was so weird to me in a fast food place. And then my Father in Law asks what they have that's vegetarian and the girl is like, uhhh, nothing? (Which doesn't surprise me) But we find the french fries and order some of those. It seems like maybe they fry each batch to order, because it takes a while, and they come on a REAL ceramic plate with the little chicken logo, not paper!

Then G's mom comes and they order their chicken and some plantain thing for me, and some juice for me and soda for them. VM, busy "dunking" the plastic balls in the basketball hoop in the playplace says he doesn't want anything. Then the chicken comes and the girl says they don't have any of the plantain things, so they order me another plate of fries, and VM comes and starts eating mine and so they order ANOTHER plate of fries and I have some of his when they come. (Also F-I-L steals some of the fries from the first plate, which I wouldn't mind except it's my ENTIRE DINNER but luckily with the 3 plates, I had plenty so I needn't have worried.)

But anyway when they girl brings out the chicken, it comes with PLASTIC GLOVES that they put on to eat it! (like the kind I'm used to seeing food service people use to make your food) And that cracked me up SO HARD. I only laughed a little on the outside and I told them I'd never seen anything like it but I was silently lauging inside for like 10 minutes at least, every time I saw the ceramic plates and the plastic gloves. Now honestly, as a vegetarian, this could be something that they do all the time in the states and I just don't know, but I DID ask at least one non-veg friend and she said that whenever she goes out for messy chicken they just bring out a bucket of napkins. I guess it's a bit more more efficient in a way, one pair of gloves vs. tons of napkins? But it looks darn silly. :-D

And they do seem to use paper napkins a lot for other things - like to hold their sandwiches or pizza or little fried things. Sort of preventative to getting your hands dirty? I'm used to getting the hands dirty and then using the napkin AFTER to clean them, and having the napkin wrapped around whatever I'm trying to eat seems like an invitation to a mouthful of paper. But maybe that's just cuz I haven't learned how to maneuver it properly.

Going to the beach again today! Although I'm a wee bit confused because I thought they said we were leaving around 8:30 or 9, but it's 9 right now and G's mom just got up and is cooking something, possibly breakfast, possibly my lunch. Everyone else gets fish on the beach, but after my bad experience with probably the beach salad the last time I came here, that doesn't leave me with much to eat, so when we went out on Wednesday she made me pasta and fried up some deditos. (Deditos = "little fingers" =mini croissant type things with cheese inside). I probably woke up around 7:30 and didn't hear anyone out and about so I stayed in bed until I started freaking out because I don't have a clock in my room, and a little after 8 I got up and checked some emails, accepted a few new MySpace friends and started this blog at about 8:30.

Anyway, my beach bag is mostly still packed from Wednesday, so I don't have much to do, but I think I will go take a quick shower so my skin starts off clean before all the sunscreen I'm going to be slathering on it...

YAY BEACH!

Have Washing Machine, Will Travel

In the last few years a plethora of mototaxis has exploded onto the traffic scene here in Barranquilla, because I sure don't remember them the first time I came.

Look closely, there are three people on that bike - there's a kid in the middle.

They are kind of maniacs on the streets - people already don't really follow the traffic rules and the motos zip in and out of the cars, regular and pickup truck taxis and the kings of the road, the busses. Besides people, they also transport all sorts of stuff, tires, groceries and huge stacked and bungee-corded crates of lord knows what. A couple nights ago I saw pizza delivery motos with a big metal hot box permanently attached to the back for carrying the pizza boxes. A day or two before that I saw one with what looked like a washing machine strapped to the back.

Yesterday I found out that it WAS in all likelihood, indeed a washing machine.

I've been doing an exchange a few times a week with Mirna, a sweet lady who is studying for her TOEFL test and can't afford English lessons, but heard about me through one of her friend's who is an English professor at Universidad Del Norte. It's been good because it's just one on one, and she's been helping me with the basic stuff that I need to fill in the blanks between what I learned before I came and the advanced intermediate stuff they were teaching during my immersion course. Yesterday we were talking about cultural differences between here and the US. She's a nurse and a teacher, and she has been to Atlanta before, hoping to get a job but didn't pass the TOEFL the first time. She's really intrigued by the whole idea of freelance and working from home, and wants to know why there were so many nail salons and why they are staffed by Korean men. Here there are much fewer and it's all Colombian women. They even come to your house so you don't have to out.

There's actually quite a lot here you can call into your house, including laundry machines! You can rent one for a few hours, or a whole day, depending on how much laundry you have to do. And they bring them to you on the back of a mototaxi! Apparently it's a very good business, as they don't really have laundromats here! And I guess the mototaxis are helping reduce the carbon footprint a bit, as does sharing a washing machine. Still blows my mind though.

If there's a Korean nail salon in every strip mall in Atlanta, there's someone on every corner and at every stoplight in Barranquilla trying to sell phone cards. Most people, if not all, have more of a pay-as-you-go format for the phones as opposed to a monthly plan. I think some of those places might also offer by-the-minute use of a phone to call pretty much anywhere, but not entirely sure about that.

The other thing on pretty much every corner and plenty of places in-between are little fruit stands. They maybe have a few different kinds of fruit, or some of them make fresh juice. I don't really understand though, how they make a living. It looks like a lot of sitting around in the shade, which is great, but even the one guy who was really pushy and came right up to our car window sold us a huge bunch of little bananas for about $1! I guess at the end of the day they've got their fruit to eat, and if they were able to sell enough to buy some rice or beans to supplement the fruit they are probably doing ok food-wise at least.

Another Mini City Tour

Fishing on the River
Originally uploaded by hum97

On Friday we had another mini city tour, this time with our culture teacher. (Last week was with the grammar teacher) First we went to an area of Barranquilla called Las Flores, lots and lots of little fish restaurants since it's right on the river. It was EXTREMELY windy. I had an blended iced lemonade, which I promptly spilled down my front when I tipped the cup towards me while using the straw. I hate that :P But I seem to do it often. Which is why, much as I hate to use the plastic, I generally try to get a top for things whenever possible...

Administracion de la Aduana
Originally uploaded by hum97

Next we stopped by La Aduana - the old Customs building. It's a beautiful place that now has a big library, a little art gallery (that had an exhibit of abstracted Carnaval themes, I wish now I'd taken some pictures...) and also lots of offices. Next to La Aduana is a the first train station in Colombia, and also an old Train Engine. I'd been there before but this time there was a guide, and it was fun to actually understand a lot of what he was talking about (not just the words but the concepts) because we'd been learning about a lot of them in class already.

El Centro
Originally uploaded by hum97

Finally we drove through El Centro - the historic central part of Barranquilla. It's busy and bustling but also a very poor area. They call the residential parts "Barrios de invasion" - Neighborhoods of invasion - where poor people come in the night and just quickly build a living structure and then over time as they come across things materials etc, they slowly build up cement walls and such until they have a proper house and the city pretty much has no choice but to give them a paper saying "ok, this is officially your house". Seems like kind of a weird concept, but I guess that's how it used to be really in other countries too...

Click on any of the pictures to go to my flickr site for more photos from the tour day.

Geography Lesson

For those of you who have no idea where I am, Barranquilla is there with the green arrow. Once you get to Miami it's only about a 2 hours and 20 minute flight, and it's in the same time zone as the East Coast in the US.

It's fairly hot and humid year round - think Iowa summer, but with a lots of big breezes coming in off the ocean to keep things pretty bearable.

Oh, and see how far away it is from Mexico? It's a totally different country, totally different food. I've yet to be served hot salsa or any spicy dish, though I HAVE had a lot of rice and beans. And I hear the food from the coast is different from the food from the mountains. Just like we have Chicago style and New York style pizza, and the culture in the US is different from the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc. Of course there are many similarities between the English speaking countries and the Spanish speaking countries, but thinking that all food south of Texas is tacos is both a huge and common mistake.