New Year, New Semester, New Esperanza

I’ve been reflecting on this adventure. I say adventure because my time here was more than just a semester abroad, and more than just a trip. I did not want to be a typical exchange student, and I definitely resolved not to be a tourist in a city I would call home for five months. I am now super sensitive to the way Americans are perceived abroad: from the crass Republican grandpa who announced to everyone on my flight to Lima that Obama was a terrorist spy to the drunken teenage girls swinging their cameras around in boliches. Yet there are always people who soften the American stereotype of beer pong, Black Friday, and morbid obesity.

When I came home and people asked about my semester, many were satisfied with an Argentine Christmas present and a quick flip through my photo album. I could tell them the stories I’ve shared in this blog, point out the historic places, or play some popular music. But it wouldn't fully convey my experience. And although I am glad I updated this, what I miss most are the little moments with people who helped me feel like I had a family there.

I met my host mother, a farm girl who moved to the city after her divorce, willing to come to salsa classes with me, jokingly in search of a boyfriend with rhythm…an ultimate family that played in wind, rain, sand, and even a dust storm with a spirit of the game that reminds me why I fell in love with the sport…a salsa community that encouraged me since my first awkward steps…an Argentine girl and her family eager to translate cultural differences and welcome some flustered Americans into their home…an Ecuadorian dance student who takes an insane number of classes, and will do so for years to come because it is his passion…some American girls who supported me through oral exams in Spanish and nights when all I wanted was a root beer float…and a group of crazy, frisbee playing, salsa dancing Colombians who were patient enough with my Spanish to give me an excuse to make Christmas cookies.

It was frustrating, and at times humiliating, but I learned a lot about myself and about the world. I'm less shy and more open. I am not afraid to explore by myself. I appreciate more and want less. As we rang in 2010, I realized I had only been in this country for half of 2009. I didn't recognize any of the music on my friend's 2009 mix! But I'm so grateful to have had this experience and I look forward to many more adventures to come!

Stuck in Mexico

My laptop is destroyed. My old camera broke. My new camera was stolen on the street. I left my ipod on the bus. I threw away three pairs of shoes because I walked in them until my toes poked through. And my winter coat was taken. No wonder I had so much room in my suitcase! After a fun beach tournament, a week of sightseeing with Josh, and a series of goodbyes, my bags are en route to New York while I once again find myself in the same Mexico City airport that first greeted me when I started this adventure. I remember being intimidated by a language I barely knew and frustrated that the information employee couldn’t understand me when I tried to explain my flight had no gate number. Five months later, I am happy to report that not only has the airport purchased computer screens that display your gate number clearly, but I also had a conversation at the same information desk without the dreaded language barrier. At least the issue this time was the fact that I was stranded in Mexico for ten hours and not my unintelligible jumble of Spanish verbs!

I treated myself to a big lunch even though I wasn’t sure how much I was paying because Mexican pesos aren’t the same as Argentine pesos. It was the nicest restaurant at the airport, and I’m shocked they let me in. I got some interesting glares from men in business suits and and women in fur coats. They must have wondered who this homeless girl was with red eyes stinging from sleeping in contacts, flip flops, sweatpants and a hoodie! Classy American. My mouth was on fire because that was the first spicy food I’d had in half a year. I then realized that I was eating the jalapeno salsa (to be used for dipping the bread) as soup. I hid behind my Time magazine Josh brought me, trying to look a little more refined.

Other highlights from my ten hour delay in Mexico: I took a nap on the floor sprawled across my luggage, and was waken up by a gaucho Santa who did pirouettes around the terminal and threw candy to screaming children. Spoke with a super nice Mexican woman who was going to see snow for the first time in New York. Finished reading all about American politics via my Time addiction. Realized nothing has changed much since I left.

My favorite picture from the beach tournament:



At the theater to see David's hip hop performance:



Our goodbye lunch in Puerto Madero:

El riesgo es que te quieras quedar

I’m sitting here watching rows of arms reach upwards to adjust the air on the plane. We’re taking off from Bogota in the middle of summer and the AC system is struggling to compete with the heat at this altitude. As I’m writing this I notice my newly bronzed skin against the white paper, and my handmade wooden bracelet that boasts yellow, blue, and red from the Colombian flag. The tan I got from spending two weeks in the sun—frisbee fields, crowded plazas with Botero sculptures, country trails, and abandoned side streets. But the bracelet I got from a sweet woman who sold me very South American looking cotton pants at the market. We had so much fun haggling with her. I complained that she didn’t have the colors I wanted, and that I looked like I was a man because the seam of the crotch was so low. She sort of giggled and kept drawing a horizontal line across her throat as if we were killing her with the prices we were asking for. But since we were all exaggerating, she sold us the pants as her family nearby cheered, and she tied this bracelet on our wrists as if to say it was all in fun. We were obviously two American girls in desperate need of something to cover our legs before the sun nestled down into the mountains. I had no idea Colombia would be this cold at night!

We went hiking:

Rode in a potato truck:

Celebrated my 20th birthday:

Checked out the Christmas displays:

Rode bikes around Bogota:

Played lots of ultimate:

Ate amazing food:

And tried to cook our own:

The woman next to me makes a cross as the plane leaves the ground and the city shrinks into glittering Christmas lights. I reach for my own cross and remember the necklace in its place: a simple black cord with a silver coin. The design is an ambiguous figure running with a disc. The cold metal feels good against my slightly burnt chest. Everyone who played in the tournament in Medellin received these necklaces, and now that the games are over, people in Argentina, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Canada, and the US are wearing them. We are part of a community that is bigger than our practice fields, bigger than our team, and even bigger than our own continent. It’s always awkward having new people play representing with your team, but I am grateful for the two female teams that let us—three American girls with Argentine accents— play with them. Everyone has different styles of playing, different strategies, and different philosophies, but at the end of the day, you are still playing the same game. And hopefully having fun! So after two tournaments, two weeks, two Colombian cities, and two decades of life, I sit patiently in a country I never dreamed I’d visit as the clouds consume the plane and I am consumed by a heat-induced sleep.