Vallenato Soul

I think it was the moment when the vallenato whizzed by on a local city bus for the millionth time and Bua shrieked, whipped around to face me, and admitted with a sly smile that latin music had finally gotten inside her soul that I realized something: although we had both been embracing this strange, new culture for quite some time, neither one of us had before agreed that we felt any particular connection to crazy Cartagena. She was the first. I spun towards her with that infamous look of bewilderment so commonplace on the face of a foreigner in a foreign country, and asked her if she had totally lost her mind. She started laughing in her quietly mysterious yet hysterically obvious Thai way and slapped me lovingly on the shoulder, telling me that it would get inside me too—I just had to wait for the right moment. The moment when the accordion would wriggle into my skin, when the guacharaca (a ridged piece of bamboo struck with a metal stick) would scuff its way into my heartbeat, when the cantante (the singer) would serenade me into a deep, Latin sleep…. when I would finally feel in step with the ritmo of the colorful Colombian world. So I ask myself now: when did this time finally come? And why is the music so important in this transition?

It’s not like the overplayed and watered-down Salsa, the quick and catchy Merengue, or the Caribbean hip-hop called the Reggaeton—music that dances in and out of life like mediocre but likeable friends. Vallenato, you see, is a ferociously popular folk music from the valleys deep within Colombia: the northeastern region of Valle de Upar claims origins, yet the millions of Colombian Africans trace it back far within their own jungles. Its etymology is quite simple, and stems from two distinct Spanish words: valle, or valley, and nativo, or native. The native of the valley—the old man outside with the cracked guitar, the young boys with the big black eyes following the farmers, the mothers inside cooking their coconut rice and fried plantains. The original people of Colombia. The urban people of Medellin call it “country music,” scoff at it for the most part, and consider it “just one of those ‘costeno’ things….” However, though I tried to deny it, I unexpectedly found myself searching for its unique sounds in those moments of silence I used to crave: for vallenato, as music usually does, squiggles into every corner, meanders into every crack in the walls, waits on every bus, lingers in every mind long after the song is over, sings from every familiar mouth, and jumps into every memory I had thus made during my five month journey. It wasn’t like rock music, gospel, jazz, or indie—music that fades with the noisy sounds of life, the flashing of streetlights, the beeping of busy cars, and the hubbub of human voices… it…lasts, like a delicious taste in the mouth, like a breathy kiss on the lips, like the first flawless Spanish conversation.

And don’t think I’d forgotten how I felt the first time I heard it (and many of the times after that!): that squished up child face reeking of unpleasantness, with crinkles of the lip and a distaste in the mouth, follows me in giggles whenever I remember. It is the face of spinach, the cringe of piano lessons, the groan of the billionth identical group photo on a weekend trip. My grandparents’ German polka music with a bongo thrown in! What kind of music is that! And that dance—two people sucked onto each other, bobbing from side to side with their arms wrapped around each other—what is that! I felt ridiculous listening to it; I felt ridiculous dancing to it; I felt ridiculous sitting on the bus being constantly immersed in it.

Yet—after the boys at the Foundation threw Bua and I a dance party in order to share their love of vallenato with us, after the other teachers shared their favorite discs with us during quiet office hours, after I repeatedly tripped over my feet (and those of my partners!) while trying to find the rhythm, after my new friends burned me countless CD’s and eagerly introduced me to their beloved sounds, after I returned home and found Colombia only in the sounds of the accordion and that old Caribbean beat, I think it hit me too. Latin music had gotten into my soul too; it was just a little bit late. It found me in my house in Atlanta, Georgia, not long after the sounds of Colombia had faded to the beep of new automobiles, the strum of electric guitars, and the punctuated voice of English. While presenting the vallenato to my father, listening to it snake out of my home stereo system, I realized that my mind was no longer in North America: it had danced, far back, into the exotic jungles of Cartagena, to skip along the colonial streets, to bask in the eternal summer sun, to linger in a place I might not be again for a long, long time.

Those of you who have heard the Vallenato know that it is much, much more than just a simple music: it is a lifestyle, a hot Caribbean spirit, a fierce and voracious cultural richness. It is, in essence, what Colombia really is, and what Colombia once was for me.

Rainbows

My funny Thai friend Bua had never heard that gold lay at the edge of a rainbow but thought that the idea of it was pretty hilarious--perhaps it is simply one of those western-world myths that nobody really understands. Yet whether that Irish leprechaun legend has any truth to it or not (though in Colombia, were it true, that pot of gold would have been snatched up by hungry herds at the very first mention of it), we experienced a rainbow legend of our own on our last day at the Tecnologica. It always seems that the symbolism in life presents itself in mysterious but perfect ways, and this was no exception.

As we scrambled around the four floors of our building, taking our photo with our friends, students, co-workers, and selves, we ended up going up to the opened-air fifth floor, the unroofed place above our office where only the broken chairs, crippled desks, and morning sunlight touches. We wanted to take in the view as only eyes can and cameras cannot. And as we stepped into the sun of the early morning, Bua grabbed my shoulder and pointed to the horizon of our view: Kristin, she said, do you see? I turned and I saw: a perfectly arched rainbow, brilliant and arching over the skies of the Tecnologica in natural harmony with the gathering clouds. It stretched in a row of seven perfect colors, bright, radiant, festive, and quiet. The colors were not only the most inspiring I have ever seen, but the arch, so perfect, so aligned with our University, so still in the morning sunlight on that quiet patio, with just Bua and I watching, was one of those moments in life, when everything feels right, together, and blended as nature once intended. The stillness in the air was only broken by our footsteps and my unexpected tears as we watched the horizon, the whole of Cartagena, of our city, from above.

The rainbow was gone by the time we found someone to share it with.

Was it some kind of smile, a start-to-finish metaphor, an arc of triumph, telling us that everything always works out as it should? That we took a chance, endured life in an entirely new way, and lived to tell beautiful stories about it? A simple way of our environment quietly reflecting on human life? That perfect rainbows can happen, anytime, anywhere, after the rains? That the horrendous Colombian winter rains were finally losing their grip on Cartagena, that the people would soon be emerging, ready and excited for Christmas, to welcome a sunny and springtime December?

I still find it odd that Bua and I were the only ones who saw that rainbow over the Tecnologica that day. The rainbow after the storm, the hope after the despair, the calm after the chaos, the farewell of Cartagena, the end and the beginning....

The Magic Man

Santa Marta was built on a legend--a legend of Spanish proportions, a tale of knights and vicious conquest, a myth of forbidden gold, a story of ancient Indians and the lustrous El Dorado. Santa Marta is the oldest surviving Colombian city, and one of the oldest in South America, having been founded in 1525 and chosen as a picturesque spot to raid the peaceful Tayrona Indian tribe--the tribe, it is said, that held the key to El Dorado.

El Dorado--the city of emerald mountains and incalculable gold riches--as a prize, as a possession to be won, glorious at a time yet somehow broken as a woman slave to her master. But how, exactly, did such a beautiful and alluring legend end? The answer is simple, like so many of the colonizations in the earlier centuries: the Indians were slaughtered and their gold was never found. The Spaniards founded Santa Marta and Colombia was born.

Despite this tragedy, however, Santa Marta survived its bloodshed and is now loosely dubbed "harta marta," which, in Spanish, translates as "tired of marta," or, essentially, tired of the routine. It is very much a hippie village, a bohemian gem lost somewhere on the Caribbean coast, and home to smiling fisherman, honest faces, and generally calm waters. After living in crazy Cartagena for the past four months, it seemed suitable enough for our weekend vacation: I was pretty "harta" of my own city life.

The first thing I noticed, upon taking my first travelling steps onto the city's 500-year-old toes, was that I heard only water roaring, seagulls calling, and the wind blowing. No music, of any kind. Nothing human of any kind, to be more specific--just the soft sway of the Caribbean village, the whistles between the balconies, the particular hum of the quiet life, and the gentle chatter of the cracked cobblestones. The barman smiled at us and filled our orange juice twice to the brims of our glasses, free of charge. The local boy in the street offered us directions without any whooping, whistling, cooing, or calling. The policeman offered to accompany us to the nearest open bakery in case we couldn't find it within the labyrinthine flowered streets. The sweet smell of fresh bread, the pelicans perched on city corners, mouths open and waiting for rain, and the splash of the sea... I was smitten with Santa Marta.

Winding around the splendid Sierra Nevada mountains after our lunch was an experience all unto itself: cacti, sprung marvelously and gently over every cascade in the symphony of hills, was like a friendly reminder that we heading into guerrilla-drenched Guajira county--green, lush, prickly, lovely. As my Belgian friend Leen and I explored this beautifully bizarre terrain, we crossed into the magical village of Taganga. Magical, of course, is a vast and astrological word, full of mythic proportions and not to be used lightly--and in this case, it isn't. There was an immediate feeling, knowing that we had crossed over the tourist country and found ourselves in a Colombia our news rarely exhaults, that a feeling long lost to my life reappeared: that feeling, from a time when a foreign language sang to me instead of inspiring an analysis of it; when a flutter of knowledge from the other side of reality sent me following the flutes of lore; when a mystical experience had me scraping the sides of its core instead of addicting me to trying to find it again. I felt an instant renewal, a tranquil moment, an artistic aura bloom around me. We bartered a fair price for a lancha (tiny motor boat) across the sparkling crescent-shaped bay, to a secret beach, one the natives do not hastily call the Playa Grande, the Great Beach.

Grande in size does not so much explain it as much as grande in breadth, in spirit, in cleansing our bodies and minds, in freeing us from our beaten selves. It was undeniable: we had reached the Great Beach, a great, shiny, crystalline, soft, white beach, surrounded by the most perfect mountains, green, rolling, welcoming, pristine, unexplored. Tiny huts lined the shore, roofs made of dried and woven palm and patched with cardboard in the spaces repair just wasn't possible, and tiny dark people scattered around the lancha, curious yet knowing. Leen and I hopped from the boat and jumped to the sea, splashing, laughing, and cooling the goosebumps on our skin in the crystal waters. As we danced in the sea, shrugging off our responsibilities and embracing our careless halves, we met a man wearing wreaths of beads around his neck and sleeves and holding two dusty and well-loved books in his wrinkled hands. We decided to find out this man's business, as it is an undeniable fact that intriguing people emit vibes of insatiable curiousity only satisfied by questions and satisfactory answers.

In his rough and free Spanish, he said that he was a magic man, spreading his knowledge of the centuries and the celestial words of wisdowm of the great ancient Tayronas. He said that he walks along the beach with his stones because, as we should all know, the vibes of the stones are strongest by the waters which raised them. He spread a blanket on a wooden table by the shore, questioned my sun sign, and chose for me a set of special rocks meant to cure, heal, and remedy the secret ailments within me. If I was skeptical, he wrestled it out of my secrets, because he then cracked open his chakra books, explaining to us in great detail the significance of our seven energy systems. He told me that I lived by my mind and my heart, which can contradict my calmness and give me a permanent sense of inbalance, insecurity, and a forever nagging anxiety: and for that, he added, one needs the ojo de tigre. The eye of the tiger, the bewitching rock from deep inside Colombia's most sacred jungles. The stone flared a brilliant rainbow of golds, browns, and oranges, shimmering as I turned it over and over in the sun. He pointed out a passage in one of his books, revealing to me that indeed my rock energies coincided with my lifelong balance problems between my mind and my heart. An artist, a writer, an explorer, a young woman struggling with freedom, stability, and life, must hone the skills of both her mind and her heart, even though their internal civil war will always be fierce and painful.

And though I can't say that I truly believe in the ancient rituals of the Tayronas (I mean, who is to say that I truly believe in anything normal anymore?), I can say that just because I have now bathed in the sea three times with my new stone, blessing it and reactivating its native powers, I believe in those people who leave impressions on me, and for that reason, something was magical that afternoon. And even if I don't have a destined connection to my ojo de tigre, I met a man selling magical stones at a beautiful beach, and that's reason enough to believe in them.

The Individuals

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

--O me! O life!, from Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman

Dear my faraway friends,
With just one month to go--one month, how simple it sounds yet how complex it will be!--I have to ask myself about purpose, for this is the time when experience starts turning into retrospection. Is it possible that I have not held my loved ones in my arms for all of this Cartagenan eternal summer; that I have not witnessed the changing of the seasons nor the lives of my dearest friends; that I have not upheld my duties to English and have instead embarked upon translating my life into Spanish, so fully and so intently, for all this time? I try to remember the November I know, the November I have lived for twenty-two years, the November of dancing orange leaves and cool afternoons with vibrant sunse, yet I find this difficult: with the sweat beading down my shoulders and the tiny shorts and bare feet I sport, I only find an open window, with the sounds of deeply-indulgent bird choirs and light summery breezes, and a spinning fan blowing the lukewarm air in circles around my bedroom. I only find a gray-blue sky with lovely green leaves pecking through the lush brances of the fresh verdant trees, and autumn is impossible. I have said before that in Cartagena time does not exist; the notion is wholly eradicated in a world where nothing ever changes. It is merely a debated concept (as it is in the universe as well, of course), like love, the meaning of life, and the idea about what snow might feel like to a Caribbean costeno. My time has become suspended in time, pushed forward to its limits only by the longings in my heart to feel what my body always feels come November and the months on the calendar.

I can't judge time by the semester here at Tecnologica, nor by the alleged progress of those students I have been directing towards an interminable and often useless goal. The humanitarian is not so anymore--instead, philanthropy has become an ideal of spirit, an edgeless image of morale, that has seemingly become defunct in my new world. I can't judge time by the number of emotional moments that have touched me, the sights that have altered my consciousness, the souls who have truly touched my life, or the many instances I have felt alienated and outcast due to my own self-consciousness. For it is, you see, being here in this passionate yet simply society has taught me that passion comes in many forms and wears many faces. My passions, for example, are so eternally distinct from the passions of the Colombians; they are, in fact, so absolutely refined on two scales that the only proper way to divide them is to give them their individual languages: my passion, and their pasi'on. Time, like passion, moves differently here, moves like the waves, the rain, and the hot nights.

Yesterday I met, for the second time, a philosophy professor from Bogota here at the Tecnologica. Standing in line a tthe Alcatraz Cafe, waiting patiently for our daily dose of white rice, squashed bananas, chunk of meat, and fresh juice, he turned to me and asked me if I would help him give a lecture on the importance of literature in our lives. Knowing that my job was on the cusp of its contract, I thoughtfully declined yet asked him to please dine with Bua and I, so that we could share some simple prose and lose ourselves in the art of discussion. After talking with him, I discovered that some people are closed, like a cabinet full of secrets that not even a trained locksmith can break, while some, like myself, are open like glass doors, flooded with too much information and left without a filter to put escaping emotions in their right place. This philosopher was, in many respects, as open the windows in my bedroom.

I often find that closed people, while often mysterious and unnaturally alluring, also frustrate me, because I have trouble finding my limits with them and I have trouble shutting the floodgates when necessary or overwhelming. Open people, on the other hand, share a unique connection: they have a passion to share, a desire to be heard, to speak, to agree with the moving world; to hear their own voice, the sounds of their minds, their enigmatic thoughts and their loquacious pain, joy, and confusion, if for nothing more than to simply purge the overload within. And in these moments, when we are simply speaking but not editing, that we throw out the tiniest, most insignificant utterances--the things we do not analyze but merely feel. And it was then that he did that--I think of the last line of a beautiful novel, the slipped I love you, the powerful opening to a grand speech, the accidental telling of a guarded secret--and actually presented the truth of Cartagena, the truth I was searching for.

I've had troubles here, he said, wiping his brow of sweat, finding people here who share the same spirit of me. People who share the same spirit? How profoundly gentle, how real, how honestly delicate yet obviously true! How long must someone search for something he or she desires before a change of scenery is imperative to health? Sometimes we find what we are searching for before we even recognize that we've been searching for it. Sometimes, though, we can't seem to figure out what it is we are waiting for. I know I've been waiting for many things, often too many things, because I am the kind of person who takes charge of her life only to end up waiting for the finale of the episode.... Is it merely that happiness and contentment comes from finding people with our common spirit, with that abstract concept of soul embodied in the search, something that is so separate from the body and the biology?

The Colombian spirit, is, ultimately, not something collective nor predictable--how could it be? The spirit, that elusive force that drives us to fall in love with places and people, is a private prisoner inside the billions of bodies among us. Yet I couldn't get that one sentence out of my head as I drifted through the crowds of Colombian students around me. The professor also said that he can only touch his students throught the power of passion, by truly exhilarating them with shock and awe; things I haven't yet learned to do in the classroom. He reminded me that the Colombians are truly, wholly passionate people, filled with their pasts and their beautiful mountains, beaches, deserts, and rainforests--and that if I started to show them that I loved them, they would love me too, and the breach would break. These people are more intuitive than you allow them to be, he added, and that they are dynamic and proud, yet difficult to reach.

How to reach someone? If that isn't the ultimate question! Are we really reachable people, only through common spirits, and are our spirits actually so much a result of our culture, rather than our intuitions?

El espiritu--it really is an extraordinary thing. We all exist, and we will all contribute a verse.

Reinado de la Belleza

How to stop machismo in Latin America:

Have an outrageous one-week beauty pageant every November in Cartagena, where everyone can actually learn, first-hand, about the real trials and tribulations it takes to charm a man--silicone implants, nose jobs, and strutting your stuff the right way in a bikini.

However, we did learn that it takes highly intelligent ladies to woo the hearts of Cartagenan men: every Queen wants world peace.

Love,
Kristin :)

P.S. I haven't written this week because, ironically, I've been a bit too wrapped up in the beauty pageant festivities. I mean, let's face it: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

Pride of Medellin

Excerpt from my journal, October 31st, 2005:
The day slips away with warm feelings--warm feelings of friendship, of reuniting with people who shared something extremely special with me; warm feelings of a cool afternoon strolling through vibrant Medellin streets and art museums; warm feelings of a traveller's bug once again full of wanderlust for knowing a new city. There is the noise of happy boys singing Colombian pop songs outside my window, with an ease of easy, colorful youth that I feel I have forgotten...

I am beginning to understand the profound complexities of this misunderstood Colombian world, but only after accepting the harsh fact that I can't change life and I can't motivate people and I can't alter the past of a country soaked in violence yet prized in sunshine and a lightness of spirit. The history of Medellin is not simple, nor is it necessary to expound on Pablo Escobar and his famous cocaine cartels deep inside the spirit of this city, for that would be stereotypical and thus ruin what I am trying to say. I sit here, I experience a phenomenon:

I see the security roadblocks dotted along the highways, full of police officers in green uniforms and army boots stopping Santi's car and asking each one of us "Adonde va?" (Where are you going?) "Y porque?" (And why?) he adds, squinting at each one to search for lies. He finishes by ordering Santi to pop his trunk, so that he can rummage around for car bombs.

I experience the parking decks and shopping malls in Medellin, which are also chained with policia in their cliche Colombian war gear and stoic faces: we pull into El Tesoro, and, as usual, are stopped by a security checkpoint at the gate. The policemen circle our car like vultures upon fresh meat, then indicate for Santi to unlock his trunk, so that they can again quickly yet thoroughly rustle everything around until they are fully satisfied that we are nothing to be afraid of.

I think of yesterday, as Adri's aunt pulled up to the gated entrance of Sena, Adri's work, where we had planned to meet for an afternoon tour of the Medellin farms. I remember the same set of invading questions: "Porque estan aqui?" (Why are you here?) "Quien conocen aqui?" (Who do you know here?) "En cual departamento trabaja ella?" (In which department does she work?) "Cuales son sus nombres?" (What are your names?) "Que dijeron es la razon que estan aqui?" (What did you say your reason for being here is?) After successfully answering the rudimentary set of inquiries, we were then required to display our cedulas (Colombian identification cards), handing them to the police so they could do a quick search through the computer for any past offences that would disable us from passing through the gates to pick up our friend.

I think about the fact that it is not permitted to take photos indoors at any public place, regardless of your innocent or turistic intentions; I remember asking why, after being grabbed on the shoulders by a haughty security officer for pulling out my camera, and being shocked to learn that it is because of a long and horrifying history of bombs being strategically placed inside commercial centers. I learned the obvious fact that photos can aid in identifying trash cans, open spaces, hidden security cameras, and other useful information when calculating the best place to hide a ticking bomb.

I see the Bird of Peace, a testimony in the center square to the FARC's bombing of the city's artwork....the two men being roughly patted-down by police in public on two different occasions....the fact that Adri was frightened to enter the barrio of Santo Domingo because of tales of violence occuring there....

And then I wonder, how despite this pain and precautious world deep inside this huge, sprawling city, I spent a fantastic and inspiring weekend here, and felt pride and wonderment for a city so strongly connected to its roots. I wonder how Adri's mom can tell me that yes, she is content and has lived a happy life, and how Adri and Santi can both harmoniously tell me that Medellin is, by far, the best city in Colombia and their favorite place in the world. It is these things, these contrasts of faces, that Colombia holds, that eternally fascinate me.

A Thousand Words

Although sometimes the most beautiful of words are worth a thousand pictures, sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words.

On the right side of my weblog, just click the link that says "My Photo Albums," and come into my Colombian adventure with me.

Blessings and love to all!
And yes, updated stories coming soon, promise.