El Espejo (Mirrors)

It´s a funny thing when you start to realize that the world is looking at you through a different mirror, an espejo, a window that you´ve never gazed through before. It´s almost like the awkwardness you feel around everyone becomes a constant comfort and part of your new personality, that your attraction lies in the exotic history untold. Every history, as we all know, is exotic to someone, even if to us it is the most mundane in the world. I started to think about this as I passed from class to class today, my bookbag filled with English grammar books and my mind full of anxiety and apprehension. My Cartagenean experience is forming, is gaining durability and a stable ground, as each day passes and each new vocabulary work solidifies. Each day I use a new phraze, a new verb, a new expression; like a pyramid of cards, it´s empty inside but outside are the first inclinations of a skeleton. Each new word I gain the ability to use properly becomes another part of me, the person inside, the Kristin who has millions of thoughts, expressions, histories, and experiences, the Kristin who sometimes stumbles through her words and cuts her thoughts short when she can´t figure out how to say them. For me, someone who relies solely on her use of babbling in awkward situations, this change is incredible: for the first time in my life, my mouth actually clamps shut when I´m nervous rather than hanging open like a hinge unhooked, the words spilling on everybody´s shoes.

My new residence, down on Calle Real in the Manga barrio (aptly named, of course, for its lush mango trees lining the streets) is sweet, quiet, and residential. I am no longer in the pueblo, living the Peace Corps life--instead, I am living with a bed, television set, computer desk, plastic chair, tough, squirty shower, and big fan. Trust me, the comforts I crave only come to me in dreams. My ¨family¨is an older couple, Senora Ofelia and Senor Marcos, whose grandchildren often come to play in the evenings and whose other rooms are rented out to fellow travellers like myself. Next to me is Adriana, who, in fact, I have apparantly been living with for a week but whom I haven´t actually seen yet. (Yes, it´s kind of weird to have a roommate who you´ve never actually met) Across the hall is Claudia, a mother of two displaced from her husband and family by an angry corporation who dragged her from Bogota to Cartagena for business six months ago. We have a cramped kitchen, a totally irritating door lock (that, may I add, took me exactly 45 minutes, one doorman, two Colombians, and three desperate phone calls to Ofelia, to open...) and a comfortable living room.

Most nights I lie awake wondering what the rest of the world is doing, while I am here, sleeping, in Colombia, amidst the crickets, whirring fan, humidity, and mosquitos. Sometimes when I wake up I´ve forgotten I´m here, and I imagine I´m waking up next to the people I love. But then, as I wipe the sleep from my eyes, I realize that it´s actually 5 a.m., that I am in someone else´s apartment in someone else´s country, that I´m all alone, that I´m dripping wet with sweat from last night, and that I must catch the bus to school in one hour. Sometimes, I reach for comfort, until I realize that my comforts are now all in my mind.

I´m culturally aware, yes, and excited, nervous, cautious, and thrilled to be immersed in this South American world, but I´ve never been the easiest with change.