Dropped Off Naked on the Streets of Colombia (English Original)
Written: September 1, 2014
Getting dropped off completely naked in Colombia with no more than the approximate equivalent to ten dollars in Colombian pesos is my cousin’s idea of the best and quickest way to learn Spanish. He is a fifty-two year old, English born Jamaican who speaks fluent British English, fluent Jamaican Patois, and the remainder of Spanish that he has spoken fluently in the past (and maybe even a little French). His name is Dave. He currently resides on a farm in Jamaica where he wakes up around five a.m. each morning to watch the sun rise gradually above the majestic Jamaican mountains and observe the singing of the birds as they sense the warmth of the sun on the back of their wings. He then turns on the faucet that dispenses the water available to the residents of that area, courtesy of the city irrigation. Very progressively and barely noticeably, the probably-not-poisonous Jamaican tap water fills the large tub from which the cows seek their daily hydration. He meditates to the sound of the water flowing and talks to Jah, the Rastafarian derivative of the name Jehovah. He later waters his plants, visits neighbors, and carries out other daily chores.
This is just the morning schedule of his life in the present. In the past, He has travelled to countries all over the world whether for business or to seek knowledge. He has a son in England, and a son in Spain. He told me that it’s our mission to spread the Black gene. It’s much funnier coming from him, because with his grayish blue eyes and his relatively light complexion (when he’s not tanned from three years of the Jamaican sunlight), it can be quite challenging to determine whether or not he has any Black genes to spread. He had resided in both England, and Spain for years at a time. He’s probably right about learning Spanish, but I personally prefer a safer and less extreme approach to the language.
I suppose my strongest influence for wanting to learn Spanish, however, was an attraction toward Hispanic women.
Fluency in Spanish has become one of my biggest life goals. In elementary school, I learned the basics: colors, numbers, letters, etc. Television played a role in my elementary Spanish education as well. As a child, I had never really taken learning another language seriously though. After all, I was still focused on expanding my English vocabulary. I enjoyed making use of large words that a child my age would seemingly have no use for. I competed with other children in my grade for the title of ‘The Smartest Kid in the Class.’ I had always enjoyed Math and English because there were rules to follow, and once I had mastered the rules, I had mastered the subject. However, as I started to grow out of the quick memorization stage, I began to despise subjects that revolved around memorization skills, e.g. science, history. To this day, they are still my sworn enemies.
So where did my interest in learning Spanish come from? I’m not exactly sure. Where does one’s interest in anything come from? Somewhere along the way, there was a (hopefully) positive influence that grabs the attention. Maybe mine was my first high school Spanish teacher. She was a short Venezuelan woman with neck-length hair who loved to throw fiestas. She had grandchildren, so she was probably over fifty-five. To me, she strongly resembled Dora the Explorer. She is one of my favorite teachers, but perhaps my influence had more to do with my competitive attitude toward my best friend at the time. We had both completed our foreign language requirements for high school by the end of freshman year, but why stop there? This would be a negative influence. Neither of us liked losing to the other so we competed towards who could take it the furthest, even beyond the point of reason.
I suppose my strongest influence for wanting to learn Spanish, however, was an attraction toward Hispanic women. At some point in life, I had decided that I like Hispanic culture, and therefore wanted a Hispanic wife, but I knew that the only way that could happen is if I learned Spanish. That would help me to have an advantage over, or at least keep up with other great minds that think alike. Where my appreciation for Hispanic women and culture originates from, however, is also a mystery.
Little did I know, an opportunity would come up that would change my life.
Anyway, I had made up my mind to take this new challenge as far as I could. By the end of my junior year, I had completed four semesters of Spanish. I had no other Spanish classes to take, but, believe it or not, my goal of fluency still seemed unreachable. My Spanish writing and grammar was exceptional, but I still lacked vocabulary. It was much harder to speak it than to write in Spanish because I had not yet begun to think in Spanish. My brain would overload with constant translation from English words to what I could remember from class. Many times, my brain would go on strike, refusing to work until I decided to speak my first language again.
I had made many Hispanic friends: some Spanish speakers, some who couldn’t even name the colors. I would ask to practice my Spanish with those that could, but usually, since I wasn’t fluent, to them, it felt like work to explain certain words and phrases that seemed foreign to me. They found it much more convenient to talk to me only in English. I decided to visit my former Spanish teachers in my free time and sit in on their Spanish 1 classes in progress. This refreshed my memory up to a Spanish 1 education (which is less than the basics). At this point, I was more focused on maintaining the knowledge I had of the language than improving it, but I knew that if Cousin Dave could learn Spanish in college, I had already had a head-start.
A year had gone by; I was still in America and I carried more than ten U.S. dollars in my pockets. I still had my clothes and my dignity. My Spanish was not as developed as a Colombian vagabond’s might become in a year, but I was still alive and well. I noticed that, not only had I maintained my Spanish proficiency, but I had somehow improved my vocabulary. Perhaps it was the mixture between Salsa, Bachata, and Reggaeton that I had begun to listen to throughout the year. Maybe it was the practice that I had with friends who had agreed to text me in Spanish. Could it be that my Spanish had been good all along? It didn’t matter. I still wanted to improve. I didn’t know enough! I was ready to take my education to the next level. Little did I know, an opportunity would come up that would change my life.
To me, this seemed like a huge offer! My friends, however, weren’t so enthusiastic.
My mother is a professor at a Christian university in my hometown, Lake Wales, Florida. She teaches Teacher Education; as I like to say, she teaches the teachers how to teach. One of her students whom I’ve had the pleasure of knowing is a five foot six inch female, former Olympic athlete and coach for the country of Colombia. We called her by her first name: Berta. She speaks with a strong, Colombian accent, and it’s not hard to tell that she is still learning the English language. She comes from a part of Colombia with a large population of black people and is rather dark skinned herself with freckles on her cheeks. Spanish is her first language, and like many Colombians, she loves to dance. She has even pressured me into publicly dancing with her on certain occasions. She is a mother of two and a grandmother of one. But she appears to be in her late thirties. I believe her young appearance has something to do with the Colombian DNA.
She is a kind and motherly woman, whose larger-than-average stature suggests that she can protect against the greatest of threats if necessary. She tends to exhibit unusual strength while giving what would ordinarily be a gentle nudge, or pushing you in the proper direction to guide you away from danger. By looking at her, one can easily infer that she was very athletic in her youth, and possibly still makes an attempt to stay in shape. She has become a great friend to the family and, when she can, attends our church, sometimes, inviting some friends of her own. When she heard of my impending graduation, she offered to take me to Colombia for the summer! She had some business with the government to take care of and she would be traveling all over the country.
To me, this seemed like a huge offer! My friends, however, weren’t so enthusiastic. They didn’t seem to want me to leave. I had a very close relationship with my friends, and they tried their best to appear happy for me. Their contentment, however, was a mask for their true feelings. They were afraid.
There had been a drug lord in Medellín who was so wealthy, that his cartel spent up to $2,500 monthly just on rubber bands to hold his cash.
In Colombia’s recent history, it had acquired a very bad reputation. There had been a drug lord in Medellín who was so wealthy, that his cartel spent up to $2,500 monthly just on rubber bands to hold his cash. He used many methods of smuggling cocaine into the U.S.A., including submarines. This man was suspected of involvement with countless murders, one being the assassination of presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galán. He had “blown a commercial jet out of the sky (Avianca Flight 203).” Avianca is the airline that I would have to use to fly to Colombia. He is even suspected of attempting to mass execute the entire Colombian Supreme Court! Some speculate that he was behind the bombing of the World Trade Center.
This man gave Medellín, Colombia a bad name, but many of the residents there loved him. I remember Berta telling me, “Don’t mention his name in Medellín. The people think he is a saint.” Why would these people glorify such a terrorist? Who could worship a man with so much blood on his hands? The people of Medellín were not crazy or cynical as one might infer. They loved Pablo Escobar because he would give a small portion of his wealth to the residents. He built a neighborhood where no one paid rent or property tax. He built parks and established his own food programs. The people did not focus on the fact that his wealth came from cocaine dealing. They focused on the fact that he appeared to care about his people. However, what seemed like unfathomable generosity to them was really hardly a sacrifice for Pablo Escobar.
I was not naïve or ignorant of the danger. Instead, the danger was my motivation.
Perhaps a dangerous environment such as Medellín is what Dave had in mind. I know that’s what I would think of when I imagined Colombia: a world where the police answer to the criminals. I imagined a world where a foreign accent is equivalent to a kick me sign a third grade child would stealthily tape to the back of the awkward kid of the class. I could see a world where the term Americano is used to describe the target of a kidnapping with hopes to receive a hefty ransom. I definitely would not want to be naked in such an environment, alone with only enough cash for two hamburgers and a large, glass bottle of soda that must be returned after use.
My friends had reason to worry. After all, from what we’ve heard on the news about many accounts of tourists wasting away as the end result of a strategically placed landmine, Colombia was the most dangerous country in the world! As a matter of fact, I had once watched a documentary about Colombia in which the Colombian city, Medellín received the title: “Murder Capital of the World.”
I don’t blame my friends for worrying, but I wasn’t worried at all. I told myself that if I were to go to Colombia, My main priority would be to experience the murder capital itself, just so I could brag about it. I was not naïve or ignorant of the danger. Instead, the danger was my motivation. I knew that I had God on my side, and I was more than willing to prove to him my faith.
Without my parents’ permission, the offer was as useful as a house built on sand... it might just wash away.
Upon receiving the offer to visit Colombia, there was absolutely no hesitation. I joyfully accepted! However, words are just that: words. My parent’s heard the offer and they played along saying, “Oh, Jude would love that!” or, my favorite: “That would be wonderful.” I didn’t notice the disapproval in their speech until I tested their sincerity later on. “So when am I going to Colombia?” I would ask continually, and continually receive no direct answer until my parents decided to inform me that they weren’t serious about accepting the offer. “How are you going to pay for it?” they asked. “With my money,” I replied. I had a savings account that I had been depositing to since I was ten years old. “Are you just going to go by yourself?” they’d question with possible hopes to intimidate me with a sense of solidarity. “I’ll be with Berta,” I’d explain. As usual, I already had the answers to the questions before they asked them, but they seemed to already have their minds made up. Why would they ask questions anyway if not to receive answers?
I could no longer tell If the offer was valid or not. Without my parents’ permission, the offer was as useful as a house built on sand. Without the support of my parents, it might just wash away. However, my parents were aware of my passion for learning Spanish. They knew this would be a great learning experience for both Spanish fluency and independence. My mother told me to pray about it.
On the Sunday following my graduation, I received my flight itinerary for Colombia scheduled to leave within two or three weeks. I was half surprised— only half because I knew that when my mother says “pray about it,” it means she will do what she can and count on God to provide the rest. Her approval was all I really needed (once I had my mother’s approval, I automatically had my father’s), but the true gift was that she had already paid for my ticket. It felt relieving to know that my parents believed in my Spanish fluency dream as well as I did. They trusted that my level of Spanish was enough to keep me alive.
Before long, the day would come that I would leave my country to embrace the struggles of learning another language. I was prepared to tackle these struggles with new ambition and courage. My parents were confident enough to send me alone to another country, so I knew I could handle it. My mother escorted me as far as security in the airport in Orlando, Florida. From there on, I was on my own. I would find my flight, fly to Bogotá, and from there, to Cartagena Colombia where I would meet a familiar face: Berta.
I had entered a country that relies primarily on the Spanish language to communicate. I was naked.
“Your Spanish lessons begin here,” my mother said to me as I checked into Avianca at Orlando International Airport. I was caught off guard as the Avianca staff spoke mercilessly to me in Spanish. I hadn’t even left Florida yet! I wasn’t fully prepared for the attack of the Spanish speakers who wielded their slurred, blended, high-velocity sentences as swords to my intellect. I knew I wasn’t prepared. That is why I was there. There were occasional English speakers on the Staff of Avianca, but I wanted to practice. I found my flight, boarded the plane, and after hours had flown past my perception of time, I had arrived in Bogota, Colombia.
Now, I was completely alone. I had entered a country that relies primarily on the Spanish language to communicate. I was naked. I no longer had semi-English speakers to hide behind. To make matters worse, I had no Colombian currency. Is this what Cousin Dave meant by being naked in Colombia with no money? No. I’m sure he meant physically naked, but I discovered my own method: Dropped off in the airport with no money while you try to catch your flight.
I’m really not sure whether I missed my flight or it was extremely delayed. My only source of information at the time was what Spanish words my brain could pick out and form sentences with. I ended up arriving really late to Cartagena. I left the plane to claim my baggage, but it was nowhere to be found. Before I had time to worry, I heard my name being called. I skimmed the large room, where I was welcomed with a joyous smile. It was Berta waiting by the exit. The airline had been holding my bags in a separate room, because they had arrived hours before me—at the time I was scheduled to arrive before the delay. “Welcome to Colombia!” said Berta as we left the airport. Welcome to Colombia. I was ready to face this new experience. I was naked in the sense of being stripped of my language, my family, friends, and my comfort zone. I can tell you that now, while writing about this experience, I’m still not fluent. But I made it back with no problem. I even made friends on the plane. I am much closer to fluency now than at the airport before I left.
Dave was right. I may not have taken his advice literally, but it does help to be naked. My best memory is waking up each day, thanks to the ambitious sunlight that would permeate through the window. I’d say good morning to Berta, my temporary guardian, and whatever old friends and family members of her’s I might find in the house. And I would walk outside and think to myself, “This is Colombia.”
References
Dropped Off Naked on the Streets of Colombia (English Original)
Written: September 1, 2014
Getting dropped off completely naked in Colombia with no more than the approximate equivalent to ten dollars in Colombian pesos is my cousin’s idea of the best and quickest way to learn Spanish. He is a fifty-two year old, English born Jamaican who speaks fluent British English, fluent Jamaican Patois, and the remainder of Spanish that he has spoken fluently in the past (and maybe even a little French). His name is Dave. He currently resides on a farm in Jamaica where he wakes up around five a.m. each morning to watch the sun rise gradually above the majestic Jamaican mountains and observe the singing of the birds as they sense the warmth of the sun on the back of their wings. He then turns on the faucet that dispenses the water available to the residents of that area, courtesy of the city irrigation. Very progressively and barely noticeably, the probably-not-poisonous Jamaican tap water fills the large tub from which the cows seek their daily hydration. He meditates to the sound of the water flowing and talks to Jah, the Rastafarian derivative of the name Jehovah. He later waters his plants, visits neighbors, and carries out other daily chores.
This is just the morning schedule of his life in the present. In the past, He has travelled to countries all over the world whether for business or to seek knowledge. He has a son in England, and a son in Spain. He told me that it’s our mission to spread the Black gene. It’s much funnier coming from him, because with his grayish blue eyes and his relatively light complexion (when he’s not tanned from three years of the Jamaican sunlight), it can be quite challenging to determine whether or not he has any Black genes to spread. He had resided in both England, and Spain for years at a time. He’s probably right about learning Spanish, but I personally prefer a safer and less extreme approach to the language.
I suppose my strongest influence for wanting to learn Spanish, however, was an attraction toward Hispanic women.
Fluency in Spanish has become one of my biggest life goals. In elementary school, I learned the basics: colors, numbers, letters, etc. Television played a role in my elementary Spanish education as well. As a child, I had never really taken learning another language seriously though. After all, I was still focused on expanding my English vocabulary. I enjoyed making use of large words that a child my age would seemingly have no use for. I competed with other children in my grade for the title of ‘The Smartest Kid in the Class.’ I had always enjoyed Math and English because there were rules to follow, and once I had mastered the rules, I had mastered the subject. However, as I started to grow out of the quick memorization stage, I began to despise subjects that revolved around memorization skills, e.g. science, history. To this day, they are still my sworn enemies.
So where did my interest in learning Spanish come from? I’m not exactly sure. Where does one’s interest in anything come from? Somewhere along the way, there was a (hopefully) positive influence that grabs the attention. Maybe mine was my first high school Spanish teacher. She was a short Venezuelan woman with neck-length hair who loved to throw fiestas. She had grandchildren, so she was probably over fifty-five. To me, she strongly resembled Dora the Explorer. She is one of my favorite teachers, but perhaps my influence had more to do with my competitive attitude toward my best friend at the time. We had both completed our foreign language requirements for high school by the end of freshman year, but why stop there? This would be a negative influence. Neither of us liked losing to the other so we competed towards who could take it the furthest, even beyond the point of reason.
I suppose my strongest influence for wanting to learn Spanish, however, was an attraction toward Hispanic women. At some point in life, I had decided that I like Hispanic culture, and therefore wanted a Hispanic wife, but I knew that the only way that could happen is if I learned Spanish. That would help me to have an advantage over, or at least keep up with other great minds that think alike. Where my appreciation for Hispanic women and culture originates from, however, is also a mystery.
Little did I know, an opportunity would come up that would change my life.
Anyway, I had made up my mind to take this new challenge as far as I could. By the end of my junior year, I had completed four semesters of Spanish. I had no other Spanish classes to take, but, believe it or not, my goal of fluency still seemed unreachable. My Spanish writing and grammar was exceptional, but I still lacked vocabulary. It was much harder to speak it than to write in Spanish because I had not yet begun to think in Spanish. My brain would overload with constant translation from English words to what I could remember from class. Many times, my brain would go on strike, refusing to work until I decided to speak my first language again.
I had made many Hispanic friends: some Spanish speakers, some who couldn’t even name the colors. I would ask to practice my Spanish with those that could, but usually, since I wasn’t fluent, to them, it felt like work to explain certain words and phrases that seemed foreign to me. They found it much more convenient to talk to me only in English. I decided to visit my former Spanish teachers in my free time and sit in on their Spanish 1 classes in progress. This refreshed my memory up to a Spanish 1 education (which is less than the basics). At this point, I was more focused on maintaining the knowledge I had of the language than improving it, but I knew that if Cousin Dave could learn Spanish in college, I had already had a head-start.
A year had gone by; I was still in America and I carried more than ten U.S. dollars in my pockets. I still had my clothes and my dignity. My Spanish was not as developed as a Colombian vagabond’s might become in a year, but I was still alive and well. I noticed that, not only had I maintained my Spanish proficiency, but I had somehow improved my vocabulary. Perhaps it was the mixture between Salsa, Bachata, and Reggaeton that I had begun to listen to throughout the year. Maybe it was the practice that I had with friends who had agreed to text me in Spanish. Could it be that my Spanish had been good all along? It didn’t matter. I still wanted to improve. I didn’t know enough! I was ready to take my education to the next level. Little did I know, an opportunity would come up that would change my life.
To me, this seemed like a huge offer! My friends, however, weren’t so enthusiastic.
My mother is a professor at a Christian university in my hometown, Lake Wales, Florida. She teaches Teacher Education; as I like to say, she teaches the teachers how to teach. One of her students whom I’ve had the pleasure of knowing is a five foot six inch female, former Olympic athlete and coach for the country of Colombia. We called her by her first name: Berta. She speaks with a strong, Colombian accent, and it’s not hard to tell that she is still learning the English language. She comes from a part of Colombia with a large population of black people and is rather dark skinned herself with freckles on her cheeks. Spanish is her first language, and like many Colombians, she loves to dance. She has even pressured me into publicly dancing with her on certain occasions. She is a mother of two and a grandmother of one. But she appears to be in her late thirties. I believe her young appearance has something to do with the Colombian DNA.
She is a kind and motherly woman, whose larger-than-average stature suggests that she can protect against the greatest of threats if necessary. She tends to exhibit unusual strength while giving what would ordinarily be a gentle nudge, or pushing you in the proper direction to guide you away from danger. By looking at her, one can easily infer that she was very athletic in her youth, and possibly still makes an attempt to stay in shape. She has become a great friend to the family and, when she can, attends our church, sometimes, inviting some friends of her own. When she heard of my impending graduation, she offered to take me to Colombia for the summer! She had some business with the government to take care of and she would be traveling all over the country.
To me, this seemed like a huge offer! My friends, however, weren’t so enthusiastic. They didn’t seem to want me to leave. I had a very close relationship with my friends, and they tried their best to appear happy for me. Their contentment, however, was a mask for their true feelings. They were afraid.
There had been a drug lord in Medellín who was so wealthy, that his cartel spent up to $2,500 monthly just on rubber bands to hold his cash.
In Colombia’s recent history, it had acquired a very bad reputation. There had been a drug lord in Medellín who was so wealthy, that his cartel spent up to $2,500 monthly just on rubber bands to hold his cash. He used many methods of smuggling cocaine into the U.S.A., including submarines. This man was suspected of involvement with countless murders, one being the assassination of presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galán. He had “blown a commercial jet out of the sky (Avianca Flight 203).” Avianca is the airline that I would have to use to fly to Colombia. He is even suspected of attempting to mass execute the entire Colombian Supreme Court! Some speculate that he was behind the bombing of the World Trade Center.
This man gave Medellín, Colombia a bad name, but many of the residents there loved him. I remember Berta telling me, “Don’t mention his name in Medellín. The people think he is a saint.” Why would these people glorify such a terrorist? Who could worship a man with so much blood on his hands? The people of Medellín were not crazy or cynical as one might infer. They loved Pablo Escobar because he would give a small portion of his wealth to the residents. He built a neighborhood where no one paid rent or property tax. He built parks and established his own food programs. The people did not focus on the fact that his wealth came from cocaine dealing. They focused on the fact that he appeared to care about his people. However, what seemed like unfathomable generosity to them was really hardly a sacrifice for Pablo Escobar.
I was not naïve or ignorant of the danger. Instead, the danger was my motivation.
Perhaps a dangerous environment such as Medellín is what Dave had in mind. I know that’s what I would think of when I imagined Colombia: a world where the police answer to the criminals. I imagined a world where a foreign accent is equivalent to a kick me sign a third grade child would stealthily tape to the back of the awkward kid of the class. I could see a world where the term Americano is used to describe the target of a kidnapping with hopes to receive a hefty ransom. I definitely would not want to be naked in such an environment, alone with only enough cash for two hamburgers and a large, glass bottle of soda that must be returned after use.
My friends had reason to worry. After all, from what we’ve heard on the news about many accounts of tourists wasting away as the end result of a strategically placed landmine, Colombia was the most dangerous country in the world! As a matter of fact, I had once watched a documentary about Colombia in which the Colombian city, Medellín received the title: “Murder Capital of the World.”
I don’t blame my friends for worrying, but I wasn’t worried at all. I told myself that if I were to go to Colombia, My main priority would be to experience the murder capital itself, just so I could brag about it. I was not naïve or ignorant of the danger. Instead, the danger was my motivation. I knew that I had God on my side, and I was more than willing to prove to him my faith.
Without my parents’ permission, the offer was as useful as a house built on sand... it might just wash away.
Upon receiving the offer to visit Colombia, there was absolutely no hesitation. I joyfully accepted! However, words are just that: words. My parent’s heard the offer and they played along saying, “Oh, Jude would love that!” or, my favorite: “That would be wonderful.” I didn’t notice the disapproval in their speech until I tested their sincerity later on. “So when am I going to Colombia?” I would ask continually, and continually receive no direct answer until my parents decided to inform me that they weren’t serious about accepting the offer. “How are you going to pay for it?” they asked. “With my money,” I replied. I had a savings account that I had been depositing to since I was ten years old. “Are you just going to go by yourself?” they’d question with possible hopes to intimidate me with a sense of solidarity. “I’ll be with Berta,” I’d explain. As usual, I already had the answers to the questions before they asked them, but they seemed to already have their minds made up. Why would they ask questions anyway if not to receive answers?
I could no longer tell If the offer was valid or not. Without my parents’ permission, the offer was as useful as a house built on sand. Without the support of my parents, it might just wash away. However, my parents were aware of my passion for learning Spanish. They knew this would be a great learning experience for both Spanish fluency and independence. My mother told me to pray about it.
On the Sunday following my graduation, I received my flight itinerary for Colombia scheduled to leave within two or three weeks. I was half surprised— only half because I knew that when my mother says “pray about it,” it means she will do what she can and count on God to provide the rest. Her approval was all I really needed (once I had my mother’s approval, I automatically had my father’s), but the true gift was that she had already paid for my ticket. It felt relieving to know that my parents believed in my Spanish fluency dream as well as I did. They trusted that my level of Spanish was enough to keep me alive.
Before long, the day would come that I would leave my country to embrace the struggles of learning another language. I was prepared to tackle these struggles with new ambition and courage. My parents were confident enough to send me alone to another country, so I knew I could handle it. My mother escorted me as far as security in the airport in Orlando, Florida. From there on, I was on my own. I would find my flight, fly to Bogotá, and from there, to Cartagena Colombia where I would meet a familiar face: Berta.
I had entered a country that relies primarily on the Spanish language to communicate. I was naked.
“Your Spanish lessons begin here,” my mother said to me as I checked into Avianca at Orlando International Airport. I was caught off guard as the Avianca staff spoke mercilessly to me in Spanish. I hadn’t even left Florida yet! I wasn’t fully prepared for the attack of the Spanish speakers who wielded their slurred, blended, high-velocity sentences as swords to my intellect. I knew I wasn’t prepared. That is why I was there. There were occasional English speakers on the Staff of Avianca, but I wanted to practice. I found my flight, boarded the plane, and after hours had flown past my perception of time, I had arrived in Bogota, Colombia.
Now, I was completely alone. I had entered a country that relies primarily on the Spanish language to communicate. I was naked. I no longer had semi-English speakers to hide behind. To make matters worse, I had no Colombian currency. Is this what Cousin Dave meant by being naked in Colombia with no money? No. I’m sure he meant physically naked, but I discovered my own method: Dropped off in the airport with no money while you try to catch your flight.
I’m really not sure whether I missed my flight or it was extremely delayed. My only source of information at the time was what Spanish words my brain could pick out and form sentences with. I ended up arriving really late to Cartagena. I left the plane to claim my baggage, but it was nowhere to be found. Before I had time to worry, I heard my name being called. I skimmed the large room, where I was welcomed with a joyous smile. It was Berta waiting by the exit. The airline had been holding my bags in a separate room, because they had arrived hours before me—at the time I was scheduled to arrive before the delay. “Welcome to Colombia!” said Berta as we left the airport. Welcome to Colombia. I was ready to face this new experience. I was naked in the sense of being stripped of my language, my family, friends, and my comfort zone. I can tell you that now, while writing about this experience, I’m still not fluent. But I made it back with no problem. I even made friends on the plane. I am much closer to fluency now than at the airport before I left.
Dave was right. I may not have taken his advice literally, but it does help to be naked. My best memory is waking up each day, thanks to the ambitious sunlight that would permeate through the window. I’d say good morning to Berta, my temporary guardian, and whatever old friends and family members of her’s I might find in the house. And I would walk outside and think to myself, “This is Colombia.”
References
