i been there

i’ve had the grand privilege of wandering parts of the globe from a young age. it blew my puny mind, and it still does. realizing my entirety was, in fact, a tiny little piece of existence linked within an enormous universe filled unimaginably different worlds. other than seeing really amazeball shit, that is the only justification i have for travel: consciousness blowing. aside from this, it feels too much like a bizarre colonial remnant.

primarily, people of european descent boosted by some economic benefit coming ashore for a few days, maybe a few weeks. we take pictures of the objects we see, like locals. cause they look so different and beautiful. we squander oil, go out to eat, buy water encased in plastic, consume, make waste, strut around like we know where we are, and act like we own the joint. it’s like speed colonialism. and we do all this just to know we’ve seen it. seen something; been somewhere. like that’s what we’ll care about in our last breath. well, maybe in the last few ones.

i’ve made people seriously reconsider having me as their travel companion. i tell them i’d just be a downer. i will talk about how our very presence is causing the destruction of what has supposedly awed us. i will spend most of my time thinking: why do we think we deserve to see this place? how have i earned the right to stomp loudly all over the planet? we don’t have to see everything. why has travel been rendered such a revered success? what am i doing here? i don’t belong here; it feels like cheating.

all of this spoken like someone who’s done it already, yeah? who’s doing it now. poor little rich girl. tell me about it. and like a good spoiled brat, i just don’t travel well. i always want to go home. i long for the familiar. i’m a restless nester. i hate living out of a backpack and walking around looking lost. i don’t know how to dawdle about and enjoy scenery. i’m too often underwhelmed. and i strongly, strongly dislike feeling like an uninvited house guest.

the paris of colombia

el poblado. fancy schmancy.

i knew a girl in high school whose mother was kidnapped by las farc and killed. her father refused to pay the ransom, or so the gossip goes, and her body was found on the side of a road with a sign that read something like, “medellin que no paga, muere.” medellin who doesn’t pay, dies. i always imagined, correctly i think, medellin to be a terribly bloody, coke filled area where you will get snatched off the street. an ex-pat told me how just 8 or so years ago most conversations inevitably led to someone saying, “did you hear fulanito got kidnapped?” being taken hostage was like a right of passage, or a tax. you spent a few weeks in the jungle or forest, hiking all day, carrying shit, and hanging with the commies. you came back thinner, buffer, and traumatized; like an extreme urban boot camp. in thinking of medellin, i didn’t even picture a city, just a dirt road near a jungle.

now i’m here and, mind if i say, “wow.” in context, this wow is coming from two plus months of small town costeño living. i feel like a country mouse in this chic city.

view from the metro cable car gondola lift system vaina.

my review:

– my mochila makes me look quaint and provincial

– there is no incessant honking

– the streets are clean and there are garbage cans

– i now know where to send my recyclables

– they sell my face lotion for a million dollars

– still no sign of rolling tobacco

– you can drink the water

– the streets do not smell like poo

– the women are not as beautiful as i’ve been told; costeñas are far more attractive

barrio santo domingo.

– there are places of yoga

– i can wear pants

– the endless array of sidewalk seating seems to say, “sit down, relax. no one will kidnap you.”

– i saw tofu written on a menu at a vegetarian restaurant with vegan options; then i fainted

– i’ve only been sexually harassed twice in 24 hours

– parts of it remind me of small new england towns

– i’ve seen four! bookstores

– the sun is not trying to destroy me

– the humidity is not trying to choke me

lindsay.

– they should reconsider this whole 70s public housing brick building motif

– pedestrians are still at the bottom of the food chain

– stop signs and turn signals just confuse me

– the poor barrios in the mountains have paved sidewalks, streets, and electricity

– downtown is unimpressive and blah

– i miss santa marta

phase deux

i don’t mean to be so linear in my description of my time here: phase two to follow phase one, to be followed by phase three, and all that jazz. but this certainly feels like the next part, or a different part. i suppose i can just say i’m in transition. things are changing. the context i arrived in is morphing into something else and i’m trying to figure out how i can morph as well so as to not be pathetic, outdated lady. nobody likes her. she’s sad faced and kind of smelly. the first friends i made here have left, the volunteer role i had is not sustainable, my first apartment was suffocating me, i have lost contact with my hometown friends and family, and my intestinal tract was trying to kill me. some folks told me much of this would happen around month three. it’s time to shake things up, and ensure it doesn’t make me vomit.

beautiful, random chance, or something else, threw lovely people my way when i arrived. i was able to adapt to this place well. being someone who is not terribly social, doesn’t intoxiparty, and finds most folks difficult to engage with, it was quite fortunate to meet these guys. i relied on them for quite some time and now i have to up my social game. and i despise organized sports. meep.

i’ve whined plenty at this point about volunteering, so i won’t delve into it too much, but… honestly, i don’t know where to put myself in that shit show. part of me just wants to get a job, watch tv, have sex, and buy shit. yeah! because now and then, i completely forget why i came here in the first place; in the in between moments, i feel ready to go back. for the first time, i’m starting to miss my city. i went on craigslist, even.

my landlord suddenly became a crazy, alcoholic, coke fiend. i think it’s coke. he could be freebasing oxycotin, which is apparently a thing. he took issue with my active sex life with my samarian, and i had to put the smack down on his paternalistic, misogynistic, xenophobic nonsense. he hasn’t looked at me straight since. his mom and grandma moved in too. grandma would randomly walk into my room and turn the lights off because she thought i’m not there. and she’d stare into my window, which was just spooky. i think she’s got a bit of the alzhies, poor thing. i moved out yesterday. i’ve now got a cute little expensive studio apartment closer to the city center with all the amenities. how very san francisco of me. i have a feeling this is not what i’m supposed to be doing. supposedly.

and now i will do the unthinkable: travel. i’m off to medellin for a minute and then wind up the coast back to santa marta. i’m hoping vacating from my vacation will trigger memories of the inspiration for my self-deportation. wish me luck. proxima estacion…

photo overload:

buritaca. river to sea.

moto trip to minca.

minca. i’m fascinated by places where less than a decade ago were crawling with guerrilla, military, and paramilitary forces. sometimes i find myself staying still and quiet trying to hear the past and understand the present more. but all i hear are tourists, which i’m sure everyone prefers.

our moto broke down hours away from home. we had to use a combination of our own momentum, kids on bicycles pushing us, or a motorcyclist riding along side us with his foot on our bike, this all meant i had to ride with my leg up. half of this was done while navigating wacky south american traffic at night. puro caribe.

taganga. gratuitous sea shot from motorboat.

la brisa loca and tony the cat. my second home. mean, mean little putty.

briseros.

super brisera and fellow volunteer. i spend much time here. we hold our meetings there, it’s where i host trivia nights, they have free coffee and wifi, and now i’ve taken to eating everybody’s left over food. also, there’s really not a whole lot else to do in my beloved santa marta.

on the way to costeno beach. gringo surfer camp hostel.

palm tree farm.

gringo paradise.

i follow the way of the freegan iguana.

tejo. folk game where you throw a metal ball like disc into this clay. you are aiming to hit the explosives in the middle. the whole experience was reminscent of my gun range trauma. eek!

bracelet making artisanry. my new gringo hobby.

lucy loca. they were gonna throw her in a garbage can. she was full of worms, ticks, had anemia, an inflamed leg, and some kind of infection. she loves me, and i have to give her away. love is doom.

new digs. back to yuppieville.

poo water’s revenge

my last post was a clever little piece where my stomache issues became a metaphor to describe my colombian relationship. while it may have seemed like just a bit of literary genius, my intestinal trauma is now a story of its own.

i only recently realized it had become a force to be reckoned with, and was likely having an effect on my energy level and general loveableness. i think i’ve been unusally obtuse, cranky, short tempered, and lethargic. slowly the joy of being here and my freedom has started to run away from me. after a brief respite and then once again essentially urinating food out of my asshole (i’m told world travelers discuss human waste quite a bit. in an effort to be worldly, i will as well.), i decided i had enough. i went to the clinic/hospital place; the fancy one.

this is the part where i weave a tale of my crazy experience in a developing country’s hospital. except it’s not very crazy; i’m just a brat. it begins now. in a very caribbean way, getting medical attention required walking back and forth all over the hospital getting directions from the customer service station like, “go that way until you get to that thing and then go right.” meanwhile, i’m wondering why i haven’t been tossed on a cot in some overcrowded room where i can moan and groan like a whiny gringa. i wanted inpatient nurses with serious attitude eye rolling my frailty as they poked and prodded, and demanded i give samples of some bodily fluid or other. i got none of this. instead, i searched for consentimiento wherever i could find it and lashed out when it didn’t come.

no one should have to pay for shit, especially when your shit is caused by a poor public sewer system, but all told i’ve paid about 100 or so greenbacks for drugs and services rendered. the first bill was for my consult with a really fucking smarmy doctor who was all sophomoric about colombian bacteria’s resistance to CIPRO and prescribed meds before running any tests. i saw this once before when my friend took his dog to the vet; they just prescribe based on symptoms, which actually reminds me of modern psychiatry. i’m kind of into it. the logic is i can then decide to pay for tests or just trust the doctor’s economical yet superficial assessment of my ailment. i like labs, results, charts, official diagnoses, and spending money. i’ll take the stool sample, please.

since i’m in a medical facility, in choosing a restroom to render a stool sample it didn’t occur to me to to check for two essential parts of basic hygiene: 1) toilet paper, and 2) soap. my bathroom had neither of these things. i’ll spare you the details. then, i walked around looking for a lab analysis place which once i found appeared locked and closed to my narrow euro vision; no one answered when i knocked and a giant sign said “cerrado.” i went back to servicio al cliente who told me i just had to knock really loudly, they were in the back. “i did that. there’s a sign that says closed. can you call them for me? is there a phone?” no. i’d like to say, dear reader, that at this point, my body has not retained any food or water for about two days. i was weak as a kitten, nauseated, and pissed. the folks at servicio al cliente bore the brunt of my assholery, but they were good sports all in all. the lab lady said it would be an hour for results, then a bunch of shit happened -including my first case of vomiting in i don’t know how many years. i slept on various couches in various waiting rooms, one which was inhabited by a young lady who had one of those painful and incessant dry coughs, that while i’m sure was frustrating and difficult for her, irritated the living crap out of me. if i wasn’t sure she was close to death, i would have killed her.

after my tests came back and i found a random doctor meandering about to read them to me, i made two new friends:

giardia lamblia.

and escherichia coli.

these are not my actual house guests, just representations. i acquired them… who knows when? it could have been my first day in santa marta as symptoms start occurring maybe 1 or 2 weeks after infection, if they show at all. street food. fish. ocean swims. river jaunts. fruit juice. ass play with prostitutes while frolicking in poo water. there is nothing i can do but wait these bitches out, i’m told. everybody still has suggestions for me, but my biggest battle is to CIPRO or not to CIPRO? i’m not allowed to eat street food anymore, i have to be super obnoxious when i eat out and ask about how things are cooked, and my wet dreams about fresh, raw vegetables are doomed to forever give me gastrointestinal blue balls. being a vegetarian from san francisco -where all digestive dreams come true- i don’t travel to eat, but this shit, figuratively and literally, makes me want to go home. almost…

gringo fever

in the mind of a disordered eater with body dysmorphia, dysentery seems like a small price to pay for an express diet abroad. it would be totally worth it, i used to think (and probably still do). a few days of diarrhea for rapid weight loss and a smaller stomache. i’ll take it! i don’t have dysentery, but i’ve had some weird stomache issue for about two weeks. i blame the cookies n’ cream milkshake at the mall, but it might have been the bite of chicken i had later on that day. anything i eat is followed by belly discomfort, bloating, and immediate evacuation. i’ve had a few days of relief, but really it’s been continuous. i miss food so bad. the joy of anticipating my next meal, savoring it, and masticating without fear seem like privileges of a past life. and much like in my past life, as soon as i express bodily trouble everybody has a diagnosis and a remedy; it’s never the remedy i want, either, that of sympathy and support. folks are always trying to asses and solve your life. so i get, “that sounds like…” a parasite, bacteria, a virus, food poisoning, dysentery, or dengue; “you should get some…” electrolytes, more water, agua panela, maalox, sancocho, arroz con pollo, this antibiotic, that antibiotic, or suero en polvo. no joda. i always resist advice. i just want my body to heal itself and people to comfort me from a healthy, emotional distance. i hate being sick anywhere, but i hate having a gringo illness even more.

as much as i own my gringoness and am happy to proclaim it when the inevitable question of “where are you from?” arises, there are some extranjero stereotypes i avoid participating in and succumbing to. por ejemplo, walking around with a pack of shirtless white boys in flip flops, speaking english really loud on a bus, photographing stuff, or taking a towel to the beach. there is one that i am deeply immersed in, though, and i didn’t realize what i caught until it was too late. i am now 3 weeks into a monogamous relationship with a 21 year old samario, or santa martan. i know, right? it makes me almost as nauseated as a cookies n’ cream and poo water milkshake.

i have learned there is an epidemic of older gringo ladies (gringo meaning anyone foreign and white) coming to santa marta and taking on a local boy for companionship and sex. just like in the movies! they whisk them away on trips or cruises, take them out to eat, fill them up with all the cocaine and vagina they want, and then go home. when i walk around with my boy, this is what i imagine everyone is thinking when i get eyeballs and whispers. “she’s got gringo fever,” they say. i understand these looks, i give them to myself and would likely give them to others, but i know the sincerity and honesty in my relationship so i try to ignore their prognosis. i’m not the only one who got the bug, either. colombian girls break into sweats over gringo boys (my previous definition of gringo applies). these are average joe gringo boys paired up with obnoxiously fine ass women. this shit’s airborne, i swear.

as much as i know (hope) my lovely caribbean fling is a passing fervor, it is the most committed, fun, and easy relationship i’ve had in the last 5 years. thus far it has been completely drama free, extremely sweet, and full of good sex and outdoor adventures. riding motorcycles, smooching under waterfalls, and hand feeding each other on the beach. it’s a little nauseous. issues of class, culture, and age do inevitably seep in, and i have to take my temperature and a deep breath, but i’m still not looking for an analysis or a cure. i’m just letting it run its course.

the pueblo gets it done

two of my friends were in a store when they heard crazy commotion outside in the plaza. they ran out and folks were crowded around some cops holding onto a young kid with a bloody face. the cops were protecting him; trying to get him out of there while the mob was following, yelling, and grabbing for him. he had apparently just tried to snatch someone’s bag, and the pueblo was furious. they wanted street justice.

i was leaving one of the barrios on a bus a few weeks back and suddenly all the passengers started yelling at the driver to go; he put the bus in reverse, looked back, and hauled ass the eff out of there. i looked in front of us and saw a mob of young guys throwing rocks towards something and everyone else running towards us. i was full of riot adrenaline wanting to know what crazy shit must have popped off to create such a raucous. a lady on the bus told me maybe a car ran over a street dog or a motorcyclist or something. huh? that’s it? street justice. any time something goes down, todo el pueblo comes out to see and ensure shit happens right. and, of course, to gossip about it. they linger for hours afterwards. community. i love it.

it all makes perfect sense to me. at least, in the context of this country. if you’re used to protecting yourself, if you don’t trust cops or each other, then you just do it yourself. this includes commerce too. street food is the obvious example alive and well here and quickly appropriated by yuppies worldwide. pay phones here are people on the street sitting at tables with cell phones chained down and you pay for minutos to make phone calls. i’m not sure how profits are made but i adore it. when i want coffee, i walk around until i find someone with a coffee thermos and pay a quarter for a cup. same goes for juice, lemonade, ice cream, fruit, fish, live chickens, purebred dogs, batteries, cigarettes, photocopies, sunglasses, incense, remote controls, massages, belts, etc. street enterprise. the people do for themselves. there’s no regulation or permits or legal hoops at all. you just invest in some shit and walk around selling it. if you’re extra fancy, you might have a megaphone. or a burro.

coming from a bureaucratic framework my regulatory gut wonders what happens if something makes someone sick or if you buy some bunk shit that doesn’t work, but around here, you just take care of it yourself. you don’t run to daddy; you run to the people. i mean, the only downside is that the people are generally fucking crazy, but it’s not really like our system is all that much better. the gang and the government are no different, or so perry farrel taught me. generally, i’m all for the regulation of corporate entities, to the point of their undoing really, but these are just ordinary civilians. though maybe wal-mart started as a street cart too. this way of being inspires me to consider retail as a way to support myself, something that generally makes me want to throw up. but like, i could totally come up with something to sell. translation services? an advice booth ala lucy? plastic bottle crafts? poo water support group? someone’s bound to pay or trade for that.

it’s strange to revel in street commerce so much as it seems to be capitalism at its purest, and i hate capitalism. but maybe if i tag it as a community market, it’s actually anarchy at its best? money is still involved though… i don’t really know fuck all about anarchy. either way, it all feels very liberating. i can just come up with an idea that could fill a community need and simultaneously support me financially or otherwise. about a third of colombians i talk to tell me they like the states but would never move there. freedom is just talk there, they say. they like their more tactile, lawless freedom here. i gotta say, i dig the pueblo too.

si se puede? i can’t remember anymore.

the problem is i just can’t find it in myself to care. i thought only my brain was fried from social work, but it seems like my heart and soul have suffered from third degree burns as well. when i met up with my volunteer organization for the first time, the director told me he would be leaving to the states in a few days. his eyes went wide as saucers when he realized my bilingualacity. “we could really use a volunteer director while i’m away…” “huh,” i said, “good luck with that.” two other volunteers who had been here for a week were suckered into the interim director position, and the first couple of weeks here, i found myself getting jazzed about organizing and planning shit, and then a few hours later not wanting anything to do with it. all the feelings i had at my job in san francisco came rising up in my belly like dysentery: intense avoidance of commitments made; getting easily overwhelmed; utter boredom; indifference; frustration at the ineptitude, lack of organization, bureaucracy, and futility inherent in social service organizations. fuck it. i quickly pulled out before creating something i would abandon. there are enough orphaned babies in the world.

i positioned myself as translation and interpretation support and advisor. which generally meant i got to boss everybody around and hold no responsibility. i could handle that for a while, but recently i can’t even deal with that. volunteers get easily frustrated by lack of structure and want to have meetings with me about it. no. i see volunteers show up to teach a class with no lesson plan and wonder why the kids go ape shit. not my problem. i see us raising money and have no idea where it goes. typical. i see myself seeing rampant poverty in barrios, street children begging, pregnant 12 year olds, and lack of information and access to existing services. uninspired. is this what happens in old age? i know how to coordinate this shit. i’m still paying off loans for the training i received to do it, but somehow i just can’t bring myself to care. will it come back? i am hopeful that the body is elastic and will eventually recuperate from past damage, but i don’t see signs of this yet.

just as bad, i find myself desiring things again. strappy wedges, tank tops of every color, more shorts, pretty sandals, strapless tops, cute sundresses, another bathing suit, nail polish, hair conditioner, a better life through purchasing power. there are no used goods stores around here so the shopping mall is slowly reeling me in like a sad fish resigned to its fate. the hook is so sparkly and pretty. i want to put it in my mouth.

i haven’t forgotten why i came here, but i’m not sure what the end result should look like anymore. all i can do is resist my old urges of complacency and complicity as best i can, do the least harm possible, maintain an existence in the every day, and not force a change upon myself that i will only mutiny. but really that’s just not good enough. i know.

of flies and curses

my phone has slowly been losing its mind so i asked a local where to go to fix it. she told me to walk down the street to plaza royal or royal plaza, maybe a few blocks; it’s across from the chucherria deportes or something, and i should ask for someone… she couldn’t remember the name, el calbito; tell him she sent me. after a few turns and asking more locals i found the place but not the dude, so a guy sent me to another dude who said to call him that afternoon to make sure he went back to work after siesta. i called and he said to give him another hour. i went in an hour and waited for another hour under un sol bravisimo, an angry sun. caribbean time, i figured. he’ll be here. finally, i got him on the phone and he’s all, oh, we don’t work in the afternoon. for some reason, regardless of all the messiness of my regular spanish, my pissed off spanish is at an advanced level of proficiency. i let him know i no longer needed his services. i told the techie dude who initially sent me to the flaky dude when i couldn’t find el calbito about what happened and if he knew anyone else who could help me. “claro. dejame hacer unas llamaditas.” he sent me to calle 20, six or so blocks away, to a place across from the vidrio (glass) store, but not the first vidrio store, the second one. ask for pollo or coco, they’ll help me. after some more turns i found the vidrio store; i asked a lady in a fabric store and she pointed to the unmarked house where pollo and coco have a tech shop. i sat with them for several hours as coco fixed my phone. caribbean success.

the next day, i took my friend there to get his hard drive fixed and i told him we would likely be there for a few hours. he’s all, “can we just leave it here and have him call us when it’s ready?” and i’m all, “uh… no.”

“how come?”

“i don’t know. you just don’t do that. you sit here with your shit.”

“i trust this guy. i don’t think he’ll steal it or anything.”

“hmm… it’s not that. i trust him too, but you just don’t do that here. i can’t explain it. it would be weird. you don’t leave your shit around like that.”

this tale exemplifies two things about the colombian coast:

thing 1) everything is always more complicated and slower than you would initially think.
my nuclear family suffers from what i call “the romano curse.” if you ask my parents for assistance with any problem, it will get solved, but the path from A to B involves a very long line of twists and turns so convoluted and ridiculous you wish you’d never said anything at all. you can swear up and down that you can practically touch B from where you stand at A, but they will insist only an idiot would fall for that straight path nonsense. their existence is one where getting to a destination does not involve street names and gringo logistics. it’s more about general impressions and visual memory, and the people who you have to ask along the way. i’m quickly realizing the romano curse is actually just a colombian thing, or maybe a coastal thing. there’s never really a rush do get things done, but there is a strong sense of pride in ensuring how you do it is cost effective, has optimum results, and, for no particular reason, involves several people with quirky nicknames. the most beautiful part of the curse is in knowing that everything will work out in the end; if it hasn’t worked out, then it’s not the end.

thing 2) we don’t trust anybody.
mosca. when i was getting ready to arrancar over here, every member of my family took it upon his or herself to school my apparently naive ass on the dangers of colombia. they’re gonna kill you. you’ll get kidnapped. remember when they drugged your cousin a million years ago and she woke up in some warehouse and didn’t remember anything? they may take your organs and sell them. they will express kidnap you for a day and force you to take all the money out of your atm and max out your credit card. people inside a bank will communicate with people outside of the bank about how much money you have and then they will mug you. don’t use your phone in public! they will steal your soul. those people are crazy. but it’s a beautiful place! you’re going to love it!

any attempts i made to remind them that while i did not grow up in colombia, i did grow up colombian, didn’t help. i’m just a gringa. “mosca!” my dad tells me. “you have to watch everybody like a fly.” what do you think i was doing all those years in miami when i was places no 15 year old should be? i was born mosca, yo.

all the locals here preach mosca too. it’s sad to me at times. i assume this engrained mistrust is born of decades of betrayal by each other. that, and the violence and thievery created by rampant poverty and oppression. “no puedes confiar en nadie. la gente aqui son unos hijueputas. rateros! se aprovechan.” does that include you too? all i can ever say to folks is “that’s not just here, you know.” hijueputismo seems to be a part of the human condition. colombians did not birth their own breed of malevolence. and while they may agree with me in theory, they still won’t leave their shit anywhere. myself included. we just don’t do that here.

then this happened

new things i do:
–       break up factory cigarettes to reroll them
–       force people to make things out of plastic bottles
–       take naps in the afternoon
–       never smoke pot
–       forsake flip flops for real shoes to avoid poo water feet
–       obsess over poo water
–       take a cold shower every day
–       tweeze by headlamp
–       never wear pants
–       never use my phone
–       speak with an affected english accent
–       sweat all the fucking time
–       never read
–       miss ziggy

old things i still do:
–       smoke too much
–       never cook
–       make people feel bad about plastic usage
–       not sleep enough
–       social work my friends
–       boss everybody around
–       get drunk very quickly
–       dance
–       walk fast everywhere
–       speak elementary level spanish
–       obsess over my phone
–       wish i could eat a burrito every day

fundadores school

taganga

cigarette butt clean up on taganga beach

post clean up futbol

my friend rich’s house. why are walls here always painted this color?

bahia concha. took a moto taxi to get here. no helmet. no good.

behind me is a mountain of plastic garbage. swear.

this kid always tilts his head like this as he asks some inane question. but really, he’s pleading with you to never leave. but you will anyway.

amparro’s birthday. the lady in the pink. she turned 35, one year older than me. she lives in the school with her two sons. she’d never had a party before.

good climbing tree. naughty children.

little kittens in a big chair. eventually, momma cat came and stole them back one by one while no one was looking.

colombia knows juice. this is where i sit and drink it. mango. lulo. berry. banana. guanabana.

nos bailaron cuando niños

aussies on the left, irish on the right, one englishman, and one colombian. can you spot the colombian?

donde sea, y cuando sea. if the music is right, i can’t help myself. even when i’m exhausted, my calves are screaming, i can no longer feel my feet or my toes, my thighs are on fire, i’m a little dizzy, my clothes have melted onto my skin, my hips ache, everybody’s left me and i’ve been alone for hours, i must keep dancing. how can you not? this moment of perfect music, of complete exultation, won’t last forever, but it feels like it might. and maybe if i don’t stop moving, it will. that promise is so tempting and alluring, it draws me in. even when i’ve called it quits for the fifth time, the beat picks up again and i’m up too. i can’t let it dance alone. absolute joy. no alcohol. no ecstacy. no pills. no cocaine. your body. the music. the people.

my parents rarely left us at home when they went to a party, and we were never sent to bed when they threw one. we were there with all the adults surrounded by the sounds of drinking, laughter, and that beat. you’d get picked up and twirled around, and if you were old enough to stand you landed on someone’s feet as they taught your muscles how to do the steps. muscle memory lasts a lifetime. when your eyelids got heavy and your head started slouching, you got thrown onto a couch or a bed to sleep until the older folk were ready to leave. in this state, the noises filled your ears and you dreamt with rhythm and chatter woven in to your subconscious.  muscle memory.

part of the reason i love living in the mission in san francisco is the music and the freedom of movement. if it’s nice enough outside, the people are out, music is playing, and it is loud. i’ve started realizing that latinos tend to yell because otherwise we couldn’t hear ourselves over the music. colombia is the same, and the caribbean coast is perfect. hard working class people fill the streets and when it’s time to rumbar, everyone is there. music is everywhere and the joy it brings washes away the litter, the dirty water, the poverty, the drugs, the everything. it fills every void in the most perfect way; without having to spend a peso. my neighbor next door starts playing cumbia at about 10am and turns it off at 12am every day. others complain, but it’s like a lullaby to me. like listening to the thrum of my mother’s voice through her chest when she carried my dozing body to the car late at night, it soothes me and lulls me to bed.

i went to santa marta’s first ever music festival this past weekend, and it was grand (as my irish friends would say). the expense and lack of vallenato deterred most locals, but those who could afford it, and knew what it would be like and what it meant to music on the coast were there. it was a great atmosphere and i danced a total of 12 hours or more. my calves are currently on strike and i sound like joan rivers, but it was totally worth it. i’m very used to being around folks who need more than music to dance. it’s not in their bones and blood. they get too self-conscious, they think too much, and their bodies tense up. but colombians, and many of those who come to visit, are ready for it. and they were with me for the full 12 hours. a few of my voluntourist friends asked for dancing tips and i tried my best to show them, but much like my spanish skills, i can’t tell you why it’s right or how to do it, i just know. they expressed a sadness at not feeling the beat like all colombians, young and old, seem able to do. but every culture has music and every culture has dance; it’s in the distance and isolation from younger generations where it gets lost. muscle memory must be passed down. don’t forget to dance your children.