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| The DukeEngage Colombia 2015 team in downtown Medellín. |
Juan Granados
Miguel. How can I describe him? He reminds me of my best friend. It’s not his appearance, nor is it his demeanor. It’s his personality. Miguel is someone that has depth, I’ve only known him for a week exactly; 7 days. He isn’t your regular bartender/coffee seller. He is on the quiet side, but not introverted. His taste in music is flawless – at least to my ears. Once again, there is more to him than meets the eye. I met him the first day that I arrived in Medellin, and that day I knew that if I ever needed anything I would come to him. Yes, it is weird that I am writing about someone who I just met and it seems strange, but I swear that I’m writing about him because I think he was the one person that I expected to find in Medellin, for some weird reason. After all I will end up seeing him most of the time; my friend Joe and I are always at his café, chatting it up. Anyways, I felt that I needed to put that out there because I know he’s going to play a major role in how I see the city of Medellin, Colombia.
I’m originally from Bogota, Colombia, so most of the things here do not seem so out of this world. Of course, their “Paisa” accent is way different than my “Rolo” accent, but we all seem to be getting along – lol. I have finally been reunited with my spirit fruit – the Granadilla and things could not be any better.
I feel like there is not much to talk about, just because I think I’m overwhelmed with everything here. I’ve seen the city, I’ve seen the cities in the mountains, and well what can I say? I’m speechless. It isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen. Bogota and Medellin are polar opposites, Bogota is cold in weather, Medellin is warm in weather – people in Medellin are warm in personality, people in Bogota are cold in personality, are we getting the trend?
On another note, I do sometimes feel that I miss my place of origin.
Enough on how the city feels, let me elaborate on what two places that have opened my eyes. We went to Comuna 13, or by name San Javier. We also went to Comuna 1, or by name Santo Domingo. Before I get deeper into what opened my eyes, I want to describe how these neighborhoods are built. First of all, they’re both built on a mountain. Second of all, they seem to only have one main road. Imagine a bunch of stacked brick boxes, on top of mountains, with one main road, and pathways no bigger than three feet in length. Multiple houses are stacked upon each other, with a different family in a different section of this so called brick box. San Javier and Santo Domingo were previously known as two of the most dangerous and poor sectors of the city of Medellin, but with recent architectural developments this violence has decreased. These sectors are filled with poverty with what seemed to be an over population problem, but these people are far from poor – from what I saw. They embrace where they live, and furthermore, its their home. Not their “brick box” but the whole neighborhood.
There was one event in Comuna 1, that has stuck with me for this week. An eight-year-old came up to the group and gave us the history of his neighborhood. This child with a straight back, chest puffed out, and proudly told us about how it was founded, and how everything came to be. Just with that I was blown away. I was blown away because this child was “humilde,” with just the way he spoke I could tell that the love for his neighborhood and its people was there.
Anyways, concluding this blogpost, my host mother, Diana, is an angel that fell from heaven. Her “huevos pericos” are off the chain, her “frijoles” are the bomb, and her “pollo a la plancha” is incredible. I promise I won’t turn into a glutton, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get close to it. Her daily advice, and her daily morning notes are the best, and well – I don’t think I could’ve gotten any luckier.
Our group is also incredible, which makes this experience even better. Tam says we'll get on each others nerves, right now we are 0 for 1. I’ll keep you updated.
Marah Jolibois
Something peculiar I’ve noticed already about Medellin is that everything is extremely relaxed (except the siclas). Nobody is rushed or has any sense of urgency. Coming from New York and the Duke bubble where everybody and everything is stretched so thin, and we try to accomplish as much as we can in so little time, I’m finding it really difficult to “relax” and be ok with having nothing to do.
***
After being here in Medellin for almost two weeks, I’ve learned that you can’t always accept widely broadcasted narrative without receiving full context first. What I mean specifically is that before arriving in Medellin I personally had preconceived notions that I would be witnessing violence on a daily basis. In the months leading up to this trip, I had only heard of the dangers associated with the city of Medellin. To be honest I was scared shitless and had no idea what to expect.
Now after two weeks I feel stupid for allowing myself to take those outdated retellings as truth without having my own personal experiences. Medellin I believe is no more dangerous than New York City and the paisas here are for the most part nicer than everyone in the United States. You can see that everyone here looks out for each other as has a genuine concern for each others well being, something which is sadly very foreign to me. I mean I was swarmed by maybe 25 people when I fell during the Siclas. And Margarita, my host mom, who has more than opened her home to me continues to say how paisa I’m getting with every passing day. Even walking down the street to ciudad café I know that I’ll be greeted with a “buenas” or a friendly “hola”. I think It’s important to remember all of the awful things that have happened here, but it surely doesn’t define the city and I’m excited for my rest of the time here.
Taylor Jones
The bathrooms, when entering my new home, to my dismay the sink and shower were shrouded behind nothing. What was called a bathroom, I called “an indent in the wall that contained only a sink and a shower.” It wasn’t a bathroom, it was an open addition to the larger house.
The restaurants, there is no concept of inside and outside, they’re simply one. The tables span out on the floor unaware if they’re within the confines of the edificio or if they happen to be planted on the patio. The breeze, or rather the heat spares no one. Open dining.
The clothing.. Whether it be open backs or open expression they are not shy here. Size isn’t a dictator of what’s deemed appropriate, colors have no limits and the more skin the merrier. Looking good here is a birthright regardless of body type. What we shame, they commend. Open bodies.
The people, are open.. with distaste - “¿por qué están comiendo tan poco?” I try to explain that the meals are lovely but the sheer amount on my plate is a sharp jump from my portions at home. She tells me to finish my food, I guess by default I’m learning to have an open taste and with that, an even wider belly.
The people are open with love. Smiles are exchanged so easily here. Conversations tend to go unhindered by my faulty Spanish, and rather, the gaps are filled with encouragement and eagerness at my attempt. Couples decorate the city in public parks and gardens, sidewalks and street corners. I like it, there’s no shame and for a country that’s so hyper sexualized by the media it’s nice to see passion and fervor in a more genuine form.
The people are open with conversation, “I heard it through the grapevine” is what I’ve decided to name Estella and I’s dinner telenova. I was quite amused when she knew which students lived with which mothers and all the ins and outs of their stay here. This all was thanks to the network of phone calls and home visits between our madres. They’re nosey, but open about it, I have to appreciate their honesty. I actually find it quite comical seeing their dramatic reactions to things that typically wouldn’t evoke an emotion out of me. The animated phone conversations. Love manifests itself in so many ways here and often transcends into zealousness as everything is centered around it. Someone in our group remarked “Don’t you love how “me gusta” is actually translated as being “it gives me pleasure”. Or when watching a futbol game how the love is not only for the sport, but for Colombia, and what the team means to the nation.
Colombia is such an open place, and part of its transparency is seen literally in its landscape. It’s cradled by a valley with the city meandering up the banks of the surrounding mountains making the view endless. Any peak or point above house level you can see the sprawl of the city thanks to its geography. At night the clay colored roofs and red brinks dissolve into a net of lights like the universe just laid the stars to rest in the Aburra Valley.
Along with openness comes the lack of shrouding around sensitive topics like poverty and lack of resources. The steep peeks of the mountains accentuate rather than disguise the hand built comunas, and with that the disparities are striking. I could incorporate my general views on Medellin's poverty and the system around it but this post wouldn’t do it justice. Rather than descriptions of poverty and descriptions of “how the other half lives” I have questions. I have concerns. I have more to navigate and thus out of respect, I’ll save my poverty analysis for a later post once I’ve become active in these communities.
With that being said Medellin is a miraculous city, a literal phoenix that has risen from the ashes of acute violence and unabridged corruption. The spirit and vitality that the city has is unparalleled to anything I have experienced in the states. In the process I’m learning a lot about myself but far too often people ask me to draw conclusions about my experience. So whats my conclusion? I don’t have one, nor do I need one. This is surface level Medellin. These are my perceptions, and frankly.. I’m still a gringa.
Alice Marson
One of our first day trips was to Independencia, a small barrio at the very top of the Aburrá Valley. Every house is a different color, a permanent rainbow painted onto the mountainside. It is located in comuna 13, which was once one of the most violent districts during the conflicts of the 80’s and 90’s. Today it is home to some of the city’s most innovative urban planning projects, all of which foster interaction and mobility between the city center and the distant barrio. There are large boulevards with benches and plazas designed for community discussion, a fútbol field with bleachers and playgrounds, a library with computers and resources for all ages, electric escalators that alleviate transportation on the steep mountainside—all within one of the poorest communities in Medellín. By no means has violence left this area, but it is not this community’s only story.
I’m sure my time in Medellin will bring rainy days and present new challenges I could never have anticipated. But I can acknowledge this city’s complex history and try to understand a small piece of this intricate organism. If I can accomplish that, estaré contenta que vine.
Ashlyn Nuckols
I first heard it spoken by my host father, in a moment when I would’ve expected a word to be the last thing capable of improving the situation. It was words, after all, that were causing the problem in the first place. Or more precisely, it was my inability to respond to a rapid stream of words, which despite five years of Spanish were completely unintelligible to me.
“Hablas muy poco español” my host father informed me at last.
“Oh, si” I responded, feeling the temperature rising in my cheeks. “Lo siento.”
I hoped he understood that my apology was for more than just my linguistic incompetence. I had showed up on his doorstep at one in the morning, waking him his wife and his three-year-old son, and was now staring at him blankly while he tried to point me to my room. This could not be a good night for him. But when I mustered up the courage to look him in the eye I saw that he was smiling. It was a genuine smile, friendly and if anything a little amused by my obvious concern. He waved his hand as if to say that there was nothing to apologize for and cheerfully picked up the suitcase of a total stranger before leading her to her room. It was now 1:30 am.
Before leaving he smiled again and looked me in the eye.
“No te preocupes” he said calmly. “aquí, esta tranquilo.” Though I’d never heard it in high school Spanish, I understood this word immediately. And as I lay in bed listening to new and strange sounds, in a strange city, in a strange country, I discovered that I was smiling.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve come to realize how integral the word “tranquilo” is to the collective, cultural mindset in Medellin. It moves in time with the city, like an infectious base line that turns the chaos of a crowded city square into a captivating dance routine. I’m not quite able to step in time with the beat; I’m used to moving faster, keeping my head lower, and always feeling like I’m two steps behind. Here people walk with a kind of lazy confidence, as if they know the road will take them where they need to go, and in plenty of time without any effort on their part. I’ve never felt that kind of confidence, but maybe I can learn. I guess when I stop picturing the city as some complex and exotic organism I’ll know that I’ve gotten out of my own head and into the rhythm of my surroundings. For now, I’m content in my role as a spectator. And while I know my vision of the city is colored by my host father’s exceptional ability to save me from an impending panic attack, I’m certain that the pervading philosophy of tranquilo is more than just my imagination.
I hear the word spoken several times a day in the midst of the frenzied streets, where the cab drivers swerve calmly back and forth among delivery trucks and motorcycles. If there are traffic laws in Medellin they remain a complete mystery to me, and yet something in my cab driver’s expression keeps me from panicking. I see, rather than hear, tranquilo in the face of an elderly man who is willing to trust us with the story of how he and his family were displaced from their village in the midst of civil warfare. His voice is sad but steady, and when he thanks us for our time his eyes are shining with a mixture of gratitude and mild amusement. As if we, the awkward, stuttering gringos, were the ones doing him a favor. Many of the people we have spoken to have painful and violent stories to tell, and many must have reason to fear violence in the future. For these people, life is full of a stress that makes worrying about paying college tuition seem laughably trivial. So of course the confidence I see in so many of them must sometimes be an act, or an invention of my imagination. A side effect of the feeling that as I walk down the street I am causing an annoying disturbance in an otherwise perfectly choreographed baile.
But what I feel is something stronger than the attitude of individuals. I struggled to find a way to understand, let alone describe, it until a local architect, Carlos Escobar, explained to us the story behind a piece of incredibly intricate graffiti. The communities that skirt the edges of Medellin are populated primarily with people displaced from rural areas as result of violent conflict. Given the state of poverty most of them are now living in, the area is surprisingly vibrant. The houses are bright and colorful and every once in a while we came across signs new looking signs with inspirational messages. As we walked, the juxtaposition of a sign proclaiming that we must celebrate the world we have, and a barefoot child walking on the street beside it gave the area a slightly gilded feel. So when I first saw the breathtaking imagery, I suspected it was a state project intended to improve the scenery for tourists like myself. But as the architect explained, it was actually the work of people living in the community. What I had first perceived as an attempt to mask poverty and boost moral on the part of the state, was actually an expression of dignity and source of pride for marginalized citizens. I asked how the people kept the graffiti safe from the elements, and our guide replied that they didn’t. The images chipped and faded relatively quickly, but were always replaced by a new wok of art. For a moment, I could only think of what a terrible loss it would be when the piece I was looking at faded, but then I realized that I had suddenly found a way to understand the feeling that had been with me since that first night in Medellin. The people of comuna 13 had no illusions about the fact that their artwork would fade. They took pride in it despite, or maybe even because of, the fact that its existence would be fleeting. And then I thought perhaps the people I see on the street walk with confidence not because they were sure that they would get where they wanted to go, but because the history and atmosphere of the city fosters the ability to simply enjoy the walk. The concept of tranquilo isn’t really about having confidence in the future, it’s about trusting the universe just enough to enjoy the present.
I: What do you mean, innovative?
“I am really excited… Medellín is one of the most innovative cities in South America.” This was my go-to line for every person who inquired about my summer plans. People would sound impressed and wish me luck on my adventures. It wasn’t until my offbeat, inquisitive physical therapist actually asked me how it was innovative that I realized I had no idea what I was talking about. Innovative is one of those over-used words—kinda new, kinda techy, super vague. But I truly had no idea how Medellín was innovative. All I did know was that practically every travel review used this filler word, and thus, I assumed there must be some truth to it.
It wasn’t until arriving in the city that I started to get a better sense of the vague descriptor “innovative.”
It’s the architecture.
It’s the urban mobility projects.
It’s los parques bibliotecas.
It’s the metrocables. It’s how a generation transformed their own city from one of the most violent places in the world to a booming tech and economic capital.
And behind all that, are la gente. The people driving the innovation.
I have a lot more learning ahead of myself. But if anything…I think my trite descriptor has a little more substance than I originally realized.
II: Soy una extranjera.
In Spanish extranjer@ means “foreigner” and “alien.” They use the same word. I’m not too familiar with being a minority. Now, coming to Colombia, I get to be all three—foreign, alien, and a minority. Assimilating into the Colombian culture has not been effortless. Before I arrived to Medellín I thought I would fit in…despite my European ancestry, I have darker skin and dark eyes. And after 7 years of learning Spanish, I was relatively confident with my language skills. Yet, I’ve been so unfortunately reminded of my “gringa-ness” with every new location we venture.
Al gymnasio, los parques, el museo, las calles, el disco, el café. Todos lo saben, y no se porque. It’s not that the people are rude, by no means. If anything quite the opposite, most everyone has been welcoming and kind. Yet, they stare.
I wish I fit in more. However, at the same time, I think it is my turn to be a minority. I am from a small, predominantly white neighborhood in California. An overwhelming majority of the students in my classroom were just like me. And not just at one school— from kindergarten to 12th grade I was the average student: socioeconomically, racially, religiously. No one stared at me in the grocery store; no one gawked at me in the gym. I was just like everyone around me.
Here in Medellín I get to experience something else. Perhaps the staring will wane over time, or perhaps it will not. I am not entirely sure what I will learn yet—but I do know that, if I want to gain anything, I need to make myself a little uncomfortable.
Samantha Siegel
Before coming to Medellín, I would talk to people in my hometown about my DukeEngage project. Yet no matter how passionately I described what I would be doing in Colombia, I was consistently met with a less than enthusiastic reaction. People would raise their eyebrows, questioning me further about the safety of a program going to areas like Colombia. They bombarded me with old news headlines about violence and sarcastic comments about keeping away from drug cartels. And I have to be honest — those responses scared me.
Everything I have seen in Colombia, every person I have talked to, has shattered what I believed to be the story of Medellín. The history I received before my trip was the same single story of violence and crime repeated for me time and time again. But having personal experiences with the city, both physical and emotional, has showed me so many other perspectives to the story of Medellín. I know there’s much more to learn, but I’m excited to continue exploring the city with my DukeEngage team, bonding with my host family and compañeros, and opening myself up to completely new experiences. Adichie concludes her talk with the following, “I would like to end with this thought: That when we reject the single story, when we realize there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.” Between the mountains and skyscrapers of Medellín, I’m trying to find that paradise.
Joseph Vosburgh
But hm maybe not.
Is that mindset American or just me?
Do you think that Colombians think that way as well?
Am I overthinking this one already?
Shit.
And I think that’s where I’ll begin with my first impression of Medellín.
My most common thoughts include (but aren’t limited to): Am I acting Colombian enough? Or just trying too hard? Or not hard enough? Why is it that people here seem to know more about my whiteness than I do? When I see other whiteys on the metro that can roll their “r’s” flawlessly, why was I praying that maybe they were speaking english like me?
And that seems to be the story of a Kansas boy walking around the streets of Medellín. I am stuck in a paradox: are these Colombians the kindest people I’ve ever met or the most stand-offish? When I walk around, I feel somewhere between a celebrity and a pariah -- either way, every person I pass doesn’t hesitate to give a stare. Do you hate me? My country? Do you even care, or are you just confused by the fact that my knees are showing?
I came to Colombia knowing nothing about this place and so little about our group of 8. I didn’t understand why we had compañeros or how we would be interviewing individuals in communes or even if I would be sent home after missing a flight that I didn’t ever have a ticket for. My expectations were less than zero. I left my home neither scared nor excited - I got on a plane not knowing what I didn’t know.
And perhaps that’s why I’ve been so surprised by this obvious culture shock.
***
But when I think about it, I really don’t know Colombian-American relations. Until this morning, I didn’t know that the only Colombians in shorts were living on the coast. Before I got here, I didn’t realize how terrible my Spanish was. Maybe what I was calling “low expectations” were actually “poor preparations”. How many of my own problems were also my own fault?
Oh, and the problems are numerous.
Medellín has been invigorating and beautiful and exciting, but there hasn’t been an easy moment yet. When I’m out grabbing a drink, I have to repeat myself because my accent is so poor. When I’m lying in my bed, I listed to my host-family debate about how my name is spelt. The sun is always burning my skin and the water ~might~ give me diarrhea (though it hasn’t!). And in each individual moment, I wish that I was home, where life doesn’t have so much friction and where I can breathe - even for a moment.
But when I aggregate these moments - sew them together to create my first week in Colombia, it starts to look pretty beautiful.
I’m learning Spanish.
I’m meeting incredible people.
My skin is KIND OF getting a tan
And it looks like these #firstworldproblems of mine aren’t so bad, and pretty easy to solve.
So with some higher expectations, and a little more knowledge, I’m jumping into week 2. God knows what will come, but I can feel something good.
