My First Weekend in Monteria

It has been a week since I have been in Monteria, and my general impressions are definitely positive. As I write this on a rainy Sunday morning, it is actually the first time since I have been here that I am not sweating, or my pants and shirt are not clinging to my body. In fact, I think I may be acclimatizing to the weather—at 25 degrees in the evening I actually had goosebumps. It felt so wonderful to feel cool and actually go to bed and use a thin sheet to hunker down under. I think Milo also likes the cool weather, but still hangs out under the ceiling fan on the cement floors and keeps a watchful eye on the geckos and other bugs that like to pay their respects to our apartment.

We worked yesterday until noon, an occasional occurrence that I am not fond of already, but the work wasn’t hard especially with the slow pace of the coastal people. Once we finished, Deirdre and I were ready for a siesta, but the cable guys she had been waiting on all week finally showed up to install the 60 channels of Spanish.

We hung around, lounging the afternoon heat, when Augustin from across the hall decided to pay us a visit. He is the sweetest little 4-year old boy. He still doesn’t realize that I don’t speak a lot of Spanish but it doesn’t stop him from blabbering away to me and Milo in his native tongue. We gave him a freezie and he took off to show his mom, a wonderful lady from Argentina who married their father, a Monterian. We asked about the brother, Gian Carlos, to give him one too, but apparently he was visiting his grandparents. But within five minutes Gian was running into our apartment. The kids made themselves at home and soon enough we had a small collection of toys in our apartment. Their mom sent over 2 glasses of Colombian soda, Manzana, an appley-fizzy drink and 2 donuts for Dee and I. Then their dad came over to invite us to their farm.

We left at 3 and drove down the main road of the city and turned off onto the dustiest path which led us to their ‘finca’. Farms here are not like Canadian farms in the closest sense. Think of some movies where the plot revolves around a Colombian drug-lord and his farm…you will start to get the idea. It was a large sprawling ground, with the main house, beautiful garden, swimming pool, a few dogs running around, including 2 baby Dalmatian puppies, a large BBQ, and a palm thatched hut with rocking chairs and tables under it for social gatherings during the rainy season. It pissed me off that I didn’t bring my camera, but I have a feeling that we will be back. We swam, drank and ate lots of beef (typical because most of the farms are cattle farms). We hung out and socialized with the moms and the kids, some of which were our students. It was a brilliantly relaxing day, something which I needed.

Generally the people of Monteria are incredibly friendly and are very accommodating and patient. I just wish my Spanish was better, but I know it will improve. If people talk slowly and clearly, I can understand about 30% of what they are saying, it just takes a horrific hodge-podge of gunshot Spanish to respond back…I talk mainly in nouns and omit most verbs since I don’t know them yet, but it takes time. I realize this. The trouble is I am not the most patient person.