Monday, September 05, 2005

15th Birthday Party

In the middle of last week, a knock came to our door. Deirdre opened the door to see the parents of one of her children standing there with a verbal invitation to a 15th Birthday Party this coming weekend. The invitation was accepted but there was a hitch…everyone had to be dressed totally in white; quite fitting since the family’s last name is Blanca.

The mad rush began for white clothes and white shoes. By the time Thursday has rolled around, I still hadn’t found pants nor had I found a fancy top and began to wonder if a bedsheet with barefeet would work. Having big feet is fine (thanks Dad for those genes), but it is finding shoes to fit those feet that becomes the problem. But with patience and a lot of running around the city, I found a few pairs that would work. The solution I found is to walk into the shoestore, pick out a few styles I like and then just ask for the biggest size. Most of the time I find shoes equivalent to size 8; 2.5 sizes too small.

The pants issue comes down to the style in which one wears the pants. I am still not too keen on looking Colombian with pants painted. I found a few pairs that fit the way I like them, even though they were a few inches too short, the change room clerks all amazed that I preferred the ‘maternity/baggy’ look and would hussle out to find pants that felt 3 sizes too small. I suppose when I feel more Colombian, those pants are always options, but not for now.

I asked around for a seamstress, and time was getting close. One was supposed to come to the apartment on Thursday night, but she didn’t show. So first thing Friday after work we went to a little shop in el centro to get me some clothes. I went with a few simplistic designs in mind, but the designer was trying to convince me to go a bit more avant-garde. Dee and I figure that it is some sort of “Barbie complex” in the fact that they want to dress up their little blonde customer. But with a few stubborn NOs, I got my way, had the measurements taken and told that my outfit would be ready by Saturday at 5. Still cutting it close since the party was at 8pm, but I had no other choice.

Saturday rolled around and no matter how much I tried to sleep in (cause I knew if the party started at 8, it would finish with the sun rise), I couldn’t. Up and ready by 10am and off to hit the city to run around and buy shoes and jewelry for both Dee and I and a birthday card for the birthday girl.

Running from 11 till 4, got the shoes, got the jewelry, got the card and then we hit the place where the designer works. Still no sign of her, and no sign of our clothes. Normally I would be freaking out, but my impatience seems to be fading with time here in Colombia. I figured that since I need to kill some time, the best idea was to go to the corner store, buy some beer and get the party started. While the time passed, Dianna, one of the shop clerks, taught me to dance Colombian style to Reggaeton and then to Vallenato (a typical style of music in the north of the country). It was just another little show for the passer-byers after some bra exposure measurements the previous day.

I grabbed a beer between our dancing lessons and sat on the front steps watching the city go by. I find the solo time when I can just disappear from everyone the most appealing. It is just a sliver of time where I can sit back and observe and sometimes be observed. I smoked, I drank, I smiled at the craziness of Latin America, I turned down coffee, coconut water, lottery tickets and some crazy old man who spoke Spanish with a lisp.

Apparently the shop girls admired my ‘don’t give a fuck’ joie-de-vie by sitting the central part of the city with a beer and a smoke…something that isn’t done by the women in the late afternoon, but will do so in the evening. So be it. 5:30 rolled around, and still no clothes, but it was time to get our hair and makeup done.

Wash, blow-dry, lacquered curls, painted on eyebrows, black-rimmed eye lids—I looked hideous and didn’t know if I would explode in a fit of laughter or a tyrannical fit. Instead I told them that my eyebrows weren’t natural with a pleasant smile. ( I was more afraid of them melting off in the heat and with sweat and creating some black puddle down my cheeks). I hated my hair and hated the Barbie Complex that they had too. The scary thing is, I asked them to do it natural. Apparently that word isn’t in their vocabulary. I looked mean with the dark rimmed eyes, and knew as soon as I got home, that look was being wiped away, or at least softened 10-fold.
7:00 and still no clothes. I was freaking out. I guess I could finally empathize with Cinderella and was waiting for a fairy godmother to clothe me for the party. 7:30 and finally they arrived. Now I could only hope that they would fit. The top was perfect, as well as the pants, but the legs were too long. I was told not to worry, and that they could be fixed on Monday. Dee played the bitch and within 10 minutes the designer arrived to hem the pants.

Done…now all we had to do was go home, tone down my face, get dressed and hit the party. We ended up being an hour late, but that didn’t seem important as everyone arrived late.

We walked into the Golf Club to find the most elegant room. Everything was in white; tablecloths, the chairs and all the guests. It was amazing to see. The only bit of colour was the birthday girl who wore a teal blue dress and the bouquets of flowers on the tables.
We sat down at our table, and the whiskey sessions started along with dance lessons to Vallenato. Luckily, I didn’t need too many and seemed to impress the others at our table that a white girl like me could dance to something so alien to her ears. I didn’t mention my previous lessons but was thankful to Dianna at the seamstress shop for making things less traumatic.

Discussions in broken Spanish about language acquisition ensued along with conversations about the history of music and the paramilitary territory of Monteria from a professor at a local university. I had a flashback or perhaps some insight into what the past must have been like for the wealthy Brits during colonial times. With the destruction and violence in other parts of an occupied land, the Brits stayed in their protected areas and lived a good life…it somehow feels the same way here. Forty years of ‘war’ in this country and yet in this little city life goes on in a normal way. It was weird how things just sort of clicked and I went with the conscious dreaming.

The night ended and I was home by 4AM. I woke with a slight whiskey hangover, knotted hair, and residual makeup that would have been a sure contender for a Tammy Faye look-alike contest. It was a pleasant evening and an experience that I may not have again.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home