The life I chose

It’s been a long time since I don’t write anything here. As a matter of fact, I believe the last time I wrote anything at all here was just a few days before I came back from my year in England in 2011. Yes, it’s been a long time, and if I haven’t written anything is not because I don’t have anything to write about, nor because I have been extremely busy, but because I just forgot. I forgot that I wanted to update this blog regularly, I forgot the subjects I once had in mind to write about, I almost forgot I even had a blog in English. And for that matter, I don’t update my blog in Spanish too often either.

I decided to play it safe. I will get a job, I will travel only on my vacations or when my job requires it, I will go out with the same friends on weekends to the same places in the same city, and life will be confortable and predictable. Eventually I guess I’ll get a wife, a couple of kids and a nice flat close to work. I’ll buy a car, not too big because I won’t have a getaway home outside in the countryside, but not too small because small cars are for bachelors and for people who aren’t afraid of  sudden change.

I will have exciting moments in my life, moments I will call “of change” that I will take as challenges. I’ll have to move once or twice, I’ll hopefully get payraises now and then, maybe I’ll break up with my girlfriend or wife. But that’s about it. If I feel adveturous I might found a company, or if I am lucky I could buy real estate and live on the rent. All in all I will get old and retire, and my children will take care of me until I die of old age. That’s the dream. To feel safe.

The first semester of this year I had the chance for the first time in my life of working 8 hours a day, plus 2 for lunch, every week day. I would get up bright and early, and get home when it was already night. It’d take me take one hour by bus to get to the company, and another to get back. That’s 12 hours total a day.

The first couple of weeks were tough. I wasn’t used to waking up that early every day since I was at High School, and after a long day sitting in front of a computer getting things done, by the end of the day I was so tired the only thing I could possibly think of was sleeping. That went on for a month or so. Then things started to change, or not to. Monotony started to take over my daily routine and as I started to get along with my colleagues, I became wonted. I felt like the lifestyle I had chosen was good, or at least good enough. Money started to come in, and I got in the habit of frecuenting somewhat posh places for dinner more often than I could have afforded before. It feels good to be served a nice dinner by a finely dressed waiter, or to be able to say “I’ll gladly pay the suggested tip”. 12 hours a day.

So weeks passed, and before I could assimilate it, six months were gone, just like that. My contract ended and I was left in an awkward position. I wanted to go back to the company, to any company really. I wanted to feel the security of a wage, of not having to eat lunch alone, of having something to do and no time for thinking. Sure, I had worked fulltime before, when volunteering abroad; but the fact that it was a different country and language and culture made it seem different. But at the same time I wanted to do something different, as I had always wanted.

No, I won’t be a cog in the machine. The old me won. I want to travel, not only on my vacations and not only for a few weeks top. I want to live travelling. I want to get a job, yes. And maybe that job will be fulltime, and maybe I will get used to it again, but I want it to be in some other city, preferably in some other language. And if I do get a job, I don’t want it to last for more than a couple of years, and then I want to move on, to some other place far from there. I want to know people from around the world and to live the cities as an inhabitant, not as a tourist. I don’t want to have somewhere to come back and I want to take everything I own with me when I move to a different place. Maybe I’ll have kids, maybe not. At this moment of my life the thought is secondary at much, and It’ll remain like that for the next I don’t know how many years. Maybe the thought will be always secondary.

It’d be naive to think that it will be easy even to start planning for this. Starting with my nationality, I am aware that we are not the most welcome people everywere we go. But I refuse to wake up one day 50 yeas from now from nap and not have a story worth telling to my grandchildren except for “that one time I had to go to New York because my boss at the time wanted me to go to x conference”.

Did she mean it?

“I’ve got a friend from Colombia”

“Have you? What is his name?”

“Yeah, his name is Stewart… ”

“Are you sure he is Colombian? That does not sound very Colombian to me, you know?” (Actually, it does sound Colombian, in the form of Estiguar, but I did not take that in account at the time).

“I know he is from Colombia because I’ve known him for four years. He can speak both English and Colombian.”

Original image by cphollywood

On my way back

At the end of the day there I was, in one of these few places in Europe that, from space, are seen completely dark. And I looked to the sky through the window of the coach, and realized that the stars were somewhat different to those ones I used to see back in Colombia. And I felt far from home, more than I had ever felt before. So I closed my eyes again, put my legs over the empty seat next to me and tried to dream of Bogota. When I woke up it was daytime again. The driver said something in a language I couldn’t determine, then in English: bus stop, Brussels. The coach stopped and two girls got in. They sat two places behind me and started talking with a Londoner accent. And for some reason I felt warmer, kind of cozy, sort of homey.

Image by Fabio Ricco

It’s a honour to welcome you

One of the most remarkable differences I’ve found between England and Colombia is the way each country’s inhabitants treat a foreigner. Many times I’ve seen Colombian people behave towards an European so sympathetically that, to be honest, if I was him I’d feel rather odd. And, conversely, many times I’ve been treated like I don’t have a brain into my skull, with proof that it’s only because of my nationality.

Turns out that most of we Colombians, when are in Colombia, often treat a foreigner like he’s a superior being. That’s not always the case, specially when the foreigner comes from Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia or some other Spanish speaker country in Latin America. If he comes from one of these countries, somehow we thing he’s not as superior as someone from far away, not as exotic or perhaps just a commoner like any of us. It’s possible that our obsession to attend the stranger as a saint has derived in something good: many people I met know that Colombians are kind and friendly. But I’m rambling on that.

It’s a fact that the dream of many Colombian girls is to find a foreigner to marry with, have a couple –or more—little white children and run away from hell. Many young women have an American boyfriend only because he’s American and her friends think he’s just so handsome. It doesn’t matter whether he knows which countries Colombia abuts on or not.

By contrast, British seem to think about themselves just the way most Colombians think about British. Now, I’m not saying that they’re racists. I’ve lived here for more than enough to realize that most of them are really open minded and (who’d say) even kinder than Colombians towards Colombians. They just happen to believe they’re somehow better. English girls are looking for someone regardless his nationality to just have some fun with. But I’m afraid when thinking on something more serious, a nice English gentleman is the first in the queue.

It might be germane to say that this little difference I found between England and Colombia –the only two countries I know something about— can be extrapolated to most developing and developed countries around the world. Although that’s normal, I find it hard not to wonder whether that behaviour is quite sad. In the bright side, the many transcontinental couples I know show me that not all people are like that. Just most.

Image by Luz A. Villa

Living in English

Some London sightseeing

Disclaimer: I’m aware of the Orthography and Grammar addicts. To be honest, more than once I’ve been one of them in Spanish. But English is not my native language, I’m learning it, so don’t be too hard on me. I beg for your mercy.

I’ve been living in England for something like 6 months and this is my first real post in English. I’m not saying that after 6 months of living in this country one is supposed to feel confident enough to write a complete post in English. Actually, I do not feel confident enough for doing such thing. But it’s too late now.

When I came here among the first thoughts that slipped through my mind was the one of writing a post in English. Suddenly one morning, almost 4 months after my passport was stamped in Heathrow Airport, I woke up and said to myself ok enough, it is time to write. That was more than 2 months ago, the length of time this post has been in drafts.

The first obvious thing you realize after getting off the plane is the fact that everything is in English. That was not a surprise, of course. However you are never completely ready for the switch from a totally non-English environment to a place where everyone just expects you to speak a perfect English. And that was not my case. I had tried to watch some Hollywood movies without captions and some YouTube videos in English, nothing really elaborated. Apart from that, the only English I ever heard was the one that came out of my English teachers and classmates’ mouths back in Colombia.

My case was not the worst, at least I had studied English in my country and knew the basics of grammar and reading. Some of the people I came to England with, from many countries, had simply no English. I can imagine the nightmare that faced them the first months in this country. In any case, I managed over the next 3 or 4 months to accustom my ear used to the language and finally I was able to understand most of what people said to me. And by most I mean asking “say it again?” less than twice, which is a good improvement.

London is one of the most (and I think it actually is the most) visited cities in the world. But I didn’t have that in mind when I first stepped onto its streets. So it was quite unexpected for me to find that in London are many people who are not tall, blond, blue-eyed and straight from Hollywood. In fact, if it weren’t for the nice architecture, the language and the roads clear of rubbish, I’d felt in Bogotá. But that is the theme of another post.

Updated with some corrections.