I’m back in the city today, alone in my apartment thinking about it all.  Thinking about spending my final weekend in Colombia speaking Spanish, soaking up sunshine, and driving through the Andes Mountains with a family that considers me their own.

They hug me and laugh with me and they couldn’t care less that my Spanish grammar is pot.  They fix my favorite meals at the finca and tease me for going to bed so early.  They bring arequipe just for me and put my glass of milk in the freezer because they know I like it really cold.

They kiss me goodnight and ask what else I need and I tell them that I have my two friends with me, them a room away, an oscillating fan, and a bed.  What else could I possibly need?  I snuggle beneath the sheets and wonder how in the world I ended up here.

How did I get so lucky?  How will I ever manage to leave?

Something in particular that seems to inhabit all of the above listed categories are phrases that I hear repeated over and over again here.  They’re a different way of saying things and they strike me as beautiful every time I hear them.  How could I not share?

“A la orden.”

It’s a simple saying used in supermarkets, department stores, taxis and occassionally by friends or students with an affectionate smirk.  It means “at your service” and may be used in different contexts.  For example, “I love your shoes, Maria.”  “A la orden, Mees.”

“Te mando un besito.”

At the end of phone conversations, people don’t say goodbye.  They send you a kiss and usually make the muah sound, too.  Now, how cute is that?  I think I just might try it out when I get home.

“Con mucho gusto.”

Before I came to Colombia, the only way I’d ever heard of to say “you’re welcome” in Spanish was de nada.  Here, we never use that phrase.  We say “con mucho gusto” and though it’s used the same way situationally, the literal translation is “with much pleasure” and that just makes me smile.

“Mi Dios le pague.”

I think this might be my favorite.  I’d heard it said scores of times before I actually caught the phrase in its entirety and understood it completely.  When you do something kind for someone, especially an unexpected or unearned kindness, the person rarely says thank you.  They say, “Mi Dios le page.”  My God shall pay you.

And so, friends, es con mucho gusto that I write this little blog for you and should you ever need a Spanish translator, of course, es a la orden.  But, I must warn you, my Spanish still has some significant holes in it.  Still, should you choose this imperfect me, I assure you that mi Dios le page.  Until then, te mando muchos besitos!  MUAH!

Day 3

We were warned that today would be the toughest day of the hike, so we got up early to hide from some of the jungle heat and to make our way to the City before lunch.

The walking was precarious and more than once my feet slipped on rocks that weren’t meant to be walked upon by shod feet.  We creeped along the side of the river, high above the water, balancing on tiptoes and clinging to hanging branches.  We climbed up and through fallen trees and over boulders and fences and we crossed the fast moving river nine times before our guide said that only one crossing remained.

There was a mystical sort of silence when he said it and I think it had something to do with the finding of what had once been lost.

And find it we did.

We crossed the water and right there on the other side, the steps began and one by one we walked up the them, trodding carefully on each and every one that had been laid so many years ago by a people that thought the strength of the Earth could be soaked up through the soles of their feet.

Then, there was the city.  A city lost no more.

Day 4

The end of a long day.  There’s the quietest rain falling, the sun is nearly gone, and I’m trying desperately to determine how to best write while a gentle Colombian breeze rocks my hammock.  I hear the fire crackling and the cook is standing over it singing to himself as he stirs the frijoles that will fill us all ’til morning.

I cannot believe that I am here, but the blister on my toe and the smell of a four day sweat remind me that, yes, today is real and I am in it.

Day 5

Done.  We left late from camp and stopped to play in a sceret swimming spot.  We dove and jumped from ungodly heights and got eaten alive by mosquitoes and the like for nearly an hour before we made our way up and out of the hidden spot to eat watermelon and start another climb.

Straight up at no less than a 45 degree angle for over an hour.  Found a nice rhythm today and the group stuck together well in a clip clop of booted feet.  We stopped again when we cleared the shade to yell across the mountains– each of us dripping, but somehow content.

Back at Day 1 camp now and after my a nap and my second bucket bath, we’re playing chess in the candlelight.

Day 6

We were in no hurry today and slept in until a tardy 7:00 a.m.  Before breakfast we walked across the sun-soaked mountain and down toward the sound of moving waters.  There, hidden in the trees, was a waterfall.  We carefully climbed barefooted down the side of it- the six of us and the family that gave us a place to hang our hammocks.

I stood there in the spray and laughed at the way nature’s surprises and wonders can turn the burliest of men into giggling, playing boys again.

Breakfast of arepas and eggs, packs loaded, waves, kisses, and hugs goodbye.  Then, the start of a long walk home.  A long, steady climb, sweat, sharing water, resting at the top, chatting like friends that have known each other for six lifetimes rather than six days.

Day 1, end

Dear Jesus,

Please help me not to do bodily harm to my friend, Jill.  This torture is all her fault.  Amen.

Got up early, met the crew and guide.  Jill and I volunteered to ride los motos to the pueblo as there wasn’t enough room in the Jeep for all of us.

The Colombian man I was smashed against asked me over the course of the 40 minute ride if I’d have his babies.  I informed him politely that I neither spoke Spanish nor had sex.  Muchas gracias y bug off, creepster.

Oh, and dear Jesus, Could you please forgive me for all the curse words I said today?  That’d be swell.  Amen.

The mountains are gorgeous and we are, by all accounts, in the middle of nowhere and I am, by all accounts, sure to die before this is over.

Still, we are here and Day 1 is finished.  Hammocks are hung, we’re all laughing, and believe it or not, excited about tomorrow.  I bow out at a ripe 7:30 p.m. and wave like a Southern belle at the rest of the crew still sitting at the table.  ” ‘Night, Profe,” they say to me as I climb beneath my mosquito net and let a much needed sleep take me over.

Day 2

Another day of nothing but climbing.  Straight up into the Sierra Nevadas.

Reached our campsite by early afternoon and went down to the river for a swim and a nap on a sun-baked rock.  A group of 18 men and women all over the age of 65 just arrived to bunk with us.  They made the two day trip we just finished in about six hours.  I do not hate them.  I do not hate them.  In fact, it’s impossible to hate them.  Their zeal and humor is downright contagious.

Dear Lord, help me not to be old and ornery at retirement age.  Instead, let me think about hiking into the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other crazies even if I don’t actually do it.  Amen.

They picked me up just after lunch in a Jeep and we drove toward the mountain.  In just under fifteen minutes the road narrowed and turned to gravel and we bumped along next to the river.  I stared amazed out the window as scenes from movies I’ve never watched passed. 

Shirtless men standing knee deep in the water shoveling sand and tossing it into growing piles on the bank.  Women sitting on boulders with children in their laps.  Houses lined up like matchboxes, clothes hanging from chicken wire outside their tiny windows.  An old man ambling up a well worn path with a stick in his hand.

Colombia.

At last we made it to the natural reserve my Colombian mother had told me about.  We got out of the Jeep and walked carefully along canals and waterways as the groundskeeper explained slowly to me in Spanish exactly what I was seeing.

“All the water that passes here, my love, goes to the city.  The water is pure and cool and comes from high up in the mountains.  It comes to this place to run over the rocks, to leave behind the sand, to go to the people.” 

I stood there for a while and listened to the rush of the moving water, the sound as loud as a Thursday night on the street and as reverent as a Sunday morning mass. 

Soon after, we climbed higher up the mountain our feet gently swooshing as we walked.  We stopped for a picnic lunch at a small covered table and ate chicken, potatoes, and arepas with our fingers while the children chased butterflies through the grass.  Their laughter danced on the bright, green blades. 

With full bellies, we moved along on a short hike with the promise of “a great reward” to come.  And a great reward it was.

A small house was nestled in a dip of the ridge and flowers of every color circled its foundation.  Blooms as big as dinner plates and a variety that I never could have dreamed.  We walked toward the house as though we knew it and sat on small cushioned benches on the porch. 

And then, I heard it.  The hum of tiny wings.

Hundreds upon hundreds of birds rushed toward the porch to feed on the sweet nectar of the blooms.  Hummingbirds of every color and size.  Ones with bright purple necks and deep green tummies.  Black and white ones no bigger than my thumb.  A yellow one with a long, blue tail that shone like saphires.  They darted in haphazardly, drank deeply, then zigged away again leaving a sense of magic behind them.

I don’t know how long I sat and watched them play or how many songs their wings hummed to me, but I know that I saw them in my dreams and heard them in my sleep. 

That’s what Colombia is becoming to me, I think.  A compilation of rare sounds that could easily go unnoticed, but once heard can never be forgotten. 

The rush of water.  The hum of wings.  The laughs of children.  The thump of jump ropes.  The whoosh of buses.  The quiet of morning.  The beat of drums.  The songs of my happy heart.

I woke up early this morning and went for a wander along the Avenida just like everyone else in town.  The street was closed for bicycles and joggers and roller blades and for a few short hours the screeching brakes of buses didn’t rip savagely through the day.

People smiled and waved as I jogged past offering words of encouragement, polite nods, and the occasional bag of water.  And I didn’t feel like a stranger in this place.

I came home tired but revived and sat on the balcony of my loft apartment enjoying sweet mountain sunshine and salsa music from the street below as I waited on Jill to call.

Because that’s what she does on Sundays when the lunch hour rolls around.

We walked slowly to Milan and had fresh mango juice and bandeja paisa at a little restaurant on the side of the street where the waiter brings us everything “con todo gusto, mis amores.”  We watched people walk by and talked about life in a far off place and how we wished people at home could understand why we love it so. Then, we payed the bill and strolled toward home.

We passed the woman and her three children that spend Sundays sitting on the sidewalk.  The family that has nowhere else to go and too much dignity to beg.  We passed them sitting there, we bought five empanadas at the tienda, then we turned around and walked back to them.  The mother smiled, thanked God for warm food and undeserved kindess, and promised to pay back what she owed us.

And Jill and I swore we’d never just pass them by again.

I spent the rest of the afternoon curled up in my apartment reading and writing and loving everything about Sundays in Colombia.  The quiet of the morning, the comfort of lunch with a friend, the gratitude on the face of a mother, the feeling of being exactly where I should be.

A bus picks the teachers up early every morning and takes us down the mountain, through the valley, up the other side and to the little red schoolhouse.  I generally fire up the ole ipod and zone out for the trip.  Well, zone out while simultaneously trying desperately not to blow chunks.

I’m a multi-tasker and a true Southern belle (that’s why I can say blow chunks with such gentility).

Now, IF I survive the bus ride to school I have to survive the day with fifth graders.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Then you factor in the hormones and the flirting and the note passing and the hair fixing and the punch throwing and easy gets upgraded to hold-on-honey-and-just-try-not-to-hurt-anyone.  Violence isn’t the answer.

So, if by some miracle from our good Lord and Savior I see the end of the day, I get to crawl back onto the vomit wagon and start multi-tasking all over again.  Ah, the simple pleasures in life.

And the pleasures they just keep on a comin’.

See, on Friday, dear friends, it was hot on the bus and it was the kind of humid that wreaks havoc on even the straightest of hair and there were lots of people sitting in a small, cramped space and they were chatting it up like the holidays were already here and the brakes of that precious bus screeched like five hundred feral cats and I happened to have been doing Christmas crafts all day.

I admit it, I considered slaughtering my teddy bear reputation and adding to the chaos.  I was about two seconds from gnashing of teeth and slinging obscenities when I remembered that next Friday I won’t be anywhere near the Andes Mountains.  I’ll be home.

And the rest of the ride didn’t seem all that bad.

The truth is, those kids brought the house down and when they played “Smells Like Teen Spirit” I nearly lost it.  They were hysterical and fanflippin’tastic, I tell ya.

When the show was over the drummer and I had a chat about rock n roll.  We talked about our favorite U2 albums and Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.  We discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the fact that in another life I would have married Jim Morrison.

And then I asked him why he wanted to be a rockstar.

“That’s easy,” he said, “I wanna rock out for the lights and the smoke and the women, Mees.”

Just around the corner from La Suiza is Suzette’s.  I don’t have any idea who Suzette is or where she learned to bake although I’d venture that France had nothing to do with it.  The chairs are plastic and squeak when you sit in them and when it rains there are puddles in the floor.  It’s a simple sort of place.  Nothing extravagant about it at all, but I like it.

I wandered in yesterday afternoon as I often do.

The smell of baking bread danced through the air and I heard the oven ding gently as the waitress with the curly hair rushed to open its doors.  She smiled at me as she turned around and then started the rushing again, this time toward my table.

“Buenas, monita.  Que quieres, mi amor?”  Good afternoon, little blonde.  What would you like, my love?

I can’t recall when exactly she and I crossed the imaginary line that divides server from aquaitance and aquaitance from friend, but we must have crossed it at some point and I like the idea of that.

She’s no tie clad server at La Suiza and my bread doesn’t come with a sprig of something unidentified and green carefully placed beside it.  The tables are wobbly and the bathrooms don’t always work, but the bread is warm and the juice is fresh and the waitress calls me monita.

And I’ll take that over skinny jeans and color swirled centers any day.

Two weeks ago we received more rain in one night than we usually get in the entire month of November.  By the time dawn broke the land was saturated and sliding.  It took out houses and bridges and people making no notice of class lines.

The city scrambled to right herself, but the damage was done and the rain had not stopped.

It still hasn’t stopped.

In the passing days, we’ve been to school only twice.  Eighty five percent of the city is without water.  Countless people are sleeping wherever they can find rest.  Roads are in ruin.  Stores are closing.  Families are scrambling.  The sky is falling.

And like the Manizales soil, my heart is heavy.