Sí, soy gringa

I can't count the number of times I have had this conversation:

Cab driver: Where are you from?

Me: The United States.

C.D.: Really? You don't look like you're from the States.

Me: Yeah, we're not all tall, blonde, and fat.

You would be amazed by how many people here honestly believe that all Americans fit the above description (or at least the tall and blonde part). I love educating Colombians by explaining that one of my favorite aspects of American culture is that we are a mix of all types of people. That continues to be a reason why I want to ultimately live in the U.S.

Home.

This idea doesn't exist in the Spanish language. You could use the word hogar, but it's not quite the same.

Home is a concept that I have grappled with over the past few years. Atlanta stopped feeling like home as soon as I left it (caveat: my parents' house and neighborhood still feel like home, but in a different way). I suppose that Athens felt like home, though I don't have memories of actively thinking about it as such. And D.C. immediately felt like home for some inexplicable reason. But Bogotá - well, it took a while.

Perhaps it was because we came here with no plan in mind - no end date, no friends, no jobs, no sense of belonging. We came more for the language and the experience rather than the place. There are things that I actively dislike about where I currently live: the pollution, the traffic, the rain. Many times over the past year or so, I wondered if I would ever come to think of Bogotá as home. I couldn't accept it - part of me always saw home as describing a place that you could see yourself living in for a long time, or coming back to. Having an indescribable emotional connection to a place. Though I have enjoyed all of our time here, I didn't feel any sentimentality about this place.

Until I just came back from a two-and-a-half-week trip to the U.S.

Arriving in the Bogotá Eldorado airport felt like coming home. Taking the taxi cab to my place, laughing at the forever under-construction road. I walked up to my apartment to discover that my roommates had accidentally locked me out and I would need to find another place to sleep that night.

Walking down the street to figure out what I was going to do, I passed by Juancho's apartment. I knocked on the window and he let me in. And that's when I realized - this city is my home. I could walk down the street, knock on a door, and feel completely at ease.

Riding the bus down the Séptima yesterday, I felt sentimental. This city has its problems, but they're my problems. I can hate on it, but if someone not from Bogotá starts to hate on my city, I will get pretty upset. I'm more interested to see what Bogotá's mayor-elect does with his position than Atlanta's or D.C.'s mayors. I'm worried about the construction near our house and how it will affect my commute. I'm going out for a friend's birthday on Friday. Nothing has actually changed from before I went to the U.S. until now other than my perspective.

I realized that "home" doesn't have to be something permanent or long-term. I don't plan on or want to live in Bogotá forever. I don't see us moving back here in the future after we ultimately move away. But right now, this is where I belong.

Reality TV stars

It's been Facebook-official for a while now, but I realized that we still had yet to write a blogpost about it: Robin and I are going to be on TV. Specifically, an episode of HGTV's House Hunters International is going to feature US in Bogotá. Apparently our lives are just so cool that couldn't help but have an episode about us (that and the fact that are apartment's amazing). I'm going to write a bit about the filming process, which is going to take place over the next month, but I first want to send out a SPOILER ALERT for those of you who still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and reality television.

The show is flying us to Atlanta to film the "before" section of the episode. Robin's already in the 'States, and I fly in this Wednesday. Please send me an email if you'd like to get together. A couple weeks after filming in the U.S., their film crew is coming to Colombia to recreate our apartment-searching process. For those of you who live in Bogotá, that 3-day filming schedule includes a Sunday afternoon (Dec. 4) dinner party at our apartment. I haven't yet decided what to cook, but I'm thinking leg of lamb will definitely be on the menu.

Lastly, I have a favor to ask y'all: in all likelihood, the episode will not air in Colombia for several years. Thus we would really appreciate it if one of our technically-savvy readers could find a way to record and dropbox us a copy of the episode.

Book of Life

Throughout the course of Yom Kippur, we repeat ten times this confession of a series of sins. It is a powerful prayer; each time you recite a sin, you beat your hand on your chest. There are a lot of sins on the list, but here are a few:

For the sin which we have committed before You by hard-heartedness.

For the sin which we have committed before You under duress or willingly.

For the sin which we have committed before You knowingly or unknowingly.

And for the sin which we have committed before You with a timid heart.

The rabbi's sermon last night on Kol Nidre (the holiest night of the Jewish calendar, the night of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement) focused on the last line, the last of the series of sins. He talked about the true meaning of courage - which does not mean lack of fear but rather not letting your fears get in the way of doing what you want to do or being yourself. "Don't let other people's opinions control who you are," he said. And so, I listened.

Today, I wore my tallit to services. What's funny is that simply being myself in the synagogue is, in itself, an act of subversion. I've covered this theme before. Except last night, listening to that sermon, I came to a different conclusion. I decided that I was not going to let other people decide for me who I will be. I will be myself. I will not be dogmatic in my views, nor will I let others' dogma determine my behavior.

And you know what? No one said anything to me. No one walked out of services because of me (that I know of).

Of course, this all isn't really fair. I'm clearly gringa and I clearly would use that to my advantage if anyone approached me about it. Yes, well, this is the tallit from my Bat Mitzvah. I was raised in a Jewish community that allows women to wear tallit and I am following the Jewish traditions that I was raised with. Colombian women would not have it so easy. But that's another issue. I can be myself. And I should not let timidity of the heart get in the way of that.

And today we both fasted. For the first time in... well, who knows, if ever. And we went to services all day. I'm talking about allllll day, minus a 2-hour break between Musaf and Mincha when we went and sat in a park. It felt surprisingly good, and not as hard to fast when you're not at home tempted by what's in the cupboard. I feel fresh and ready to start this year at full-speed.

We broke the fast at the house of some new friends. Most of the people there are in the current conversion class. They were all so warm and insightful and open and of all ages. Two of the guys realized that they are second cousins, and we all watched in wonder as they exchanged family stories. Today was full of community, the thing that I have most missed in Bogotá.

I don't remember the last time Yom Kippur was this meaningful.

L'shana tova u'metuka

Looking back on this past Jewish year, I couldn't be any more pleased with where we are now. We moved to Colombia a little more than a year ago with nothing but each other, our savings, and a Google Doc of about 20 people we should call when we got here. We spent last Rosh Hashanah mostly to ourselves, attempting to go to the Orthodox synagogue here while feeling completely detached from that community (read: mehitzas make me really uncomfortable). This year, we spent the first night of Rosh Hashanah dinner with some good friends (not Jewish) at our apartment and the second night at the house of some other good friends (Jewish). Sometimes I get sad or nostalgic about living far away from my dearest friends, and then I remember that we really do have communities here. We have built something from nothing, and that is something I will take with me wherever we go. Not to mention which, our relationship with each other has grown - the only downside being: what we will do when both of us have full-time jobs that don't have flexible hours and we can't spend hours just hanging out?

First night of Rosh Hashanah with our round challahs!

Much has happened this year - our nephew, Davis, was born on Rosh Hashanah to usher in a great 5771. Jerry and I both became completely fluent in Spanish. We backpacked for 7 days. We went to Ecuador and traveled around Colombia. We started doing yoga regularly. Lots of wonderful people came to visit us. Jerry fell in love with his new hobby, marroquinería - leather-working. I got a ridiculously awesome job and for the past month, I have been making maps (links to come once I have something up on the internet).

Hiking at El Cocuy National Park

In the coming year, I'd like take more weekend trips. I'd like to dive head-first into my new job, let go of my fear of making mistakes and just learn. I'd like to deepen my friendships here and keep in better touch with people who I am not geographically near. I'd like to do more yoga and ride my bike more. I'd like to spend more time out on our terrace. I'd like to live more intentionally.

Yoga on the roof.

To all a healthy, wonderful 5772.

Life

So, since my last post, our sabbatical in Colombia celebrated its 1-year anniversary. With this milestone came a some pretty amazing news: it's no longer a sabbatical. If we've learned anything from our time in Colombia, it's that nothing is ever 100% certain, especially if it involves a prospective employment opportunity. As such, we've been understandably hesitant to write a post on this until it became a little more "real."

Robin has a job! She's been talking with Colombian-based think tank CEELAT about a part-time mapping project for the past 6 months or so. Over the last month, that part-time one-off project got upgraded into a part-time-plus-bd-so-we-can-bring-you-on-full-time permanent position running a GIS lab for CEELAT. The job comes fully-equipped with benefits, computer, and visa(s)! I'll let Robin tell you more about the details of the job, but it's some pretty exciting news.

In related news, now that Robin's joined the Colombian elite, anyone got an old blackberry they don't need anymore?

Yaaaaay!!!! ... but what does Jerry think about this? I've heard plenty of people joke about kept manhood as the ideal life, but how many of them really feel that way? We've had a year of off-and-on futility in the Colombian job market (up until Robin's home run, of course); would I be happy with that for another 2 or 3 years? The short answer: yes (see previous post). Seriously, though, leather working's taken over my life... It's awesome. I spend all of my available free time at the workshop. It's tons of fun. Once I finish the latest bags that I've been working on, I'll finally take pictures of everything and put it up on flickr. To those people who are lucky enough to be receiving gifts when we head back to the US of A - all of the bags are looking beautiful.

On a slightly different level, some time before November we're going to roll out the Taller's entry into the U.S. market. Stay tuned for some serious Etsy-hyping.

Despite my love for leather, the job search hasn't ended. I recently took McKinsey's first round problem solving test and passed, but because we're leaving for Atlanta on Thursday, I'm missing the first round of interviews in the August/September batch. The good news is that I can still jump right into the interview rounds in November, and I get an extra 3 months to study. In either case the start date would be in 2012, so interviewing in November just gives me extra study time.

If that falls through, the plan is to continue with the leather working, add some woodworking classes, maybe learn how to build my own bike at the bike workshop, and possibly pick up a master's degree at the Externado or Los Andes.

See y'all in Atlanta! (and I promise that my next post will have photos)

Leather (updated)

So, I haven't written a post about my leather-working exploits since the brief introductory one about two months ago. Since then, I've made a wallet that looks almost exactly like this, a Kindle case that's a little too small for my Kindle, a briefcase/messenger bag, and a tote bag. I'll get some photos of the tote bag and wallet up later this week, but for now, here are some shots of the briefcase:

In general, I think the bag turned out great.
Things I liked: The leather I picked looks awesome, and lining it in the navy blue suede was also a good choice. The shoulder strap also turned out really well. I incorporated some ideas from a couple different places to make my own thing, and it looks good.

Now, to be critical, I wasn't thrilled with the overall shape of the bag. I had to adjust the dimensions to make sure that it could fit our over-sized laptops, and I thought that I generally would want a bigger bag. The end result is that the bag is a bit more square instead of rectangular. Aside from that, though, I think it's awesome. Higher resolution photos are up on the flickr site. Stay tuned for pictures of my other creations...