Cafe Colombia

Reality checks, perspectives realigned and Rockstar status. That was the first few days in Santuario, Colombia; the town I will be calling home for the next four months.

Santuario has less than ten lines in the relevant Wikipedia entry, it is not mentioned in the Lonely Planet and there are zero listings on hostelworld.com, booking.com, or any other accommodation site. The 14,000 strong town has exactly two guesthouses where outsiders can stay. I am in the larger of the two, a family run business called ‘Balconcito’. It is twenty metres from the central plaza of town which is surrounded by cafes, bars, cars, jeeps, buses, horses and the odd donkey. The family that run the guesthouse are absolutely lovely people, the mother, Berta, takes care of the day to day running of a guesthouse and her three children; Daniel, Angie and Andres Felipe attend a local primary school. I have had great fun getting to know them, however children do not seem to grasp the notion that a gringo might not be able to speak or understand Spanish at the same rate they do. In short, they are champions, but bloody fast talkers. You can’t get better practice than that though, right?

The twenty kilometres surrounding Santuario are mostly coffee and tomato plantations and is affectionately known as la finca, ‘the farm’. Nearly everyone has at least one family member who works in on the farm twelve hours a day, five days a week for a pitiful return of twelve thousand Colombian pesos per day which equates to around US$6. Santuario acts as a hub to these people from the countryside which becomes obvious on Saturdays as the country folk sidle into town in their droves. The week in Santuario is thus reversed for the small businesses and supermarkets that inhabit the town. Workers from the farms need to replenish their stocks for the coming week and thus the vast majority of clothes shops and bric-a-brac stores are exclusively open for business on Saturdays. Supermarkets also have lines out the door as farmers buy trolley loads of goods to load into their jeeps or onto their horses to take back out to their families. Similarly, restaurants rarely have a menu on weekdays, preferring to maintain one to two options for its daily customers, of which I am one. On Saturdays however, they roll out a proper menu that may have five to six varieties of food, however, as sure as the suns sets in the east, every single plate of food will be accompanied by rice, an arepa (Colombian flat bread) and plantain, a savoury banana type of vegetable that can be mashed, fried, baked or put in a soup; the epitome of versatility.

As I write this on a Sunday evening at 8:30pm, I can still hear the plaza buzzing with activity. Local music somehow surpasses the traditional boundaries of bricks and mortar and infects everyone with the catchy guitar rifts from the local Patchata music, to the more widely listened to, yet just as difficult to dance to Salsa. Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of attending the sole nightclub in Santuario for their ‘Seniors Evening’, but more on me being shamed on the dance floor by 75 year old seniors later.

Just as I wrote that last sentence a two inch long cockroach came annoying close to my foot. I managed to get the bastard with my thong. Anyway, my digs at Balconcito are wonderfully quaint and apt for what I need them for, minus the odd cockroach. The Nukanti Foundation, the NGO who placed me into this town, has taken care of all my accommodation and food, which is a fantastic financial situation for me after indulging ever so slightly in Brazil for two months. Those two months will be covered in time on this blog, I promise! My room consists of a single bed, a small wardrobe, an ancient television and a connecting bathroom with shower and toilet. All told it is roughly 2.5m x 5m of living space, that unfortunately does not have a window. As I said, I was planning on living a minimalist lifestyle on my return to Australia anyway, and after hosteling for the last couple of months it is an absolute blessing to have privacy in the form of a private room.

Balconcito is a five block walk from the school where I am assisting the English teachers on a full-time basis. The school day here begins at 7am with a thirty minute break at 10am that allows the necessary coffee and snack whilst lunch is taken once classes have finished at 12:30pm. The 6am wake up remains a slightly nasty shock which is not eased by the fact there is no hot water running from any tap in the town. What does ease the rise is the beautiful sound of the church in the plaza playing ‘Ave Maria’ from the loud speaker every morning at 6am. It is a great way to wake up and I have set my alarm for 6:05 so the church has a chance to wake me each morning. The music sounds as if it is coming from a 1930s record player with a slight crackle and a pleasant muffled effect added in for good measure. Breakfast is waiting for me each and every morning from 6:30 at a small restaurant on the second floor of a tiny mall in the plaza. This breakfast always consists of two eggs; roughly scrambled, an arepa, a slice of cheese, and a large black coffee. This delicious coffee comes from less than a kilometre away and needs absolutely nothing added to it for flavour. I have never been one to appreciate good coffee, but now I am afraid that has changed.

For probably the first time I can honestly say I am well and truly off the tourist trail. One other guy from the Nukanti Foundation, Justin from Chicago, is living in Balconcito with me, he is a good chap and has the advantage of being a qualified Spanish teacher. Between us, we have attracted more attention than I have ever received in my life; like flies drawn to shit, if we stand or sit anywhere for a minute, we become surrounded by curious children, inquisitive parents and confused elderlies. For many people, we are the first gringos to be seen in Santuario; for nearly all, we are the only gringos that they have spoken to, and for more than 100 percent of them, I am the only Australian they have ever set eyes. The term gringo also has an endearing ring to it and, as I found out, does not merely apply to white people, but any foreigner in rural Colombia. The questions we gringos get bombarded with, from mostly from children, range from the standard, ‘where are you from?’, ‘how old are you?’ to the complex, ‘did you come here to look for a wife?’, ‘why didn’t you teach English in Australia instead of coming to Colombia?’ Funnily enough, all are a pleasure to answer, and not once have I felt threatened or vilified by the local populace who are profoundly hospitable and genuine.

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The role for us as volunteers, outlined and emphasised by the Minister for Education of Risaralda, (the province we are in) is to not be an English teacher, but to be there as an aide and assistant to help with pronunciation, grammar and whatever else we can do as native speakers that the English teachers can not. This may sound as if we are surplus to requirements, but the kicker is that most of the English teachers have never traveled abroad and have met very few, if any, native speakers. As such, their English is of varying degrees, ranging from excellent, to barely any. I have been lucky to have been assigned a school that has two incredibly passionate English teachers who refuse to speak to me if I speak to them in Spanish, such is their desire to improve their English for the benefit of the children. The school and their determination is incredibly motivating, especially as much of the teaching staff, not just the English teachers, wish to learn English and are able to see the advantages of learning the language and passing that onto children.

English is becoming a massive focus for the Department of Education in Colombia and, to extrapolate, the rest of South America. Tourism has well and truly kicked off in many areas, yet there are still hidden gems, Santuario for one, that are yet to be financially assisted by the boom. But, and I say this with absolute certainty, there will be serious tourism present within the coming decade in towns like Santuario, of which there and plenty in this coffee region. With this, will come options for jobs that have not been previously present, and, hopefully, will offer a way out for many youths who unfortunately get trapped in the cycle of poverty, drugs, crime and violence in the rural parts of Colombia. The single pronged economy of the coffee region in Colombia has such an insanely beautiful landscape which, when coupled with fantastic weather year round, and undoubtedly one of the best cups of coffee in the world, will not remain untouched for long. Surely it should be a destination for both off the beaten-track travellers, and the hipster, coffee drinking enthusiasts of Melbourne, New York and London who sip on their piccolo latés for $5 per tiny cup at their wanky corner cafes. The challenge for this area of Colombia is to be ready for it when the boom hits, both in their infrastructure, and in their ability to accommodate tourism through having a portion of English.

The people here are some of the most hospitable I have ever met, but, and I say this with a frown on my face, it would be very hard to travel through here without a word of Spanish in your vernacular. I have never been so thankful to have taken Spanish classes. Here, without any, I would quite literally be able to speak to three people in the town: Justin from Chicago, and the two English teachers at my school. That would be a challenge for four months. Instead, I have found myself become an integral part of a micro-football team (soccer played on a basketball court) as goalkeeper. I don’t stand a chance as anything else, there is something in the Latin blood that makes them phenomenal dancers and elite individual soccer players who enjoy putting gringos on their arses when confronted by them on a soccer pitch.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of my personally run classes at the school as well. As well as the full school day, I have a two hour session from 3pm each day where I am teaching English to various smaller groups. Tomorrow I have volunteers from the two highest year levels at the school who wish to have an additional two hours to practise conversational English. It will be a real eye-opener to see how many of them can hold their own in an English conversation. Wednesdays and Thursdays my after school classes will consist of teachers who wish to learn English from a native speaker. This will be interesting, especially as the principal has indicated to me that he intends to partake in these classes. He is a fantastic guy, and a really sound principal who commands respect and radiates joviality in equal portions. Aiding this is a booming laugh that could wake the dead. Think of Uncle Bruce’s laugh in Spanish for those in the know.

For now, that will be all! I have not included a vast amount of details about where I am living and the people I have met, I know. But the beauty of living in a small, laid-back community is that nothing moves too fast, and so the characters, the places and the activities will remain here to write about for the duration of my stay.

Yours from the real Colombia,

Hugh

PS, I apologise for the lack of photos. The internet can’t quite handle it here.

PPS, Please do not read this post as if I am having a miserable time dealing with my first world problems in a developing society. I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a slight adjustment process, but there is nothing that I enjoy more than adjusting to a new pace of life with new challenges and an all encompassing feeling of realising how amazingly lucky I am.