Before You Eat It

When they won't tell you what it is before you eat it, you know it's something a lot of people wouldn't want to eat.

This has happened to me with lung, tongue, brain, liver, intestine, and blood sausage.  If it weren't for the fact that ants and tiny dried fish look exactly like what they are, I'm sure people would have avoided identifying those for me as well.

Most recently, on a trip to buy the lovely bamboo shade (which turned out to be about the equivalent of simply tinting my bedroom window sepia and letting everyone see in anyway), my friend and I stopped for lunch at Condado.  The restaurant, open on the front with lawn chair sidewalk seating and a view of the striped umbrella on the avocado cart where we picked up our squash-sized avocado, offered the plato corriente that we were hankering after.  To order one of these lunches is to get sort of the plate of the day, which will come first with soup, ajiaco, and juice freshly squeezed from lulo or lemon if you're lucky, and then a plate of rice, beans, and meat, and maybe some vegetables or fried plantains. 

We passed the llaneros in their aprons and mustaches, adjusting the meat over their tented grills, and a grin spread across my friend's face.  "I want you to try something," he said. 

"Okay, what is it?" 

"Just something," he said. 

At the table, he began to tell me about the many different types of water-dwelling animals Colombia has, and I began to suspect I would be eating salamander, or perhaps alligator.  And I was thinking that salamander would be harder to swallow.  Figuratively. 

Some of these many species, he said, are sold on the black market for food, which lead me to believe that some are facing extinction.

"How did you know you could get the meat here?"  I asked. 

"I heard them talking when we came in," he said, tapping his ear, apparently the one that led him to his illicit discovery. 

When our plates arrived, I was relieved to see that the slabs of meat were big as milanesas, flat steaks.  I cut into it, and placed the warm flesh in my mouth.

It was salty.

About the texture of tender steak or perhaps pork, with crispy edges.

My friend watched me.

"Do you like it?"

I made sure to finish chewing and swallowed before I asked, "What is it?"

He took a bite.  "Have you ever heard of capybara?"

I nodded.  He nodded.

"You basically just ate a giant rat."

I nodded.  I checked in with my stomach.  All okay.  Checked in with my conscience.  Slightly queasy.  But it was already there on my plate.  I couldn't save what was already dead.

That night, we had the leftovers for dinner.

La Catedral de Sal (a cathedral made of salt...)

Far away, in the foothills of Colombia, in a pretty Spanish town called Zipaquirá, lies a hidden cathedral --  Catedral de Sal.  This cathedral was constructed within a salt mine in the mid 1900's.  If you press your tongue against the wall, like a kid dared to the frozen flagpole, the smooth grey stone tastes of salt.  In fact, it is salt.

Other interesting facts desde mis ojos azules:

- The tour of the cathedral was really a run through the stations of the cross, each of which had a salt-carved cross at varying heights, depths, and distances from various precipices.



- It looked like they called in the tech department from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to do the lighting effects.



- In the forties, people toured the mine/cathedral in their automobiles.  These days, they've perfected their circular ventilation design with occasional draft vents, and prohibited things like smoking and, ahem, driving your vehicle inside the mountain.



- The singing from a mass once held in the underground cathedral is rumored to have been heard out to the coast.

-You can have your picture taken in front of a giant purple altar, and then printed on a slab of salt!  Or a t-shirt.  Whichever you prefer.




And finally, to end the day, a kindly gentleman with a yellow-umbrella-ed cart will prepare for you, from twenty years' experience, an oblea con todo.  This is, a waffle wafer the size of an outstretched hand, slathered with: arequipe (dulce de leche/caramel), leche condensada (sweet and condensed milk), crumbled parmesan, y mora (blackberry jelly).  It looks somewhat like the following photograph (I still have not replaced my stolen camera):

School Drills...en caso de emergencia...

En mis clases en los EEUU, los estudiantes practicaron esconder de ataques de malintencionados con armas, como lo que pasó mas infamosamente en Colombine.  Miramos películas de instrucción, y después tuvimos simulacros de cuando sonó el alarma, los profesores cerrían las puertas y las cortinas, apagaban las luces, y todos agachaban, silenciados, en el lado más oscuro y más lejano de los portales de entrada.

El domingo, leí en el periódico Bogotano, El Tiempo, que estudiantes acá tambien aprenden a protegerse de ataques. Ataques de las Farc.  Había una foto de ellos, debajo de las mesitas, igual a los estudiantes mios practicando tranquilitos a callarse para salvar a sus vidas.

Cuando yo era niña, hicimos files en los pasillos, cabezas a la pared, cubridas por nuestros brazos.  Pero, solo esperabamos el tornado ocasional... 

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In my classes in the U.S., students practiced hiding from malicious attackers with weapons, as happened most infamously at Columbine. We watched instructional videos, and then we drilled when the alarm rang; teachers closed doors and curtains, turned out the lights, and everyone ducked, silenced, in the darkest and farthest corner from the entrance.

On Sunday, I read in a Bogota newspaper, El Tiempo, that students here also learn to protect themselves from attacks. FARC attacks. There was a picture of them under the tables, like my students before, practicing calmly the silence that might save their lives.

When I was little, we lined up in the hallways, heads to the wall, covered by our arms. But we were only expecting the odd tornado ...

Los Colores de la Montaña

(Por favor, disculpen los errores.)

Avergonzadamente, antes de que llegué en Colombia, no sabía nada del ambiente socio-politcal, ni el nombre del presidente.  Lo único que sabía era que en una época, no tan lejos de hoy, estaba peligrosa por guerra, drogas, y armas.


Ahora, está mejor, aunque permanece mucha cocaina y adictos.  La ciudad de Bogotá se hinchó con gente, desde 5 milliones de personas a 8.  Por qué esta estalla?  Porque unos diez o quince años atrás, la gente del campo se habían evictados y dejaron sus casas, sus cosas, su tierra, y ahora se los encuentran en las calles de Bogotá, desplazados y destituidos.


Un amigo expresó la idea de que ellos no eran pobre, porque, qué pobreza hay cuando tienes todas las necesidades?  Tenían tierra, comida, hogares, familia, y comunidades.  Ahora, sí, están pobre.  

El mismo amigo me mostró una película que se llama Los Colores de la Montaña.  Es la historía de un chico de nueve años que tenía de todo, incluso una pelota nueva.  Pero, poco a poco, las fincas alrededor, las de sus amigos, fueron agobiadas por guerrillas, los padres torturados, y las familias aterorizadas.


Les recomienda esta película a uds.  Es una historía triste, pero clara, con un buen actorito, y lindo cinematografía.

Now to translate:

Embarrassingly, before I got to Colombia, I didn't know anything of the socio-political climate, or even the name of the president.  The only thing I knew was that at one time, not so long ago, it was dangerous here due to war, drugs, and arms.

Now, it is better, although there is still a lot of cocaine and addicts.  The city of Bogota swelled with people, from 5 million to 8 in just a few years.  Why this explosion?  Because some ten or fifteen years ago, the people of the countryside were forced from their homes, forced to leave their things, their land, their lives.  Now, you can find them in the streets of Bogota.  Displaced and destitute. 

A friend expressed the thought that they were not poor, because, how can you be poor when you have all the necessities?  They had land, food, homes, families, and community.  Now, yes, they are poor.

The same friend showed me a movie called Los Colores de la Montaña.  It's the story of a nine-year-old boy who had everything, including a new soccer ball.  But, little by little, the farms surrounding him, those of his friends, were overrun by guerrillas, the fathers tortured, and the families terrorized.

I would recommend this film to you guys.  It's a sad story, but clearly told, with a great little actor and beautiful cinematography.