Showing the Flag

This past week was notably lacking in continuity, for reasons I shall discuss. As a result, this post will mostly be a mélange of the many strange things that have happened. If you can find a better through-line than strange, feel free to craft your own “Waldron On the Road” narrative. Or just drink every time I use parentheses (enjoy).

Last weekend, the team from Supia journeyed into the hills to visit another team, in the beautiful mountain town of La Merced (or as I took to calling it, The Merced). We were ostensibly there to take part in their yearly fiesta. But after arriving, unpacking our bags, and grabbing some early chorizo, we soon found a higher calling: municipal sports. The mayor of The Merced is a fantastic mayor, I have no doubt. But his abilities as a talent scout are not above reproach. Apparently someone had scheduled a basketball tournament for the fiesta. Which was in La Merced. And in the great tradition of Zen party-planning, La Merced had not put together, per se, a basketball team. So the mayor did what any reasonable mayor would do in Latin America: started walking around the plaza recruiting dudes that were either A. tall, or B. American. I happen to be both, and Javi is one. We were promised food and drink in exchange for our efforts.

I’m not going to go too much further into it. Javi and I had wiped the floor with some Supia teenagers the week before, and were overly confident. We took the floor against some grown-ass men, we were playing for a team that had never practiced together, and we got a firsthand experience of what a piñata feels like. Final score: a lot to a little. Pride situation: deeply bruised. Not much more to say. We went back to the hotel room, showered, and yelled a little. Then I had Javi hit me in the face, and we went out and enjoyed the evening.

I have now survived two Colombian fiestas. Here are some guidelines for the uninitiated: 

#1. When someone offers you a shot of Aguardiente, take it. 

#2. As Rule #1 will come into effect about every ten minutes, DO NOT voluntarily pursue the Aguardiente. You don’t catch the dragon. The dragon catches you. 

#3. Instead, I recommend buying a bottle of Aguardiente and giving it away to strangers, one shot at a time. 

#4. Colombian dancing is mostly for pairs. Colombian men, I’m told, are fairly possessive of their women. You must accept that this limits your options. You can either dance with gringos all night, or accept offers from middle-aged women and/or overweight men. I encourage both, but this is your own aesthetic/moral/spiritual dilemma. 

#5. Whenever you meet someone who you instinctively take a liking to, immediately start treating them as if you have known them forever. You will have more fun, they will have more fun, and Rule #1 will come into effect, sometimes straight from the bottle.

 

There. You’re ready. Oh, wait. 

#6. Learn how to salsa. Otherwise the middle-aged women and/or overweight men will mercy-dance with you for two minutes, then offer to put you down.

There. Now you’re ready.

After your first night of fiesta-ing till all hours of the morn, you know what you’ll be most excited to do in the world? Fly. Sure, you may question your judgment when you’re standing at the edge of a cliff, staring at the valley floor below. You may doubt your own wisdom when the paragliding operator says that he’s too heavy to fly you, and they go off in search of a svelter pilot. And you may have profound suspicions about your sanity when you and the skinny pilot run off the cliff, drop like a stone, and kick your way through a few banana trees before leveling out and experiencing the majesty of flight. But all that’s worth it. Seriously. It is.

                The second night of the fiesta resembled the first, except for the massive open-handed slap to the face that was Portugal’s last-minute equalizer against the US. If you watched the match, you felt what I felt. I went through the classic stages: Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Anger, and Acceptance. In many, many ways, I cannot wait for this World Cup to be over. My nerves simply cannot take much more.

We returned to our valley town, which was now in the midst of its own fiesta preparations. A phenomenal meeting with the Red Cross was followed by a spectacular downpour. This washed out our afternoon meeting, and allowed us to devote some more time to my beloved Estefania (Tefi), who was suddenly in rather agonizing pain. That evening she spent five hours in the Emergency Room, three of those with the entire team sitting in the waiting room, hoping that A. She would be okay (she was, sort of), and B. The waiting room lights would eventually come on (they did).

I want to be very clear: I have heard nothing but wonderful things about the Colombian medical system. Its payment structure, for example, beats our's all to hell, and I’ve been told the care is thorough and professional, without the over-dependence on surgery found in other parts of the world. That being said, Tefi spent five hours in an ER, and was diagnosed with an infection. Two days later, in another hospital, they realized it was an inflamed appendix, and pulled it. I don’t really like to think about what might have happened between those two visits. The poor lady is out of action for 10-15 days, and we miss the hell out of her. Upon being told of her condition, Don Jesus, who runs our hotel, responded, “but she’ll miss the fiesta!”

And what a fiesta it was. La Merced is a town of 6,000 and hard to reach. Supia is 20,000, and easily accessible from two major cities. Our plaza has been packed to the brim for 4 days. The liquor distributors are tapped dry. I saw salsa dancers do things with their hips that are illegal in the Bible Belt, and I don’t even want to talk about what it takes to win Miss Supia. Wife, wherever you are: 1. I love you, and 2. any potential daughter of ours is never entering a Colombian beauty contest. Too much skin. Too much shaking. Too much silicone. I would never watch such a thing (and couldn’t, because we ordered our food before it came on Supia TV, and by the time we’d wolfed it down and sprinted to the plaza, the contest was over).

It’s a little hard to express just how much of an all-consuming event fiesta are here. But we did manage to get in a day of my favorite kind of development work, what I used to call “showing the flag”. Basically, you step outside your door, go to where the people are, and see what happens. We went down to La Playita early one Friday. We were fed twice, played at least two games of soccer, a lot of Frisbee, talked with a dozen people, planned a meeting, and went swimming in a river. It was my favorite day since we arrived here, and confirms something that I’ve always believed: absolutely nothing bad can happen if you spend more time with the people you’re trying to serve. Except at the end, when you get to break off another chunk of your heart and leave it behind. Because doing the job right has its own cost. 

Too soon for such talk. Miles to go before we sleep. Stay tuned.

Monday Night Football

I took a nap around 4pm. The game was at 6. Woke up at 4:30, the room hot and dark. I had that electric calm, the kind I imagine boxers get before a fight. Shaved close and careful to a soundtrack of slow, heavy beats, taking all of it too seriously and loving it. Pulled on my favorite jersey: red and white hoops, The Fighting Waldos. Game day had arrived.

               

Roused my compañero Javi, and while he got his facial hair and jersey situation in order, I kept the beats going while shooting hoops at our hotel. I was nervous, and it was the worst kind of nervousness, where you know that your emotions are about to be played and there’s nothing you can do but take it. I don’t feel this way too often anymore, but that’s the genius of the World Cup: four years is just long enough that the pain is forgotten but the desire undiminished. Hope springs eternal, and that’s what kills you.

                

Javi is ready to watch. I’m ready to watch. But is the game on? Of course not. Colombians like to pretend that the US doesn’t play soccer, which willfully ignores the last time that the two countries competed in a World Cup: USA 2, Colombia 1.  However since a player was killed shortly afterwards, I don’t bring it up. The point is, Colombian cable companies have no incentive to broadcast USA-Ghana. We need a bar with DirectTV. And we find one. But we’re the only sorry souls looking for a piece of this action, and it’s going to cost the barkeep good money to order the game. We’ll buy beers, we say. He shakes his head, and proposes an unusual bargain: he will purchase the game if, and only if, we buy at least a half bottle of Aguardiente. Just so we’re all on the same page, Aguardiente is licorice-flavored Colombian firewater. Not entirely my idea of a good time. But he had us over the barrel, so we exchanged 30,000 pesos for two Dixie cups, a half-liter of local hooch, and two seats near the TV. Game time.

                

Most of you know what happened next. Deuce (Clint Dempsey) went through a Ghanaian defender like a wet paper bag, and the US was up 1-0 before a minute was through. It was, as the British say, a bit dodgy from there. Ghana had all of the ball and all of the pressure, and we just sat back and took it. When Jozy Altidore blew a tire in the 17^th minute, I suspected we were in trouble. When we finally reached halftime, I had just witnessed 45 minutes of the worst soccer America has played in a while…and we were winning. But this would not do. The Yanks were dropping like flies, the Ghanaians had what appeared to be a warlock among their supporters, and the Aguardiente was going to my head too quickly. We needed American counter-magic. I ran to the nearest grocery store and found some: Oreos. We had no choice; Javi and I were forced to demolish the entire pack in the second half. For America.

                

Not much changed after half time, until everything did. It was like watching a game of tennis, with the USA as the wall. And then, with a twinkle-toed back heel and a mighty lash, Ghana tied it up. I hit Javi. He hit the table. Despair threatened. And yet…still time. The USA awoke, nudged its way forward. A corner, won cheaply. A perfect ball. A Germerican head to meet it.

                

People looked at us from the park, stuck their heads in to see if the gringos were carving each other up. Perhaps they expected a cockfight or some gunplay. What they saw were two Americans, dressed in equally ridiculous jerseys, hugging each other, jumping up and down, and screaming into the night. A win. Is a win. Is a win.

                

We celebrated like Yankees should: found the only BBQ joint in town, ordered a pig slathered in sauce. Had a beer, shook our heads, still in disbelief. Started walking home, encountered three tiny youths playing a game of street soccer. I mostly played the enforcer to Javi’s playmaker, but I have not had that much fun chasing and flicking and juggling a soccer ball since I was wearing a bright blue shirt with a soccer ball on it, lo these many years (Wallenpaupack youth soccer reference). We made it home, stayed up till all hours, were shushed twice, and fell asleep with grins on our faces.

                

I know I should have a more complicated relationship with the World Cup. John Oliver’s rant against FIFA was spot-on. These sporting mega-events (World Cups, Olympics) are devastatingly costly for the host countries, with only fractions of the promised benefits. Over 60% of Brazilians are opposed to the World Cup, according to a Pew poll. The new stadiums in Manaus and Brasilia are white elephants, with no clear future use. Promised infrastructure upgrades never came. FIFA just spent $27M on a film about itself, while thousands of Nepalese and Pakistani workers are dying in Qatar to build more white elephants. I know all of these horrible things, and I’m disgusted by both FIFA and the host countries which kowtow to its demands. And yet…

               

…and yet, my squad is my squad. I can deplore world inequality, and wish that the passion for soccer in Honduras and Ghana and Tanzania was met with commensurate resources. I can applaud Costa Rica as they knock off Italy, a country with vastly greater resources dedicated to kicking a ball around a field. I can do all of those things and STILL shout my head off for America when it takes the field. There’s some cognitive dissonance involved, to be sure; more and more of it every year as immigration and globalization transform the notion of a “national” team. But I’ve spent enough time outside the country to realize how fundamentally American I am. I can root for competitors who share my norms and values and language, while still wishing that the competition did more good and less harm.

                

Two stories, then I’ll shut up: I watched the first Colombia match in Supia’s central plaza. We watched the second one at our hotel, mostly because we couldn’t handle the air horns going off next to our ears. It was a good decision: for the second match the supports apparently brought a cannon. When Colombia qualified, the fans spent all day driving up and down the streets, waving flags, singing, fiercely proud of Los Cafeteros. For every goal they were out of their chairs, hugging, dancing, and spraying fake snow. The same people, when asked, have given me a litany of complaints about their government and their society. But when it’s game time, they root for the guys who are from where they’re from.

                

Second story. On June 23, ten days after reporting for Peace Corps, I was basically thrown out of a moving van. In front of me was a mud-brick house with a decaying Acura in front. I spoke maybe 20 words of Swahili. My homestay father knew less English. But luckily, he had a football poster up, and when he saw I liked it, he said we would watch some that night. As we walked to the game, I was quite literally overwhelmed: red dirt, mud houses, stars stars stars, a strange new world. We arrived late, maybe ten minutes left. The village had one TV and a generator. We men sat on the floor and watched the play flow back and forth. 80^th minute when we arrived. USA vs. Algeria, 0-0. A win meant everything, a tie meant going home.

I’ll never forget that night, as long as I live. It was utterly dark. We sipped coffee afterwards while old men told old stories and I looked at the sky. I don’t believe that I’ll ever feel that far away from home again, and writing that makes me both glad and very sad. I wouldn’t have come home early if the USA had drawn the match and left the World Cup. I wouldn’t have been a single mile farther away from my life and my wife. But it mattered. When Donovan crashed that goal into the back of the net, and I started yelling and the Africans started cursing, it mattered to me, in a way that sports rarely does. I forgot, for a moment, that this was all wrong and I didn’t belong. I know it’s ridiculous; I know that Seinfeld was right and we’re just rooting for laundry. But we all get to choose absurdities to care about, and mine paid me back one lonely night in Africa. For that, for ever, I will say: Go Go Go, USA. 

Old Dogs, Little Beaches

     Big world, small world: we played basketball our second night here with a group of kids, about 12-14. They were talking a fair amount of smack, so I didn’t feel quite so bad about using my height/weight advantage. We mostly had our way. By “we”, I mean myself, Javi (from New School), and Juan Pablo (from a university here in Colombia). We have given Juan Pablo the nickname “LeBronzado” (which kind of means “the bronzed”), both because of his burgeoning basketball skills and because of his rich and darkening tan. During the course of this game, Javi crossed up some poor little sparky and finished nicely at the rim. As we were running back on D, I yelled out: “Finish Him! Fatality!” I simply meant to express my appreciation for Javi’s ruthlessness. What I did not expect was for our three adolescent opponents to start laughing and yelling out, “Mortal Kombat! Mortal Kombat!”. Big world, small world.

     Small world, big world: we walked down to the community in which we will be working: La Playita (the little beach). On our way, we passed all manner of sophistication: restaurants, gated houses, street lights on in the middle of the day. We saw soccer stadiums and fancy gazebos, outdoor grills and swimming pools. Most importantly, we saw a water slide. The town is up and it is coming. But eventually we reached the sign for our little neighborhood, turned off of the road, and stepped back 40 years. The houses were crumbling, the roads were unpaved. Trash was lying around, and the dogs were numerous, though thankfully friendly. Our contact was a woman who I feel like I’ve met before: the kind who won’t shut up at a PTA meeting until she gets the funding, the type who ran village meetings in Africa with an unteachable mixture of efficiency and beneficence. She’s a rockstar on a smaller stage, with a greater need.

                

     The neighborhood we are working in is marginalized, both physically and economically. The specifics are still a little hazy, but it appears that these people were uprooted during the violence of the 1980’s and 90’s in Colombia. This crime has never been effectively redressed; they remain displaced within their own country. The effects are still evident: high dropout rates, drug use, and underage pregnancy. Without jobs or immediate prospects, many of the unemployed youth have nothing better to do. Teenage pregnancies derail promising students, and the cycle repeats. The neighborhood Council wants to improve things, but they don’t invite the youth to meetings. None of us is sure what the youth think. We’re not even entirely sure how to ask. 

     

     What does unite the community is football. It is everywhere, all the time. Our community contact told us that she was thankful that her 21 year-old son had only one addiction: el juego bonito (the beautiful game). We got to watch the women’s team practice, and they could all dribble the pants off me. But as we’re learning from Brazil and Qatar, football alone does not feed anyone. What it can do is unite people in a collective enterprise: a team. And while this community is used to having teams that compete for trophies and championships, we are planning to use the team model to implement a life-skills education plan with an emphasis on sexual education, substance abuse, and decision-making.

     This town has resources. Our walk to the fringes made that abundantly clear. Our job is to connect this neglected barrio with those resources, and to work with all involved parties to create a plan that will endure over the medium-term (the  next 9 months or so), and might be replicable in the rest of the town. How exactly we do that is the question that we’re spending two months answering.

     But back to the inconsequential: this town has public-square Zumba classes! And a regular old subscription-paid gym! I’m doing more American things here than I did in America: playing basketball regularly, pumping iron, and watching attractive mothers dance around in tight pants. There’s a degree of cultural homogeneity (some might say imperialism) that I wasn’t quite expecting. There’s a Chinese restaurant around the block from my hotel. The mall I went to in Manizales had at least four different Abercrombie-esque stores with the word “America” somewhere in the title. My friend Juan Pablo and I were talking about energy the other day, and I was telling him how there are growing links between fracking and seismic activity. He didn’t quite get it. We’re causing earthquakes to keep energy prices low, I said. “America…too much power”, was his reply. Probably right.

     Yet that’s a poor place to end a blog for a happy week. This morning I got up early, even though we had nowhere to be. Read “The Poisonwood Bible” (also very much about cultural/religious imperialism) for a bit, just lying in a hammock. I could get used to this. The hammocks are somewhat secluded, which means I got to watch people come and go, to and fro. Favorite part of the morning: there’s this old German shepherd here, named Toby. I call him Viejo (old man). He’s massive, but slow-moving, and generally just changes his nap spot throughout the day. We get along splendidly, but I’ve never seen him show much enthusiasm. Until this morning, when Jesus (the hotel owner), was walking across the property. Suddenly, Viejo was young again. His tail was wagging, and he was bounding around his man like the happy little puppy he once was. They crossed the yard, like they probably have done a thousand times, and when Viejo’s excited circling finally brought him close enough, Jesus rubbed his head and scratched behind his ears. They kept on walking, out of my sight.

     I like to make fun of dog people, because they are quite often ridiculous. But I’d be a damn liar if I said, in that moment, that I did not want a dog like that, who was that excited to see me and go outside with me and be scratched behind the ears by me. Caring for pets is a luxury; in Africa the village boys were far more likely to hit a dog than pet it. There’s no bigger message here. I just love to watch a happy dog run. Reminds me of me.

Llamas and Mamas

Found a hostel on the internet. I suppose some intrepid criminal could have just made a list of Top 10 Hostels in Medellin. Safe this time. Cameron and I walked into the hostel, and were greeted by the sound of someone just wailing on a karaoke track. Friday night apparently equals karaoke. We were informed that the two beds we booked are no longer available. We had been upgraded. Upon being shown the new digs, we immediately noticed two things: 1. that there was only one bed, and 2. that one wall of the room was covered in a mural, featuring a particularly angry llama and a pair of devilish looking ragamuffins with precious few teeth. We said some prayers to these witchy children that our significant others would be understanding, and set off to find some food.

After dinner, we returned to a hostel which was still rocking karaoke. Acknowledging that no self-respecting traveler would decline karaoke on his/her first night in a new country, we belted out a decent "Tiny Dancer". But then the magic started. I've gotten to know Cameron fairly well. We were in Peace Corps Tanzania together, we went vacations in the same group, and now we go to the same graduate school. So when she picked up the mic, turned on "Shoop", and became both Salt AND Pepa before my eyes...I had a feeling this was going to be a very good trip. I did my best Vanilla Ice impression, straight to the point, no fakin, killed some MCs like a pound of bacon...and went to bed.

The last week since we arrived has been spent in Manizales, which is just like any city of 400,000 people, if it was then pulled up on all the corners and made to look like every house was about to slide into the middle. It's a beautiful, old city in the Colombian Andes, and is essentially the heart of the coffee-growing region. The mountains are formidable, and were a delightful challenge to run up. We got to take a trip one day to the world's leading coffee research center, CENICAFE. On our way there, as we were driving through lush, green mountains covered in coffee, I had an experience wish I imagine is analogous to a heroin addict driving through a poppy field. So this is where my fix comes from...

The rest of the first week was wonderful. We did a lot of team-building exercises, planned out our 9 weeks in general and the next few in particular, watched a lot of soccer friendlies, and ran. But at night, in our hostel, we had a few bottles of wine, and we simply laughed. Laughed until we cried. There's a simple kind of magic that belonging can bring in a foreign land. For all we want to fit in here and do our work, for all that we might not willingly form such a group in America, in the middle of Colombia we were grateful for what we understood about each other, and that was more than enough.

What else? I spent several nights eating and drinking in the living room/restaurant of a lovely burlesque-esque mama named Monita, who kissed me lustily on my cheeks (and may have copped a feel). After a Colombian soccer victory, we were treated to shots of Aguardiente, which is like licorice mixed with unleaded. Actually not too bad. I was asked for my opinions on the media, politics, and Henry Kissinger, and my response in broken Spanish was apparently hilarious. I ate too much food. I read too much about the World Cup. I missed my wife and my family. The usual.

But now I have arrived in the beautiful town of Supia, which is beautiful, and a town, and hellishly hot. I have acquired a hat which makes me look like a Colombian cowboy. I'm basically living in a tree fort with two guys who have metal-pumping on their minds. This will make me or break me. We're about to meet with the mayor, present our plan for the summer, and get down to work.

What is our plan? We're working with a small community just outside of Supia proper. Students from The New School started working there last year, and we are trying to implement a sports-based mentoring program for vulnerable youth. Since the decline of the coffee economy, youth unemployment, teenage pregnancy, and drugs have become more severe (similar to many parts of the world). But this community, like many others, contains a world of resources, and our job is to put some of those resources together in unexpected and effective ways, so that these kids can have a fairer shot. That's the big picture. The details are still coming.

In the meantime, my Spanish is broken, I can't make dirty jokes again, and I have both a hat AND a sunburn. I'm somewhere else in the world, and it is once again beautiful.