Pueblo Rico

One of the concrete canchas, this one is behind the school and overlooks cerro Tatamá, which is behind some cloud cover, I'll work on getting y'all a picture

Just down the street from the school looking 90 degrees to the left of the last picture.  The overhang that you see there is the coliseo and the little dome is part of the church

This is pano from inside tho the school, kind of a good view.

People cleaning in the school

Its not that windy, the trees are just kinda like that…

            So now that everything has calmed down and this whole experience has obtained a sense of normalcy that I usually takes me less time to find, I am happy to report that this place is pretty friggun awesome.  I have been without internet for a while now, so I cannot remember exactly what I said before, but this town is tiny.  When I say tiny I mean tiny.  So small infact that people that I have not met yet happily greet me by name as I walk by them in the street.  This is probably the closest that I will ever get to being a minor celebrity, which is pretty awesome.  Well, that is until I become a senator, or president, but that is a rant for another time.  Anyways, this town is three hours by bus from the capital of the region, Pereira, and is high up in the mountains.  It is not I am on a mountain side looking down at some far away place, but rather I look down into a vally, which again rises into another mountain.  Basically there’s mountains everywhere and amazing.  Some of them are forested, but others have cow pastures, coffee plantations, banana farms and other interesting things that decorate the landscape.  The things is that it is always cloudy here, so I unfortunately not be comeing back to all of you with the tan I all know you wish that I had.  But anyhw, because we are so high up the clouds seem only just out of reach when you look up, and it is not uncommon that they simply settle down and envelope the pueblo.  This morning was the first sunny one that I have experienced so far here in Pueblo Rico and I was quite surprised to learn that have been living under an absolutely gargantuan peak, which I have since learned is called Cerro Tatamá.  Its rather crazy how even the biggest things in the world can lie hidden from existence for all intents and purposes under just the right conditions.  Anyways, the next time I see it I’ll snap a picture for y’all.

            In the town square there is a small park which is surrounded by various little tienditas.  There is a general store, several restaurants, a couple of discoteques, some billiards halls, cafés, a bank, and the obligatory awe inspiringly beautiful church.  And that, my friends is basically the whole town.  When there are only 11,000 people in a town you really don’t need a whole lot more to be honest.  There burbs, if you will, radiate out in all directions and people live throughout them as you would expect.  One of the coolest things about the whole place is the number of places to play soccer there are.  There is one full sized pitch behind the school, which is pretty awesome to behold, especially in such a small town, which is reverently referred to as the stadium.  The other three are smaller, probably 40% of a normal cancha, two made of concrete and one of artificial turf.  My favorite is easily the concrete pitch called the coliseo (coliseum if you couldn’t figure it out), which is none other than that perfect, gritty, piece of shit, field of dreams, factory of faith that will give you your favorite scars and greatest memories.  This field is indiscreetly tucked behind the church and is for all intents and purposes a giant box.  20 foot concrete walls with the very best vulgar amateur graffiti surround the place and the floors have been worn smooth from the blood sweat and tears of hundreds of matches.  I’m pretty proud to say that I took a tumble and donated a few drops of the old sangre to the floor myself, no big deal or anything.  The sad things is though that I have only been playing with teenagers and the kind of just dick on my life.  Its kindof awful.  But thankfully they grow em short here so I can play a little bit of bully ball if push comes to shove, but I really try not to because no one likes to be that guy. 

Yeah. People like soccer here.

A hodgepodge of what's been goin on

Medellín:

            So Medellín is the cats pajamas. Just go ahead and do yourselves a favor and buy a ticket there.  I got my ticket there for 300 bucks 3 weeks before my flight…  Just saying, you could do it if you put your mind to it and put down the smokes or booze or whatever else if your poison for a couple of months.  And then you could pick it up here again for way cheaper if you really want to.  Anywys, the ciy is absolutely unreal.  It is nestled in the valley of two mountains, which is awesome to begin with, and the buildings and suburbs spill up either flank in a fairly unreal manner.  I took some pics, but they really don’t do the place any justice.  However, at night when the sky is pitch dark and you look down the valley and see lights spread out across the mountains, it really is a sight to behold.  To be honest it kind of looks like your standing at the bottom of a giant fluorescent taco shell, but think about it… Tacos…

            So I went for the feria de las flores, which is an annual festival that coincides with the harvest season, which outside of the united states is actually a really big deal because, you know, food.  Right?  Moving on, the city is super clean and has some amazing things to see and if you go during this festival you will be happy to find all sorts of amazing exhibits and such having to do with flowers.  My favorite was a giant flower armadillo that was like 9 feet tall and almost 20 feet long.  Made of flowers.  Pretty cool.  There was also an iguana, a bird, a jaguar, and a myriad of other animals.  There was a giant area set up in one of the city’s parks that was basically filled to the brim with a pretty unreal orchid exhibit. Think the flower show, but South American and outside in tropical weather.  Also the night life is pretty dope.  There is an area called parquet lleras off of calle 10, which you all should check out.  Theres like a billion trillion gillion bars and clubs all packed into something like 5 or 6 city blocks, and my friends it makes for a bumpin good times.  Just be careful of your wallets, if you know what I’m saying.  But yeah, check the city out.

            The one shitty thing that happened was that a taxi driver had no idea where to bring me and my friend david when we were looking for our hostil and he didn’t want to admit that he really didn’t know.  He was being difficult, but it wasn’t like he was going out of his way to rip us off or anything, generally a nice guys, but we definitely don’t operate on the same plane of existence.  Anyways, we ended up giving up and had him drop us off outside, alone, pretty not sober, at a metro station at something like 4am.  Not a good idea, but we weren’t getting anywhere anyways.  Fast forward, we find a bus and eventually get to our hostel at 5 am a little grumpy and a little worse for wear, but thankfully safe, unrobbed and alive.  We may or may not have dodged a bullet there, but don’t let that get you down about Medellín.  Do yourselves a favor and know where you need to go before you try to get there drunk at 3 in the morning.  Fucking love Medellín.

A word to the wise...

Here is a word to the wise.  If you ever find yourself in a place known not to be water secure always, and when I say always I mean ALWAYS test the faucet to see if everything is working before you go about your business.  I just found out the hard way…  There was definitely water an hour ago when I was doing the dishes…  And now I feel dirty…  And I've had beans at least twice in the last 24 hours…

Hindsight

In hindsight that last post was way more of a hissy fit than I thought it was going to be, sorry y'all.  It was all just a bit overwhelming so I apologize for the less than alegre read.  Anyways, things have mellowed out but also gotten weirder since my last post.  I met with the principle of my school here in Pereira, and shit got weird.  All was normal at first as we discussed the fact that I had a lot of work to do, which I totally expected.  She really loved the fact that I graduated with a degree in Biology and we discussed all of the cool things that we could do in order to put steps in motion in order to make Pueblo Rico a place where tourists could enjoy the surreal paisaje of the place and also help out the town economy.  Anyways, things got a little weird as she started giving me words of advice about keeping myself safe.  Everything made sense at first as she was telling me to avoid unsavory characters and that I will undoubtedly be a center of attention as a gringo.  Then shit hit the fan.  So there was another volunteer in the same pueblo as me who had to leave because he gained a reputation as a bit of a partier and a pot head.  Not cool for a foreign volunteer.  Made sense, whatever.  Then she started telling me about how Pueblo Rico is different from most places because of the fact that people are not afraid to be openly homosexual.  Whatever, progressive place surprising but cool, right?  Wrong.  She started ranting about how a man from the town had developed a strong attachment to this male volunteer and stuff had gown down one night after a night of hard drinking.  The quote was something like "he was very drunk late one night and the man who had an attachment to him found him and, well… you know… and then he had to leave".  At this point I was more than a little freaked out.  I am sure that you all can read between the lines there, but this was not cool.  She then proceeded to tell me to be careful when accepting drinks from people, and that I had to be very careful of my every move.  I knew that the pueblo is filled with some unsavory characters already, but this was something else entirely.  I will not lie I had a nice little panic attack.  Anyways, I continued to talk with her and things were not any less weird, but I don't really remember the conversation as I was a little fixated on what she had just told me.  Anyways, this is the best part.

I got to lunch with the other volunteers and on the way I talk with this guy who actually knows the guy this happened to and told me that he had to leave because of his weed habit.  A little confused I didn't inquire further.  He gave me this guys phone number and I proceeded to call him to dig into the situation.  This was one of the most awkward calls of my entire life.  How do you ask someone about a recently traumatizing experience in order to best know how to protect yourself, when it may actually cause them a lot of harm.  Sensitively is what I did.   I asked him about what had happened in Pueblo Rico and such and he said that he had to leave because of the weed smoking.  Somehow I proceeded to ask something like "is that really all that happened" and he responded "yeah, why what did you hear".  Then I took the plunge into the deep end and just straight up asked if he had been taken advantage of.  I figured it was ok because he wasn't talking with any reservation and seemed not to be hiding anything. He said no.  No way.  Nothing even close to that had happened.  Technically a good thing I suppose, but still confusing.  Apparently this principle is an extremely opinionated person with lofty ideals who tends to jump to conclusions and such and has a reputation for firing people without just cause.  So I don't really know what the deal is going to be at this school.  Now super relieved that my greatest obstacle may be a slightly less than sane principal, not a town with a rape culture, I happily continued my day and now I am writing this post.  ALSO.  I am sure that I am interpreting what happened wrong to some degree as my understanding of the spanish language leaves many holes in my ability to comprehend exactly what people are saying.  So, I apologize to the karma gods of I am totally getting this wrong, but this is what I heard.  Don't worry, though, I will proceed with an open mind with this program as if none of this ever happened.  Can't do much good here if I am afraid to step out the door as they say.  Anyways, here's today's life lesson, my friends: don't be afraid to get a little weird.  I'm about to at the very least.  Until next time.

But again, sorry about how moody this post is too, but this county just keeps getting weirder.  I promise that the stories will get happier as time goes on.  Peace. Love.  The Gap.

In the Mix

In the Mix:

Pueblo Rico.  It’s a town 3-4 hours outside of Pereira of 11,000 people that almost teeters on the mountainside just under cerro Tatamá at about 1,300 meters.  The whole place is set at an angle that even a mathematician with a propensity for hiking would call steep, except for the city center which is only slightly tilted on the mountain’s slope.  Little houses that are no bigger than an average New York City apartment encircle this center of commerce and radiate for the better part of a kilometer in all directions.  There are no yards or patios or outdoor places that you could call your own.  Each and every house shares two walls with its neighbors, unless you happen to be situated on a corner and I cannot make more clear that everyone knows everyone.  The nearest town is called Apía and is located some 20 kilometers away across a valley on the slope of an adjacent mountain, which takes nearly an hour to reach by bus.  So isolation is a little bit of a thing here. 

            I have now been here about 36 hours and all I can say is that it has been some shit.  I love it, but man it is another world.  So far it seems to me that the resting level of intensity is simply higher than the norm.  Now I realize that it is a result of being the new gringo thrust into the center of a town that does not usually get visitors and I have not missed the fact that eyes and more importantly ears follow me constantly, but this place is not for the light of heart.  In the span of just a few hours, granted very late hours, I saw three fights, a whole bunch of drugs, a grown man cry, more salsa, machata, merengue, and regeton than I though possible, beautiful women, angry men, unbelievable dancing, and a whole bunch of complex “isms” that I can’t even begin to describe.  It’s nuts.  Anyways I came back at almost 5 in the morning due to inability to produce or understand Spanish at that point in the night and I was the first to go.  The thing is that nearly everybody is trying to test you in some way or another to see where your comfort zone ends and where theirs is still intact.  It’s a little overwhelming at first, but even after one night I realize that the most important thing is that I not lose my head.  To drop a little bit of semi confusinism on y’all I got to be like a blade of grass on the wind and a leaf on the current.  Or then again I could absolutely be overreacting.  It wouldn’t be the first time I suppose.  Regardless its an interesting dynamic I have to learn to put myself into.  With any luck I made a good impression on the people of Pueblo Rico, but we’ll see how everything goes over these next four months. 

Anyways, my job here has been described as something akin to a cultural liaison, which means that I am not supposed to teach so much, but to make English more interesting for the high school students so they develop an interest in the language and hopefully some inspiration to pursue higher education.  And that is a task.  Every person who I have talked to, young and old, has informed me that the students really don’t care about it and that they view it as a complete waste of time.  Looks like its my job to go into this place and change an entire culture, which will be something else.  I get to be the prophet so to speak, which means that I must have a flawless reputation here while being infinitely charismatic with just about everybody.  I guess a success rate of more than 0% here, meaning that if 1 kid out of the 300 I will be getting to know decides to go to college, will make this whole thing vale la pena as they say.  I guess the weird thing is for me is the fact that I kind of like to float through things in a more or less oblivious way.  It has never really mattered overwhelmingly to me what people think of me or what I am doing, but now I have to be extremely conscious of my every. 

Also the worst part of writing these things is the fact that I have to read them.  It always sounds melodramatic, but it’s my best shot at describing the what’s what here.  So enjoy yourselves.  Don’t forget to laugh, cry, live, and never forget to look up.  Until next time mis amigos.

Cololololololololololololololmbia

            Por fin llegué en Colombia.  To be more exact my plane, which was noticeably more rickety than the average air machine, had a turbulent descent into the mountainside airport of Medellín.  Every shake and stomach curling drop was accompanied by audible gasps of displeasure coming from the mouths of us poor travelers, but all was well in the end and we landed safely to much applause ringing through the cabin.  It is strange how familiar and alien new places can seem.  The air was still breathable, the sun was still shining, and the water was wet, but just about everything else was different from the ever so scenic North Eastern United States.  Here the mountains seem more jagged and angular than those of the United States and in some ways less majestic in appearance, and I do not mean that in a degrading way at all.  When one envisions a mountain one usually things of a single conical peak set against the landscape, but the ones here are nothing like that.  They have more texture and movement and the peaks of a range look more like a series of rolling waves as apposed to jagged summits reaching towards the sky.  The green of the vegetation is even different.  Instead of a dark deep green of the forests we are all used to, it is a lighter hue, which looks more like grass.  I have no idea what kind of plants thrive on those peaks, but it would do me some good to find out I suppose.  And of course the people are quite different as well.  Everyone here is a little smaller, a little darker, and speaks a lot faster.  I love it.  Pretty much everything about it to be honest.

            The biggest issue coming into the county was that I didn’t (and still don’t) have a return ticket to the US.  Apparently if your stay is shorter than a certain amount of time (90 days I believe) than you cannot enter the country without an exit ticket.  Thankfully my visa is good for a year so I was whisked through customs and was thrust into the Medellín airport quite alone and more than a little confused.  Now my Spanish is pretty good.  It is passable in most situations and I can almost always at least get my point across in conversation.  I am pretty proud of that, butut my lord I am rusty at the old game.  It had been nearly a year since the last time I said a full sentence in the language.  Anyways, I knew that I had to get the city of Pereira, which was a half dozen hours away in the heart of the country so I began the task of playing role of any true gringo tourist and I started asking anyone with any sign of airport employment for directions to the nearest bus station.  Thankfully I had changed money before leaving customs because the journey was a little pricey.  If you are wondering there are slightly more than 1800 pesos to a dollar, but after the conversion most things cost almost what they cost in the US.  Anyways, I found myself in a minibus careening down a mountainside into Medellín and soon I was in the heart of the city.  And Medellín easily wins the “Most Beautiful City Matt Has Ever Seen Award”.  Man I wish I could describe it accurately.  The city occupies the valley of two semi parallel mountain ranges and is quite simply surreal.  There are skinny, but quite tall buildings dotting the bottom slope of the mountainside, which are intermingled with trees that only reach about 40% of the building’s total height.  And there are probably hundreds of these buildings intermixed with trees that go for as far as the eye can see.  At least superficially it looks like an artist’s rendition of what the cities of tomorrow could look like.  Anyways, these high rises continue to dot the city even as you approach the center and the trees fall away to a more classic urban structure.  Nevertheless, the vista entering and exiting the city is something to see.  I unfortunately didn’t have time to explore the place due to my relatively rigid schedule, but I would love to go back.  Someday I will, for the view if nothing else.

            “Five” hours later (something more like 7) my bus arrived in Pereira long after the sun had set and I made my way to the hotel with my new found Nukanti amigos.  The first three people whom I met that were not native to Colombia were Australian.  Go figure.  Anyways I was fortunate enough to make it to the hotel with the group and I settled in nicely and such had a slice of pizza conveniently.  Anyways my good friend Jakob is also in Colombia at the moment, just that he is being an actual student in Pereira as he is studying at a university here in Pereira.  He is studying abroad here and more or less getting paid to do it.  Pretty dope in my humble opinion.  Anyways, another volunteer named David, one of the triad of Australians, and I went and hung out with Jakob and some of his university friends at one of their houses, which conviently has this amazing abandoned house without a roof, which has an amazing view of the city.  Unfortunatly the night did not get any brighter as the hour grew later and I could not see much of the surrounding area.  However, Pereira is also nestled in the mountains.  Not in the same awe inspiring manner as Medellín, but quite amazing all the same.  Soon we went back to the hotel, got a few hours of shut eye, and I awoke bright and early to my first full day in Colombia.

And so it goes: The good, the bad, and everything else that happens to happen

To whom it may concern,
How's it poppin? What's good and what's cracking? I hope that life is going well and that its all hanging low and loose, like it should be.  It has been a while since I have been in the blogging game and even when I was in it it was superficial at best.  There was once a time when I was excited and motivated to post to this whole blog schpeel with a consistent gusto that would bring my readers (however limited they may be) a little deeper into the happenings of the life of one Matthew Peterfreund.  And guess what.  I'm back my lovelies and with any luck I'm here to stay.  Because as I look at my life in hindsight I have decided that I am truly a unique flower (is that pompous of me to say? Doesn't matter, its true).  It gets weird when we hang out in the best kind of way, if you know what I am saying.  So here I am to record and muse on the the various forms of nonsense that I find myself in through the medium of written internet ramblings.  So heeeeeere I go.

At this juncture in time I am in the Long Beach Airport in the Jet Blue terminal, tying my best to cinch a knot wrapping up the truly weird couple of days that I have had.  And unfortunately for all of you in order to tell this story I have to start at the top.  So three weeks ago, give or take a little bit I was basically doing nothing, which was great at first, but soon became tedious as the long hours of watching netflix, pretending to be a guitarist, and generally being unemployed lost the little zest that it had to begin with.  Ok.  Now I'm bored of telling this part of the story, but long story short I decided that it was time to take my talents elsewhere and to once and for all get back to South America, as I had been telling people I would for many moons.  So I talked to some homies (thank you very much, you know who you are) and literally four days later I had unofficial accepted a job (gig? Volunteer position? I don't really know what to call it to be honest) teaching English in the great nation of Colombia that was to begin just under 4 weeks later AND and an actual job driving a van from Denver to Las Angeles which will cover the vast majority of this adventure's expenses.  On the same day.  I kid you not.  Why? Because my life is dope and I do dope shit (Yes that a Kanye reference).  Anyways, so now I am going to Colombia in something like 5 days and I am waiting for my plane back to Boston right meow as I have completed the "job" which I have just completed.  So here is the story of the last little while.

The job description:
Fly out to denver
Meet the band
Pick up their touring van and drop off a trailer
Drive to LA and return the van

1,200 miles of gorgeous South Western landscapes.  Business expenses paid.  Moola on top.  Yes please… Yeah, so thats what I just did.  I would have spent actual money to go on that little excursion, and then I didn't have to… =D.  And here goes the story

I wake up and fly to Denver Colorado on a rather pedestrian Wednesday morning and arrive at the mile high city for the thirdish time in my life at 12pm mountain time.  I get in contact with the band manager and find out that they will be picking me up from the airport and such.  Cool beans.  Thing is that the parking in the Denver airport is rather hellish so I track down a parking cop and he generously offers to drive me around and until I find the people that we are looking for.  So in the layer cake of nightmare inducing parking structures present in this airport the parking cop and I discuss the intricacies of parking management (of which there are many) as well regale in tales of the hilarity which results from messing with travelers as they attempt to park and navigate the rapture of all parking structures.  You gotta get your kicks in somehow I suppose.  Anyways we eventually find the van and band members and all is well.  We part ways and wordlessly acknowledge with little thought that in all actuality we will likely never cross paths again.  Short and sweet.  Nuffin wrong with that. But here's where things get interesting.

The band is probably the biggest bunch of goobers, which I have ever met.  They are easily middle aged, but still have the hearts of, well children and they're not afraid to show it.  Amidst the various threads of gossip stretching from lady friends to recent firings, they managed to bring into conversation such savory topics as gay chicken.  Anyways I am bored of writing this, sorry folks.  The rest of the trip was cool.  Utah is gorgeous, the grand canyon is terrifying when you duck under banisters in order to get a better view of the drop, and LA is probably the weirdest place in the history of man kind.  Well at least Hollywood is super weird.  Peace out girl scouts.