Settling In

In the three weeks that we’ve been in Colombia, we’ve barely scratched the surface of its quirks. There are the typical stories we could tell of our initial transition to life as Colombians: the miscommunications in broken Spanish, the patches of seething jungle woven in between city blocks, the thumb-long cockroach scuttling along the edge of the kitchen counter. I’m sure they’ll all come out eventually. There’s both too much to share with you and not enough right now. Our lives have consisted of the everyday challenges of trying to feel at home and very little of exploring the sights of the country. It has mostly been mundane stuff, but the differences make household tasks feel so novel.

Here’s a snapshot of where we live now.

Armenia's location in Colombia

Close up of Armenia on Google Maps

We’re in the middle of the Zona Cafeteria (the Coffee Zone), which is a lovely area of Colombia. The distances on the map are deceiving. Bogota is about 8 hours away because the road twists and turns over the mountains. Cali, to the south, is only 3 hours away because there’s a nice straight highway leading there. If you zoom in, Google maps makes Armenia seem a particularly bleak destination. It’s not exactly high on the details. Likewise, the Lonely Planet describes our town as not worth visiting.

Despite the unflattering descriptions, Armenia is a decently sized city with some interesting features. There’s a nice pedestrian shopping area. There’s a great market just outside of the city. And the sidewalk becomes fair game to any number of vendors selling anything from cell phone covers to fruit to mirrors. It’s safe to walk around --particularly with another person-- and cab rides are cheap as long as you can muddle out directions. The cab drivers will usually give you a little Spanish lesson on the way to your destination if you can ask the right questions about how to say something. I don’t have a nice picture of the city, but I snapped one on the bus ride to school, which is outside of the city limits. The scenery is truly lovely.

Countryside just outside of Armenia on our route to school

We’re living in the posh neighbourhood in town. It’s certainly the wealthiest area I’ve lived in and the largest apartment by a long shot. Most houses have a guard that sits outside at night to keep an eye on things and all of the apartment buildings have doormen. We have two doormen who alternate between night and day shifts, Juan Carlos and Leonel. They control all entries and exits from the builing. In fact, if you want to leave and  one of them happens to be away from their post, you can't get out. Both are extremely friendly, helpful men.  Juan Carlos in particular has been wonderful by helping order bottled water for us, showing us around the building and speaking in very slow, clear Spanish. Of all the locals I've met so far, I understand Juan Carlos the best. His job must be incredibly dull but we've tried to spruce it up a bit for him. There is a large patch of jungle across the street that is too dense and too deep to be developed. A big valley runs through the bottom making it difficult to build on, so it has remained untouched. Apparently Scarlet Macaws and other exotic birds fly in and out regularly, but without a balcony we haven't been looking out often enough to spot one yet. Rather than put our compost in the garbage, we've been crossing the street to chuck our fruit and vegetable peels into the bush. Each morning when we wait outside for the bus to school, we look at the spot previously piled with carrot peels and passion fruit pulp and it has disappeared without a trace. Juan Carlos assures us that the animals have been enjoying it thoroughly. He watches them during his night shift. I hear there are squirrel-like animals the size of housecats.

Our apartment in Vancouver was a little more than 600 square feet; enough for a nice bedroom, bathroom and a living room/dining room/kitchen combination. Perfectly comfortable. When we arrived at our apartment here, it took us time to even find all the rooms. For the two of us we have three large bedrooms, two full bathrooms with showers, a large living room, a dining room, a kitchen with an area for laundry, another full bathroom attached to the kitchen, and a random empty room for hanging laundry (our best guess) just past that. The furnishings provided were very sparse and with tile floors, the place echoes like an enormous bathroom. A whisper reverberates throughout the apartment.

There’s a lot of space, but it has taken work to make it feel comfortable. We’re only using some of the rooms. We have a nice bedroom with a built in closet. It floods with light at six a.m., but it’s one of the few cozy rooms since it’s the smallest. We use the bathroom closest to the bedroom in part because of its location but also because one bathroom is missing the knobs on the shower faucets, and the bathroom by the kitchen is too derelict to use comfortably (it has been relegated to storage). One room is our “office” with a desk, so far. The guest bedroom is sizable and we’ll make it comfy when visitors come but for now,  it has only a double bed. The kitchen has a square foot of counter space, quite literally, but has a nice gas stove with four burners. The fume hood had bare wires hanging from it and had clearly been involved in a fire of some kind, but we were fortunate enough to get it replaced when we pointed out the obvious hazard it posed. Our electrician (who speaks perfect English, luckily) tested the wires by holding them gently between his fingers while Dan flipped the breakers. He explained that he was waiting for the "buzz" of electricity to stop so he could tell which breaker went to the fume hood. "Isn't that a little dangerous?" Dan asked. "Only if you hold the wires too tight," he replied. So much for safety standards.

A little paint has gone a long way to make our apartment more liveable. The entire place started off completely white. We’ve added a bright yellow wall to the dining room area and a warm milk-chocolate colour to the living room. We were hoping to make the place look a little smaller so it didn’t feel so empty. It seems counter-intuitive, but necessary. Finally, this place is starting to feel like a home.

Before and After shots of our living room and dining room

The best purchases by far have been plants. Shopping at the garden store was honestly one of my highlights  of life in Colombia so far. It was a frenzy of “oh my god, look at this one!” and “that’s the weirdest plant I’ve ever seen, can we get it?” The plants are all cheap, lush and delightfully exotic. We have a papyrus, a giant bushy palm and a small tree with a trunk as thick as my calf in our dining room. A freaky bromeliad, a “plumosa” with flowers that look like feathers, a Christmas cactus and a plant with hairy textured leaves are by the window. Dan even got a tray with a stand for growing herbs for the kitchen. If we remember to water them, my guess is that they’ll be huge in no time. If I don't hold myself back, the line will soon blur separating our apartment and the jungle outside. There's no differentiation between indoor and outdoor plants. They can all thrive anywhere.

We have already started school and have had a few adventures near Armenia, but at the very least you've got an idea of our living conditions. Welcome to our blog. There's more to come soon...