Thanksgiving in Cali

On Thanksgiving morning I woke up to the rambling of a bus beneath me and a view of endless sugarcane fields out the window. My nose hairs burned from the smell of ammonia I had endured the entire night, and I still kept my hood up around my face trying to hide the fact that I was the only female to step on board since we had left Medellin, but I was almost at my destination: Cali.

I have been in relatively close contact with Hilary, one of the other Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars who is stationed in this third-largest Colombian city, and after hitting it off at a meeting in Medellin back at the end of July I resolved to visit her and her host club before she leaves in December. For this reason I rolled into town early on Thursday morning for a wonderful whirlwind visit to the salsa capital of the country. I greatly appreciate her hospitality, and now realize how helpful it is to commiserate with other Americans to pick up on all the different Colombian nuances they are experiencing. Through our long conversations about cultural differences between ‘here and there’, I gained a new perspective on my host country through eyes equally intrigued and insightful as my own.

Cali has grown immensely in the past 20 years, but in a way of which no Colombian is proud. They suffer from more corruption than almost any other city, and the government is still more dictated by mafia and drug cartels than public interest. In the 1980’s there was a destructive earthquake in a predominantly Afro-Colombian town along the Pacific coast, bringing hundreds of thousands of displaced people into Cali. As an extremely racist culture, everyone admits that the influx of a darker-skinned population has led to the demise of the whole city and caustic stereotypes.

While wandering around an artesania district and climbing up a large hill to a shut-down church with a great view of the city, I saw just how extensive Cali is in comparison to Medellin. With the vastness of the Valle de Cauca welcoming the city’s expansion, it appears much larger and bustling than my part of Colombia when really it is 200,000 people shy of Medellin’s population. I was impressed by the Centro’s old streets and colonial buildings mixed in with glass-plated sky scrapers and new bridges. The Archaeological Museum taught me more about the country’s indigenous population than anything I could find in Medellin, housed in a beautiful old church. After getting a good dose of phallic pottery and shriveled but intact mummies, we headed over to an indigenous art fair where I talked with women and men from all over the country about the complications encountered by their people and admired (as well as bought) beautiful beaded jewelry, woven baskets, and carved salad tongs. I even bought a bottle of coca wine—something of which I had never heard after living a year and a half in the Andes and proved to be quite delicious!

Instead of braving the frustration of recreating a traditional Thanksgiving meal in a country where turkeys are less common than toucans, Hilary and I headed to Crepe’s and Waffles for dinner for the closest food we could find to American. I had a delicious red curry shrimp and quinoa salad, topped off with an ice-cream sundae and a side of hot extra chocolate syrup. If I am allowed any bragging rights in my own blog, I will admit that before leaving Medellin I cut open a small pumpkin sitting on my dining room table as decoration since before Halloween and baked a delicious batch of pumpkin pie filling (gf without the crust!) from scratch following a recipe I found on the internet. November just isn’t the same for me without pumpkin pie, no matter where in the world I find myself.

Friday we got up early and headed out to Cali’s sport center to watch the Colombian National Games. I was introduced to the national sport of ‘Tejo’, which is somewhat like horseshoes with pyrotechnics. Supposedly an indigenous game, teams compete against each other by throwing a conical metal disk at a slanted bed of clay trying to knock it against a circle of gunpowder in the middle to make a large pop, spark, and plume of smoke to ignite the cheers from the excitable spectators. Although I still don’t really understand the rules or point of the game, it was interesting to see something so typically ‘Colombian’.

Next it was off to tennis, where I was itching to slide around on the clay courts with the young girls and boys sweating out the midday heat. After a break for lunch and a visit from an American Fulbright Scholar also working in Cali, we headed over to the stadium to watch Track & Field. Pole Vaulting, the Women and Men’s 800, Long-Jump, and Women’s 5000 were all exciting to witness with the backdrop of the Andes turning into shadows behind the grandstand as the sun set. Teams from the different departments in Colombia compete against each other in all the sports, and I am proud to say that my Antioquia did very well. It seems silly that I should have so much paisa pride after less than six months of living in Medellin, perhaps embellished by my fantasy that I have exercised alongside the athletes competing in the National Games during my morning runs around the Estadio, but it was easy to be partial while getting swept up in the competitive spirit.

The last, and most fascinating, sport we watched was swimming. But even after watching hours of Olympic swimming over the summer waiting for Phelps to compete, I have to say that I have never witnessed any nautical sport as intriguing as what I saw this weekend. Eight girls walked into the stadium in their swimming suits and caps, carrying one large fin. As they lined up on the starting blocks, they put on their fins, placed a snorkel into their mouth, and sat like mermaids at the edge of the pool. At the sound of the whistle they flopped gracefully into the water, keeping their arms outstretched in front of them and repeating an undulating butterfly kick for over 15 minutes (I lost track of the distance). Needless to say, now I want to bring a monofin back with me to the states to impress everyone with my sub aquatic mermaid moves.

It would be a sin to visit Cali without going salsa dancing, so us three American girls went to a classic club with our Colombian pairs and tried to forget that we hadn’t grown up with fluid hips. I hope that people aren’t complimenting my dance skills out of pity, because I do feel like I have greatly improved my Latin dance skills since arriving and no longer need to look at my partner’s feet but rather let myself be carried away by the beat of the music and the pressure of a hand on my back.

Saturday I woke up with sore calves and tense shoulder blades, but ready to relax at the most gorgeous finca I have yet encountered while enjoying an end-of-year party with Hilary’s host Rotary Club Cali San Fernando. With three pools, two of which were natural and fed by waterfalls heading out of the hillside, a large drink bar and dance floor, largest collection of orchids I have EVER seen, and trail down to the river and mountains beyond, I was more than happy to gorge myself on traditional food and wander around marveling at the natural Colombian beauty that never ceases to impress me. All the Rotarians were extremely friendly and welcoming of me as a fellow scholar, although I was a bit intimidated by the way that they raved about Hilary, hoping that I could be complimented with such a strong assessment at the end of my scholarship year. The evening naturally devolved into more food, drink, and dancing—where I was swept around through the evening by old and young Rotarians until my shirt was completely soaked and my face hurt from laughing so much. I absolutely love how Colombians—no matter what age—will dance to any music. Hip-hop, reggaeton, funk, vallenato, and of course salsa all inspire their bodies into motion. I have not seen one person in this country who lacks rhythm.

Sunday morning found me back on a bus for ten hours, riding through more sugar cane fields and up treacherous mountains. Although Cali has great dance culture, awesome graffiti, and less pollution, the weekend made me appreciate Medellin for its Metro, stunning surrounding mountains, strong cultural identity, and hot water.