Home Life

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It’s time I introduce you to my amazing Colombian family. They're the family that lives at the volunteer house/center, and are the reason we can call this place "home." They’re also the volunteers and employees that I’ve come to spend a lot of time with. Berenice is the mother and is in charge of the place next door to me (the volunteer house/center.) She has two kids, a 14 year-old son Wiliam (who I swear is 11), and 11 year-old Carolina (who I swear is 14). I’m not sure the whereabouts of their father, but that’s typical of a family here in Colombia. Then there are two other volunteers at the moment, and two employees that also get the “family” title.

Berenice is a tough little lady. She’s roughly 5 feet short and will frighten anyone in her path. However, she actually loves to joke around about 98% of the time. She's also super nice, very caring and a great cook. For instance, one day she was sick that she didn’t come down during lunch to help watch the kids and make sure everything was in order, (she basically just orders them to eat everything and quickly). Well at one point during the lunch, she suddenly yelled at the kids from the top of the stairs (to my knowledge they weren’t acting up, so not sure why she did so), and everyone immediately buckled up, freezing into place with perfect posture! Even I did, and she wasn’t even yelling at me! I remember being confused at my own reaction, thinking to myself: I’m not even paid to be here, I’m doing my job and she’s not even yelling at me! So what the heck did I almost pee my pants for?! Trust me, she’ll rip you a new one in two seconds flat! But on the same note, she loves to joke around. One of her favorite things to do is to pretend she’s mad at you when she sees you. If you’re used to it, you’ll most likely blow it off. However, she’ll stay in character and repeats herself with a loud stern voice, making you second guess yourself. I’ve picked up on this right away, so she makes this last a lot longer with me. I just tease her back, until I get really scared when she doesn’t break character! She loves to pick on me, probably because I understand her sense of humor. I love catching her doing these things to other people though. And for some reason, both her and her kids couldn’t remember my ever-so-hard-to-pronounce name my entire first week here. Sure, I would talk to them all the time, but how often do you really need to use the person’s name, right? -Or perhaps its just karma for my sucking at remembering anyone’s name! So she has named me “Sofie” as a joke in result of this. The entire family still uses it today! They love to start the conversation off by calling me “Sofie.” The other week, Berenice actually called me “Kate”…no response, and then “Katie”…still no response. Then she called me “Sofie,” and I turned around to answer her! I even heard her say my real names, but for some reason, I had no reaction to them! Last night, her daughter called me “Sara” but I corrected her with “Sofie” and not “Kate." I'm so confused!

Wiliam is the only one that speaks English. Actually, he’s my favorite example of how Colombia works. He’s currently taking English classes WHILE getting paid to teach English! I can’t get over it! I need to find a place to teach Spanish around here! He’s actually quite good at English for only having 5-6 months of it. I’m sure the fact that his house is always full of English-speaking volunteers helps a whole lot too. All of the volunteers have noticed that he’s definitely the favorite of the family. He’s pretty funny, actually his facial expressions crack me up the most! I love watching him at dinner, he’s so animated! He’s like a cartoon with a face that can bend in any direction while his eyes bulge out! I’m constantly laughing at him. Every now and then, after all of the kids have left, we’ll play soccer in the house while we wait for dinner or whatever. He says his nickname is "Messi" since that’s his favorite soccer player and he plays like him. I, however, like calling him Wil-I-Am (like the Black Eyed Peas) or Profe (from “profesor”), since he’s an “English teacher.”

Berenice and Carolina don’t know any English. Actually, I have my own little theory about Berenice’s “non-level of English,” but we’ll leave it at that. Every weekday night, Berenice must also cook the volunteers dinner. So we get to eat with the family every night. It’s a lot of fun, but also a bit straining if you don’t know much Spanish or are not fluent at it. But Berenice is very patient and speaks simply, loudly and clearly, to help whenever she talks to a non-fluent speaker. If we really don’t know, then we just make Wil translate. Actually, I’ve somehow assumed translator position these past few weeks. I’m really excited about that considering I don’t know very much Spanish!

Carolina is going through that funny stage in her teeny-bopper life. She’s 11 and is trying to figure out what’s cool or not. She took a while to warm up to me and now loves me. We always sneak up on each other and grab each other’s sides in order to tickle the other. Naturally, this begins a big war! I normally end up chasing her around the house or street, as she screams widly with her head flopping and arms flailing about. We always motion the eye-to-eye sign at each other. You know, the classic “I’m watching you sign.” I’ll even tell her too to sleep with one eye open. The other week I was bugging her about boys. I think I called her bluff, because she got all red when I was questioning about her novio (boyfriend) that she had just gotten off the phone with. She tried to turn it around on me, but opened a whole other can of worms (more on that later).

Yamile has been coming by almost nightly and has been hanging out with us on the weekends. Her English level is not that great, but she’s trying her best to learn quickly. She has a gringo boyfriend that moved back to California and is hoping to follow him. So it’s great practice for the both of us, (Nicklas wants to get better at his Spanish too). Yamile and I often say the same sentence at the exact same time, but in the opposite language! I never thought that would be possible! It actually happens quite a lot! I guess we have the same reactions to things. Other than that, she’s great to be around. Pretty happy, always ready to do something, thinks of things to do that she knows we probably have never done, and is the Queen of the dangerous Barrio San Jose, aka the ultimate protection to have around!

Right now, there are only two other volunteers. The third, David from Las Vegas, has just left yesterday. He kept trying to leave and took him four months to do so. He was already talking about returning in March or April before he left. He’s a cook at the Paris Casino in Vegas and took a year off of work. So the two left are Andres and Nicklas.

1) Andres is from Melbourne and just arrived Sunday night. He’s 31 and I believe is some sort of doctor back at home (haven’t had time to get there yet). He’s been in Ecuador studying Spanish for the past three weekss and will be here until the beginning of January. He too has to figure out what to do when he gets back, and where back will be.

2) Nicklas is Swedish, but is actually Finnish (kind of like how I’m American but actually Canadian). He’s 34 and is high up at NASDAQ at the China Sector in Sweden. He took 3.5 months off work to study Spanish in Ecuador and travel around Colombia. But once he got to Colombia, he found himself on the Gringo Trail, never using any of his Spanish. He met Alexis and Chelsea at a hostel in Medellin, and the girls suggested to him to come volunteer as a way to get off the "Trail." So he came on a whim, and so far, has said it’s by far the best of Colombia he has been to. Perhaps it’s because you get to see the real Colombia and not the touristic Colombia. Plus, in Ibague, there’s absolutely no reason for a single gringo to come here, unless you are volunteering. You really must use your Spanish here. He was initially planning on one week, then maybe two, and now it’s a possibility that he’s staying through Christmas!

Nick and I actually call each other “Honey,” in reference to an inside joke. We have since remained completely amused by it! We still find ourselves using it in almost every interaction between us, daily. I almost always forget that A.) Honey isn’t his real name, and B.) what the heck his actual real name is! One time this guy, Chuck, was here for a week learning Spanish, and I couldn’t think of Nick’s name when he came up in conversation! Dave was the only one that was listening when this whole “Honey” business came about, so he’s the only one that knows it’s a pile of B.S.. He just giggles along with us! We’ve also decided to take it a step further, and make the others believe we’re together! Yamile was our first victim, and was hard to convince at first. Nick told her late one Saturday night and she couldn’t believe it. He told her that I’m the reason why he’s here, and she bought it (as I said, no reason for gringos to come here)! Haha! I don’t think Carolina really believes it, but Wil is having the most difficult time trying to figure it out! He knows we joke around a lot, but at the same time, it’s entirely possible for us to actually be together! He keeps asking me and "Honey" separately, but neither of us fess up! One of the cooks thinks we’re together, and she keeps hinting at Berenice about it. What’s more, is that we just went away together for the weekend to the gorgeous, quaint town of Salento (another posting on that to come)! We’re even so used to calling each other "Honey," that at the hostel in Salento, we kept addressing each other as such. We were killing ourselves laughing each time we realized how ridiculous and strange we must look to all of the others at the hostel, (he’s gotta be around 5’6”). We also didn’t really hang out with these other people at the hostel, much like one normally would, so we were that weird, unsocial couple –which cracked us up more! When we returned, Wil was definitely trying to question at just how good our weekend was, trying to figure it out. I think Berenice now believes we’re together too! Wil-I-Am is going to flip once he finds out we’re already leaving this Thursday for the long weekend to Manizales! (Colombians and their holidays! We just found out about the holiday upon our return from Saletno and jumped at the opportunity to get out of this noisy and boring town. As for Andres, I think he has decided to go to Salento instead of with us!) ...I suppose I should actually say Nick is my fiance, and our wedding is in Aruba on Feb 28th. That one's a fun joke too!

Jhoanna would be the other family member, but she doesn’t come around too much. I do, however, get to see her often. She always wants to hang out or invites me away for the weekend or to dinner or what-not. It sucks that she’s moving to London this month, I have a lot of fun with her. She always comes up with great ideas that also doubles as something great for a non-Colombian to do or see. It’s really too bad we don’t get more time together.

So that’s it for the home life as of now. Of course, there are many others around, but those listed above are the ones I've developed a closer relationship with thus far.

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