30 October 2011

How did I get here?

Greetings from Cartagena, Colombia!

There's been a lot going on in the past few years that has brought me here...but in a nutshell: this past spring I took a course to be a volunteer Spanish/English interpreter for the San Francisco public schools; when I went to actually do it, I didn't feel confident enough in my Spanish (it had, after all, been 30 years since I'd formally studied it...and even then I felt my best Spanish was done with a beer in my hand, something which the SF public schools were funnily enough not endorsing!). I had always thought to myself that one of these days I'd go back to a Spanish-speaking country to live for a while and get the Spanish back, but didn't really do much about it.

To make a long story short, over the next few months I realized it was time to make a change from "same as it ever was." It all happened kind of fast even though on the other hand it was a long time coming: for several years I'd been thinking about moving on from Team In Training/Leukemia & Lymphoma Society but just still didn't quite know what I wanted to be when I grew up; I'd also been thinking for a while about selling the house I'd had for the past 10 years. A few things happened to make this summer the time to do it, and, given my recent experience with my disappearing Spanish, I set my sights on spending some time in Latin America. My last day full-time at work was July 15 and I closed on the house August 23.

I sold, gave away or donated just about everything I had, keeping only some antiques of my grandmothers', photos, and other "irreplaceables."  It's amazing how freeing that all was & feels. Just about all of my worldly goods are currently in a in a 5x6 ft (2.8 m2) storage unit outside of SF. Who would have thunk it?!

In order to have a marketable skill should I decide to stay in Latin America for a while, I decided to take an intensive monthlong Cambridge University sponsored course on teaching English as a 2nd language (CELTA), which I did in Sept/Oct in San Francisco.

Cartagena clock tower and old city walls.
I chose to start off with Colombia as I know some people in the country: many of the folks I knew from my year in Madrid seemed to be going back & forth to Bogota a lot and one of my good friends moved there a few years ago; also I had shared my house with a Colombian couple 4 years ago and we became good friends. I visited Colombia nearly 3 years ago visiting all these people and saw Bogota, Santa Marta & Cartagena, the latter two on the Caribbean coast. I *loved* Cartagena especially and decided to give it a shot....I booked a frequent flyer ticket departing S.F. late October, returning to the U.S. for the holidays. (Latin America destination(s) for 2012 are yet to be planned but will be!)

4 comments:

dhk said...

"If at some point you don’t ask yourself, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ then you’re not doing it right." .. Love it.

Palmira Walker said...

I'm proud of you Barb. You have guts. And with that come glory! I wish I had the same spit and fire as you do! One day . . .

Barbara McCarthy said...

Best of luck Barb!Hope you enjoy Colombia. Once you have the Spanish up to scratch you can come to Guatemala with me!Stay safe -Barbara

rollo said...

Hola Barbara, Sorprendido con tu decisión. Me alegra tu nuevo destino pues a Colombia voy todos los años desde el 2002, espero poder visitarte en 2012. Buena suerte y sigue en la búsqueda, tus amigos te ayudaremos a encontrarlo.
Besitos.
Rollo.