A life in Colombia
Talk about speaking too soon. The day after I wrote my stroppy little blog about being unable to secure any work, two agencies offered me some classes. Starting this week. I should be teaching my first pupil, an auditor who heads a team of accountants, for an hour-and-a-half early on a Wednesday and for two […]
MoreI suffer from terrible impatience. Once I’ve made a decision (not one of my talents) I assume everything I want is going to happen within the next five minutes. I decided I was going to live in Bogotá exactly a week ago and, as yet, I don’t have a job or a flat. I’ve had […]
MoreMy potential new boss walked into the room. “Wow, you are tall,” he said, as we shook hands. “Do you have a boyfriend?” Now, I’ve lived in Latin America long enough not to be surprised by this question. I probably answer it three times a week. Dammit, I was practically expecting it. “More or less,” […]
MoreDiego is a loser. He manages to lose every item of clothing he owns. In the first few days I knew him, he lost two t-shirts and the same pair of flip flops, six times over. He has already given me two jackets and a t-shirt I liked, on the basis that he would “lose […]
MoreBefore I left England, I should have made myself a t-shirt. It would have read something like this: “Kent, but I lived in Liverpool. “27, yes, it took me a while to save. “It’s supposed to be six months, but I spent four months in Ecuador, so I’ll probably still be here at Christmas…” The […]
MoreWhen I was at university, I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold and thought it was brilliant. Since then, I’ve been meaning to read more of his work (particularly Love In A Time of Cholera and 100 Years of Solitude) but other novels somehow always got in the way. I have felt […]
MoreI was in Santa Marta for a few days before I hiked to the Ciudad Perdida. There I met a skinny, 26-year-old Colombian lad called Diego. He was on a short holiday from his home in Bogotá, where he lives with his brother, Juan. Now, when Diego heard I was planning to skip the Colombian […]
MoreMy legs used to be my best physical feature. I am 6’1 and – my fondness for cake aside – I have the genes of two relatively skinny parents. As a result, I have long legs. They are reasonably shapely and, most importantly, they were always generally unmarked. I mourn this fact. My legs are […]
More“Do you like cocaine?” he asked, politely. I shook my head. “No, I don’t like,” I replied, in my best broken Spanish. “I think stupid.” The cocaine farmer laughed. “Do you like cocaine?” I asked, curiously. He shook his head and gave me a beautiful smile, revealing two rows of startlingly white teeth. “No, I […]
MoreThe music was loud, the street was filled with people and the smell of fried festival food followed your every move. I went to Medellin for the city’s flower festival and, although this was probably an unofficial street party, everyone seemed in the mood to celebrate. The crowd was too thick for six people to […]
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Banana Skin Flip Flops 