..to the Rage Stage

They say there are four stages to living abroad: the honeymoon stage, the rage stage, the understanding stage, and the acclimation stage.  After three months of wandering awestruck and cheerful through Caracas (remember that January post about becoming a real Caraqueña?), my honeymoon phase came to an abrupt end this week as I hit the rage stage like a car hitting a tree.  Lots of little things that I'd laughed about or shrugged off before suddenly had me wanting to tear my hair out in frustration or punch a Caraqueño in the nose.  

I will preface this rant by saying that I still have nothing but respect for this country and its people.  That being said:

Leave my flip-flops alone! Back home in NC, everyone wears flip-flops.  I have friends who wear flip-flops in the dead of winter.  These aren't - normally - little plastic bathroom flip-flops, but Rainbows: super nice $45 brown leather sandals.  So popular around where I live that I just discovered that Rainbow makes custom sandals for my university (baller!) - NCSU Rainbows! Anyway, color me thrilled when I get to spend eight months in a country where EVERY day is Rainbows weather!  Thrilled until I realize that nooo one here wears normal looking flip-flops outside on the streets (as they've been permanently categorized as bathing shoes or something).  Sure, they've got plenty of ridiculous looking sandals with all sorts of flowers and/or rhinestones stuck to them, but flip-flops? Noooooo.  

So, when little 'ol me rides the metro or walks the 25+ minutes to work every day, I usually walk in my Rainbows with my heels tucked in my purse.  Cue the judgy looks from pedestrians and fellow metro users, 1. because I'm not wearing my work shoes and 2. because my footwear of choice is flip-flops.  One day last week, just for kicks, I decided to do the whole commute in heels.  I arrived at work convinced that every woman in this country is absolutely nuts for walking in their ridiculous stilettos up and down the uneven streets of the city.  I AM going to wear my flip-flops thank you, and if you even think about judging me for wearing my spectacularly comfortable, worn, Rainbows (which cost a whole lot more than your skanky ho heels), we may have to throw down.

Hey, you with the face-paint! I came to the shocking realization this week that I rarely leave the house without make-up anymore.*  Back home I'd wear it going out, or going to work.  When I came here, I started by doing the same.  However, you leave the house here without make-up and people stare at you in a way that reminds you of that nightmare where you accidentally show up to school having forgotten to put on clothes.  As much as I LOATHE the catcalls and hisses (actually correction: I did find make my peace with the hisses after awhile - reminds me of cicadas on a summer night in NC), what one of my guy friends told me is true: if I DON'T get a catcall, I feel like I've got spinach in my teeth.  I've been living in the city too long.   

*The notable exception is working-out.  I will never, NEVER, adopt the Venezuelan habit of working-out in full make-up and a matchy-matchy outfit (at times including a shirt I'd only ever consider wearing the club).  Sure I get looks when I run by in Soffe shorts, an old T-shirt, and crazy hair, but some of us actually try to break a sweat when we work out.

Looking for the Feminine Mystique, Venezuela Edition  This country is about thirty years overdue for a feminist movement.  I'll never consider myself a burn-the-bra radical feminist, but I'm starting to lose it with the female obsession with obtaining the most Barbie-like figure.  At least in the parts of Caracas I frequent, it isn't an exaggeration to say that 50% of women in a given setting may be sporting breast implants.  I'm also getting super good at identifying butt implants as well (the key: if it defies gravity, it ain't real).  Young girls get surgeries for their 15th birthday present (like Sweet 16 in the US) - doesn't it matter that you don't finish growing til your early to mid-twenties.  Women who are married and have kids get them, women with children my age get them.  I have met Venezuelans who are ambivalent towards implants, but I've yet to meet more than one or two who share the view that most of us female Fulbrighters have, which is: this is the most ridiculous thing we've ever seen!  There is no voice in the decision-making process that says 'no, why would you get invasive surgery - you look fine the way you are!'  In the States, breast augmentation and plastic surgery in general is still - in my opinion, at least - viewed somewhat critically.  Here it's the norm.  The Venezuelan obsession with beauty* is downright exhausting. 

*For women, anyway...

Okay that's my rant...I could go on, but I'd rather not be TOO judgmental or grumpy over the World Wide Web.  As you can see, Honeymoon stage DEFINITELY over.  I'm not worried though; Venezuela and I have a healthy foundation to our relationship.  It's a beautiful country, with some awesome people, a great take on the Spanish language, and a lot to see. Give me another week or so and I'll be just fine.  Looking forward to the Understanding and Acclimation stages. 

...to a maracucho fin de semana

We ETAs can´t seem to go too long without seeing each other.  I last saw most of the crew at the beginning of January in Caracas, but we made plans almost immediately to reunir (meet up) in Maracaibo - Venezuela´s second largest city - at the end of the month.  Maracaibo, is in oil country, nestled on the edge of an ENORMOUS lake and is known across the country for being SUPER* hot.  We basically walked around with this permanent sticky sheen on us... for some reason it reminded me of Kuwait; the architecture, layout of the city, etc.  I can't tell if it was sheer coincidence or had something to do with the fact that they're both into petrol.
*super = relative term here...it can´t hold a candle to North Carolina in August, but I´d say humidity and heatwise, it´s at least around a Southern May or June.  Definitely warmer than what I´m used to back in Caracas.

I BOOKED it out of my conversation club Friday afternoon, lugging my massive hiking pack through the metro at rush hour, trying to catch the government-run shuttle to the airport and praying we wouldn´t hit any of the Caracas, Friday afternoon cola (traffic jam) that is oh, too typical.  Had a wonderful tour through the barrios, as our driver decided to take a shortcut and ended up getting lost and taking us the wrong way on a narrrrow one-way street with the result being our giving a propane truck a love-tap.  The Venezuelans on my bus were less than happy. 

I came into La Chinita International (yes, that literally means Little Chinese Woman...embrace the political correctness) around 11:15pm (over an hour late) and was met at the hotel in El Centro (the downtown area) by Eric before midnight.  We joined Camille (also posted in Maracaibo), Hilda, Ala (from Roraima fame) and their friends at the gay club a block away.  Gay clubs are becoming a bit of a tradition with our group...I always enjoy myself thoroughly.  Given that there are parents who read this, I will say little about the general awesomeness of the evening, but I MUST say that it included a show with both a male and female stripper.  (That last line was more to enjoy the mental image of my mother bursting out laughing, and my grandmother busting out her rosary and praying for my soul)

Saturday consisted of eating interrupted by a bit of walking and touristy business.  We dragged our unhappy selves over to a cafe called Jeffrey´s (Hilda developed an unnatural obsession with this place), tucked into some morning/early afternoon coffee, got ourselves an empanada, then moseyed over to CEVAZ (CVA in the state of Zulia - where both Eric and Camille work) stopping first to get a buffet lunch (yes, we´d eaten about 30 minutes prior).  CEVAZ was beautiful - wonderful facilities, all sparkly and shiny, and Camille and Eric are CELEBRITIES (they´ve got film ads within CEVAZ...).  After CEVAZ, we RETURNED to Jeffrey´s for large amounts of dessert (my stomach was starting to protest at this point) and coffee and were joined by Carolyn!  Totally exciting because I hadn´t seen this Valera ETA in over a month!

Wayyyy too much torta...notice the light sweating courtesy of Maracaibo humidity

Did some more wandering, checking some of the gorgeous buildings and churches in Maracaibo´s downtown area (yes mom, I made three wishes).  My years of Catholic school came in handy when I was able to correctly identify the statues of a martyr with arrows sticking out of him as Saint Sebastian *bows*.  I still haven´t the foggiest why he´s so popular there.  Pizza for dinner (really, the amount of food was unnecessario) and then we headed back to our respective abodes to change for night two on the town.

Blue church in El Centro!

San Sebastian: thank you Sunday School!

We ended up at this ´sifrino´ club (hmm best way to translate that is like, hipster, high-class, or posh) for the evening all dolled up in our sifrino clothes (I did some serious shopping on Sabana Grande in Caracas before I came).  Danced until three then did some late night driving to a place where I fell in deeply and profoundly in love.  With a Venezuelan dish called patacon. Imagine a sandwich but in place of bread there's fried green (or maduro - mature) plantains.  Then add chicken, lettuce, tomato, amazing sauce, etc.  DIVINO.  I'm not even doing it justice.

The girls in our sifrina attire

Sunday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed even later, and went to this restaurant/lounge that can best be described as a cruise ship (entertainment-wise) without the boat.  Camille snuck us in a loaf of pan de queso (cheese bread - bread filled with this delicious cheese) and we stuffed our faces.  Then off to the park where we got to see the lake, and enjoy some gorgeous sun and breeze.  We went to this little gourmet tea shop and then partook in some cocadas - think sweet coconut drink.  We waddled-erm-WALKED around the park for a little bit afterward then moseyed off for a dinner of mas patacones and ice cream.  After that, it was time to part ways but not before some random fellow stopped us on the street and started telling us (in English) about poetry he'd written about a girl he'd been writing to in Milwaukee for about ten years.  ...Hilda's and my taxi came at that point soooo we gracefully ducked out and left Camille and Eric to finish the conversation.

The overnight bus home from Maracaibo started out super scary.  Hilda had left her passport in Caracas (not knowing that, by law, foreigners have to carry passports when crossing state lines) and literally pleaded for about twenty minutes to get on the bus.  She was finally allowed on with the stipulation that, should we get stopped at a checkpoint and she have to go talk to the guards, the bus would leave her.  The two bus operators offered to 'hide' her in the front from the guards for 500bf (in perspective - our bus tickets themselves only cost 100bf). Meanwhile, passengers are telling me that she's just getting ripped off because she's a foreigner and there's no need to hide - no one is going to stop us.  Cut to large argument with the two operators when they discover that 1. Hilda doesn't actually HAVE 500bf and 2. I'd been discussing our predicament with other passengers (who now knew these two were engaged in something illegal).  We were finally rescued by two spectacular guys, one of whom worked for some government ministry, who went down and basically flatly told them they were breaking the law and Hilda needed to come up.  Sigh of relief as I DIDN'T have to call the embassy at some odd hour letting them know that there were two gringas alone, at some random checkpoint between Caracas and Maracaibo.

...to becoming a real Caraqueña

January was the sort of month that fills you with warm fuzzies.  Apart from the sheer genius that was the holiday-portion of the month, getting back to the 'real' world proved to be super excellent as well.  Best categorize this mess to keep me from prattling off for pages and pages.

Work: Remember the teens nonsense?  And how I swore off young folks after that?  Well, turns out I walk in to my first day back at Las Mercedes only to find out that there are no evening adult classes (what I'd thought I was going to get) available for me to teach.  Which leaves me either kids. Or teens.  The kids' course available was a higher level (level 9 as opposed to the level 4 teens course) so I thought, aw hell, why not try something new?  First class I felt ten little tornadoes had stormed in, torn me from limb to limb, and whooshed back out again promising to see me next class.  They were completamente LOCO in the sort of way that had me panicking that I wasn't going to be able to teach them anything because I literally couldn't control them.  *angst follows.  After recovering for a day or two, I mentally slapped myself across the face, cracked the 'ol knuckles and buckled down for some serious lesson planning.  Turns out the only way to keep these kids engaged is to have them bouncing around the room for about half of class, and hop from activity to activity.  We play games, variations on ones they know, and some that I introduce them to.  I bribe them into doing their workbooks; if they work in (relative) peace, we can listen to music (cut to me sprinting to my music dealers for Selena Gomez and Justin Beiber CDs).  Last Wednesday, I discovered five minutes before the end of class that the reason an otherwise shy little girl had half the class clustered around her was NOT because she'd brought her PSP to class (which I confiscated halfway through) but because THERE WAS AN INJURED BABY BIRD UNDER HER SWEATER.  She'd found it on the street before class and couldn't bear to leave it there.  At that moment,  the kids class was TOTALLY worth it.  It's definitely the class I have to prepare the most for, but absolutely one of the most fun (in the sort of fun that borders on chaos).

Ooo, I'm teaching an adults class too, which I LOVE.  Bless adults, and the modicum of calm that they bring to the class.  Only downside; the class is at seven in the morning.  Yes, that's me getting up before six two days a week.  Is it depressing getting up before the sun?  Absolutely.  The class is great though; a low level but a relaxing change from the kids.  I was actually evaluated in this class.  Once a teacher has been around for a few months, some of the high-level instructors sit-in on classes and fill out these loooooong forms evaluating a teacher's performance.  There is no warning, they just show up about five minutes before the start with a smile and a "Hi Teacher, may I observe your class?" *cue the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.  Anyway, my evaluation came my second day with my adults class, on the VERY first day I ever had to teach a grammar lesson.  And only four of my students chose to show up that day (hasn't happened since then).  The evaluation wasn't NEARLY so bad as I thought and I got a TON of useful feedback.  The one thing that amused me was that I was informed that I rely too heavily on the deductive method of teaching as opposed to the inductive method.  I had to laugh at that; I'm absolutely the person that has zero interest in inductive learning.  Just teach me how to do something, show me once or twice, then leave me be.

Work has also been busy with the launching of movie clubs and conversation clubs at both campuses.  I've got a teens' conversation club I'm working with right now - they're in the middle of watching the movie Pay it Forward.  We'll finish the movie and discuss this Friday.  Movie club for February is also getting off the ground.  After showing Freedom Writers for a special MLK week Movie Club presentation, we're hopping straight into American culture and Black History Month.  This week on both campuses (I'm trying to show the same movie on each campus to keep it easy) is Groundhog Day followed by a presentation on the quirky American tradition that leaves Venezuelans looking at us like we're crazy :-).  Then, Glory, Pleasantville, and The Pursuit of Happyness.  Solid month. 

Oot and aboot:
Joined a dance studio.  I pay a monthly fee to get access to ten classes a month.  I've thus far taken some jazz, belly-dancing, pilates, and hip-hop classes.  Freaking sweet.  Supplementing that with a bit of running in Parque del Este on off-days and I'm slowly (and reluctantly) staying in shape.  I think I've been signed up for a 5k this weekend?
Started exploring parts of the city on weekends, just kind of hopping off at different metro stops and seeing where they take me.  I've gone running at Los Proceres (The Founding Fathers) which is basically like the US Washington Mall; smaller, of course, but equally cool and possibly one of my favorite spots in CCS.  Did a trek over to the UCV (the big university in Caracas), world famous for being named a UNESCOWorld Heritage site.  Also well known for having an excellent music/movies market on weekends ;-)
Met some very cool Marines who have been awesome enough to semi-adopt me and show me another side of Caracas nightlife.  I also got to watch my first NFL games since I came to VZ with them two weeks ago.  Super Bowl party this weekend.  And I can watch TV there. In ENGLISH. 

Anyway, the city is treating me wonderfully, and I feel like a bike that's clicked into gear.  I was definitely enjoying myself before, but I think I've finally nested a bit.  The city is spectacular and I love that it's so vibrant and so diverse.  Feeling super lucky - despite my initial reluctance - to be here! 

...to a solid 2011

I don't know if I can remember as awesome a start to any other year.  Must give a tip of the hat to 2010 for easily qualifying  as 'epic', but  2011 is definitely looking promising.

I had company in Caracas over New Year's.  Olga - the ETA posted to Margarita - spent about five days with me.  We spent a good part of her visit shuffling between travel agencies and banks (things I'm homesick for: BOOKING TICKETS ONLINE), trying to get our group on a flight to Trinidad and Tobago for Carnival.  After the fourth straight day at the agency - SUCCESS!  Venezuelan ETAs will be tearing up Port Au Spain March 5-9.

New Year's Eve was excellent.  We started at my friend Leo's house where we rang in the New Year in a pretty chill, and VERY Venezuelan manner.  We had 12 massive grapes that we had to eat at midnight.  You're supposed to time the grape-eating with clock chimes at midnight, but we were sans clock or radio to tune in to any sort of countdown so we just started stuffing our faces when our phone clocks said 12:00.  With each grape eaten, you make a wish!  We also gave each other money (not much, just a 2Bfs note, or a 1USD bill), another tradition; you're supposed to keep that bill with you and NOT spend it and it'll bring you money.  Or maybe travel.  Or maybe both...hrmmmm.  And of course, we were wearing yellow underwear.  For suerte (luck) in 2011. 

Grapes at midnight!

 As we toasted with champagne, the Caracas skyline sparkled from the fireworks from hundreds of homes and malls.  People in the city set off everything from unnecessarily-loud noisemakers, to 4th-of-July scale fireworks, usually from parking lots or the roofs of apartment buildings.  I loved it - with the lights all around the city, it looked like all of Caracas was celebrating.  In the background, the steady OOOOOOO-WEEEEEE, OOOOOOOOO-WEEEEEE, of car alarms; apparently setting off noisemakers around cars sets them off.  Noted.  After fireworks we ate some plato navideño (christmas food) and headed to the DISCO!  It was awesome . We were out until 6:30.  It was bright when we came home.

A couple days to recover and then it was time to prepare for the birthday extravaganza.  On the 5th, I joined two other excellent ETA chicas and we headed to Choronil for a piece of some GORGEOUS VZ beaches.  Should be noted that we had a blast and we all made it there and back safely meaning...the mala leche beach curse has been broken!  WOO!  We got a chance to enjoy some Caribbean-blue water, and white sand, took a lancha (boat) to some private beaches for some emptier beach time.  We coined a new word this trip: 'unnecesario', in reference to the bathing suit situation. There was just SO much we didn't want/need to see.  That's all I'm saying.  Still, there was good food, good drinks, some good sun, and excellent company! 

On our lancha heading back from the beach!

We hustled back to Caracas for the weekend, three of us girls joining up with Eric to get some quality city time.  We stayed at a sex hotel.  There was no other word for it - when you have the ability to pay for three hours at a time, you're afraid you're going to catch something from one of the rooms, and couples of all sorts filter in with rum and coke but NO luggage, it's a sex hotel.  Aaaanyway, we had a blast and I really had a great time running around the city with the ETAs and Olga the weekend before.  It's been really nice playing tourist to the city, which I don't normally get the chance to do (I mean, who am I going to wander around with?).  We were dog-tired during the day due mostly to our tendency to stay out til the wee hours of the morning.  Still, there was a lot of food - a LOT of food - to keep us going.  

Part of the awesome birthday weekend in Caracas!

Aaand that's how the first 10 days of 2011 went.  Not a lot of sleep, a lot of dancing, a lot of food.  I don't think I've ever eaten so much.  Really.

...to being the female Bear Grylls

Ugh, this is the post I've been dreading (and therefore procrastinated writing) because how do you cram a SPECTACULAR trip to Angel Falls and the Roraima Plateau into one measly blog post?

The ETAs and the familia Buley (Eric's spectacular family who traveled down to Venezuela to hike with the rest of us) formed a powerhouse group of ten and conquered Canaima National Park (this HUGE park in the southern part of VZ).  We met up in Ciudad Bolivar where a short (and nauseating) trip in a TOO small plane carried us to a tiny village tucked into Canaima; the starting point for expeditions to Angel Falls.  Angel Falls, you say?  Yes, that's the tallest waterfall in the world.  Also, it's the waterfall from the movie 'Up!'.

The three-day trip around Canaima's best waterfalls was a great primer for the looming Roraima trek.  While we weren't in tents, and there were (gracias a Dios) bathrooms, we slept in hammocks one night, did some decent hiking and generally spent all day in the great outdoors.  A 5-hour boat ride took us from the Canaima lagoon (where we enjoyed our first successful beach day!) up to Angel Falls territory.  We discovered that a 5-hour boat ride sounds cool but is actually very rough on the derriere, especially when you're sitting upright in a teensy wooden boat with VERY hard seats.

5 hours in this bad boy!  A lot less fun than it sounds...

An hour-long trek up a mountain and we were before IT (and it deserves the All Caps).  Sixteen times the height of Niagara Falls, Angel Falls was breathtakingly beautiful; turns out the one good thing about the record amounts of rainfall across the country was that the water flow for Salto Angel was PERFECT.  We even got to swim in the pool that the falls dumps into.  There was lots of swimming in cold (or 'mountain fresh', if you're looking to be optimistic) pools.

Angel Falls aka Salto Angel

A trip back to base camp (only 2.5 hours by boat this time, since we were going with the current), and we flew back to Ciudad Bolivar (with our pilot who texted while flying...comforting) and hopped an overnight bus to the border town of Santa Elena.  Our mere 12-hour ride stretched into a 16hr+ ride; apparently were stopped at a fuel station for two hours overnight because there was no gas.  At the gas station. In an oil-rich country.

By the time we arrived in Santa Elena we were famished and ready for a big lunch.  So we hopped the border and went to Brazil, where we enjoyed a spectacular buffet that featured skewers of oven-roasted meat brought to your table (for those of you posh eaters, it was like Fogo de Chao, but for about 6USD).  We weren't slated to leave for Roraima for another day or two.  The others spent a day checking out some more of Canaima's waterfalls (yup, after an overnight bus trip, we were STILL in the park), but I was fighting a pretty bad cold, and not wanting to be wheezing my way up Roraima, I slept in and hung around Santa Elena for the day.  Turns out that was an excellent idea because I befriended the grocery store owner and his brother took me for a motorcycle tour of the town (motorcycle ride in VZ, check!).

Mmmmm...Brazil....

We ate dinner on this street called Calle del Hambre (Street of Hunger) - a long alley with little shops serving all sorts of things.  I got fried chicken which (despite being deep fried) turned out to still be bloody...lost my appetite after that bit.  After popping some cold pills (shout out to Eric's mom, our beloved Nurse Karen, who'd brought a pharmacy of medicine that SAVED me and the rest of the ETAs when my little bug mutated and jumped to them), I settled in for my last night in a bed, feeling less-than-excited about starting some real outdoorsyness the next day.

Not to fade to black here, but there's not much to say about the six days at Roraima except that they were tough as hell, amazing, spectacular, and wonderful.  I learned that not only do I not dislike camping, I LOVE it.  I slept in a tent, drank water from streams, and was super proud of myself for being able to do numero dos (as the porters so eloquently called it) in the woods and then later in a plastic bag (yes, that's right, how's THAT for imagery?)

Day 1 of our hike!  All clean and perky!

I got my butt kicked for about four hours each morning as we tackled anywhere from 5-12 kilometers a day over all sorts of terrain (the 5k day took four hours because we were literally scaling a mountain, up 60-degree inclines at some point).  The terrain was incredible; in three days, we went from savannah, to rolling hills (looking like something out of the Sound of Music), to Amazon, to something other-wordly, dinosaury rock terrain.

We woke up on the morning of the 24th (when Venezuelans traditionally celebrate Christmas) on the top of Roraima with blue skies and an amazing view.  Christmas Eve was back at Day 1's base camp, where we huddled around a fire eating some alfredo pasta.  Note on the food: it was amazing and possibly one of the best parts of the trip.  We all thought we'd be living on rice and beans; instead we were surprised with egg-salad sandwiches, tuna salad, pasta, and some excellent soups.  I've heard everything tastes better when you're camping but REALLY- this was some awesome food.  There were also snack bags; plastic bags of everything ranging from hard strawberry candies and guava chews, to the VZ equivalent of Saltines and banana chips. They were meant to last us the six days but some of us were better at rationing than others.

Feliz Navidad!  The group on the 24th, doing some morning yoga on top of Roraima

The three-person tent I shared with Jillian and Olga quickly became the party tent for our little crew and we all piled in (I think we had eight people at once) in the evenings, partly for warmth, and partly to stay sane.  Other highlights: fjording rivers, the puri-puris (nasty little bugs that bite you and then the bites don't itch til a few days later), the amazing stars.  There was also the Christmas Eve drama that saw familia Buley split up, the parent stuck on one side of the river (after a dehydration scare) and the boys on the other; Christmas morning was all the better when everyone was reunited.

I was super proud of our group (and myself) after our 60km+ trek.  Of the two other groups that were doing the hike while we were, one flat didn't make it to the top and only half of the other did.  Everyone in our 23-person HUGE group made it up and back.  Christmas dinner was pizza and rum.  Followed by dancing at Santa Elena's fine discoteca...

Our little crew split up on the 27th, with all of us headed home to our respective cities.

For all the pictures, check Facebook!