Silvestre and Jango

          Last weekend I found myself at a Silvestre Dangond concert, which probably means zilch to anyone reading this because if English is your first language, chances are you don’t listen to Vallenato. Literally, “born of the valley,” vallenato is a Colombian genre of campesino folk music that became more popular after the infusion of the European accordion, which is now a staple of modern vallenato music. Anyhoo, some of the more popular vallenato singers are Carlos Vives and Diomedes Diaz. But probably the most recently popular guy is Silvestre, who happened to be in town a couple weeks ago. His 2015 hit, Materialista, is probably my favorite song down here, and I wasn’t about to miss out on his show. However, acquiring tickets proved to be a trial and a half, including a trip to one mall whose tickets were sold out, getting to the other mall, needing to wait for the salesman to get back from lunch, finding out the cheapest tickets were gone and needed to buy 80 dollar tickets, making the hour trip back to the monastery, only to have the salesman call me and tell me he gave me the wrong voucher, requiring me to return, making what would have been an hour-long trip into a tour of nigh on 5 hours). Was it really worth it? Hell, yes. Vallenato concerts are infamous for starting late and going later, and Silvestre didn’t disappoint, as the openers didn’t even finish until midnight. So until well after 3am, Tatiana and I, half asleep, danced and sang and somehow survived the night after not forking over the hefty cash needed to buy any refreshment at the concert. The bitter sweetness of that evening can’t be overlooked, however, as it was our last hoorah together before Tatiana left last Thursday to pursue her acting career in Mexico. But what a way to go out! I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Silvestre Dangond with Juancho de la Espriella on accordion. 

Living in a large city has its drawbacks. I’m no longer a short walk away from the shafts of sunlight breaking through the pine curtain of the Arboretum, the water down my shower drain is always some shade of diesel thanks to the garbling tailpipes of supply trucks, and petty theft seems to be lurking around just about every corner (There have been a string of muggings reported recently from our students as they cross the railroad to get to school in the mornings, and Alex was telling me how a neighbor who he could always count on to help him with any handyman job was stabbed just the other day up in the Codito hills). But despite all those fun things, there are actually quite a few advantages to the urban life. One plus is that Bogota is a setting off point for South America. I’ve been able to reconnect with Zach and Serina we met hiking to Machu Picchu, Leroy and Jess who we met outside our hostel in Cusco when they asked to take a picture of them, Californian Adam met at a restaurant in Cusco, Jaime on his way to the states from Viña del Mar, and Stephen who I met camping in Chile and is also now teaching English here in Bogota. But you are also always meeting someone new. In my case, there’s Omar who taught himself English with a dictionary and a selection of classic British literature, Plinio from the Amazons region who went from steering canoes to driving the monastery van, or John Freddy whose family has a boa constrictor that they found one morning with a trespasser inside of her. The list here goes on and on, some with more exciting stories than others.

         But equally as exciting is meeting a Bogota resident while traveling outside the city. I’m always trying to meet new people to hear their stories, practice my Spanish, and expand my circle outside of monastery and school (though those are indeed some dear circles). A weeklong trip down to southern Colombia back in January with my friend from the states, Amber, is how I met one of my best Colombian friends. From the start, Tatiana’s family became like my own. She had graduated college the year before and started acting in Mexico before coming back home and doing some traveling of her native country, like in Mocoa where we met. She was scheduled back in Mexico this May, and decided to reconnect with friends and family while traveling instead of getting a temporary job in the months between. Her younger sister, Valentina, had just graduated high school and was taking a gap year, most of which will be spent with cousins in New York. This means they both had a lot of time, which they randomly and generously used to hang out with a strange gringo dude.

What quickly became a tradition was going to a movie on Wednesday nights, which are around 1 US dollar those particular evenings. What filled in the weeks were going to plays, dancing, hiking the surrounding mountains on the weekends, or game nights at her folks’ place, where their mom and I would trade tiles to try to fend off Valentina’s Rummy prowess. Tatiana taught me how to dance, how to make arepas, and how to better navigate through this often-crazy city. But some of the more indelible memories were made simply just trudging around Bogota running errands, like when we got soaked by a bus speeding through a nearby puddle and I found out she liked Frank Sinatra, or when we’d run into someone she knew (which felt like every outing) and I could see from the joy on their faces that she had affected them as similarly as she did me.

Jango during the first week.

       

  If I haven’t made Tatiana’s generosity clear, I should probably point out that she devoted over a month of her time back here in Bogota to taking care of a sick puppy she rescued from the streets. Severely underfed, this little dude could also barely walk thanks to some mange that left him with little hair on his legs to protect him from Bogota’s chilling evenings. So she did what every other human says they would do but doesn’t act on: for a month she fed and bathed Jango, named for how tough he was through everything. She also made sure he had positive experiences with other dogs and humans, since he had probably only known rejection and spite. 

Jango after a month, eventually adopted by
a family who lives in the country with
plenty of room to roam.

We took him to the park often to try to get him to play with other dogs. We would bring Limón along as well, the family dog, to show Jango the ropes of fetch, public urination, and other animal practices of which I proudly claim to be an expert on. One such occasion brought us to a dog mall, which was exactly as absurd as it sounds. Apparently, every so often, you can bring your dog to this strip mall sort of set up geared specifically to your canine pets, replete with toys, accessories, and other smelly friends to make. It didn’t take us long, however, to realize that our little scrapper mutt might have been a little out of his league amongst the show dogs whose owners actually frequent that sort of stupidity.  

         Tatiana’s character is assuredly in part thanks to her parents, Beto (short for Alberto) and Betty, who were always trying to feed me and let me crash on their couch on numerous occasions. One moment I hope to never forget was Tatiana’s going away karaoke party the other Saturday. While, Betty made the rounds with beer and snacks seemingly every five minutes, Beto was filming everything (and I mean the whole night) with hilarious commentary and in-your-face angles that I thought only Michael Roske was capable of. He was also the unofficial master of karaoke ceremonies for most of the night, making sure there was always someone screeching into the microphone. And at the end of the evening when the majority of the gang was filing out and saying goodbyes, I could still hear someone singing. I looked back and there was Beto, half asleep, singing some soft Spanish ballad to himself, knowing that if the night ended, that brought his daughter’s departure one day closer. So, naturally, I grabbed two beers and went over to finish the song with him.

The world is full of good people. But I found it surprising that such a good person stumbled into my life and made such a positive impact in such a short amount of time. Tatiana understands most of my blogs. But, just in case:

Otra vez, gracias por todo lo que hiciste por mi. No me pegues (muerdes) en diciembre solo porque escribí un blog sobre ti. Ya te había dicho lo que siento, así que solo voy a seguir escribiendo en español para que los amigos y familiares que no hablan el idioma tengan que poner mas y mas en sus traductores muajaja best teacher.

Just as Bogota can be a setting off point, I hope it will also be a reconnecting point one day.

Smiling remains a challenge for me. As does taking a good picture
remains a challenge for my Colombian phone.

Spanish word of the day: I feel like I included a decent amount of Spanish in this post, but we’ll add in cachorro, which means puppy.

Song in my head lately: This one’s easy, considering the concert, and that I’ve been looking forward to including this song for months now. I have almost all of Silvestre’s Materialista memorized, gunna pull it out at the next karaoke. Also, Silvestre is the dude in the interesting robin hood cape. The other dude is Nicky Jam, famous in his own right.