Peacock Fly in Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, Ecuador.
A few years ago, I took my first trip to Disney World during a spring break vacation to Florida. To be honest, I was kind of dreading the experience. I thought that I’d be turned off by all the crowds, commercialism, and unrealistically proportioned princesses.
Becoming a wizard in the Magic Kingdom.
But since the friend I was traveling with was excited to visit the recently opened Harry Potter World, I decided to give it a chance.
As predicted, I did find some of the ways that the park commodifies happiness a little soul-crushing. Surprisingly, though, underneath all of the make-up and costumes, amusement park rides, princesses, castles, light shows and souvenir shops, I was witnessing a hint of magic–something unbelievable but that existed nonetheless.
Stripped down, I could see that Walt Disney World is an example of the extraordinary power of the human imagination and what can be accomplished when dreams are put into action.
Oddly, I sensed a similar presence of magic on a trip to the Amazon last week.
The Amazon is so wild and beautiful that it is hard to believe that it really exists. But it does.
I know that Walt Disney World is NOTHING like the wild of the Amazon Rainforest, but both left me feeling like I was witnessing the impossible. They inspired a sense of wonder, left me questioning reality, and stretched my imagination of what I believed could exist in real life.
I visited the Amazon in Ecuador’s Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, home to an abundance of flora and fauna and several indigenous communities.
Unlike Disney World, however, the magic of the jungle is that it is not imagined, but a living, breathing ecosystem. It exposes the darkest side of nature, but also its brightest colours.
A baby anaconda hides amidst the bushes. The average length of adult male anacondas is 2.7m, with the longest on record being almost 9m.Caimans, which tend to be 2.5-4m long, are well camouflaged in the dark, murky waters of the Amazon River.
The Amazon River is the largest river on earth, making up one-fifth of the earth’s freshwater. It’s been referred to as the “lung of the world” because of its massive power to have vital gases exchanged between the forest and the atmosphere. The rainforest stretches through nine countries: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, and is the most bio-diverse region on the planet.
In the Amazon, there are anacondas that prey upon caimans, birds, and even jaguars from blackwater lagoons, trees that are over 5000 years old, termites that inspire engineering projects, birds that mate for life (take that, Ashley Madison!), and butterflies that re-define the colour wheel.
Squirrel Monkeys search for food in the Amazon’s canopy areas.A sloth slowly makes its way along a tree branch.Stinky Turkeys are one of over 580 species of birds in the Amazon.The Wooly Monkey is one of over 10 species of monkeys in Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve.
Due to its diversity, the extraordinary role it plays in regulating the earth’s climate, and the sense of wonder it inspires, the Amazon Rainforest is an example of the ways in which life can transcend what we believed to be possible. Unfortunately, looming threats of oil and gas extraction, deforestation, and other development projects threaten the future of the Amazon (along with many of the Earth’s wildest places).
Not only will this limit the diversity of life on the planet, it will also threaten our ability to imagine new possibilities for how to make the world a better place to live. For me, it’s these glimpses of magic that make life interesting. They push us to dream bigger, live more fully, and expand our imaginations of what we can accomplish.
As Walt Disney said: “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
I smile in disbelief as my friend takes a picture of me, right leg in the northern hemisphere, left leg in the southern.
I’m standing in front of the Mitad del Mundo Monument, a historic site located 26km north of Quito, Ecuador, built between 1979 and 1982 to commemorate the 1736 French Geodesic Mission which determined the Equator’s approximate location at zero degrees latitude. (According to more recent GPS readings, the Equator actually lies about 240 meters north of the marked line.)
Thousands of tourists have struck a similar pose, but for me, the photo feels like MORE than a sweet shot for my Instagram followers #zerodegreeslatitude.
Why? At 31, I haven´t “checked the boxes” expected of someone my age: no stable career, no husband, no babies, no house, no pension, no savings, no assets. Yet I have a wealth of life experiences, lots of stamps on my passport, and amazing friends all over the world.
So, as I strike a pose in the middle of the world, I realize how lucky I am to be where I am, and how far I’ve come in order to get here.
“Machete-ready” at the Mitad del Mundo Monument in the Amazon. There are milestones to mark the Equator along zero degrees latitude all over the world.
At zero degrees of latitude, the Equator may be an imaginary line. However, for me, it represents something real: taking risks, starting over, being one step closer to my dreams.
Only two years before, I was living above the Arctic Circle, at 72 degrees north, working towards becoming a university professor. However, after a few personal and professional heartbreaks, life has spun me in another direction, and I’ve begun pursuing more creative writing, (as opposed to academic which would have been a much more secure investment of my time and energy, but not as personally fulfilling).
The position of the sun in relation to the Earth enables us to tell the time on a sundial.
It wasn’t until I stood at the centre of the world that I realized that finding my own “centre,” the road that I’m truly meant to follow, might involve choosing a different path than what’s expected of me. I guess the bright side of life not going “according to plan” is that the new plan (the one you are forced into when your previous one doesn’t work out) can take you somewhere new and unexpected, somewhere closer to where you wanted to go, but never had the courage to pursue.
At the Mitad del Mundo, I’m realizing that even though I’m traveling further and further away from the direction I thought I’d be going, that I’m moving closer and closer to where I truly ought to be.
“Every woman should have the strength to know herself. Yes, you will face obstacles, but you have to turn that obstacle into energy… If you have belief about your strength…if you have support in your life…then nothing can stop you.”
For the second episode of the Inspiring Women Series, I had a conversation with Lovely Zaman Shima, who I met while we were both in graduate school at the University of Ottawa. From the moment I met Lovely, I was immediately struck by her positive spirit, her confidence, and her determination.
Lovely was born in Bangladesh in 1979 and grew up in the capital of Dhaka, where she is currently living with her husband and her two children. After losing her parents at a young age, and being raised by her brothers, Lovely was able to find the strength to stay positive and work towards her dreams.
A turning point in her life was achieving 7th place out of 150,000 students in Bangladesh on her exam for the Secondary School Certificate (S.S.C.). Positioning so highly on this exam helped her to believe in herself and her own abilities. It also inspired her to dream BIG.
Thus, she enrolled in an undergraduate program at the University of Dhaka where she met her husband. They quickly fell in love and got married, and Lovely became pregnant with her daughter at the age of 21. Instead of seeing her pregnancy as a barrier to finishing her studies, Lovely “turned the obstacle into energy,” and completed the program during her pregnancy. Afterwards, she completed a Master’s Degree in International Relations at the University of Dhaka.
Following her schooling, Lovely joined the government service as Assistant Super of Police (ASP) in 2005- one of the most prestigious jobs in Bangladesh. As ASP, she worked with Bangladeshi women to help them overcome situations of oppression.
When her husband, a diplomat, was posted abroad, she traveled with him and her family, first to Malaysia, and then to Canada. While in Canada, with the encouragement of her husband, she started a second Master’s in Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa. Shortly, she will begin a PhD, which she hopes will help her to represent Bangladesh in the international arena.
In this episode of the Inspiring Women Series, Lovely describes how every woman should have confidence in her own inner strength. Rather than perceiving obstacles as barriers to personal growth, Lovely views them as a source of energy which women can use to gain strength and push themselves to reach their goals.
I interviewed Lovely over Skype from Colombia while she was in Bangladesh, so the connection gets a little fuzzy at times, but it’s definitely worth a listen to learn from her wisdom and courage.
Today, as we celebrate the many amazing women around the world, I would like to share a conversation I recently had with my Grandma, Enid Keohane (“Nanny”).
It is very special for me to be able to interview Nanny and celebrate her many important roles as a mother, a teacher, a friend, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother on International Women’s Day, as she is one of the women who has inspired me the most in my life.
Enid Keohane, “Nanny,” had 8 children in 10 years and managed to balance her busy family life with her full-time job as a teacher. Photo: Melissa Kew Photography
Enid Keohane, known to me, and everyone else in the Keohane family as “Nanny” was born on July 12, 1929 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
As a young girl, she excelled at balancing many responsibilities from her role as the Head Girl of her high school to her part-time jobs as a model and employee at a department store, to her involvement in recreational activities like skating, skiing, and spending time with her family at the cottage in Norway Bay, Quebec.
This helped her a lot as an adult. Somehow she found the energy to juggle being the mother of eight children while working full-time as a high school business teacher.
“A lot of it depends on your attitude. I know women who have two or three children who would be moping around…they just forgot to enjoy themselves as they went along and count their blessings, and I can certainly do that.”
In this episode, Nanny opens up about how she found the energy to balance her busy personal and professional lives, and the importance of maintaining a positive attitude in everything that you do.
The Metrocable in Medellin, Colombia is part of the city’s public transit system and has carried 30 000 people per day since starting operations in 2004.
I’m re-charging in my hotel room after a jam-packed day of being a tourist in Medellin, Colombia when a Tweet catches my attention.
The Don Valley Cable Car would connect an environmental community centre and ravine trails with Toronto’s public transit system. Photo: Don Valley Cable Car
The Don Valley Cable Car is just beginning community consultations at a time when Toronto’s SmartTrack transit plan is getting smaller and cheaper. Although the Don Valley Cable Car is being proposed as a method of connecting both tourists and residents with urban greenspace, rather than at connecting low-income communities with better transit access as Medellin does, it’s a reminder that alternative methods for urban transit are possible.
According to research from York University, there is a “transit inequity” in Toronto, as the people who are most dependent on public transit, particularly those living in low-income, inner-suburb neighbourhoods, referred to as “transit deserts,” get the worst service. The study suggests that more recent transit infrastructure expansions have primarily benefited the rich living in areas of the city which are already thriving, while neglecting the inner suburbs.
Ironically, I’m learning about the proposed Don Valley Cable Car immediately after spending most of the afternoon riding Medellin’s Metrocable. All of my previous knowledge about Medellin has come from watching Narcos: crime, drugs, violence and Pablo Escobar. So I’m surprised by the city’s innovative approach to public transit, for which it won the 2012 Sustainable Transport Award (tied with San Francisco, USA).
The Metrocable opened in 2004 in response to significant spatial inequalities in transit access in Medellin. It connects low-income neighbourhoods located in the surrounding mountains, many of which had high rates of violence and crime, with the city centre. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Transport Geography, found that the Metrocable has doubled access to employment opportunities for residents living in low-income neighbourhoods. Another report, found that the neighbourhoods affected by the Metrocable Line K experienced a 66% faster decline in homicide rates than in the control neighbourhood. (Although both violence and homicide rates decreased dramatically for both groups).
These studies suggest that expanding public transit through alternative means can transform a city’s poorest and most violent areas.
Prior to the opening of the Metrocable, residents of the neighbourhood of Santo Domingo would have had to walk several hours or depend on infrequent buses to reach the city centre.
Medellin has also targeted several social interventions in the neighbourhoods linked with the Metrocable. This includes support for social housing, schools, micro-enterprise, libraries, and implementation of additional lighting in public spaces. In addition, the city has involved local residents in participatory budgeting to determine how to allocate the funds designated for investment in their neighbourhoods.
I traveled efficiently from a downtown metro stop to Santo Domingo Metrocable station at the end of Line K for about $1 CAD.A quick cable car transfer to Line L and an extra four thousand pesos (about $2 CAD) brought me over farms and forests to Arvi station at the top of the mountain.
As the world’s first modern urban aerial cable car transport system, the Medellin Metrocable presents an inspiring vision for how a city’s transit plan can be re-imagined to create stronger, healthier communities, and better life-opportunities for its residents.
It is an example for cities, like Toronto, that bold visions for affordable and sustainable public transit are possible and are already being lived out in cities around the world.
Finding my balance by connecting with nature! (On a camping trip in Los Nevados National Natural Park, Colombia) Photo credit: Jill Holmes
In light of it being Valentine’s Day in North America (in Colombia El Dia del Amor y La Amistadis celebrated in September), I thought I’d write about self-love. (After all, the longest relationship any of us will ever have is with ourselves!)
Sadly, though, we live in a world that makes it difficult to love ourselves. From a young age, we are taught that we are never enough. Beauty is purchased. Happiness is pursued. Bodies are shaped. There’s always someone smarter, fitter, faster, stronger, more beautiful than us. In my grade five class, I’ve been alarmed by the number of uber-thin girls who have told me how fat they are, and the boys who have broken down in tears after receiving 9/10 on their Math quizzes. As high-achieving ten-year-olds, they are already striving for perfection in every aspect of their lives.
But I did the same when I was their age. I was constantly complaining about how fat I was compared to the other girls in my ballet class and would wear baggy sweatshirts to hide my curvy figure. While I never developed an eating disorder, like many other dancers and female athletes, I struggled with exercise addiction until my mid-twenties (and arguably still do). I’d push my body to the point of injury and would beat myself up if I missed a day at the gym.
I’ll admit, there was a day during my undergrad when I taught three fitness classes and then played 80 minutes of rugby. I’d always opt for a Sunday morning run over Sunday morning cuddles with my boyfriend. In addition, I over-scheduled my life with clubs, activities, and leadership roles to fulfill a compulsive need to be the best at everything I did. But it wasn’t entirely my fault: “busy-ness,” over-achievement and perfectionism were glorified in the culture of my university. I even won an award at my graduation for outstanding contribution to athletics and student government. I’m sure my Dean’s List average, long list of extra-curriculars, and high-achieving résumé helped me land a grad school scholarship.
However, my extensive involvement and over-scheduled life came at a cost: time for myself. I went years without going to the doctor, was often running on little sleep, experienced several chronic injuries from over-exercise, and took some of the relationships I valued most in my life for granted. I missed a few of my good friends’ weddings. I had to skip out on Thanksgiving at the cottage (my favourite family time of the year), and wasn’t able to be there for friends who were going through hard times. Also, I never made time for creative pursuits, like writing and photography, which add joy and meaning to my life.
It took a tough and painful breakup alongside the professional heartbreak of not receiving funding for my PhD research for me to realize that the compulsive need to be busy all of the time, as well as perfectionism, come from a place of fear of not being enough as I am. I was forced to confront the fact that I’m human like everyone else, and this means accepting that I’m deeply flawed and ultimately, imperfect. But, as a good friend wisely told me, my beauty lies in my imperfection: my inability to close cupboards or doors, my awkwardness in big groups, my terrible sense of direction.
One of the hard lessons that I’ve learned from being a teacher is to practise self-love in both my personal and professional lives. This means, putting myself first and being okay with saying “no” to people who need my help.
Most of my teaching experiences have been in low-income, “at-risk” communities, like inner-city Toronto and London, and on First Nations reserves. So I’ve worked really hard in my role as a “helper”: helping students believe in themselves, helping them overcome adversity, helping them reach their potential when the odds are stacked against them. However, the amount of energy I spent in investing in others came at the expense of helping myself. Since I was on the road most weekends coaching basketball or rugby, I struggled to make time for the people and passions that I loved. This led to frustration and burn-out. It’s no wonder that nearly half of teachers leave the profession within their first five years of teaching.
I love teaching, but I’ve learned that to thrive in the profession, as well as maintain my health and sanity, that I have to constantly practise self-love. I have to put myself before my students. As my amazing and inspiring friend and fellow teacher said, “It’s like being on an airplane. You have to put on your own oxygen mask before you put on someone else’s.” This means making time every day to exercise, prepare healthy meals, and get to bed early, no matter how much grading I have. I give myself permission to have shitty lessons every now and then. I give less assignments that I have to grade myself and have more peer and self-evaluated assessments. I continue to be involved in extra-curriculars but I don’t coach EVERY sports team or run EVERY club.
Prioritizing self-love in my professional life has also helped me in my personal life. I say “no” to social events I don’t want to go to and have stopped trying to please other people. I make time to pursue my passions like writing and travel. I’ve stopped investing in friendships that don’t make me better or add substance to my life and instead, spend the bulk of my time with the people I really care about. While I still exercise most days, I schedule time for my body to rest and recover, and I don’t beat myself up when I skip my workouts.
While I spent the bulk of this Valentine’s Day alone, I didn’t feel sad or lonely. I went for a beautiful run in the morning and shared a traditional Colombian lunch with my friend. I spent the afternoon writing in a café, practiced photography with my new camera, and then enjoyed una cerveza y solwith another friend. I felt free to do what I wanted with who I wanted because I didn’t feel the need to achieve, or please, or meet any sort of social expectations.
This Valentine’s Day, I feel lucky to have spent the day loving the person who matters most in my life: me.
Manizales (where I live & work) is part of Colombia’s Zona Cafeteria (Coffee Triangle), an area of 150 square kilometres, which produces 10% of the world’s coffee.
As a writer, I spend a lot of time in coffee shops. On average, I visit a café at least once per day, and usually do the tour of my local faves on weekends. This means, I likely spend $30-40 CAD per week on coffee, which is more than I budget for my phone, transportation, and sometimes entertainment (and I wonder why my only assets are my MacBook Pro, my Canon Rebel, and a couple of cute Anthropologie dresses).
For me, coffee is more than a daily dose of caffeine. It’s a reunion with friends I haven’t seen in years, or a regular catch-up with the people I see every day. It’s the motivation to teach a 6am spin class or go for a morning run when all I want to do is hit snooze and roll over. It’s a source of inspiration for grad school papers, blog posts, and writing my first novel.
Coffee has also been an integral part of the conversations that have changed my life: first dates, painful breakups, job interviews, and crucial advice from friends or family.
Tio Conejo is a family-farm that produces specialty coffee and promotes a philosophy of sustainability, community-building, equality and hope.
While coffee is a regular part of my daily life, I never really considered the complex story behind the coffee I consume.
However, after visiting the Tio Conejo coffee farm this past weekend, I learned that behind every cup of coffee there’s a struggle to build stronger, healthier, more sustainable communities. There’s an effort to be part of the full circle of life by giving back to the land and being able to pass on history, traditions and culture to the next generation.
At every step in the production process, there’s labour, sweat, and pain, as well as hope, innovation, and social change. After a day at the coffee farm, it was clear to me that producing a high-quality cup of coffee means a lot more than profiting from a commodity crop on the world market.
The Zona Cafeteria was recently declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This means efforts will be made to protect the landscape and preserve the paisa culture reflected in the historic buildings. The farm houses built by the first settlers of the region were made by cutting down guadua (bamboo-like trees) with machetes.Arabica (the coffee beans typically grown in Colombia) is not native to Colombia. It originated in Ethiopia and was brought to Colombia by Jesuit priests in the 16th century. Coffee trees were planted after Colombians were ordered to plant 3-4 trees as penance for confession.
Stages in Coffee Production
Cultivating Nutrient-Dense Soil
Banana trees provide shade and species diversity while nitrogen-fixers are strategically planted to improve the quality of the soil.Pulp is decomposed by Californian worms to be used as fertilizer.
Planting
The highest quality seeds are carefully selected for planting.It takes more than two years until a newly planted coffee plant is able to produce berries that are ripe enough for picking!
Harvesting
Coffee beans are hand-picked which is an extremely laborious process. In order to meet the flavour and quality requirements to be graded specialty coffee, beans need to be carefully selected during the harvest.Only red beans are ready to be picked. Green beans need more time to ripen.
Bean selection
At Tio Conejo, farmers place berries in a giant tub of water to separate the “floaters” from the “sinkers.” Ripe coffee beans are dense and sink to the bottom. These are processed for specialty coffee which is usually exported. If the beans float, it means that they are missing a bean, or are damaged in some way. These are separated to be processed and sold to the local markets (which buy lower grade coffee).
Processing
The pulp and coffee beans are mechanically separated by centrifugal force and a barrel screen system.
Fermentation
Coffee beans are covered in a layer of slippery mucilage. The reactions of yeast and bacteria in the fermentation process breaks down the sugars in mucilage to produce acids which add more flavour and complexity to the coffee. The beans then undergo three washing cycles.
Drying
Originally, beans produced in mountainous areas were dried on roof tops under an ingenious roof that rolled to cover the beans.The pulped and fermented beans are spread out on drying tables or floors to 11% moisture (this one is empty). The dried beans are known as “parchment coffee” as they still contain a parchment layer. After drying, beans are sent to a mill where hulling machinery removes this shell.
Exporting
The milled beans, now referred to as green coffee, are put in special plastic bags which preserve the moisture levels, inside jute or sisal bags. They are shipped to North America or overseas to roasters who transform the green coffee into the aromatic, flavourful brown beans that we purchase at our local cafés.
Consumption
Here’s where I come in! I’d be a completely different person without my morning brew. Thank you, coffee farmers, for all of the work that you to do to improve my quality of life…by helping me wake up in the morning, inspiring my writing, supporting engaging conversations with friends and families, and warming my insides on a cold winter day.
If you are in the Manizales area, or if you are a coffee roaster, café owner, barista, or curious consumer, I’d recommend taking a trip to Tio Conejo to learn about the origins of coffee and the story of where your coffee comes from. (When I was there, I met a couple from Black Dog Coffee in West Virginia who made the trip to Colombia to learn about the farm that produces the beans they roast for their customers!!)
For more info about Tio Conejo, check out this awesome video:
Manizales, una “fábrica de atardeceres” -Pablo Neruda
In my travels, I’ve been fortunate to have witnessed some amazing sunsets. Located five degrees north of the Equator, Manizales, Colombia, the city where I’m currently living and working, has the some of most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. It’s no wonder that the Chilean writer, Pablo Neruda, described Manizales as a “fábrica de atardeceres” (sunset factory). On sunny days, at about six o’clock in the evening, the sky transforms into the most radiant blend of orange, yellow, and pink, colours that stretch the limits of my imagination, as el sol (the sun) slowly disappears behind the Andes.
Sunset from historic cable cars in Manizales.
For me, sunsets are like a delicious piece of fruit: a juicy red mango freshly picked at my friend’s finca (farm), or a locally grown Ontario peach from a roadside stand. They remind me that life can be more colourful, more flavourful, more radiant, than I usually experience it to be. Sunsets inspire me to dream of a tomorrow that will be better than today…and encourage me to STOP what I’m doing, grab una cerveza (a beer), and enjoy the moment.
Sunset on the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Hvar Island, Croatia.Kruger National Park, South Africa
Sunset over the Arctic OceanI can travel the world, but it’s hard to beat a sunset at my cottage in Norway Bay, Quebec.
As I taught my fifth grade students in Science this week, the sun is the Earth’s primary energy source. It warms the planet, drives the water cycle, and makes life on Earth possible. While sunsets calm me down and inspire me to dream BIG, it wasn’t until I lived without el sol that I learned to appreciate its full value.
Pond Inlet is a community of 1500 people located on the northernmost tip of Baffin Island in Nunavut, Canada
This time two years ago, while teaching in the community of Pond Inlet, Nunavut, I experienced “the polar night,” which occurs when night lasts for more than 24 hours. When I was there, the sun set in mid-November, and didn’t rise again until early February.
This meant living in four months of darkness.
I took this photo while walking to church on a Sunday morning in December for 11:30am mass. (Mittimatalik is the Inuit name for Pond Inlet.)
It wasn’t totally dark all-day, everyday. There was a twilight period between about 11am-2pm when the sun was just below the horizon, meaning you could go for a walk, ski, or snowmobile outside without a flashlight. However, I remember being shocked when some of my students opened the outside door to get some fresh air during last period gym class (about 2:30pm) and it was so dark that I was able to point out the Big Dipper.
It was important for me to get outside during the twilight hours of the dark season.My friend and I witnessed the “Return of the Sun” on a -40C ski in early February.
Without the sun, a natural energy source, I had to develop strategies for creating my own energy. I took Vitamin D pills daily, had a spin bike and a set of weights in my bedroom, tried to force myself to get outside everyday (even if all I did was take a quick walk to the Northern Store or to school), coached community basketball, and connected with friends as much as possible. I’m often described as an incredibly positive and extremely active person, but without the sun to give me energy, there were several weekends when I didn’t even leave my house.
Needless to say, I’m amazed and inspired by the Inuit and northerners for whom living in darkness is a regular part of life. Let’s just say, I’ll never have sympathy for students who complain about the cold, as my students in Pond Inlet walked to school and gladly went outside for recess on days when it was nearly -50°C with the windchill, often without proper boots, mitts, or a warm enough parka.
I was so pumped for the “Return of the Sun” that I did a -30 C photo shoot in my Leahtee, an awesome clothing line designed by my good friend, Leah!
Living without the sun made me reflect on the simple, yet crucial elements of life that I’ve taken for granted over the years. The fast-paced North American culture encouraged me to chase the future, look for a better relationship, check another item off my bucket-list, pursue another degree. But when you live one step ahead of your own life, you overlook the people, places, and opportunities that contribute to your ability to survive and prosper in the present.
So for now, every time I see a Manizales sunset, I’m going to make an effort to STOP, grab a beer, and ENJOY the moment. As I’ve learned the hard way: sooner or later, that moment will be gone.
And it’s always great to have an excuse for some cerveza y sol (beer and sun)!
Dad and I representing “Team Canada” on the Giro d’Italia. Next stop: Monte Grappa!
But I have very few pictures of London itself. In fact, I don’t have a single photo of the places cinco minutos de mi casa (five minutes from my house) that I saw every day and developed a connection with.
No photos of the old Victorian buildings.
Or of the cobblestone alleyways.
Or of the artsy cafés & bars (where I’d go to write my blog, inspired that Oscar Wilde may have once sat down to write in the same places).
Or of the designer consignment stores, like the one where I bought a funky shirt-dress for five pounds, which my students decided was a hideous fashion blunder and claimed made me look like a cupcake/sumo wrestler.
Or of the many electronic shops on Tottenham Court Road that I walked by every day but never stepped inside.
Maybe I didn’t take as many pictures at “home” because it’s harder to look at the parts of my life that go deeper than tourist shots. I started to see a London that captured all of the joys and heartaches that come with living.
In my neighbourhood of Fitzrovia, I developed strategies for coping with struggles at work, like rainy runs in Regent’s Park, or a Turkish Wrap at the Camden Lock Market, as well as rituals for celebrating success, like pints at the neighbourhood pub, or spontaneous dance parties followed by late-night Korean food.
I learned to feel the pulse and beat of the city (“Do you hear that sound? It’s London, calling…”, an old man whispered to me after last call at a pub he’d been frequenting every night for the last 40 years).
I discovered the most efficient routes for navigating public transit (don’t fall asleep on the last train from Clapham Junction and avoid night buses at all costs!) and the etiquette for using it (avoid eye contact, keep to yourself, become as stressed out as possible, and most importantly, “mind the gap”).
My relationship with London was definitely love-hate. It inspired me to live wildly and deliberately. It broke me down and drained my bank account. It’s a city that brought out the best and worst in me. It’s left me with a hopeful yearning that, perhaps, if we’re lucky, our stars will eventually align and we might have another shot at each other sometime in the future.
My passionate affair with London pushed me to those moments of agony and ecstasy that sometimes get lost in the monotonous grind of daily life. Ultimately, it forced me to grow and become stronger than I was before because I wouldn’t have survived if I’d stayed the same. That’s what the best relationships do: they change you.
My relationship with Manizales, Colombia, is still fresh–I moved here in October 2015. So, it’s too soon to know which parts of it will stay in my heart and which parts I’ll want to leave behind. But with all of its cafés, vibrant culture, and easy access to the outdoors, I can easily see how it’s been voted as Colombia’s best city to live in.
In light of my regret about not documenting my life in London, here are some photos of places in my new neighbourhood in Manizales: spots that are all cinco minutos de mi casa. I’m still in tourist mode, though, so let’s see how intimately I come to know them in the future.
Since Manizales is in Colombia’s “Coffee Triangle,” there’s no shortage of places to go for a caffeine fix.Juan Valdez Café is a popular spot to sit outside and have una capuchino y croissant con queso (a cappuccino and cheese croissant)I like going to La Suiza on a Sunday afternoon for a coffee, pastry, or a limonada de coco.What better way to spend an evening than writing at Kaffe Florida?It’s always patio season when you live only 5 degrees north of the Equator!Estadio Palogrande soccer stadium & amazing outdoor sports complex: cycling track, running track, soccer fields, tennis courts, basketball courts, bike parkManizales is known for its academic culture and has been called the “Boston of Colombia.”Los Domingos (on Sundays) Avenida Santander, a main strip, is closed to cars in the mornings. Hundreds of cyclists and joggers take advantage of being able to workout on the paved, flat road.For me, the best part of living in Manizales is its easy access to the outdoors. View of the mountains from a side street off of the busy Avenida Santander.
I only got the job in Colombia five weeks before I had to start teaching.
Five weeks is not enough time to learn a new language. But I figured that most people in Manizales speak at least some English (wrong!). And besides, I’m “fluent” in French! How hard could learning Spanish be? I’ll be trilingual in no-time (wrong!).
Before moving to Manizales, Colombia, the only Spanish words that I knew were the ones I’d heard referenced in pop culture, but I didn’t really know what they meant:
Unfortunately, my limited Spanish hasn’t really helped me get by in daily tasks like going to the grocery store, taking public transit, and ordering at cafés and restaurants. Thus, I’ve been forced to learn and learn quickly. But I’m not learning as fast as is necessary to truly have a good life in Manizales, partly because I teach in English and speak to my closest friend in English, and partly because my natural awkwardness is exacerbated by the fact that I can’t communicate effectively with many locals. So, despite being surrounded primarily by unilingual Spanish speakers in my day-to-day life, I’m not actually “submerged” in the language as much as I should be.
This has created a few uncomfortable situations, such as not being able to direct a cab driver to my own apartment, waiting for over an hour for someone to pick me up for an event that I thought was on Tuesday but was really on Wednesday (Both martes and miércoles start with ‘m’), paying 20 000 pesos for something that cost 2 000 pesos, having my bilingual students help me write e-mails to their parents, trying to explain to a Spanish-speaking airline staff that my luggage needed to be checked through to Montréal and not Cancun, being lectured by a Spanish-speaking dental hygienist about my inadequate flossing habits, and most commonly, staring blankly, then giving an innocent, “no hablo español” pretty much anytime anyone approaches me in Spanish.
Luckily, I’ve been able to develop a few strategies to help me overcome the language barrier. I have a Google Translate app on my phone which has been a lifesaver and is usually accurate enough to communicate the general meaning of what I’m trying to say.
In addition, I’ve become an expert at playing charades. For example, last week, I was able to go to the drug store counter at the grocery store and ask for both sunscreen and contact lens solution without saying more than five words.
I’m also taking Spanish lessons with an amazing tutor and learning vocabulary with the awesome app, Duolingo.
Finally, I’ve accepted that in order to truly learn a new language, that you can’t be afraid to make mistakes. This means looking & sounding foolish and being completely okay with it. (Booze helps.)
Even though it’s been humbling and exhausting at times, learning to navigate the world in another language has helped me to gain perspective on what life is like for the English or French Language Learners that I’ll likely have in my classes once I start teaching in Canada. Just because someone can’t communicate doesn’t mean they don’t understand what’s going on! Also, it has opened my eyes to how much can be “said” without speaking.
Finally, it has shown me how warm and patient the Colombian people are. No one has ever made me feel stupid about my inability to communicate–it’s mostly in my own head–and usually, people are willing to take the time to make sure I understand what’s going on, whether it’s translating through an English-speaking friend, using Google Translate, or joining me in an entertaining game of charades.
Lo más importante es que estoy aprendiendo. Most importantly, I’m learning.
(Who am I kidding? That was totally cut and paste from Google Translate!)
Shannon Mullen 
