Sierra Nevadas del Cocouy... food thoughts, and enchanting those I meet with my art

2013.03.29

Surfing around Couchsurfing.org, I discovered an event posting for backpacking in Sierra Nevadas del Cocouy.  And I signed myself right up, really without knowing any solid details about the trip.  It seemed like a great deal to me... someone else was doing all of the planning, and all I had to do was show up. 

Lorena, the lady I found on Couchsurfing.org who is organizing the trip, is an industrial engineer, and the same age I am. She friendly and funny and sarcastic. She is smart and loves to be in charge and have all of the details at her fingertips but she is also a little insecure and chaotic in a combination that I find instantly endearing. Within moments of walking into her house, I feel like we are friends. She lives with her whole family, which would be weird in the United States, but is totally normal in Colombia – and I find the set-up somewhat enviable, as I begin to see the closeness of family relationships in this country.

Lorena and I both sort ourselves out before heading to the bus station to meet her other two friends – who have also never met each other – for the trip. The bus ride is long and uncomfortable. But we arrive at the town of Cocouy, and track down our guide company just fine.

We are all four of us packed into an SUV for the drive out to the park. A small, thin dude tucks himself into the jump seat behind the back seat without saying much, and we head out down the long, rough road to the park base camp. As we sort ourselves out and head down the trail, the small thin dude turns out to be our guide, Juan Carlos (Juan is a very common name...).

Juan Carlos is average height and thin, and he starts out quiet terse. Clearly it takes him a little time to warm up to people. As we get to know him over two days of following him around the mountain, he opens up a bit and turns out to be funny, intelligent, and full of energy. The sort of dude whose resting state is stillness, like a lizard. But he has infinite stamina and can, at any point, jump into bursts of incredible speed and agility, or sarcasm... He is indigenous, and tells us that he was born in the town of Cocouy. He is fierce, but I imagine him to be a very playful father – we met his wife and one year old son at the house of the guide company before we left town.

The five of us (four tourists and one guide) spend the next two days walking all over the park. The second day JuanCarlos takes us up to The Pulpit, which is a place that is high enough to have snow – very exciting for people who live at the equator. Cocouy is incredible.

On this trip, I opted to bring all of my own food, and not rely at all on the guide company's provided meals. This turned out to be an outstandingly good move. It sometimes boggles my mind how incredibly bad the food is that they served. Breakfast really amounted to fried egg with fried hot dog (salchicha... a signature food). Dinner was a watery potato soup. 

The friends I was with had also brought their own lunches for the trip, white break and canned cream of chicken, some salted peanuts, and sweet things. Ok, the sweet things were Bogadillo, an incredibly tasty red paste made of guava and sugar, often with caramel goo inside... they great. But the other food, I want nothing to do with. I brought a bag of carrots, apples, pears, a quinoa flake & chia seed mix, salami sausage, cheeze, and some fresh hearty greens from the farm I had just been at. Also some sweet corn pancake things from the store.

And I felt so good! While I am currently not in tip-top physical shape (i've been a bit lazy that past few months...), and I'm generally pretty slow walking up hill, I had lots of energy to keep me going throughout the day. David, the one dude in our group of tourists, would charge up the mountain super fast. He is a very athletic dude. But even he would be solidly exhausted by the end of the day when I was still coasting on a nice, even burn.

And so here's the thing... me and my privileged United States self made a point to go out and get the latest, hot-shit health food for this camping trip. Quinoa, chia seeds, and fresh vegetables. And the thing is, people here don't know anything about that. Here in the place where Quiona & chia seeds come from, people don't eat them. They aren't easily available.

At one point as we were stopped for lunch, Joan Carloas mentioned that in the small indigenous community he lives in, in the hills around the town of Cocouy village, they ate a dog. The three city kids I'm with all gasp in horror, while I look at Carlos and nod, thinking “I would eat that, if I was at someone's house and that is what they put on the table...”

Juan Carlos barely eats, and he hardly ever drinks water. His lunch is a large can of sausages, and nothing else. He seems to be the sort of guy I meet often in construction crews, they guy who is lit from fires of energy from within, and just keeps burning, no matter what sort of fuel is thrown in.  He walks up and down a huge mountain, at some of the highest elevations in the world, every day of his life. He is fully adapted to his home climate. And yet, I wonder, what kinds of chronic illnessness exist in his community, from mal (bad) nourtrition. I wonder how these illnesses compare to the illnesses of malnoutrishion in the United States – wherein malnoutrition equals bad noutrition, not just a simple lack of calories.

As I self-rightously congradulate myself on my healthy and delicious food choices (I am most definitely not well adapted to this terrain, and am happy with my normal routine of eating every two hours), I wonder again about the ways in which people are trained to oppress themselves. And I wonder again at the perceived privileges of United States culture.

While we chill out at the lodge in the evenings, I bring out my watercolor paints and try out painting the mountain landscape. I'm not too pleased with my results, but the park staff finds the landscapes of their beloved mountains especially charming. Particularly enthrawled is a 12yo girl named Renee, who I think is helping her mom at the park while she's off from school (this is Holy Week of Easter, a BIG DEAL here...). I lend my paints to Renee on our second day of hiking, and as we set out, she is happily sitting down for a day of ARTING.

At the end of the day (the day we are meant to catch another night but back to Bogota), Juan Carlos takes stock of our walking speed and energy, and suggests that we have him hire some horses to cary our bags back to base camp, and we can take a shortcut route there. Realizing that we, as a group, are pretty slow, and that all three of my Bogota friends need to work in the morning, I go along with this new plan. I check in with JK about how important it is for me to get my paints back from Renee.

This is one of those times when I'm floating along, chaught in the current of momentum of my group. If I had really taken time to check in with myself, I would have easily realized that I wanted to stay at the park for a few days, and keep painting. I would have realized that I really wanted to walk back to the basecamp to see the painints that Renee did with the paints I leant her. I would have realized that all of the park staff really like my paintings and wanted to buy one for themselves, and that I could have had a great experience selling/gifting artwork to the people there...

But on the other hand, my credit cards, which were lost, and where hadn't arrived before I left Bogoto Friday afternoon, were waiting for me at the hostel in Bogota... and the idea of staying in this small town with only the cash available to me in my pocket, while my cards sit on the hostel check-in desk... and not to mention the energy of breaking out of the stream of group momentum... And I didn't stay. I allowed myself to stay in the stream of momentum and be whisked back to Bogota on another overnight bus...And on the other hand, I was rewarded with some incredibly stunning landscape and views to hike through.  

I wished I had stayed in Cocouy for an extra couple days. I wish I had even just walked back to the lodge to see Renee's paintings and give her encouraging words about her art... but I told myself I was Being Responsible by hurring back to get my cards... Also it is EFFING COLD in Cocouy – it doesn't matter how close you are to the equator, when you're at 4,000 meteres, it's damn cold.

And so I left. And as much as I can justify my reasons, I feel like I have unfinished business in the Sierra Nevadas del Cocouy. I feel like I left a piece of my karma there, somehow. I probably won't ever go back... and if I do, I doubt anyone there will remember me. But it's hanting, all the same.

observations of privilege

2013.03

I'm on a bus! A bus from Bogota, heading for Pereira. Because Colombia is really big... it takes a pretty long time to get from one major city to the other. This bus ride is estimated to take 7hrs (but I've heard some people say it might take up to 10 or 11...). On the one hand, sitting on a bus for that long isn't great.

But on the other hand, it's such a great opportunity to do all sorts of things! I have this super laptop here in front of me, with a full battery and no internet connection, so I can write-up this blog post. I also have some pants with me whith a big giant hole in the butt (from sitting on rough rocks while hiking), which need some mending. And plenty more photos to sort through.

Lorena is the lady who posted her backpacking trip on couchsurfing.org, which I got to sign-up for to join her and her friends. I went to hang out with her at her family's house last night, and she filled my mp3 player up with Spanish reggae and ska music (and a little James Brown)!

The on-bus entertainment is a black and white movie from the 50's or something, about Jesus. That's interesting.

Passing through the suburbs of Bogota in this nice [expensive] bus with big huge windows offers me another great opportunity to learn more about this city. Again I'm leaving, but expecting to come back. Next time, I'll get to stay at my friend Lorena's house with her family, instead of in a hostel. And I'll probably get to hang out with Eduin again.

Ok, now for some more general observations about Colombia and my trip...

[sidenote: I'm trying to stop referring to myself, people from the US, or the country I'm from as “America”. Traveling so much in Canada and now South America, I've realized how insanely ego-centric it is for the United States to assume that it's the only really significant country in “America”. America refers to North and South America, and includes at least 20 different counties.]

Colombia is a solidly middle-class country (by United States standards). According to Emilio, one of my fellow US wwoofers at La Juanita, this booming middle class if fueled by selling oil to the United States. Yes there are affluent areas of Colombia, contrasted with areas with more poverty. There are rural farming areas to, and those areas don't necessarily overlap with poverty. And I'm sure that statistics would show a much higher population of poverty in Colombia than in United States, but maybe that is more a matter of perspective, than of “happiness”. One night at the farm, us three US wwoofers were sitting at the dinner table complaining about US healthcare... after enduring this for a bit, Felipe, our Colombian host, interrupted us saying, “you guys need to realize that you have a huge privilege just being able to discuss this. In Colombia, if you get sick, you either have money, or you die. End of story. There is no safety net.” And that was a sobering reminder for me.

In general though, I find much more similarities between Bogota and cities in the United States than differences. Perhaps it's because that's what I expect in some way – I expect that humans all over the world are generally more similar to each other than different. Or perhaps it is because of the pervasiveness of corporate consumer culture. Some of the companies are different here, but the race to have a bigger pile of the correct “stuff” seems very similar. One thing that really surprised me at first, (maybe it shouldn't have, but it did) is that your average Colombian city person is, for the most part, indistinguishable from a North American city person.

What I mean is, people identify with the culture of the conquistadors – not with the culture of the vast and advanced indigenous societies that have been occupied, oppressed, and repressed (Eduin and I had a long and detailed conversation about this concept in particular). This is surprising to me because there is much more integration between the conquistadors and the indigenous communities here than in North America. Maybe it is some racism programmed into me, but part of me is sincerely surprised to see all of these people in Colombia – most of whom are brown and obviously related to at least one indigenous person in the past three or four generations – surprised to realized that all of these brown people identify as white. To me, it seems to shed some light on the way in which people are programmed to oppress themselves... it seems to shed some light on the so-called “privilege” of people in the United States.

One big similarity I see between Colombia and United States is unhealthy diets. Now in Seattle (and most large coastal cities in the US), there is a special culture of healthy eating, a growing fetishization of organic, local, small-scale farming. And I think this is amazing. This culture seems to be just getting started in Bogota, with farmers and community organizers like Felipe, and his friends around Guatavita, and lots and lots of growing urban farms all over Bogota. And in the United States, the “healthy, organic, local” food craze is still a niche market – globally powerful, but niche nonetheless. The vast majority of United States citizens eat a pretty shitty diet, composed mostly of processed fast foods, monoculture potatoes, chemically grown and manufactured corn and wheat products, and waaay too much meat, grown in horrible soul-killing factory farm conditions. Most United States citizens are malnourished (meaning badly nourished, not that they don't get enough calories...). And here, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that malnourishment – the kind that causes mass obeisity – is caused by NOT EATING ENOUGH RAW VEGETABLES.

And the diet of your average Colombian is not much different. But the funny thing is that here in South America, in Colombia, this is the ecosystem of all of the new fancy, hot-shit health foods that many people in the US are now coveting... these health grains, the saviors of the US health food craze, they come from the Andes mountains. And in this case, I find the contrast really obvious, because wheat is, literally, the grain of the conquistadors. The Spaniards forced indigenous farmers to destroy their quinoa and other crops, and replace them with wheat from Europe. According to Felipe, the popularity of these grains in the US market actually creates an opportunity for farmers here to start growing their traditional grains again in an ecologically viable way.

So my point here is not to distort the reality or Colombia culture, or to convince anyone that it is “just like America”. The thing I'm trying to get is poking holes in the delusion that United States is the “wealthiest, more stable place in the world, it's people the best taken care of...” Because I don't think that is true at all. Along with the 'privileges' that being the biggest consumer of material crap in the world bring... is the oppression of being little obedient consumers, always ready to buy the next bullshit that corporations can come up with in order to make a profit. The oppression of being fat and sick because corporations are spending millions of dollars figuring out how to make junk food as addictive as opiate drugs and getting us hooked on them... The privilege of school systems that teach us to be obedient consumers (not empowered community members)

The thing I'm trying to get at feels really resonated by a poem in the book, “The State of North America”, written by a white woman about the betrayal she felt from her own government and culture in it's oppression of indigenous people... the betrayal she felt as a white kids growing up in poverty in the midwest... because the side affect of our “white privilege” seems to be an amputation of our right to belong to the land... amputation of our relationship with nature... we are made to be dependent upon grocery stores and shopping malls. We don't know what plant in our environment are edible or not, and we don't even know how to grow the plants we would buy in the grocery store, because they are grown with huge machines and chemicals and shipped huge distances to be displayed in perfect packaging for someone to buy off the shelf without ever having to think about how it is produced.

And this is a self-replicating system, this de-skilling of the United Stated populace. Because the less knowledge people have about their natural environment, the more dependent they become on buying things in stores.

So what I see in Colombia is a bunch of people who might be judged, by United States standards, as “living in poverty” because their GDP is considerably lower, because their houses are not as big, because they don't have as much disposable cash to buy bullshit. Because the level of gang violence in the country is so much higher, fueled by the US demand for illegal drugs and the US government's efforts to control and suppress those drugs...

But the basic fundamental details of life... I don't find all that much different. Most specifically, I don't think Americans are particularly healthier than Colombians. I do think that eating shitty diets of processed, chemical food is the way that people, all people of every economic status, have been trained to oppress themselves. The option of choosing to spend more money on “healthy” food, on vegetables, is definitely a privilege of wealth. But done right, by focusing on locally grown food, strong community networks, fairly traded international foods, eating well and healthy is also a protest against occupation and oppression. It's standing up and asserting your sovereignty, and your right to have a relationship with the land and with your community. And it doesn't have to be a privildege of wealth... ideally that's the whole point – figuring out how to make locally grown food more economically viable, because the reality is that it is more efficient!

Ok, so this blog post got away from descriptions of my trip, and into a bit of diatribe about my opinions on American culture... but that is also sort of the point of my trip, eh? Gaining perspective on my home with the fresh viewpoint of experiencing another place.

La Guanita de Guatavita

2013.03.22

La Juanita de Guatevita

 

La Juantina is a small private farm outside of the small country town of Guatavita. It is both a Wwoofing farm and eco-tourism guest house – all owned and run by one relatively young dude, Felipe Spath.

I arrived here about a week and half ago, after spending 10 days floundering around in Bogota, feeling lost and overwhelmed. Traveling by myself, with no particular plans, and not speaking the local language, apparently it's kind of easy to lose focus on what the goals are.

Ok so... trip goals:

1. do art – ideally every day
2. explore healing sanctuaries
3. learn to speak Spanish
4. meet local people and get to know communities – ideally by doing some useful volunteer work
5. gain perspective about the world

During my week in Bogota, I largely forgot about all of those things. I mostly just wandered, walking around town taking pictures of graffiti art and learning how to use the transit system. I wanted to take Spanish classes during that week, but losing my credit card in Cartagena made it pretty difficult to actually do stuff like that, since most of my time and energy were focused on getting myself re-sorted out.

But then I headed out to La Juanita, in the rural town of Guatavita, bringing a lot of expectations and notions along with me. I came here as a Wwoofer (work-exchange on organic farms for cheap traveling). The arrangement is that the travelers do some volunteer farm-work in exchange for free room and board. At least, that's usually the basic arrangement. In Colombia, it's expensive to feed people so most farms ask volunteers to help pay for their food, but food is pretty cheap, so depending on the farm, it could be $3-$12 a day. Wwoofing is an organization that exists all over the world, is at least 20 years old, and is probably the cheapest way to travel anywhere, short of picking up paid work as you go. It can also be a fantastic way to get to know people and communities.

And Wwoofing at La Janita is an excellent way to get to know this community, because Felipe is a hub of community organizing and networking. He started a Tedx group for his town, Tedx Guatavita. In fact, just before I came here, Felipe was in California, at the big Tedx conference in San Franciso, on a scholarship. Which is pretty hot shit. I feel like there is so much awesome stuff going on in this community, that I want to stay and learn about. One of the great things about wwoofing at La Juanita, s that Felipe takes his volunteers along to lots of community workshops and events. In two weeks of staying with him, I got to help build an herb spiral at the little mountaintop farm to two women, visit La Lagoona la Guatavita, the famous lake of the Eldorado Legend, go to a rural cinema showing of movies about food security, and attend a community worm composting workshop at a farm outside of a really little town. Two weeks of volunteering here feels full and exciting and relaxing at the same time.

Felipe speaks fluent English, and there are also two more American volunteers here, Emilio (Milo at home) and Lindsey. They are traveling together and they've been friends for a really long time, and I get along great with them. They both studied environmental biology/ecology at UC Santa Cruse, in California.

Lindsey and I quickly discovered that we're kindred spirits (according to her it's because we're both scorpios – deeply emotional, slightly melodramatic). She is currently trying to decide whether she wants to keep pursuing biology and science as a career, or shift her focus to yoga and dance. During our time at the farm, Lindsey and I were often the only women in a very male environment, and we take turns giving each other emotional support as we each try to figure out what the hell we're trying to accomplish by traveling

Milo is a career farmer and he's got the whole Wwoofing routine down pat. At home, he runs his own landscaping business. He is so enthusiastic about farming and ecology, that sometimes when he talks about it, his whole being just vibrates with excitement and love.

Milo and Lindsey both speak Spanish, and are nice enough to give me daily crash courses, but I'm just not picking up anything useful when I'm able to speak English all day long. In fact, I have this odd, awkward sort of feeling of being on a family vacation where our host is a distant relative and the whole visit is a family work party. I'm happy to have come to La Juanity and met Felipe and Milo and Lindsey, but I know that if I want to learn Spanish and follow my own path, I need to leave their company, and leave the comforting safety net of the English language.

What I really want to be doing right now, is ART. THE ART! I've found a couple of really outstanding volunteer options to teach/do art with kids, and I'm jumping at those options. From here out, the whole tone of my trip is DOING ARTWORK. I'm a slow learner, and often the universe sends me these messages and I'm like, “yeah, yeah, I'll get to that...” except I never do... I think the focus of my personal work for this whole trip is learning how to make my identity as an artist 1st before everything else. Learning to let go of fear of the unkown, letting go of self-consciousness and self-limitations about doing what I need to do. Getting my butt and my art supplies out into a public plaza and busking that shit.

There is something immensely freeing about being on a trip like this, and having all sorts of shit go wrong right at the beginning. It's like, ok, well I did that. Not I know how that works. It's not nearly so scary. This morning at breakfast, Lindsey gave me a pep talk about living in the “now”. Not stressing out about whether I'm in the right place, or where I'm going to next... just being and appreciating the journey I'm on. It was sort of a pep talk to me and to herself at the same time. And she's right. I'm carrying all of this anxiety all of the time about finding the “perfect” experience... obsessing over where I'm going to go, and what I will be doing, instead of the being.

So here is the end of this blog post. Staying at La Juanita has done for me exactly what I needed from it, which was to get a chance to breath, and find my center, and make some plans for the rest of my trip.

Ecuador is still pulling at me... But I've just started getting my shit figured out in Colombia, and there's so much here... I'm navigating this traveler's discomfort... wanting to stay in one place long enough to have a real understanding of it and to make some real relationships... and the conflicting desire to GO TO ALL THE PLACES AND DO ALL THE THINGS. Suddenly, three months feels like not nearly enough time to properly get to know one country, let alone two.

But right now, I'm on the bus back to Bogota, going to meat up with some cool kids from couchsurfing.com and we're gonna go backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains this weekend.

I met a Monster Truck driver from Las Vegas at my hostel.  

He is "stuck" in Bogota because he came to Bogota with his team for a race, but some large, valuable equipment was stolen, and he had to stay behind with one other crew member to try to reclaim it (mostly through legal strategies, it seems).  

I overheard him talking to Jesse Ventura on the telephone.  

He share his joints with me.  It tasted like anxiety and diesel smoke. 

I disapproved of all of the TV shows he wanted to watch on the TV in the hostel common room.  We compromised on Iron Man dubbed in Spanish. 

Eavesdropping on his telophone conversations is highly entertaining.  He plans to set the truck "long jump" record in Las Vegas this New Year's Eve.  

BOGOTA!

March 8, 2013

Tonight is my last night in Bogota, at least for this part of the trip. Tomorrow I will head up to La Guatavita, the farm that I found through couchsurfing.com.

Some reflections of my past week exploring Bogota...

To start with, Bogota is a fully 100% modern city, comparable to any city in the world. With all of the same issues as any city. There are definitely more 'dangerous' places here than in Seattle and other cities I've been to. Security is a Big Deal here. There are even a staff of three security guards at the community coop art gallery.

Not speaking Spanish is a huge barrier for me in getting to know anyone who lives here. I keep finding people who I'd really like to be friends with, but that's hard when I can't talk to them. I mean, there's lots of people who speak English, but my intention for this trip is to get to know this place, on it's own terms, and that definitely requires speaking the language. So for starters, I'm downloading mp3s of Spanish lessons tonight, so I can put them on my phone and listen to them while I paint, walk, do other work.

A few days ago, still staying at my first hostel, Alegria, I met a dude named Hunter and his friend Ankesh, traveling together on spring break from college in Raleigh North Carolina. Hunter is from Ashville, and he tells me the story of how at 18 or something, he started a non-profit company with his best friend (whose name I did not catch), to send shoes to Dominican Republic. He told me about how in doing this work, he quickly realized that people in the Dominican Republic don't need shoes. In fact, they don't need most of the charity bullshit that people send them... Hunter said in one visit, one old dude told him, “you know we just want you to hang out with us and work on actually trying to understand us. If we wanted shoes we would get shoes.” Whoa. Big realization for a privileged white kid. So now, mostly what Hunter and his friend to with their non-profit is to give presentations to school kids in the US and talk about cooperative problem solving... they go to DR to hang out with peeps and learn, then they go home and tell US schoolkids their story about how kids in the DR didn't need their shoes. Which seems like a pretty good turnaround in the flow of “international aid” to me.

I have gotten to meet some people who live in Bogota, very near my hostel in La Candelaria neighborhood. They are Anres and Carolina. Andres is the brother of Felipe, the dude who's farm I'm going to. Before I even got to Bogota, Felipe sent me their phone numbers and told me to call them when I got to Bogota. After getting out of the hospital, I managed to muster up the inertia to actually call Andres, and he was very happy to meet up and chat. He invited me to their house, a gorgeous old Spanish style home, with linking open courtyards (as most of the houses here are).

Andres is an artist, and Carolina is an anthropologist. Carolina spends nearly a total of six months working with tribes in the Columbian Amazon, and Andres often goes with her. I got to have lots of interesting conversation with them about the state of aboriginal rights in Colombia. Carolina says that aboriginal people of the Colombia regions have perhaps the most rights of any peoples in South America. They often own their land, and have nationally recognized sovereignty(!).

I mention my interest in maybe spending time with some tribes, if possible. They gently give me a whole speech, which seems a mix of practiced “reality check” for privileged city kids, and a general vent about negative experiences with idealistic volunteers. Basically, aboriginal people really don't need jack shit from anyone in the “developed world”. In fact the whole concept of “developed vs undeveloped” is inherently racist and ego-centric on the part of the “developed world”. In fact, the reality is more the difference between the colonial/oppressive/corporate world vs the tribes living in harmony with their cultural history and ecology. Anyone trying to “go in and help” is generally full of bullshit and racism (not bad intentions... just bad programming). And the tribes must first spend a massive amount of energy re-programming the jerk and teaching them how to live. Teaching them how to be a human being within their society. Then, maybe... the person can be useful. And anyways, the tribes don't need any things... everything they need is provided by the forest. What the do need is people to help them communicate with the government. Colombian layers and activists to help them assert their sovereignty rights and their land rights.

So in conversation with Caroline and Anres, I re-state my interest with more accuracy to my intentions... “I am interested in spending time with Amazon tribes in order to learn from them... ways to help heal the oppressive colonial world, which is doing so much hurt and destruction.”

“Ah”, the say, “now you might get somewhere.”

So overall, what have I really accomplished the past 10 days in Bogota... ?

Well, I got a diagnosis for a neurological issue that was fucking with my eyesight and giving me vertigo. That was gonna have to happen anyways. I can't blame my trip, Colombia, or Bogota for that one. In fact, I am proud of myself for not allowing that melodrama to derail my trip. One week out of a three month trip to deal with a medical emergency is ok.

I have wandered around the city A Lot, especially back and forth from my hostel to the hospital, which are on completely opposite ends of the city. And Bogota is HUGE. I haven't done any research, but I think it's waaay bigger than Seattle. Bigger than LA. Maybe... I've begun to understand and navigate an incredibly convoluted and chaotic transit system, which I feel super proud of myself for. It is like learning to decipher a new form of hieroglyphics. I have seen tons of amazing graffiti and street art (see photographic evidence!).

I have not done art in public or sold it to any passerbyers, and I have not gone salsa dancing (not sure if the vertigo is healed well enough yet for dancing...). But you know what, I am a huge homebody... and I'm just as much of a homebody while traveling as I am at home... So I don't really want to fill up all of every day with a zillion little goals and tourist activities. I just want to chill out and cook meals for myself and write blog posts and do some artwork. Unfortunately, when I do that in hostels, it costs $12 a day, which isn't incredibly expensive, but definitely isn't in my budget for the whole trip. Also, hostels are this strange bubble-world of privileged international travelers. Granted, I've met some awesome people staying in hostels this past week, but I've barely met anyone who actually lives in Bogota, aside from Adnres and Carolina.

Now, Andres and Carolina I met, vaguely, through couchsurfing. And I think that's definitely what I'll focus the rest of my trip on for staying in cities. I was excessively picky when looking for CS hosts before my trip, trying really hard to find people to stay with who were as close to me (or some idealized version of who I think I'd like to be...) as possible. Which is kind of bullshit. Reviewing the list of nearly 15 thousand possible couchsurfing hosts in Bogota alone, I found lots and lots of people who I'd love to stay with and get to know. I really think coming back to Bogota and staying with people who live here will drastically improve my experience of this city. Now again, I'm being judgemental of hostels maybe... there's lots and lots of people in hostels who are great! I met a bunch of them! But meeting first world-kids on holiday isn't my intention for this trip, and it's definitely not something I want to blow my trip budget on.

In the first couple of days of this trip, it feels like I got this huge blow that knocked me off center and totally fucked with my sense of self and purpose for being here. I had a couple of dark and stormy days, under the bright and shining Colombian sun. I feel like I'm beginning to get my center back now. I've got a great start getting to know Bogota. I move slowly anyways, and I know this about myself. I should've expect myself to blow into a city in a week, DO ALL THE THINGS, find all of the little out of the way hard to find secret bits of culture that I hope to find. What I did do was figure out how to find all of the things I do want to do, start to get comfortable and familiar with a big huge foreign city, and also deal with a medical crisis. And that's pretty damn ok (I remind myself).

NEXT UPDATE: FARMALICIOUS

Hospital Melodrama! just like tv...

Blog post

March 1 7pm

Ok, I'm in the hospital, and I'm very, very bored. Most of what goes on here is waiting... I left my backpack, with most of my art supplies, back at the hostel. If I were feeling more docile, I would get a pen and paper and start doodling some art, but right now all of my energy is going into trying to understand what's going on and trying to communicate with family at home. This this computer is a lifeline. I clutch at it desperately. It is my one solid connection to home, help, resources, and easy English-Spanish translation.

So yesterday, the clinic doctor took one look at my eyeball situation and said, “This is an emergency, you need to go to the hospital!” He actually spend a bunch of time examining me, thinking I had a viral sins infection, before it occurred to me to properly show off what's going on with my eyes. Apparently it's not super noticeable to people unless I show it off. This boggles my mind a bit, since when I look at myself in the mirror, I have THE CRAZY EYES, and I can't imagine how someone wouldn't notice that.

Anyways. EMERGENCY! So in the process of calling the clinic doctor, the people at the hostel found out (with shock!) that I have no insurance at all. One German woman who had been helping translate was simply appalled. “Didn't Obama fix that shit???” “Yes, but it doesn't go into full effect for another year or two...” So we're all sitting around trying to figure out how I'm gonna go to the hospital with no money. The hospital definitely will not let me in knowing I have no way to pay my bill. Absolutely not. I say, well, I have money, and I can have a family member from the states pay my bill with a credit card for me... But everyone feel very dubious that hospital will accept this tenuous payment method. They say, only a physical credit card will work to get me in... They were also somewhat shocked that I didn't at least buy traveler's insurance, but that is not something I've ever been familiar with, so it didn't even occur to me to get it. Oh man, though, next time I travel overseas... Def gonna get some.

So, as we are sitting around trying to figure out how I can get some access to my money and get myself into the hospital, things are looking more and more desperate. I'm obviously starting to panic a little. Then Gloria, the mother of Alegria (Alegria's Hostel), who happens to bet there covering for her daughter... Gloria steps up BIGTIME.

She essentially says, “The doctor says you need to go to the hospital, so you need to go. I will sign for you and take responsibility to get you in. We'd just better make sure to get ahold of your family so they can pay the bill...” (imagine that being translated choppily through a dashing Argentine man, also full of compassion). Gloria says, “I am going to help you, you are not alone.”

At which point I promptly start crying, obviously.

So, a cab is called, and we head off to the hospital. It is an hour cab ride through thick traffic, and Glaria and I attempt to chat with each other with her small amount of English and my minute amount of Spanish. It is generally awkward. It gets dark promptly at 6pm in Columbia, and night falls as weride across town.

It is full dark when we arrive at the hospital, but instead of going immediately inside, we wander around the block a bit, Gloria desperately looking for a phone of some kind to help me cal my father. It becomes obvious the she definitely can not afford to cover my hospital bill, even temporarily, and she is going waaay out on a limb offering to sign me into the hospital. Eventually she gives up on fining a phone and we walk into the hospital.

But it's not easy to get in... Up until this point, the idea of the hospital has been built up in my head as some epic fortress, impenetrable only by the password of MONEY. But it does not at all prepare me for the reality of the place. On the ride over, I observe that we are obviously heading into a wealthier, fancier end of town. The hospital itself is a massive building, exactly like any fancy private hospital in the United States. Except that there are security guards at every single door, and every door is controlled by a keypass that only the security guards and select hospital staff have. Most of the doctors, nurses, and administrators pass through doors by knocking and waiting for the security guards to open it for them. In fact, the security guards are three layers thick on the doors in the ER... and the routinely radio descriptions of people passing through the doors to the next check point that a person is heading towards. If you've ever watched Firefly, it feels exactly like entering the Alliance hospital on the center world Ariel... Everything is gleaming white, with silver metal chrome, fancy glass doors, and high-tech security and key cards.

I wonder... presumably the intense security is meant to ward against the drug and gang violence? I hear that Columbia has pretty good social healthcare. But I also read a couple of articles about protests and riots over healthcare access. Part of me wonders if the intense security is partly for the purpose of keeping out the people who can't afford the fees... I don't really know the politics here. I only know that walking in is surreal.

Eventually Gloria talks them into admitting me, how she did I don't really know... I think it is a combination of the promise of my family helping pay, and her signing responsibility for me (and my bill) on the paperwork.

We go in one layer of security guard doors, then a second layer. Here is a check-in desk, another high-tech door and security guard. We wait for the triage doctor to call my name and see me.

The triage doctor is a tall, goofy, friendly guy. He speaks reasonable English and is exceedingly amused by how tall I am. He even wants to stand side by side and have Gloria tell me if I am taller than him. Apparently I am slightly taller than him, which he is delighted by. I endure this bullshit while trying not to encourage him. The he starts the examination. He is a little more handsy than most Columbians.

In general, Columbians are pretty touchy-feely – many of the hospital staff unabashedly touched me in casual passing, or to be comforting, in ways that would never be considered appropriate in the US. Mostly I find this a pleasant and refreshing change from the touch-starved US culture. But this triage doctor definitely goes beyond normal friendliness.

Handsy Triage Doc says he wants to have the neurologist see me. Gloria and I go back out to the waiting room again, and wait another 20 minutes at least. When the triage doc comes to see me, he takes a look at me, does lots of neurological tests... and says he thinks he needs to admit me and I need an MRI scan (which the call TAC). At this point, I am still so tired and dizzy that I can't really argue or advocate for myself. So, I go with a nurse, and she shows me to a room on the emergency floor. The room has three walls, with the fourth wall opening directly into the hallway, covered by a curtain. The nurse tells me to take my shirt off and put the hospital gown on, but I get to keep my pants on (small victories)! She then installs an IV port on the inside of my left elbow, which they apparently need for the MRI. Then the nurse leaves, and we wait. And wait. No more information. No one comes to give us an update on when the MRI will be... I pull out my computer and work on getting it connected to the wireless in the hospital. Soon Gloria realize that it is very late! She goes and asks the doctors what's going on...

Oh, Gloria. She is amazing. She has sort of adopted me. It was very comforting to have someone with me, caring about me and keeping me company. On the other hand, in retrospect, I'm not sure going to the ER was useful in any way. What I really mostly needed was rest and food. The thing with my eyes definitely needed to be checked out by a neurologist, but I don't think it was ever an emergency. But when you're desperately clutching the mattress, hoping that the world will stop spinning, and the neighborhood doc says “Go to the ER”, it's hard to ignore.

Even though Gloria speaks fluent Spanish, she didn't seem able to get very good or reliable information from of the hospital staff – even accounting for the language barrier, her info was often just wrong. But maybe it wasn't her, because I often got conflicting information from different hospital staff. To get good information, I had to ask them to send me someone who speaks English, or walk up to the nursing desk with my computer and use Google Translator, and then I had to grill them and cross-reference the information given to me by other staff. This, I find, is the most annoying part about hospitals (an experience I have also observed in US...). Everyone is so busy... so busy the don't have time to answer your questions, or comfort you, or to sit and carefully explain things to make sure everything is really understood. No one has time to care about the specific narrative of an individual patient, because they all have too many patients, which they're constantly trying to juggle. Which is funny, because as the patient, isn't it really supposed to be all about me? If you're sick, and you're in a place where everyone is so busy that they don't have time to take care of their patients' emotional needs and general comfort, what the hell are they accomplishing? They are accomplishing bullshit, that's what. No one came and asked me if I had a toothbrush. No one cared whether or not I had brushed my teeth. I brought mine with me, but by the time I got out of the MRI, it was 12:30, and I was exhausted, so I just brushed them in bed before falling into deep sleep.

I'm woken up at some bullshit time like 7am - what they fuck, don't they have any respect for a sick patient's need to get a full 8-9hrs of sleep??? One of the doctors from the neurological team is waking me up and asking me all sorts of neurological assessment questions.

I spend the morning intermittently waiting, trying desperately to contact my family at home to check-in and discuss my situation, to receive support, and reality check. The head neurologist comes and talks to me. He says, I definitely do not have brain tumors. WELL, SUPER. But, he says, we found white spots – lesions – at the back of your brain, and these spots, along with your eye condition, are consistent with Multiple Sclerosis symptoms... He won't say he thinks I have MS, he only says it is a possibility, but it takes at least 3 months to get a diagnosis. He also says, there is a treatment he can give me to fix my eyes. It is a steroid treatment (that's about all he says). He says he wants to admit me for 5 more days, do this treatment and do more tests. I immediately balk. I say, before I will consent to any of that, I want to know how much it will cost, and I want to talk to my family. We negotiate a bit more, and I ask if I can do the steroid treatment as an outpatient. He says, “uh, yeah, maybe... let me talk to the nurses and administrators...” then he leaves.

More waiting is interrupted by another team of neurologists asking me more of the same questions, and testing my reflexes. At this point, I am obviously upset, I am becoming increasingly overwhelmed, feeling lost, alone, and not in control. I try hard to muster up the energy to grill these doctors about what is going on. One of them speaks very good English and seems to be the team leader, since he's coaching a younger doc on her technique while looking at my eyeballs. This doctor is tall and attractive in a sort of young, Latin George Clooney sort of way. They talk vaguely about the steroid treatment, and I still say I need to talk to my family before I decide what to do.

Earlier, I had been trying to figure out a way to call home, and I'd gone and asked the nurses if there was any possibility that they had a set of computer headphones with a speaker that I could use. The nurses could not come up with anything.

I mention to the three neurology doctors, that I could call my family with my computer, if only I had some headphones with a microphone. George Cloony doc perks up and pulls a set up Ipod headphones from his pocket, and offers to let me borrow them. AH! Headphones! A frigging lifeline! I immediately try to call my dad, but he is doing something away form phones and internet, and I haven't been able to get ahold of him since I went into the hospital. So I call my sister. Which is amazing. Just hear the voices of someone I know knows me and loves me is so comforting, I immediately start crying. When finish crying well enough to talk, I tell my sister the whole story. She is amazing moral support. At the point when I am talking to her, I am thinking that I am going to stay in the hospital for the steroids treatment... that's what the team supervisor doctor convinces me of.

But then again, sitting in my hospital bed for another couple hours, waiting for something to happen, I feel more and more antsy about it. Ech. I do a little research about steroid treatments for MS – this is the standard treatment for MS episodes, but steroids are also HORRIBLE. For this treatment, I have to stay in the hospital for three days to receive massive doses of steroids intravenously. Also, steroids make you depressed. So maybe it'll “fix” the thing with my eyes, but then I'll be sent off on the rest of my tip with chemically induced clinical depression. Frankly, that sounds waaay more unsafe than not having good peripheral vision.

At some point I also demanded a cost estimate for all of the tests and treatments they wanted me to stay for. It comes back with a list of things like, 5-day hospital stay, cost of room & care, drug treatments, LUMBAR PUNCTURE (no one ever mentioned anything about that either... they just said “tests”) and theotal cost is about $4,000. HOLY EFFING SHIT.

'Round about 8pm, I say “that's it”. I'm getting off this crazy train. Maybe I do need the steroid treatments, but I'm not going to decide right now, when I still feel powerless and overwhelmed and alone. I demand to see the doctors, and I say I'm leaving. It takes another three hours for me to actually get out of the hospital. In the process of demanding to leave and demanding to talk to the docs, they come back, full of concern for me... they say, “you really need this treatment because we think you have MS”.

I say, “Really, because the other doc earlier today said it was just a vague possibility...”

One of the two attending docs goes, “We think you have MS with 80% certainty.”

And I immediately break down and start crying in their stupid faces, and I stare at them accusingly and say, “NO ONE CAME TO TELL ME THAT. That is big, scary, overwhelming deal. I sure as hell am not gonna stay here now! I need to take a few days to talk to my family, and figure out what I'm gonna do... I NEED TO LEAVE HERE.” They are genuinely surprised that I don't wand to stay in the hospital for a giant chunk of time, and receive scary treatments with tons of side affects, when I just found out two seconds ago that they think I have a lifelong debilitating and degenerative disease. They are surpised that I am overwhelmed by all of this and need some time to think and understand what's going on... they are surprised that I would want to do my own research and to understand my condition and the treatment on a deeper scientific level, instead of just blindly trusting their diagnosis. They are surprised that I distrust the bureaucratic system in which I feel powerless and want to get the hell outside of it to think.

After I broke down though, they act appropriately reprimanded, try half-heartedly to convince me that I will still need the steroid treatment, and they act very concerned about wanting to know what I decide to do, and how my case progresses even when I get back home. Then I have to wait another few hours for them to write-up the narrative of my diagnosis, because they want to give it to me before I leave. One of the docs gives me his personal email and asks me to keep him updated.

Then it takes another ordeal of trying to leave, because I don't have a credit card to pay my bill with... The hospital's general policy is not to let anyone leave without paying their bill... So I go to the cashier, and carefully work through the process of explaining that I don't have a plastic credit card, that my family in the US is helping me pay my bill, and that it needs to be done over the internet. At that point, the guy says, he doesn't know how to do an online payment, and we'll have to wait 'till morning for the “chief”. Because their general policy is not to let anyone leave without paying, they require that I leave my passport with them and come back as early in the morning as possible. I am pretty nervous about leaving my passport, but this place seems like a big, impersonal enough bureaucratic institution with super high security, so I allow them to hold my passport hostage.

At this point, it's like 11pm. I feel like a jerk, but I call Gloria. The hostel is a $10 cab ride across town (and back again in the morning), while Gloria had mentioned that her apartment was really close to the hospital. I give her a call – it's late, but she's still barely awake. I manage to communicate to her that I'm getting out of the hospital right now, and I need to come back to the hospital very early in the morning, and could I please come to her house? Once she understands all of this, she is very welcoming. The cab ride to her place is about $3 or $4 dollars, which is a huge relief.

March 2 8:30am

In the morning, I get back to the hospital and start working on trying to pay my bill. But it's one level of bullshit after another. There is a way to do a credit card payment online, but it's complicated and finicky. I call my sister, woke her up at 5:30am – which she was immensely kind and patient and accommodating about. We spend probably an hour on the phone, trying to make the internet transaction work, but it just keeps getting rejected by the hospital system. At some point, a young intern doctor comes to help me translate the the hospital admin staff. I am progressively getting more and more frustrated, crying off and on. I call my bank, and ask if they can do a direct wire transfer to the hospital. They say they could, but not on the weekend – I would have to do it on Monday. Then I call my dad (the staff is letting me use a hospital phone to call the states), and I finally get to talk to him, for the first time since all of this craziness started (we've only been able to exchange emails so far). Talking to my father on the phone, obviously the first thing I do is break down crying, explaining what is currently happening. Dad is great, he says, no, I will take care of all of this. If the hospital will let you leave, I will take care of getting all of this done on Monday. I communicate this to the intern doctor who is translating for me. As a medical professional, he is increasingly concerned about my health, and how this ordeal of trying to pay my bill is affecting me (obviously badly).

At this point, I am just telling him, yes, I can pay the bill, but I don't think it's possible to do over the weekend. He tells me to go chill out in the cafe next to the hospital for a 20 minutes, while he goes and advocates for me with the hospital admin staff. 20 minures later, he comes back, with the admin dude, saying, “OK, you can go... we trust you.” Which is a huge relief. I realize that they are also making Big Huge Exception for me, because of my situation. So with my passport, I catch a cab back to La Candelaria, the neighborhood where my hostel is.

Back at my hostel, I'm just determined to chill out and rest, and work on exploring the city. My vision is still sketchy, but it is starting to improve significantly each day. By Sunday, I am way less clumsy and dizzy, and I can easily navigate around town without getting super tired just from trying to focus.

March 4

Monday morning, I am woken up by Viviana, the woman who is running the hostel for Alegria while Alegria is on vacation. She says she needs to make a photocopy of my passport. I say fine, give it to her, and go back to sleep (HOLY SHIT, this was a bad move. My passport is currently my ONLY lifeline, for continuing my trip. It is my only way to get around, and get money. It is my only ID. Never ever, for the rest of my trip, shall I let it out of my immediate control...). Anyways, I wake up a few hours later, (around 9), and ask Vivian for my passport. She says that Gloria has it, that Gloria is running some errands, and that I need to wait for Gloria to arrive. AGGGH. Okay, so I'm just supposed to sit around and wait for her??? I spend the morning going back and forth between calling the hospital's International Services office, with staff who's job I believe is to facilitate and translate for international patients (maybe they just take care of Medical Tourists...). I make sure they are in contact with my dad, I pester my dad with emails. Then I get a phone call from Alegria. She says, “Hey, what's going on. My mom helped you out, and now the hospital has frozen all of her accounts and her credit card has been shut off.” OMG, seriously??? This turns out to be a big fat lie (or just high melodrama). She just wanted to light a fire under my ass to make sure and get the hospital bill paid. The hospital did send a bill to Gloria's house, which royally freaked her out. But I immediately call the hospital and grill the International Services office about this, and they say it would not at all be possible for them to do anything like that, because Gloria never gave them any payment info. Anyways, 'round 1pm, Gloria finally shows up. Turns out my passport was in the desk at the hostel the whole time. She show me the bill that the hospital sent her, wants to make sure that I'm actually working on paying it. She says, “This isn't my problem, is it???” I say, “No, that's just paper. It doesn't mean they expect you to pay. It's just bureaucratic. And also, my dad is talking to Diana (international services office at the hospital) right now, actively working on getting it paid. She is much relieved, but she still wants to make a photocopy of my passport, as general insurance for her. Yeah, fine, I say. She's gonna walk tot the corner store, and at this point, I'm not willing to let my passport out of my sight, so I walk with her.

So most of the morning, I am generally held hostage by language barriers, miscommunication, and anxiety. BLAGH.

Anyways, turns out it is impossible to get any kinds of online transaction, direct wire transfer, or anything else to work. The backup plan is for dad to send me a big giant cash wire transfer, I go pick it up, and take it directly to the hospital. So we make sure to check on finding a Western Union inside a bank, close to the hospital.

March 5

So that is my day on Tuesday. I am done with taxi cabs. As a city kid, it is a point of honor to navigate and use public transportation, even in a foreign city where I don't speak the language. I stop by the house of a friend I'd met off of couchsurfing.com over the weekend, and they give me directions on how to get all the way up to the hospital by bus. So I head out. Turns out the bus line they told me was correct, but they told me to go to the wrong stop... (not really their fault, the bus lines here are convoluted and routes get changed regularly). So I spend an hour or so wandering around, stopping random buses to ask if they go to “Foundation de Santa Fe Hospital”? Finally a really nice guy hops off his bus and walks me to the bus stop where I catch the right bus. I am inherently wary of the dude's intentions, since there are an awful lots of dude who heckle and harass women on the street here, but this guy is super nice. He walks me to the street where he helps me catch the right bus, then he walk back towards the street his bus line was one to continue his own commute.

So, TRANSIT ADVENTURE! OMG, it was thrilling. On the bus, I meet an American woman named Dia. She has been living in Bogota for a year now, teaching English. We have a nice chat, and she tells me about a good Spanish school, should I decide to take classes.

I finally get to the hospital, and get ahold of Diana (the international services nurse). I ask her, please, where is the best Western Union closes to the hospital. She tells me to take a cab (5min) to the mall nearby. There is a WU inside a bank there. So I do (one more cab ride...). The mall turns out to be an EPIC FORTRESS. Though I have no interest in the mall itself, the trip turns out to be worth it just to observe the incredible level of security surrounding it. Considering that I'll be picking up and carrying a giant wad of cash, the security is also a little re-assuring.

Back to the hospital... I get there and pay-up. Done and done. Good lord, considering how difficult this was, I'm not going back to the hospital for anything unless I have my plastic credit card in my hand and know that I can easily take care of things.

Before I go, I head up to pay a visit to the neurology department. I want my MRI scans, and the doctors had told me to get them anyways. So I check in with neurology. One of their interns comes to help me translate with the imaging department, and she is also texting the attending docs to see if they are available to see me. They keep asking if I have an appointment, and I say “No, they just told me to come if I came back – they said I didn't need to make an appointment”. Anyways, the team supervisor doc who was overseeing my case is not around, and the attending docs are busy. After I get the CD of my MRI scans, I go back to the neurology office, and I end up talking to the chief of neurology.

The chief, Dr Edgar Osuna, sits down and goes through my MRI scans with me. He shows me the two spots in my brain that they found which look like MS. He explains that a positive diagnosis requires the comparison of more scans over time (like every 3 months or so for a year). I say, “ Why was your team to pushy about the steroid treatment??? Steroids have so many horrible side affects, and my condition is significantly improving on it's own...”

He says, and I quote: “Well, yes, we expect the symptoms to get better on their own, just slowly. The treatment is to make it go faster. It's like, you have a cut on your hand, and you put ointment on it to help it heal faster.”

I think his analogy is bullshit. Wound ointment doesn't have the crazy side affects of weight gain, nervous system stress, chemically induced depression, acne... etc.

I say, “Yes, but if you're always in such a constant hurry to do treatments, then you never take the time to just wait and see how things are developing on their own. It's like having a conversation and constantly yelling about what you're seeing, without ever stopping to really listen to what is being said... I know that there is pressure to move fast because of costs, but I think the care suffers when everything is in such a hurry.”

He sort of shrugs off this criticism, maybe because I am challenging much of the foundation of the way medicine is practiced in a hospital. Granted, I also come in through the ER.

Anyways, I make a second criticism; “I am also very prone to depression. I just spent the last year working my way out of a huge depression, and I don't want to get thrown back in that hole by steroids. No one ever asked me about the state of my mental health before prescribing huge doses of a drug that can cause depression.”

This, he takes seriously and says, “Yes, that is an important consideration. I will talk to my team about that.”

Overall, I trust the diagnostic work of these physicians. I believe the experience I had (aside from the crazy ordeal trying to figure out how to pay... but maybe not) was exactly the same as I would have received in any state of the art US hospital. The language barrier made everything harder and more confusing and more scary, but I also distrust this hospital for the exact same reasons I distrust a hospital in the US. I felt helpless and powerless. I felt like there were doctors behind the scenes who knew what was going on, and I was always the last person to know, they'd just pop by randomly and give me little snippet of information. It felt like no one ever had enough time to fully explain what all was going on, and I was just being pushed through a factory machine, each station doing one small piece of the puzzle, most of the staff not actually knowing or caring about my whole story. No one cared if I brushed my teeth before I went to sleep.

My next step in working with this MS diagnosis? I will seek alternative treatments like acupuncture. I will consult with natural doctors about how I can mediate symptoms with diet, and natural supplements. I'm not saying I won't ever do a steroid treatment for MS symptoms. It is an option, among a whole host of other possible options. But I reject he Dr's assertion that it is the “only” option. That, is straight-up bullshit. For now, the side-affects of steroids look far worse than the symptoms it is supposed to “fix”. Mostly I will work on taking better care of myself and making sure that I get rest and eat well. One think I know for sure, is that when I eat shitty food, or skip meals, HORRIBLE BAD THINGS happen. Like losing my wallet and ending up in the ER in a foreign land, instead of just making a regular appointment to see the doc.

For now, I think my big take-away lesson from this experience, is “Listen more carefully to the small voice, and make self-care high priority”.

I hope this melodrama is done and behind me. According to Dr Osuna, I don't necessarily have any reason to expect that another attack is imminent. If one does happen, I know that it is not an emergency. I just need to rest and take care of myself, and slowly asses my situation and my options.

Now, on to a proper adventure in South America. Saturday, I head up to a lovely permaculture farm near a tiny town by Lake Guatavita, in the Andes Mountains.

Love,

Pheonix

continuity smontinuty...

So have this blog... and I have it in my head that one virtue in keeping a blog is to have some continuity in the thoughts and ideas in one's blog posts. And I've been sort of trying to do that.  Except that in the past month, I sort of got stuck in this topic of privilege and gender equality issues. 
I have this epic blog post stewing in my head, but at this point it's getting really long... and in my head, it looks more like a dissertation.  it's too big.  maybe if I get stranded somewhere on my trip, with nothing to do, and electricity and internet access, then I'll start working it up.  But for now, I'm putting it on the back burner...

in case you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, here are links to the relevant posts, in backwards chronological order...
http://thegingermac.blogspot.com/2012/11/one-in-four-conversation-criticisms.html
http://thegingermac.blogspot.com/2012/10/one-in-four-and-reincarnation-of.html
http://thegingermac.blogspot.com/2012/09/follow-up-thoughts-on-cultural.html
http://thegingermac.blogspot.com/2012/04/bicycle-dream-catchers-and-cultural.html