I look up and wonder if my eyes are even open because all I see is black. The wind is blowing my wet hair across my face and I can't remember what day it is or what I did yesterday. I just hear the sound of water running and the fan blowing; everything else is quiet. And then I sit up in bed and realize it's already 4:45am. Already 4:45?; that's a sentence I would have never expected my fingers to type. And the day begins.
The warm Cartagena wind blows leaves and flowers across the empty streets as I make my way to a bus stop 3 blocks away at 5:25am, and I find myself stepping over exoctic flowers and dog doodoo with equal frequency. I buy a water for .75 cents through a window at the tienda because it's still not open and tell a man advertising for vans that I don't want to go to Baranquilla today, just like yesterday, and will have the same answer tomorrow. I get on a bus labeled with the name of the 4th largest laminating company in the world and immediately fall asleep in the airconditioned interior. 45 minutes later, the bus stops and the sleeping inhabitants slowly disembark to disapper among the crowd of workers filing off buses and walking around ducks and chickens to go to work. I make my way to the guard station and trade my Iowa State ID for a visitors badge and finally find myself in an airconditioned lobby drinking sugared coffee out of a shot-sized cup waiting for 7 o'clock to roll around and my class to start.
95 minutes later I re-trade my pass for my ID and the guard eyes my picture and then me before he hands it over and smiles at me for 2 seconds too long. Then I get into a taxi driven by a guy named Sergio who has both a Colombian and an Italian passport and immediately fall asleep again. It's 8:45.
Around 9:45 I'm awoken as the taxi stops and Ryan gets out in front of Berlitz. We go in and the cold air hits me and I realize I've taken 2 unsatisfying naps already and now I need to get to work to prepare for the classes I have this afternoon or later this morning. I greet the friendly secretaries, say hi to my boss, and head upstairs to plan my lessons. By 9pm I will have taught at the Naval Acadamy, and at least one other class at Berlitz. The classes are usually spaced so there is enough time between them to eat (2 hours) but not long enough to do anything further than 4 blocks in any direction. And this has been my reality for the past 2 weeks with only Sunday to live my life. I realized that I haven't seen the Cartagena sun in 8 days. I didn't even have a chance to see it on Sunday because I was running the errands I don't have time to do the rest of the week....
So my question is... when is enough enough? Why am I here? To work from 5am until 9pm and make $200 a week? Or am I here to learn Spanish (which is really hard to learn when you spend all your time in an English center and when you finally leave the only interaction you get is with the taxi driver...).
Tomorrow I'm moving into my new apartment. This week I should get a bank account and a phone... which I haven't had in over a month. Weird. Things are falling into and out of place so fast I feel like my life is made of tectonic plates; constant shift and volatility but things still seem to work.
Until I come to a conclusion about whether to fight another round or whether to drop the gloves, I'm going to try to sleep more and stress less. After all, at the end of the day, I'm still in Colombia living an adventure and even if that adventure turns into a knock out round for the other guy, I'll still be able to say I fought.
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