Bogota: Building a new home

I live in Bogota, Colombia--en Los Rosales--a posh neighborhood in these hills. This summer I begin my 15th year of International Economic Development, and maybe my last.

There is a symmetry to the number three: three languages, three
continents, three different completely different conflicts. And here
is the point--three lives.

Yes, its a thrill to land somewhere and begin to unravel its internal
narrative: what exactly happened in Srebrenica and why is Mladic
really still at large? Is Pakistan playing a double game of US friend
and foe and who killed. Benazir? What are the drivers of the conflict
in Colombia and what role does Chavez play? Or who was Pablo Escobar?

But, it is also tiring to keep moving, decoding a culture, and re-inventing oneself.

Day one: find language teacher strong enough to iron out gender and
conjugation errors, expand professional vocabulary and eliminate verbal ticks (such as me entiendes) and help strengthen my writing skills.

Day two: enter stream of local spiritual, mind-body, yoga communities,
plant seeds to build a group of kindred spirits willing to build their
day around a shared 6 AM Mysore practice.

Day three: hire maid. Can save 15 hours a week by outsourcing
shopping, cooking, cleaning, and laundry.

Day four: make friends. When was the last time you had one name in
your cell phone directory-and no one to add?

Day five: send group email or these days begin posting status updates,
photos on Facebook, or launch blog.

Day six: begin to chip away at the question, what do I think our
economic assistance could do to support the champions of change here.
Who is willing to begin the multi-year process of helping me see,
understand, participate in the society from the inside? Should I be
reading Osloblodenja or Dnevni Avaz? The News or Jang? And El
Tiempo or La Republica?

Day seven: Rest.

My first month's friends, are rarely my second month's friends. In
Bosnia, my first friends were the waitor from the coffee bar on
Ferhadija, Samir, who delivered capacinnos all day to the office and
Zehra, the woman my younger sister had been writing letters to during
the war through the organization, "Woman for Woman in Bosnia."

In Pakistan it was Gulmina the sister of my Urdu teacher from
Washington, who lived in Rawalpindi, and the kid who installed my
wireless internet.

And here in Bogota, its German the husband of my sister's Colombian
baby-sitter, who is here visiting his family.

A big transition takes place when kindred spirits emerge, like Sanjin and
Lejla, Safraz and Natalya, or Juliana and Yomila--the people who decode the
inside view, who are quick to correct my gross cultural oversights,
and who dare to endure the long haul of cultivating a relationship
with me in their language.

This blog will be a multi-lingual diary of my third attempt to explore
what it means to belong to another culture. I suspect, each entry
will in some way, tie back into what I lived in Sarajevo and
Islamabad. May it in some way, invite you as well, to consider what it
means to belong to the place you call home.

Hasta luego!