Ice Skates vs Gaza

January 11,2009 on Amsterdam News: Ice Skating, where can you ice skate, the canals are frozen how many ice skates were sold, the minister broke an arm skating, the 11 city tour( ice skating around different cities) oh and by the way there is a conflict in Gaza!

This is one of those defining moments when you clearly understand that you are in another culture, in another country in another reality. Colombia has more news every day than two years in New Zeland and when I saw ice skating news apart from laughing I enjoyed the fact that I was for the first time in many months away from conflict and political issues from my country. That is exactly how you know you have crossed the barrier of development and underdevelopment. When you hear news and the news change of intensity, change of importance and changes priorities. I was in Netherlands for over a month, I was in a developed country, I was living the dream of many people to go to Europe but was it an aspiration still for me?

I have been going to Netherlands for the past six years and I have always been in the comfortable arena of an international group,staying in hotels, eating in nice restaurants and enjoying the culture staying with some friends in their home but always as an observer and never as someone who now for sentimental reasons has to adapt quickly to another culture. But do I really have to adapt to it?

Suddenly my level of English which has helped me in my volunteer job for many years around the world wasn`t good enough to stablish realationships further than a hi, hello and how long are you staying in Netherlands. Making friends suddenly is not easy because inspite people constantly tell you that you can survive in Netherlands with only English if you want to establish real links it takes time and hardly can be done with the scarce 50 words or more I know in Dutch. Is learning Dutch or choosing to stay quiet for hours seing people around you laugh and have fun and you having no clue at all at what they are talking.

This visit included encounters such as the guard in the door of a public international building who inspite my efforts of saying a name in the difficult Dutch pronunciation and showing the name, and even doing mimics to establish communication I was sent off with a: " You are the one who should know Dutch and learn how to say things!"And even had a bus driver who inspite he was late, it was freezing outside and all the circumstances showed him guilty didn`t want to be flexible enough to let me in the bus and I would have to wait for over an hour more if it wasn`t for the nice boy who gave me a chair! This is the moment when Europe stops being glamorous. This is the moment when is your reality and not a holiday and you start seing things as they are.

I see a continent which inspite has agreements as amazing as the European Union still makes it difficult to move around even if you are national of one of the countries. No discounts apply away from the border of the country you are born, trains don`t work exactly the same across the nations, conditions such as a safe road in the middle of an orange alarm of snow change from one side of the path to the other and there is a long road to go for a continent that promotes freedom, openess and multiculturalism to be ready for foreigners, imigrants and other cultures.

It all lies in those two questions: Do I have to adapt and Is still a dream for me? Yes. Of course I have to adjust. I have to do it in order to understand more the man I love and be able to raise if we we ever have our children with our two worlds wonderfully mixed. I do have to accomodate but at the same time I kept having this feeling that actually Europe and specially The Netherlands is closing more and more to foreigners and even though some of us are willing to habituate oneself as much as possible in this society it will become harder and harder.

And a dream for me? What can I say. I love the museums, transportation, travel, the amazing and beautiful cities, how sometimes people can be wonderfully flexible like the culture I come from and even ice skating. How free time, family and not competition is part of society. How culture is around and so many things even the silence you sometimes hear when you are in a small town, hardly possible in a country like Colombia that has 40 million people. I loved the Efteling, Frankfurt,The Ardennes, being in a house with 18 people playing games. I loved New Year in Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam, walking around in a sunny but freezing Tilburg, Rotterdam, Den Hague, Delft and its lights and even there is much more to discover in Utrecht. I loved going around small towns in Belgium, walking in Paris and knowing Lille and Remagen. Still is hard. Going from the observer to the companion of a wonderful man who comes from a completly different culture than mine is not easy.

Still there is more to come. I will start soon dealing with color..and color will become an issue for me for the first time. I will deal with the fact that people will see us a mixed couple and not as a couple in love. I will be not only having a multicultural relation but far away from all the things I love. Culture adaption seems forever but I am very willing to continue it. Still takes lots of you and people who are taking or willing to take all the risks to be with the person they love, or to fulfill their dreams to make their families life easier, or those who want to study abroad deserve to be seen as brave people. Those are the lessons from this trip. Ice Skating and Gaza, culture and language, adapting and not adapting.

¿Quien va primero?

Yo iba primero. Así de fácil. A pesar de que el señor se burlo al salir de la tienda...yo estaba primero pero a el no le pareció importante respetar la fila y le pareció divertido que varios reclamaramos. "Que lejos estamos del desarrollo!" pensé y esto me hizo acordarme de Panamá. Sin animo de ofender a los Panameños o de los paisanos habitantes de esas tierra quiero contar como fue nuestra aventura en el país de la ley de Murphy.

La ley de Murphy dice que todo lo que puede salir mal sale mal y así fue. Panamá fue un recordatorio de como las leyes no físicas parecen tener vida propia y a pesar de estar en un país con un crecimiento del 8 % reconocí en Panamá los mismos problemas que tenemos en varios países en latino América: pobreza, corrupción, basura, falta de servicios público y aun peor a pesar de tener unos edificios espectaculares y unos lugares hermosos todo convive con el opuesto, con el hecho de que aun nos falta, que podemos tener lo más moderno pero la pobreza existe y en muchos casos poco se hace y se acepta como parte del paisaje.

Subirse a un bus en Panamá es subirse a la realidad. En medio del calor y de las 200 personas metidas en algo mas parecido a una chiva que un bus existe la posibilidad de terminar en otro sitio ya que no hay información para los turistas de como utilizarlos. La única explicaciòn que le dan a uno es que debe gritar: PARADA, claro eso si si uno sabe donde es la parada!! Los taxistas cobran a "ojimetro" es decir definen los precios sin un taxímetro posible...claro también deciden como en Colombia si quieren trabajar, si quieren ir a algún lado y si hoy es un buen momento para atender bien a las personas y se deben compartir. Las direcciones se basan en puntos de referencia; al lado de la casa de Mano de Piedra Duran! No existen terminales fuera de la ciudad de Panamá, no existe un horario fijo con los buses y al llegar a los llamados sitios eco turísticos uno descubre que la paradisiaca isla es linda solo en el lado del resort, que acampar no es opción ya que es casi obligatorio dormir en una cabaña y que la basura esta al lado de uno en las playas.

Intoxicada, caída en la isla por falta de luz, el hotel en ciudad de Panamá que no respeta las reservaciones, un consulado complicado, el taxista que nos cobro 10 dolares por ser turistas, la cucaracha durmiendo cómodamente en nuestra cama, las siete horas de trayecto para llegar a una playa inexistente, incluso nuestra carpa llena de agua. Difícil. Muy difícil ser turista en un país que no tiene mentalidad turística para aquellos que viajamos con presupuesto limitado y no disfrutamos mucho el hecho de meternos a un resort y no ver el país como es. Eso me lleva a pensar que tenemos países hermosos en Latino América y que podemos tener el turismo como forma de ingreso pero siempre debemos pensar en crear infraestructura y ser capaces de recibir turistas de diferentes presupuestos. Facilidad en la movilidad, realidad en los precios, la mejor atención posible en todas las ciudades eso haría nuestros países mucho más atractivos.

Claro hubo cosas buenas. Mi familia colombiana, el amigo Argentino, Juanes, la belleza de Panamá Viejo, el canal incluso el perro que nos acompaño en la isla pero hace falta...hace falta educaciòn, hace falta que queramos eliminar la pobreza del paisaje, que la basura no sea parte de nuestra realidad, que la gente respete procesos y leyes. Que sea agradable estar en otro país por la atención de su gente. Colombia, Panamá y todos los demás países latino americanos pueden estar creciendo pero si no crecemos junto con la economía todo el desarrollo es inútil.