Christmas Past This is my third consecutive Christmas outside of the United States, and my fourth ever. The first Christmas abroad I spent in Prague, …
Feliz Navidad! A Very Argentine Christmas
Solo Female Traveling
Happiness Colombian Style
I have to say that I may be the happiest I have ever been. Perhaps it’s the fact that I am currently living in the city of eternal spring and the weather hovers around a solid 75F everyday. Perhaps it’s because I spend the majority of everyday working on things I find fulfilling and important (writing, exercise, and language). Or maybe it’s just the view from my apartment.
El Poblado is definitely an ex-pat bubble. This has been both good and bad— good because I can easily grab a salad, I can go to an English-speaking gym, and there are loads of opportunities for Spanish classes. Bad because, well, it’s a lot harder to slip into Colombian culture when you are living in a miniature United States.
Tomorrow I am flying to Santa Marta for two weeks but before I go, I just want to share parts of why I am feeling so happy in Medellin recently:
- Health: I discovered this gym geared at expats here. Usually I don’t like that sort of thing, wanting to “blend into the local culture” like a true hipster. But this gym really made a difference in both my body and my mentality. I’m actually planning an entire post next week just about my experience working out while traveling.
Plus, it’s easy to buy fresh fruits and vegetables (and AVOCADOS) for super cheap, so I’ve been eating ridiculously well. I’ll post some before and after photos soon, but it’s been a pretty exciting transformation. - Language Acquisition: My lack of Hindi in India actually started to depress me. After awhile, every time I spoke English I started beating myself up. I really wish I had taken a real class, but there just wasn’t a market to teach foreigners Hindi in Chandigarh, India (population of foreigners: 0).So when I moved to South America I vowed that I would speak Spanish like a pro by the time I left. Since this is the fourth language I have studied formally (and fifth informally), the process is going quickly.
Every possible grammatical tense in Spanish I am also planning to write an entire blog post just on learning a language, but I’m pretty excited about where my Spanish is now (it’s a solid “meh” status) as compared to where it was when I first landed in Argentina (I could say ‘pollo’ and ‘hola’).
Finding a good language teacher can be difficult. It took me three weeks in Medellin before I found a teacher that was a good “fit.” Now I almost don’t want to leave Colombia just because I like my Spanish teacher so much.
- Friends: Actually, my social life in Medellin hasn’t been very lively. I’ve gone out a couple times with my AirBnB hosts (I’ve stayed in two AirBnBs now). A few years ago I would find this “sad” but honestly I think not having a ton of social pressure is what is making me so happy. I’ve had tons of time to work on myself, my writing, and my hobbies.
Me time In Argentina, I had a thriving social life but I wasn’t taking care of myself. I’m excited to go back, but I’m happy to have sort of taken a bit of a “break” and gotten myself in order so I can better withstand the social pressure to eat badly and drink a lot.
Plus, it’s giving me the time to catch up with some of my old friends in the US, India, and Argentina.
We finally convinced Rachel to get on Whatsapp and now I’m basically on a 24/7 conference call - Food: No words needed
Menu del dia 
My attempt at Colombian cooking 5. Work: I have an amazing routine which involves me waking up at 7am, getting ready, arriving at my café at 8:30am, ordering the exact same thing every morning and working.
Like I said, this neighborhood is an expat bubble. While I don’t love all the English, it is nice that café culture is thriving here. Everyone jams inside with a laptop and is living up the “digital nomad” lifestyle. I get a ridiculous amount of work done in the café from 8:30-12:00/1 everyday.
6. Festivals: Colombians are great at partying. The next two weeks are Feria de las Flores, the festival of the flowers. This involves parades, flower vendors, free concerts, and traditional food/crafts being sold in parks. I’m sad I will miss so many of the events, but I’ve been working every weekend for a month and a half to justify going on vacation.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4118/4886246817_d7c5fb2938_b.jpg 
Santa Fe Mall, Festival de las Flores
When Indians Mistake You for a Prostitute
*August 2017 Update: I am not involved in any way in sex work and never have been. This blog is about about white women are sometimes mistaken for prostitutes in Northern India and in no way about actual prostitutes.
Living in Buenos Aires is different than living in India. Obviously. But I think it’s giving me some reverse culture shock. Being a Western woman in Argentina isn’t something I ever think about. Being a Western woman in India definitely had it’s drawbacks.
Honestly, I can’t believe how easy things are here.
For one, I am eating red meat just about everyday. In the grocery stores, the entire meat section is beef and pork. I had to actively seek out the chicken section. It had been banished to a small corner away from the “superior” meats.
And of course, no one notices me here. This is good and bad. Being the center of attention constantly is pretty exhausting. But then again, sometimes it was fun feeling like a celebrity.
I could launch into a list of all the reasons why Buenos Aires is easier (note: I don’t necessarily think this makes it “better”) but there is one thing that I think is the best:
No one thinks I’m a prostitute.
Being a Western woman in India is a weird mix of benefiting from racist standards of beauty and everyone thinking you are easy. Or worse. Sometimes, away from the touristic centers, they think you are a prostitute.
I soon learned that outside these tourism districts inNorthern India, many “white women” actually are Russian prostitutes. Chandigarh was a rich city. People can pay top dollar to do the dirty.
Don’t Be Caught Alone with Indian Men at 2am
It started my first month in Chandigarh. My friend, Saksham, and I were leaving Rohit’s house a bit late one evening. It was about 2am when started walking toward our Uber driver who had parked around the corner from Rohit’s house, no more than a 2-minute walk. A police officer approached. He and Saksham started talking in Hindi. It didn’t take me very long to figure out what the issue was. Saksham convinced the police officer pretty easily to let us go, but then another officer came over.
I had to show the policemen my ID cards— my U.S. Driver’s license, my University of Chicago student ID, and just for kicks, I pulled out a few BCG business cards. I guess even when they do get foreign tourists in Chandigarh, they don’t typically see a Western woman in India getting into a car alone with an Indian boy.
Don’t Be Caught Alone with Indian Men at 2am AGAIN
About two months later, the exact same situation happened. Saksham and I left Rohit’s house around 1am and were waiting in the market for our Uber. A police car pulled up and Saksham didn’t even let them get going with their questions. He very curtly told them we were leaving his cousin’s house, I’m an American working in India, and he was going to make sure that I got home safely because women shouldn’t be left alone in cabs at night in India.
This seemed to do it. They left immediately.
The Police Just Want Bribes
All my Indian friends told me that the police just want bribes. Apparently, they can’t legally take women to the police station between certain early morning hours. They are actually just hoping to scare the girl and the boy into paying them to leave. Either because she is a prostitute or because the horror of getting a phone call to your parents that you are out drinking with some girl is worth spending a few hundred rupees to prevent. Knowing this, I became emboldened when facing police.
It happened again months later when I was walking through my gate last one night. A policemen followed me home. When he confronted me I just said, “Mera house yehuh hai” (this is my house) and walked away.
Not Just the Police
Then, of course, there were a few incidents a group of guys walking by and calling some stuff out—basically the Hindi equivalent of, “’hey gurl, hey!”
Or a number of times I was walking during the day and men would ride up on their motorcycles and try to talk to me and get me to add them on Facebook or give me a lift home. They would ask in bad English if we could be “friends,” and I would kindly tell them, “Thanks, but I have enough friends.”
Once a man walked up to me in the park and asked if I would have sex with him. I said, “Ew. No.” I hope he did think I was a prostitute but that he was just so disgusting I had to reconsider my career choice.
The cigarette walla in my market asked Rohit if we were “just going around” (aka prostitution) or if it was a “shaadi thing” (aka marriage).
Not That Bad
Honestly, India gets a bad reputation. Being a Western woman in India could be hard, but I’ve been treated much worse in other countries. I never got groped. I never thought something was actually going to happen. I actually didn’t get catcalled that much more or less than in the U.S. Almost everyone was unnecessarily kind to me and treated me with respect.
That being said, it’s nice being in Argentina and not worrying that people think I’m a prostitute.