"Are you loving it here?"
The first night in our new apartment there was a glorious, peaceful silence...VRROOOMMM. A moto ripped by. Toss. Turn. Again. silence lulled me to sleep. VRROOOMMMM. Again, and again, and again.
I had been so delighted to find this apartment after apartment-searching stress. We had signed a 3-month contract! Sleep-deprived and anxious, I feared this apartment was a terrible decision and a signal that we didn’t have what it takes to be nomads.
Thankfully, I had a meeting with my coach, then a writing date. By the end of the day, Brian and I were ready to tackle the sound problem. We propped up a futon, hung blankets, secured a fan, and got enough sleep to think more clearly. Over the next weeks, we we able to make this apartment home (for now).
There are various reasons my experience hasn't curved down as low and long as the original in the chart above. I’m familiar with that deeper, longer crisis period from my year living in Nicaragua, long-distance from my husband. That experience helped prepare me for what I’m doing now.
¿Estás amañada?
The most common question I get from locals is whether I am amañada – Colombian slang for content, happy, at home, cozy, loving it, or “the adaptation to or enjoyment of a new situation." I think of amañada like a sip of your favorite hot drink on chilly day.
Now in my 7th month in Colombia (and with a nighttime sound solution in place!), I’m glad I can honestly reply – yes. Estoy amañada.
The challenges and newness help provide a contrast to the comfort I now experience navigating public transit, greeting a local shop owner by name, attending a panel discussion, listening to live music at a café, and going about daily life. Balanced with the increasing ease of daily life is space to stretch: to continue learning about culture, worldviews, and myself; to explore the region, friendships, and career options.
What does that look like? Here’s a sample of what I’ve been up to in the last month’ish:
- Finishing a 200-hour yoga certification program, including learning about Vedic philosophy
- Preparing to assist in Value-Driven Product Ownership training – Join us!
- Hiking with a new local friend and designing an in-person workshop to offer (in Spanish) together via the Medellín Agile MeetUp community
- Celebrating birthdays, including learning how to properly NOT blow out candles on a cake, but rather wave the flames out
- And I jumped off a cliff! (I went paragliding for the first time & loved it!)
I hope to return to Colombia again in the future, but for now, the visa regulations say, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” So, we’re headed next door to Ecuador. I will be curious to see how I experience the adaptation cycle with that change. I’m guessing the valley and peaks will be a little less pronounced and/or the cycle shortened, but I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. But, at least for now, that newness is part of what makes me say: I am loving it here.
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