Dec 20, 2022 3 min read Debrief

Debrief: navigating newness

Through just being here, we are exposed to newness.

Favorite local market, filled with stalls of vendors inside.

What: Daily life.

What I'm up to in my daily life includes:

Going to a local market and finding favorite vendors – mostly kind, helpful, not pushy women.
Comfortably navigating the metro to get to a new dinner spot recommended by – someone Brian and I met in Mexico in 2006! (She is now a digital nomad and spent some time in Medellín.)
Relaxing in the hammock in the living room, writing with a friend.
Managing my project backlog and prioritizing.
Making plans with people here to hang out. People there for a call.
Cooking, cleaning, figuring out how to get food delivered – a VERY common thing here
And glad for a good night of sleep, lamenting the rough ones with fireworks and clubs and party noise rattling through the valley til 4am.

So what?

We’ve left the honeymoon behind and settled in. It feels good, and there’s still plenty of figuring out, which take a mental toll – figuring out for today (e.g., how to get delivery) or for the future (e.g., where are we living next).

I’m combing Airbnbs for all the traits we want in our next spot. Plotting visa renewals…all this navigating is an extra layer of effort that we must account for.

What matters to me in this?

I’m figuring out how to do this thing I want to be doing - how to really make it work, how to adapt to the change, as well as pondering the ethics of it all.

I’m contributing to the local economy (i.e., spending), but I could also be harming it by paying gringo rates and thus raising the baseline for everyone (think: gentrification). In our current apartment our impact on the housing market is likely very minimal. Out of 500 units in our complex, we are in 1 of 3 foreigner-owned apartments and the only available for short-term rental. But what if we move? I could prioritize renting from a local Colombian to put money more directly in the hands of Colombians; however, if that’s in a neighborhood with a higher percentage of foreigners, then we could be contributing to inflated housing prices in that area. So, when I say “figuring” it out, I also mean weighing the impact, many of which can’t truly be known.

Now what?

We're in a new place and part of me thinks we "should" be doing more sight-seeing and day trips. But, our daily life is not a vacation. We don’t want to plan any side trips for sightseeing if the logistics are complex or would be draining. There’s enough logistics to navigate with just living right now and we still have work to do during the week.

While we're not in vacation-mode, there is still so much newness all around us. New words, new vistas, new foods, new people, new ways of being. And that is why we are here. Through just being here, we are exposed to newness.