It is overwhelming to realize that I have only been here for 48 hours. So far, it has been
everything and nothing that I expected.
In the airport in DC, I thought I was going to have to take
a clonazepam. My stomach couldn’t decide
if it was going to throw up my McDonald’s lunch or loudly digest it all at
once. Before I could decide on the best
medicinal cocktail to deal with my unruly stomach, the usual DC crowd rushed
the gate and I knew I had to run in elbow out if I was going to make it on the
plane with my carry on. Once on the
plane, my stomach reasserted itself, but by the grace of god the nice (and may
I say attractive?) man in the seat next to me began to speak to someone on the
phone in Spanish. This peaked my
interest, distracted my stomach and thankfully provided me an opening to start
a conversation that lasted the entire flight to Atlanta.
Tracey- 1, Nerves- 0
Once in Atlanta, I leaned on my already acquired ATL Navigation
System (thanks Brendan/Delta flights to New Orleans!) to get me from terminal A
to terminal E- the international terminal!
There I found the closet bar and largest Sam Adams possible. There I also met the new love of my life-
Jackie! Jackie is from
California and will be serving as the high school history teacher
at CIC. Jackie also told me shortly upon
meeting that she spent $35 in the airport buying candy, which alerted me to the
scientific fact that Jackie was probably awesome.
Our flight was delayed about an hour, but this gave Jackie
and I time to chat and eat candy. After
we boarded, I was handed multiple customs documents that required more
attention than I really could muster, so I chose to instead distract Jackie
with mindless chatter while she tried to fill out her forms. Thankfully my exuberance attracted the
attention of nuevo amor numero dos- Jason! Jason was from Seattle and will be teaching
middle school history. The flight was
not full, so the three of us new besties got to sit together and learn more
about each other. Both Jackie and Jason
were coming from other schools in South America- Jackie from Peru and Jason
from Brazil. I learned that Jason had previously done Peace Corp in Africa and
Jackie had been airlifted out of her last site by helicopter soon after having
intensive ankle surgery.
Jason and Jackie’s street cred- 1, Tracey’s street cred- 0
The flight was only four hours and before we knew it, we
were setting our watches to Caracas time!
Based on state department posted information, the Caracas airport is
basically the most dangerous place on earth, on par with the whole of Syria and
walking alone at night through Taliban infested Afgan deserts. When we arrived, it was as quiet as you can
expect an airport to be at 11:30pm.
Soccer stars adorned the walls and to my surprise, the air condition was
plentiful. I went through customs within
10 minutes without incident. We arrived
at the baggage claim and immediately acquired all of our bags- Jackie’s seven,
my five and Jason’s two. To our relief,
all bags were intact and no worse for wear.
We lugged our lives onto luggage carts, pushed our bounty through the
detectors and made it through to our new home.
Our new school director, Mrs. Carmen Sweeting, arrived to
take us home. Carmen is basically the
most charming, genuinely caring individual I have ever met in my life. She has subsequently become Mama Carmen and
is kind enough to let me call her that to her face. She arrived to claim us with a van and three pickup
trucks, and once the able-bodied men in the airport realized this, they were
all more than willing to help us load the trucks- for a small price, of course. We were in and out of the parking lot and off
to our new home without incident. The
drive from the airport to our houses was about 45 minutes. Caracas at night is almost like fairyland-
mountains and hills pop up of nowhere and all are covered in twinkling
lights. While I am not naïve enough to
think that Caracas is a fairy land full of gumdrops and rainbows, it was
reassuring to experience the land for the first time through this lense- all
lovely and subdued and a little enchanting.
I called my Mom from Carmen’s phone on the way home and
learned later that she subsequently Paul Revered many of my friends the next
day to let them know I was alive. I love
my Mom. We arrived around 1am at our new
home- Apartamentos Sierra Blanca en Los Samanes. Los Samanes is in the south east suburb of
Caracas and is home to mainly apartments, a small shopping center, a few small
parks and not much else. It’s basically
the Burke of Caracas and that is FINE BY ME.
Our gaggle of helpers assisted as we lugged our luggage into the small
elevators from the parking garage into our new apartments. Our building has four towers labeled A-D and Jackie
and Jason lived in B while I held down the fort in A. We visited Jackie’s apartment first. It was a lovely one bedroom with a nice
kitchen, big windows, a desk, kitchen table, bed and couch. Oh, and king sized bed. Jackie has since lamented that it is too big
and makes her toss and turn. I told her
I saw that as a situation ripe with opportunity, and she obviously agreed. Next was Jason. His apartment was a bit more furnished with
an arsenal of wicker furniture and, to my delight though it didn’t seem to
interest him as much as me, a built in wine rack. Finally, Mama Carmen and I made it over to A
wing to my new apartment. As we walked
in I went ahead and broke the seal and swore in front of my boss for the first
of what would probably be many times. My
apartment was sick. Large,
well-furnished and well beyond my expectations.
I obviously went to bed a happy girl….as soon as I found my pajamas.
Saturday morning I woke after a restless sleep. My adrenaline never tapered off and made my
sleep rather unproductive. Besides, we
had a lot to look forward to. We were
going to visit the school, get our cell phones set up and go shopping for food
and supplies! Carmen and our new
secondary principal, Kelly and Kelly’s husband Denny came to pick us up at 10:00am. While we waited for our ride, Jackie and I
chatted with Phillipe, the jefe de securidad for Sierra Blanca. He was very kind and patient with my broken
Spanish and I felt good about him leading the helm of our security at the
apartments. When the posse arrived they
also had in tow two other new teachers- the bold and fearless Colleen, a new
elementary teacher, her precocious and energetic eight year old son Sean and
David, our new humanities department chair, former seminary student and longtime
teacher in the international system.
David was coming from Brazil and Colleen from South Africa. Kelly and Denny were coming through Wisconsin
as Kelly worked on a doctorate, but they had led a long and fruitful career
abroad in places like Ecuador, Thailand, China etc. Though Kelly and Denny had only been in
Caracas for about a week, they navigated the landscape like locals and had an
air of fearlessness and confidence that could only be cultivated by years of being
scared shitless in foreign countries.
Our visit to the school was delightful, and soon enough we
found ourselves at lunch in the shopping center by our house. I had the pleasure of sitting by Gernan,
CIC’s jefe de tranportacion. Gernan clearly was getting a big kick out of me,
and even took me down to the first floor while we were waiting for our food to
show me where I could find arepas. The
joke was “en un mes, yo estoy gorda!”- In one month, I am fat! Our food was absolutely delicious and I
washed it down with a Coke Light. We talked during lunch about the exchange
rate on the parallel market and suffice to say I still don’t quite understand
it, but I do know that NO ONE could live off of the official rate- all prices
are set on the parallel rate, which is right now six times higher than the
official. The currency- Bolivars or B’s
for short, looks like monopoly money and is in high denominations, making it
troublesome to figure out how much I am actually spending. Lunch was 275 B’s- making it less than $10 at
the parallel rate and close to $30 at the official. Es muy differiente!
Next, we were off to the grocery store in Trinadad, an
urbanizacion due south of Los Samanes.
The grocery store was packed, since it was the weekend, and very
big. My Trader Joe’s grocery shopping
perspective has made me very easily overwhelmed in large grocery stores, so my
stress level immediately shot through the roof when I found myself in a large
store and could barely navigate the crowded aisles AND had to try to read all
the product labels in Spanish.
Thankfully, Jackie was by my side to help and after parking the van
Gernan was by our side very quickly. He
had the good sense to know we were absolute disasters and likely needed his
direction and protection…from ourselves, not other people. I was so tired by the last aisle I bypassed
the red wine without even looking. That
is how tired and ready to go I was! But
we had quite a bounty and I knew I at least wouldn’t starve for the next few
days. Oh, and I bought a coffee
maker. Priorities, people.
Speaking of priorities, the next thing on my to-do list was
go swimming in my apartment complex pool!
After a long day of shopping and trying to get by on paltry Spanish,
getting to float as the evening drew near was just what the doctor
ordered. What I didn’t expect was the
view I would get from the pool. The pool
sits in quite possibly the best spot possible to see the sunset, and let me tell you friends,
there is no sunset I’ve seen that is quite like a Caracas sunset. The colors, the views, the sheer magnitude is
just overwhelming to the senses. Is God
at work even in this crazy place? I
think yes.
