COLOMBIAN CONSULATE AND BEING GERMAN

I once took one of those silly facebook quizes and found out my nationality was meant to be German. Apparently my personality it’s at odds with my nationality, race or whatever you may call it. I thought the quiz was stupid since I didn’t feel I had any of the stereotypical traits that German people are supposed to have. Organization, punctuality, coldness, reserve, nerves of steel and an aversion to casual touching. (I am cursed with all of those)

I have discovered, however, that I would probably thrive in Germany. We went to the Colombian Consulate to finish the paperwork for Alfonso so his body could go to his family in Barranquilla and in the middle of my Friday, when I was already threatened at work for missing two days over this ordeal, we found each other in a madhouse also known as the Colombian Consulate in Miami and with no other choice but to wait there until everything was done.

After miraculously surviving the Miami drivers we made it to the consulate. It looked pretty from outside with the flag waving proudly on the top and the place a nice terracotta building that look like a hacienda of yesteryears. Pandemonium awaited us inside. There were screaming, running children, people talking loudly, plastic and fold-over chairs in rows, fans and an oppressing feeling of…poorness. That more than anything bothered me. Call me a snob I don’t care, but is it too much to ask for our governmental employees, the ones that represent Colombia in a foreign country to dress as if they are Colombian representatives and not like a college student after a weekend of partying? Casual Fridays took a new definition that day.

Not only was the place depressing but it was a palace made to the God of Formica. There is little I dislike as much as Formica. I was willing to ignore all that, I was, truly! I am perfectly aware that the brat that came to this country 8 years ago still kicks in now and then but I could not ignore the disorganization, the yelling of names of people who were waiting instead of having a number system or even a microphone so the people waiting could hear their names been called out.

I am not sure what was worse, the line of people who were there to pick up their ID and had to sign they had received it in a piece of paper that was 1”x3” and then folded over as if it was a name for Secret Santa and then thrown in a box, or the fact that they were using type writers, or the fact that there were no clearly delineated lines, or the fact that the employees didn’t have all the paperwork close by and one of them had to actually leave his place to go pick up the paperwork in another floor. Talk about efficiency!

No, let me rephrase that. I do know what was worse, it was the fact that the Consul of my Country didn’t have an office, a space of his own where he could sit and direct, manage and make Consul-like decisions. No, he was seating behind the main counter, on a Formica desk, in a bright yellow and blue polo t-shirt that was way too small for his generous girth while he ate empanadas. Oh the humanity!

I was so pissed off and embarrassed. Pissed off because I was incredibly overwhelmed by all the paperwork that had been done already in the moving of Alfonso and here, yet somehow we had managed to get him ready to go in less than seven days but there in the place where everything should be easier since we are all Colombian and they are there to help us, they were slow and bureaucratic (redundant much?) and the one place in the process where everything didn’t go smoothly. And I was embarrassed because I always am sure to tell Dear Husband how civilized we are and how everything works there the same way there as it works here and he was suddenly smack in the middle of a perfect example of Hispanic governmental incompetence.

Now I should not be so harsh with them since my uncle’s contact in the embassy was the one who helped with the entire process of sending Alfonso home to be with his family. The lady found us the funerary home, the shipping company and also gave us an insane discount courtesy of the Consulate. It truly isn’t the Consulate’s fault I guess. Since they have no resources to be at par with the way things are run nowadays. They are truly doing the best they can with what they have. But we aren’t an incredibly poor country. The Colombian Consulate in Venezuela is nothing like that, then why should the Miami one look like a grocery store where they call your name when your two pounds of chorizo are ready?

That said, I must admit I have been here way too long. I have lost my ability to stand in line for 8 hours to get my passport done. I had forgotten how damn long and slow all those processes take at home. I have lost my Hispanic patience. Even with my family! On the way to the Consulate we had to turn around twice because they had left something behind and all I could do was sit there seething wondering why in the fucking world wouldn’t they just prepare everything the night before and be ready to go when we had to. Dear Husband turned the car around TWICE without a word, blessed as he is with never ending patience while I could feel my right eyelid twitching as it does when I am passing furious and heading into volcanic rage. I guess my temper is the only thing that saves me from being German since they are stereotyped as controlled individuals and my temper is the one thing I cannot get a hold of.

I feel horrible saying it but I cannot wait to be an American Citizen and never again have to go to a Consulate.

Vielen dank und gute tage!

WHY I’M THANKFUL AND CAN’T FORGET IT

Yesterday I read in the news that Transparency International published its annual Corruption Perception Index which ranks 180 countries according to the “perceived” levels of corruption. While the sentence “perceived corruption” makes it sound less factual and more conjectural I am sure it is a fairly accurate list.

Venezuela was ranked 162 on the list, just 18 spots from the last, only 9 above from Iraq and 5 above Iran. How does that make any sense? We are talking about two nations that have been at war with each other, with themselves, with other countries for the greater part of a century!

Venezuela was lucky enough to only have one battle in its history, the battle for its independence and never ever since has been at war. It suffered through three dictatorships at the beginning of the century and although forever plagued by the corruption of its dictators (Castro, Gomez and Jimenez) who stole millions from the country and even more corruption from its elected presidents like Lusinchi and Perez (who also stole billions) Venezuela was blessed with a certain level of peace, safety, openness, embracing all. Immigrants from China who wanted to have more than one child came to Venezuela and were happy to have as many children as they wanted. People from all over Europe (Portugal, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, etc) made Venezuela their home and it welcomed them with open arms. Jewish people felt safe to also make Venezuela their homes and migrated there from countries all over the world during WWII and before that.

How does a country so rich in natural resources, so rich in culture, so diverse, so beautiful and generally peaceful finds itself ranked among nations like Iran and Iraq that have not met peace in decades, Haiti who has been ravaged by nature and political unrest since I can remember? How could it be bellow countries like Vietnam who just 30 years ago was at war? Ethiopia who was just 10 years ago at war with Somalia who is the most corrupt on the list? How could be tied at number 162, TIED with the Democratic Republic of Congo! TIED!!! with a nation who just declared its independence like 10 freaking years ago for Christ’s Sake!!

While I find myself so incredibly thankful that I am here (in country number 15), I cannot help but be thankful with a heavy heart. I cannot feel fully satisfied for having move on when some family and plenty of friends remain behind. I cannot help but remember how it was before I came. I lived in Venezuela for 17 years. It seems so little now that I have been here in the U.S. for almost half that much, but it was an important 17 years. I left Colombia when I was three years old and I hardly remember the 3 years I spent there. Venezuela has always been home. I grew up there. Ran, kissed my first boyfriend, danced my first dance, drank my first beer, went to college, and graduated high school. All that I did never feeling in any way that my country lacked anything! How silly I was. In 2008 Caracas (the capital) was declared murder capital of the world. I was never even robbed once in the 17 years I lived there!

Now more than ever I am enraged with its “President’. For his appropriation of every privately owned industry in the country, for his appropriation of the Hilton Hotels in Margarita Island, for everything he has ever done in the almost 11 years on power. Now he is talking about declaring war to Colombia who is Venezuela’s sister land. Simon Bolivar must be dust rolling on his grave!

God forbid that from happening.

Note: I dont appreciate the fact that I have practically turned this into a political blog. I don't like! I don't like it!

BOO MAINE, RISE BRAVE AMERICA

Yesterday I woke up at noon and spent my afternoon lying on the couch watching TV. I ran across the movie Milk and was about to change it because of my previously discussed feelings of anger toward Sean Penn but… I can’t stand the man but it cannot be denied he is an amazing actor, the motherf*cker had the nerve to make me forget it was him and before I knew it I was riding along with Harvey on his quest for equality in the 70s.

I am a sucker for movies. Good movies touch me for days and I am left with weeks of an aftertaste that haunt me. When I was 14 years old I spent a month depressed over the death of the people aboard Titanic, Kill Bill left me with an eagerness to learn Japanese and martial arts, Ratatouille made me want to be a chef instead of a writer, and I think my family it’s still trying to forget that summer I saw Gone with the Wind and walked around talking like Scarlett O’Hara (it wasn't pretty).

Milk was a movie that made me feel even more than usual because the issue it’s so close to my heart. I have plenty of out and closeted gay friends and family members and there is nothing than incenses me more than people with no “tolerance” for homosexuality. I am not even comfortable with the word “tolerance” since the dictionary defines it as “capacity for endurance or the act of allowing something”. Homosexuality shouldn’t be something to endure or allow to happen by those of us who are heterosexual. The same way heterosexuality isn’t “tolerated” but simply accepted as a natural thing homosexuality should be.

When Maine voted “Yes” last week for Prop-1 I wasn’t angry (okay I was) but more than anything I was sad. I was sad because I thought we were moving forward and then something like this happens and the disappointment feels so bitter. It wasn’t as disappointing as Prop-8 in California was but it was a disappointment anyway. I want this country that it’s my home now to be as good as it can possibly be. Some people might argue that since I am an immigrant only I have no right to want to change it and should be happy that I am allowed to be here, count my blessings and shut the fuck up. And to them I say that I left my country without a battle, I left it without ever having the chance to fight to make it better. This is my second chance now to make the place live in a place I respect, love and I’m proud to call home.

My friend Erin was livid last week over the Maine’s loss (she is the weirdest republican) and all I could think of was to tell her that progress cannot be stopped any longer and sooner rather than later the country will see that their archaic views on what a marriage should be have not place in the law. As rational as I wanted to be when I told her this inside I was feeling just like her, which is why I decided against making a comment on the blog then, because I was so upset I didn’t want to sound like a radical.

After seeing Milk yesterday I realized that I am, all of us are incredibly lucky to be here in the U.S and even though the battle seems impossible and loses like the one in Maine and California earlier this year makes us despair, I am now filled with a new sense of hope. Hope that no matter how many steps we take in the wrong direction what is right and what should be will one way or another prevail. Because we have seen it happen time and time again here.

Only 145 years ago white people thought that black people were property, that they were inferior beings, that five blacks amounted to one whole being, that a few of them could only come close to the value of a one white person. Only 62 years ago we women weren’t considered smart enough to vote. Our opinions weren’t as valid as those of men.

One person in my acquaintance who for religious reasons does not support, condone or accept homosexuality as anything but a sin, told me he didn’t understand why the cause was so important to me, why I cared. He said that the “issue” should be battled by homosexuals only and that the rest of us shouldn’t take sides.

What if only Black people fought for their rights back before abolition? What if those uninvolved didn’t care and didn’t fight. Justice has no color, or gender, no religion, or sexual "preference" (another word I have a problem with since homosexuality is neither a choice, nor an inclination or a preference). What if we sat back and never fought for what was right except when what is right directly affect us? How can we sit back and ignore the rights of others? What if they were our rights? Wouldn’t we want others to fight along with us?

I understand the problem people have with homosexuality. I understand that some people are repelled by the idea of homosexual sex. That some people think of the act as only anal sex, penetration, fucking, and fornication, a dirty and unnatural deed. But most of them have no problem with lesbian sex. The double standard is galling! What I don’t understand is what they think is important to keep marriage as a union between a man and a woman. They are worried about the corruption of the sanctity of marriage. As my favorite blogger (who happens to be a flaming gay guy) would say "Bitch please!" People don’t respect the “sanctity” of marriage anymore regardless if they are gay or straight so why deny a group of individuals the right that other of us have? Who are we to decide who gets married and who doesn’t? The church has the right to deny marrying a man with another and a woman with another woman, but the state should protect, deliver and offer each and every right, benefit and opportunity to every single one of the people that reside in it regardless of how some people feel about how others live their life.

The banner for Maine’s Prop-1 is disturbingly obvious in its attempt to convey a need to protect the American Family. Protect them from what exactly? I am not sure. I am incredibly annoyed by the faces of the couple with the two kids who smile beneath the lines “Stand for Marriage”. I am annoyed because they don’t get it. We stand for marriage, those of us who believe is everyone’s right to make the unrealistic and hallow promise of loving someone until death. We stand for a marriage that should include all and exclude none. Some go as far as to say the term “marriage” is taken so they should find their own. I don't even want to touch that one because this post will never end.
As upset as I am for Prop-1 passing I am filled with the sense of wonder the movie left in me. Against all odds, when faced against shameless bigotry and narrow values, victory was theirs. How the movie ended is meaningless. I am not saying that the death of Harvey Milk was meaningless, what I am saying is that the death of a man who didn’t sit, didn’t conform and didn’t rest, couldn’t stop progress from occurring and makes me see Maine as nothing more but a stumble on our way to victory.

America is brave, because when people everywhere were still hiding their homosexuality, here in the U.S. they were fighting for what is right. Back at home indifference is a disease that helps us in some cases and works against us in others. I don’t see the kind of progress happening here happening any time soon back at home because nobody cares. Because even the ones affected don’t care and maybe because they are all afraid of what might happen. People here are never afraid it seems. They shout, they march, they speak up, they fight for the rights that are theirs and I am so eager to do the same.

So bravo U.S. for fighting the good fight for so long. I know we want to despair and want to give into the hopelessness of another failed battle. But there is nothing else to do but fight and nowhere else to go but up. President Obama signed the Matthew Sheppard act into law just a few weeks ago and with the flick of a pen made a move that now protects the LGBT community from hate crimes against them. It is not a shield against bigotry. It won’t protect them from name calling, humiliations or even physical blows but it will protect other young Matthews from being killed and hung from a fence from having their death treated as any other crime, it will make the perpetrators pay a harsher sentence.

So, Maine enjoy your victory while you have it. Wallow in the mean spirited joy of having taken someone’s right away from them. In 50 years when the country in its entirety defines marriage as the union between two consenting adults you will be seen by the future the same way we see now those who thought themselves above a Black person.

The future is coming, equality is here, move along or get out of the way.

MORE RELIGIOUS STUFF

I know I am probably going to step on a lot of toes writing this post but here I go.

My cousin, who is an even bigger flaming liberal than I am (and that’s saying something) has this blog war going on with another girl who shall remain nameless. Apparently the girl who is a devout Christian goes hunting and was excited about killing Bamby’s mom last week or so. My cousin is a devout liberal animal rights advocate; these two couldn’t be more incompatible if they tried!

As the blog war developed I couldn’t help but go visit this girl’s website. She is an innocent looking 21 year old newlywed whose entire blog is dedicated to her life as a servant of her Lord Jesus Christ and all that.

Honestly is like visiting a foreign country when I go to blogs like that because I have never really been exposed to extremely religious people until I came here because is too much effort to care and back at home the most stout Christian doesn’t give that much of a damn. I truly love to see these blogs because it uncovers a whole different world of people and costumes, beliefs and rules that I have never heard before.

This girl for example had a 6” rule. She was not allowed to be any closer to her boyfriend, then fiancé then husband, than 6 inches. Her own dad put her engagement ring on because her fiance wasn't allowed to touch her. Anything closer than 6 inches I guess was the road to perdition. In her own words “hand holding leads to hugging, hugging to kissing and kissing to fornication”.

That’s just a word I love, fornication. It has such an ugly connotation, so biblical, so strong, one of the few words left in that book that hold any strength. Adultery doesn’t mean shit anymore, neither does sodomy nor sodomite but fornication remains a word that still holds a little sinful tingle.

We Hispanics have a problem with rules, regulations and chains of command. We always want to see the president of the company, not a manager. We are used to rules standing there for only those who want to respect them and to be broken by those who are smarter and decide not to. Back at home is common for everyone to run the red lights after midnight, pay off the cops, drive without insurance, pay under the table to get your driver’s license even though you have never been behind the wheel of a car, we mooch off the cable of the neighbor, etc. I know that about us. We are laid back to the point of indifference when it comes to things like that because I guess we need to concentrate on bigger problems like money, rent, unemployment, crime rate, education, medicine, etc. Rules like those are easy to ignore when bigger things are going on which I believe also leaks into our religious life. It’s just too damn hard to be everything the bible expects one to be (although I never, in all my years in Catholic School, read anything about 6 inches of separation).

In my humble opinion life is sometimes hard enough to impose in ourselves rules that are completely unnecessary. I think my own principles, standards and simple logic would be enough to keep me from fornicating with every man I have ever dated. I never needed a 6 inch rule to keep me from dropping my panties and spreading my legs. So why this devout Christian feels the need to keep such a distance from the man that is to become her husband I will never understand. Does she think she is going to be struck by lust in a moment of weakness and fornicate his brains out one day at a church picnic?

Aren’t life’s challenges enough to keep life interesting? Why make it harder on yourself? Why miss all those kisses, hugs, cuddles, hand holdings and ass grabbing that makes the beginning of a relationship so damn sweet? Why curve the impulse of tonguing your boyfriend goodnight? Even if it is to push him away later because you need to save yourself.

It’s so damn hard to be good. In the immortal words of Albus Dumbledore (who makes more sense to me than the bible) “Difficult times are coming, times in which we must all choose between what is right and what is easy”. Almost everything that is right is also difficult. I have discovered that to be an unequivocal truth, right along with “everything that is delicious is either fattening or sinful”. So if being good and trying not to gossip is hard, if being good and trying to not be mean is hard, if being good and trying not to judge is hard, if being good and trying simpley to BE good is already hard, why make it any harder?

So I’ll continue to eat meat in Good Friday. I’ll continue to cuss, I’ll continue believing in woman’s inherent right to choose abortion, I will continue to believe in a man’s right to love a man and choose to share that love in whichever way makes them happy. I will continue to believe that whichever superior power is out there, it would want me to DO good, BE good and live my life to the fullest.

To quote another “blasphemous” book:

"I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are." — Philip Pullman (The Amber Spyglass)

CARS AND BONES, THEY JUST DON’T MAKE SHIT LIKE THEY USED TO

Just after we finished moving Dear husband sent me a picture of the half toe nail he lost while helping someone else move some furniture around. The funny thing is he moved all of our furniture two weeks ago without any incident and then while helping one of my mom’s friend he got injured (he learned that lesson of wearing sandals while moving beds). I couldn’t help but immediately think that we might have to go to the doctor and pay an arm, a leg, our first born, the cat, the dog, the LCD TV, my shoe collection (NEVER!!) if he fractured a bone since we are one of those millions uninsured in this country.

That of course made me think of the many of my republicans/conservatives friends and acquaintances who talk crap about those uninsured and how they are a burden for the state and their taxes. I have felt tempted to defy them but I always sometimes choose to remain quiet because most republicans/conservatives I know cannot be reasoned with when it comes to those issues, the same way us liberals cannot be reasoned with when we get asked about gay marriage, pro-choice, etc. I have never (for the record), EVER left an unpaid medical bill, regardless of how high they are, if I cannot afford it then I won’t go to the doctor, which has worked out pretty well so far since I am disgustingly healthy. The obscene hospital bills that doctors shamelessly ask for when they treat you is the reason why we have the B.O.B rule in my house (Bone/Organ/Blood), which estates that unless organs, blood or bones are showing there is no need for a doctor. Once I had to put up with a sinus infection for two months without treatment because there was no B.O.B, and only caved in when I couldn't kiss, talk or eat because I couldn't breath and do all those at the same time.

Stuff like that always makes me think of home (I know I am predictable, shoot me). I don’t know if is the resiliency you have to develop when living in a country where things are not as easy as here. Maybe is because people are used to make do with what they have and what they are given, maybe because you have to make what you DO have last, or maybe is just because we are a crafty bunch but every time broken bones becomes an issue I inevitably think of car accidents, totaled cars.

What the hell is wrong with cars here that won’t last past a good crash? The car in the picture is considered totaled here and back at home they would’ve patch that shit up and put it on the road again! (I am not quite sure yet why I make that sound like a good thing) Capitalism is what’s wrong with cars today. If your car looks like the one in the picture then forget about it, you need to buy a new one. Back home they would’ve put that car together with scotch tape if needed and made it safe drivable for another ten to twenty years.

Capitalistic societies are used to disposable things; disposable appliances, disposable vehicles, disposable houses, disposable clothes, disposable shoes, disposable everything! You don’t repair, or fix, or patch up when you can get a new one! And the same way they dispose of vehicles that are perfectly repairable in other countries they take forever to repair broken bones. The same way it would take thousands of dollars to fix a car, it takes also thousands of dollars to fix a broken wrist. I mean for Pete’s sake (why Peter and not Paul?) why do you need to go through days and days and thousands and thousands of dollars of physical therapy over a broken wrist? Are bones here made differently from bones everywhere else?

We had an employee once who broke his wrist falling on it in July and he was still receiving physical therapy in October even though he went three times a week. What the hell? If the wrist is going to take that long to heal just chop the fucking hand off! Do doctors really think patients don’t know that we know that they are just trying to milk the insurance companies? And if they do know we know then aren’t they ashamed of the people that have no insurance and cannot afford to spend 15 minutes of electric treatment for a broken wrist that doesn’t hurt, isn’t swollen, is working perfectly well? I mean if I break my wrist and have to go to physical therapy I’ll freaking stuck my tongue in an electric socket and get my therapy that way!

Why do you need to go to a Doctor (and pay him of course) so he can tell you, you need to see a specialist for your mammogram when you know perfectly well that is the case since you have a history of breast cancer and you need an exam every year?!

So now you have a go see a doctor to tell you to see another doctor, so that, that doctor can get your mammogram done and send you to yet another doctor that went to school specially to look at films, and then go to that film doctor to take a look at the films you have already paid THREE doctors to get done. When you have all that those bills up the possibility of breast cancer suddenly isn’t the scariest thing in the future, is it?

So what is it with the greedy Doctors, the disposable cars and the unfixable bones? Is it like this everywhere else where Capitalism is the order of the day? Is it really Capitalism or is it just my prejudice against it? Is it something else that I am missing?