So here I am, emerging blinking into the sunlight after the long crawl through the tunnel of CELTA: yesterday was the Last Day! Unfortunately, we don't get even a provisional grade until two weeks hence, so I wasn't sure if I was celebrating or drowning my sorrows last night. But indications are that we've all done pretty well.
So the week before last, Panda decided that she wouldn't like me as a boyfriend any more. It was a little hard to take, as I suppose I thought it'd be forever, but she took her time to think about everything and was completely honest with me throughout the process, which although it can be a little painful, is ultimately the fairest way to be treated. We said our goodbyes last Saturday, tears were shed, and then the next day she was back to Duitama and a whole different life there. When people say, "why did you split up?", I tend to look at it as a combination of ingredients and catalyst. The raw ingredients for our break-up have been present from the start, in the form of cultural differences. Not simply between "Colombian" and "British", but between our specific brand of each. The catalyst was her going off to Duitama and having the time of her life with her five housemates and 25 other medical students from around the country, working hard, playing hard, meeting new people, and, I think, realising that she just basically couldn't be bothered with the struggle that our relationship was at times.
Of course despite my best intentions, I lost all my cool and begged her not to leave me, and after she'd gone I felt pretty devastated for the weekend. But the moral of this story is not really that. The thing that has impacted me most about this episode is how quickly I recovered. Saturday and Sunday night I couldn't face being alone in my flat so forced myself upon a CELTA colleague and his girlfriend, who are lovely, and had good evenings. Monday afternoon I decided to just go for a walk in the sun after working on my assignment all afternoon. Then I got in a bus and went downtown and ate chicken in a chicken place with plastic seats, surly waitresses, and football on the TV, and suddenly realised: it's actually ok! I had arrived in Colombia alone; I was now in Colombia alone. I had had a really interesting and challenging year in between, with an amazing girl, and that would always now be part of who I am.
Reflecting on this this week, I have concluded that my "year off" solo travel experience has indeed had the desired effect: to make me more happy and certain of who I am, so that I am not dependent on external things to define my happiness or my life.
I should say of course that during the course of that not very happy or pleasant weekend, I had the very good fortune to have many chats, online or via skype, with lots of good friends back in the UK and Europe who supported me enormously, and I am very grateful for that. Being dumped always sucks; being dumped miles from home had the potential to be extremely sucky indeed. And I'm sure that all that support and chats pointed me on the right path, to my speedy recovery. I am not undervaluing my friends, and the support they gave, by any means.
So now the question really is: what next? I have loved the CELTA. I have enjoyed teaching, and I have enjoyed teaching language, because I find it so fascinating anyway. And Colombians are widely seen as being generally one of the most rewarding nationalities to teach anywhere in the world. And oddly, despite my gripes about Bogota, since I started the CELTA and began to feel a part of the city, in having a daily routine, colleagues/friends/students etc, I feel a lot happier here. And it is certainly preferable to be in a city because you want to, rather than because you are waiting for someone, even if you love that someone very much (or perhaps particularly then.)
A friend of Panda's showed my CV to his school, a private bi-lingual girls school, and they coincidentally needed an IT teacher. They seemed quite interested. But after a first interview I decided not to continue with the applications procedure, for three reasons: one, IT is quite boring, especially at high-school level, and it's English that I've trained to and would like to teach. Two, I wasn't that happy philosophically with teaching a bunch of privileged rich girls to become privileged rich adults: how rewarding would that be? And three, they wanted to pay me only 2 million pesos (about 500 quid) a month, for a 35h working week in the school, plus preparation work at home. Oh, and the final kicker: I would have to sign a one-year contract. In the end, the game just wasn't worth the candle.
However, it seems that I'm not likely to get much more than that, salary-wise, in any teaching job. That's OK I suppose -- I'm here more for the craic than the cash, of course. But I think because of that I'm quite picky about the exact kind of job I want. Unfortunately, without any experience, finding that exact job might be difficult. Additionally, I have to find another apartment in the next 10 days. So there's plenty going on right now. But, importantly, I feel very positive about all the possibilities, and ready to start another chapter of my life!
