Life Update & Bilingual Poem: "I Am American/ Soy colombiana"

Hello, everyone! It has been a long time since I have posted on here, so I thought that I would take a moment to briefly explain what has been going on in my life these past few months. 

                           

As many of you already know from reading my previous posts, I had to take a medical leave of absence after completing 3/5 months of my semester abroad in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Since then, I have been recovering by going to my neurologist and by getting intensive chiropractic treatment. Today is the big day, as I will be getting LASIK eye surgery to be glasses-free for many years to come. My main hope is that this surgery and my chiropractic treatment will significantly reduce my migraines, so that I can write more blog content for the remainder of this summer. 

Aside from that, I recently created a foodie and travel blog: www.theglobaltummy.com, which will be my main blogging platform on Squarespace, offering me endless opportunities to share my content on all of my @theglobaltummy social media platforms and to showcase what I have to offer as an aspiring food and travel writer. All of my posts will be bilingual in English and in Spanish, French, German, and Italian, so I thought that all of you would be interested in checking it out. Feel free to "subscribe" to my blog to be notified when I upload new posts and to share this post and blog with others to spread the word about it. All you have to do is type in your email to subscribe to it. It's as easy as that! 

Link to my 1st blog post titled When My Love For Food Began: https://www.theglobaltummy.com/…/when-my-love-for-food-began 

Link to my 2nd blog post titled Getting Lost Abroad// Perdersi All'Estero: https://www.theglobaltummy.com/blog-posts/2018/5/23/getting-lost-abroad-en-it 

Lastly, before getting into this week's post, I wanted to let you know that after a lot of thought and talks with my mom, she encouraged me to continue to post on this platform. It has almost been 2.5 years since I created this blog. After being in a rut for so long, I am finally starting to gain some momentum and have come up with some creative and fun content for all of you. What should you expect on here for the rest of 2018? You should expect less "how to" posts and more posts about real experiences I have had with languages and not so much on language learning itself. I may post bilingual poems I have written, or even thoughts I have about my travels and experiences abroad in several languages. As always, feel free to write a comment on this post of anything you would like me to write about, so I can keep that in mind.

For this week, I wanted to share a poem I wrote a few months ago about my so-called "Colombian-American" identity. Am I Colombian? Am I American? Do I feel Colombian-American, none, or both? I bolded the parts written in Spanish for easy reference. Since I am currently in Barranquilla and will be operated later today, I wanted to post something, as I am unsure as to how long my recovery period will be. Qué lo disfruten!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am American; soy colombiana. 
I have two identities and cultures that seem so different,

But yet are similar in many ways. 

I grew up bilingually,

embracing what it is like to be fluent and functioning in Spanish and in English,
which was a gift that my parents gave me since before I was born.

You cannot tear me apart and you cannot bring me down,
because I belong to both and yet I belong to none. 

As I sit here and reflect about this,
I wonder what I should respond when people ask me:
"Do you think and dream more in Spanish, or in English?",
"Who are you?",
"Do you prefer one culture over the other?", and
"Which culture do you most identify with?"

These are all good questions that do not have simple answers.
Since I was raised and born in the United States,

English is usually the language that comes out,
but even so, it is not the most natural.
In fact, Spanish is.

Spanish is the first language that I heard being spoken to me as an infant
And I have Colombian family around the world.

The first thing that I do when I wake up is turn around and

remind myself that my parents are nowhere near me,
but when I am with them, I ask: "Buenos días. Durmieron bien?". 

When I am about to fall asleep,
I stop what I am doing
and go into my parents' room to give them a big hug and a goodnight kiss on the cheek.
When I am home, I say: "Buenas noches. Espero que duerman bien."

English and being American may be the easy answer to these questions,
but it is not fully accurate either.
English is the language that belongs to my American environment,
but Spanish is the language of my heart and soul.

Es el idioma que prefiero hablar
cuando quiero hablar sobre mis pensamientos y mis sentimientos
de lo que experimento en el diario vivir.

Soy americana, pero también soy colombiana. 
Soy de aquí, pero también soy de allá.
Pertenezco a esta comunidad, pero también pertenezco a Colombia.
Nadie me cuestiona cuando digo que soy americana;
Lo mismo me sucede cuando digo que soy colombiana.

But at the end of the day,
no one can take that away from me.
I have a rich cultural and linguistic heritage
and I will always spread my wings faster,
so that I can fly even higher.