NO LIMITS TO THE LANGUAGE!

It's traumatic to be victimized or robbed, particularly when voyaging abroad and being absent from your support system, especially families and close friends. It can happen to anybody, anyplace, anytime even if you've taken steps to diminish your dangers.

I honestly thought I was invincible and as such, I gallivanted in a foreign country like I was a local. I lived in a middle class community and I drenched myself into the culture. I in any case, took all the vital safety measures to keep myself secure. Considering how I lived I would say I was bold however, mindful of the dangers around me. I went out and got back home late and I took an Uber or private taxi whenever I was going excessively far.

Otherwise I would venture out from home extremely early so that I could get lost on the Metro System (which happened on numerous occasions during my travels). I have cried so many times on these transports you would ask why I did it. Be that as it may, perhaps a piece of me simply needed to feel a sense of routine as back home I took public transport to get around.

It was coming to the end of my fellowship however; I thought I would give of my service for another year. Misfortune struck and a second close relative kicked the bucket back home. I didn't get an opportunity to attend the first funeral service and I made it my obligation to go to this one. In anticipation of my trip back home I figured I should get some memorabilia for my families and friends and I had been doing this for about a week paving the way to my departure.

The day before my flight my mother asked me for some ‘Panela’ a Colombian delicacy that she thoroughly enjoyed. I had been travelling and living in Colombia for almost two years and nothing like what I am about to describe has ever happened to me.

As I traversed from the supermarket I decided to walk home just to take in the scenery because this may very well be my last time in these communities. By way of casually strolling I noticed a man in a white lab coat sitting on a bike and another on the other side of the road leaning on a wall.

I gestured to both of them and greeted them in my finest Spanish. Caught up in my own thoughts I felt a hand on my shoulder and it was the man in the lab coat adjacent to me with a gun to my head. A supreme verbiage rolled off his tongue, I stared at him because as much as I was scared he was gorgeous (A specimen of a man) and also because I did not understand a word he was saying.

( him musi want money mi think to miself).

The Art of Patois!

An unexplainable amount of anger surged inside of me and I kicked the man off the bike and inquired in the most eloquent of tones. (Pussyhole a wah yah do?) He was SHOCKED! And his face was flushed with a series of red.

What is this language that you speak he must be thinking? When I realized that my weapon was as deadly as his I loaded it with lethal ammunitions and fired another series of patois “Idiot bwoy know wah yah do” “go suck yuh mada”.

I then gripped my “Panela” and ran straight home. I sat on the floor and cried for a while because of what I presumed was shock and I never told my Colombian family maybe because they always told me that I should be careful.

Writer: Shaneika Smith

Editor One: Shavel Smith

Editor Two: Hannah Fullerton