A New Twist - Kommunity Karaoke

I love to sing and put on a show. I have dreamed of being a rock star since, my brothers and I air-guitared to Van Halen in our childhood basement. I can carry a tune, but I am not America's next Idol. I am more like a clueless contestant from the blooper reel. In college, my friends and I would go to a blue collar bar called the Karaoke Kid, where we watched people believe they were stars; singing Fleetwood Mac while escaping their 9 to 5's. Most of them were horrible, but after a few beers, a few gems would gleem. Since, then I have also been a Karaoke Kid, paying $2 a pop for the poor audience to listen to me.

Last weekend, I discovered a solution to the sad sight and sound of horrible Idol auditions. I like to call it Kommunity Karaoke. It was at a bar called El baul de los recuerdos (The Trunk of Memories) in the Las Gaviotas neighborhood of Cartagena. There are two big screens and the bar tender simply projects videos from YouTube. He chooses Latin classics and songs by request. The customers order drinks at their tables and sing along with the videos. The whole bar is singing the same song. No one customer tortures the audience with amplified off- key notes or elevator music versions of good songs. It's a win- win for everyone. The bar sells lots of drinks and all the customers get to sing for free without embarrassing themselves or causing people's ears to bleed. Kommunity Karaoke is a great new twist on the beloved past time of drunken stardom.

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Peace Corps Colombia Begins... Again

9/26/2010 – 10/15/2010 C1 On September 26, 2010, I arrived along with 8 others to Barranquilla, Colombia to reinstate the United States Peace Corps . We are called Colombia 1 (C1) even though there were many groups before us from 1961- 1981. Peace Corps had to shut down its programs to protect Peace Corps Volunteers’ (PCVs) safety endangered by guerilla warfare and civil unrest. Now, we are back serve to Colombia`s northern coast, but are still proud to be former PCVs from Liberia, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, and Colombia. Our ages range from 26 to 69 years old. We are all are from different regions of the US and have different ethnicities. One PCV, Carolina, is from Bogota, Colombia, but moved to Florida when she was 17 years old and became a US citizen. Now, she is serving both the US and Colombia. Our oldest PCV, Philip, served in Colombia from 1963- 1965, returned home to be an ESL teacher in the Compton and Watts neighborhoods of Los …

Top Ten Things I Always Do in Colombia, But Never at Home

10. Shower with cold water since, no one has or needs hot water
9. Eat homemade rice, beans, meat, and soup with a bone in it everyday
8. Sing out loud at school, in the street, and on the bus
7. Keep my bag on my lap or insight at all times
6. Carry toilet paper everywhere I go
5. Drink liquids out of plastic bags instead of bottles
4. Wear clean and ironed clothes everyday
3. Get in-home manicure and pedicure service
2. Put on 50 sunblock all over my body everyday instead of moisturizer
1. Love the weather

La Buseta: Cartagena's Original Roller Coaster Ride

Cartagena has a fun and hectic bus culture with a surprisingly civil etiquette. The buses are called busetas because they are much smaller than most public buses in the world. Many of the Cartagena`s barrio streets are narrow and curvy which makes turning difficult. Anyone over 5'4" is normally uncomfortable with their knees jammed in the back of the seat in front of them. My friends over 6 feet have to stoop when standing on a crowded bus. Their heads hit the ceiling with every bump. It can also be quite hot since, temperatures are normally in the high 80s 10:00AM to 3:00PM every day of the year.

There are a few air-conditioned buses for a few pesos more. However, they do not have what makes most Latin American buses truly fun and festive: music and decorations. In Cartagena, the buses blare all sorts of rhythms: Salsa, Vallenato (Colombia's Country music), Champeta (Afro-Colombian music from Cartagena), and many others that I am still learning. I've never heard any …

Carolyn in Cartagena

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