Expert: Cesar - 12/27/2009

Question
Hello,

My name is Jayme. Nice to meet you. Well I am moving with my Colombian husband to Medellin in 1 year. Very scary for me. Lol! I have been there once for 3 weeks meeting my in laws and I loved it. But I am admitting that it is still scary for me to think of living in a place with a different language culture etc. I was wondering if you or any of your collegues can tell me of your or their experiences living in Medellin. For example, how long was the adjustment if any, metro or bus information, what is or was the hardest thing to get used to? What are some of the coolest things of Medellin? Was it easy to find a job? (I want to teach English and I am preparing for that now.) Any suggestions of schools to improve or learn Spanish? Any suggestions of other forums to look at? Websites for history, politics, or anything else to learn about Colombia? I really appreciate any help. Thanks a lot! Jayme

Answer
Dear Ms. Prudente:

There is actually not much to be scared about. Medellín is just like many other cities. Life here is normal. People work, have fun, and everything else like in many other cities. The need to talk Spanish with strangers would be for thinks such as shopping, asking for directions, or seeking employment. Shopping is easy: just pick what you want and give a bill that is sufficiently large for the purchase. Asking for directions is not normally needed. You can just give a taxi driver the address, which normally would be numbers such as Carrera 30 #27-42, which you can hand out to the taxi driver. To seek employment normally they need you to speak Spanish unless you are going to be teaching English. There is a school called Colegio Cumbres, which is a high end school and they want really good English teachers or native speakers. There are other schools who are interested in native speakers. The salaries for english teachers are usually higher than average employees. Colegio cumbres used to pay about 19,000 pesos per hour about 6 years ago. They might start the person as a part-timer with about 17 hours per week and offer additional hours teaching other subjects. Other schools also need teachers, but most of the time it will be part-time jobs. The problem is having to go from one school to another, which is bothersome. Also universities such as UPB seek english teachers, but the openings are few and might be filled. The problem with part-time jobs teaching english could be that you will teach a couple of hours very early in the morning, like 5 to 7 and then at lunch. Some people earn extra income by providing private classses at a rate of 25 thousand to 30 thousand pesos (what was charged 6 years ago). Such income might not be sufficient for you. I have a relative who taught in UPB and in private schools. I believe he made about 2 million per month or less.

Here is a great link that describes many touristic attractions in Medellín. It was written in Spanish, but with a webpage translator you could read it in English:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turismo_en_Medell%C3%ADn#Zona_Rosa_de_Medell.C3.ADn

There was not really much adjustment for me because I have come to Medellín a few times. Your adjustment would be when communicating and getting to know the city, but it is not difficult. A lot of young people study english and might understand some of what you say such as when asking for a place.

There are nice places to go in Medellín. It is medium sized city, not as large as Bogotá, and is the second in importance/commerce. It has a metro that goes across the city and has one leg that goes sideways. It has sections that have metro by cable, which is nice because you can see part of the city by air. Medellín is pretty much a valley and has mountains on both sides. From the mountains you can see pretty much the whole side or a good part of it. It even has a touristic place in a mountain called "pueblito paisa" (paisa town). It has several cities where it is nice to live. There are all kinds of levels of wealth. People chooses which area they can afford to live. There are a lot of bus routes and they pass by very often. In some areas it could take for example about 5 minutes or less for the next bus. Taxis are all over the place. Numerous taxis. You will see taxis back to back in many places. What many people like is the night life. A lot of people like to drink a beer in bars almost any time of the day or go out dancing at one of the night clubs. There is for example an area called Parque Lleras that is is an upscale area where people sit in large bars to talk and listen to music. Then they would go to the night clubs two or three blocks away or just sit in the park while they talk or eat a hot dog.

Medellín is surrounded by several towns that are not too developed and you would be able to appreciate nature. You can also take a plane and go to other cool places such as Cartagena, Santa Marta, and Barranquilla.

There are not too many schools that teach Spanish, but there are always english teachers who would be willing to teach you spanish.

Wikipedia.org is a great source for information. You can do searches on the web for words such as "Medellín". You can use a webpage translator such as the one Google provides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medell%C3%ADn
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medell%C3%ADn

http://images.google.com.ar/images?q=Medell%C3%ADn&oe=utf-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=3dA...

http://www.colombialink.com/01_INDEX/index_turismo/destinos/medellin.html

http://www.culturayturismomedellin.com/index.php

The number of pages on the internet are numerous. My browser seeks for Spanish pages, but yours probably will give you more pages in English.

You can give me a call for more information or when you come and you can send me an email.

Best wishes,

Cesar
(818) 206-0481
CesarCalifornia@hotmail.com
www.CesarUSA.com