Babies are celebrities in Colombia
As we get used to life in Bogotá, it’s clear that our new neigboorhood of La Candelaria is baby crazy. How do I know this?
It might be the swarm of women and children at the market who came by to coo at Cole as we passed through.
It could be the open stares that Cole gets from about 80% of the people we pass on the street, most of whom go from intense curiosity to bubbly smiles as they come closer.
Maybe it was the woman who ate lunch next to us today, spending her whole lunch smiling at Cole, who would coo right back at her (He’s something of a flirt)
The best experience was having breakfast at a small café and having both hands free to eat, because the old proprietor woman absolutely lost her mind when Cole came out of the wrap. She took him around to the other patrons, back into the small kitchen, and then sat with us with Cole on her lap, speaking to him in preposterously fast Spanish.
My Spanish is fairly wretched to begin with, and in the build up to getting here, I didn’t bother brushing up on my inconsiderable vocabulary. Still, I wasn’t fully prepared for the need to learn an entirely new set of baby-centric Spanish words.
Silly, naive poppa. I have now heard “pobrecito” at least two dozen times. Today i heard “divino” for the first time. I don’t need excellent spanish to know that I agree with that statement.
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LOL! Loved this post… need to catch up here again, I see!!
Hahaha! Whenever our 10-month-old (or anyone else, really) starts getting excessively whiny, Husband and I both go, “Awwww, pobrecitoooo!” It’s our nice way of saying, “I do not feel sorry for you. Put a cork in it.”
I admire your trust in letting the restaurant owner cart your son off. I’m constantly shielding mine from fellow Eugeneans and thinking, “Yes, he is cute, leave him alone.” Ugh. I’m a misanthrope.
I’ve noticed cultural differences in reactions to our 5-month-old. Our favorite Indian restaurant here in Nashville has an all male staff that goes completely gaga for the baby whenever we’re in there. I’ve never seen a large group of men so smiley for one baby. I guess babies are celebrities in India, too.