How Moving Abroad to Cartagena Made Me Feel Beautiful
Me on my birthday in Cartagena last year (2023)!
Hello, happy new year, and welcome back to my blog! I am now halfway through my second Fulbright grant here in Cali (omg, time flies!!!), and I have been very busy working with students, settling into my new city, exploring, learning a lot, and writing tons of drafts along the way that I shall complete and post very soon! However, before that, I wanted to share this blog post that is more like a page out of my diary that I wrote back in July 2023 after completing my first Fulbright grant in Cartagena.
Every day, I feel super blessed that Cartagena is a part of my life story. I can’t explain how much love I have for Cartagena and how pivotal the time I spent there was for me in my life. I learned, grew, and developed so much from my experiences there. From the beginning, when I first arrived, I had this feeling that I had ended up exactly where I needed to be at that moment, and I was right.
I visited the city again back in November for Las Fiestas de Independencia 2023 and to celebrate my birthday, and it was such a beautiful full-circle feeling. It was really lovely to do all the things, see all the people, and visit all the places I loved so much while I lived there. The trip filled my heart with joy and gratitude and made me proud of myself for just how far I’ve come in my personal life.
Most of my posts here haven’t been super personal, but I feel a pull to share this side of my experience & hope to do so more in the future too. I hope that sharing my story will create a positive impact on my readers and inspire them to travel for the invaluable life lessons and personal growth that comes out of it. En fin, I love Cartagena forever and always! After this post, I will finally start posting about what I've been up to in Cali, but for now, read on, and I’ll be back again soon. Chaito!
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Of the many things I have to say about Cartagena, one of the most important is that I have to say thank you for making me feel so beautiful.
There are people who don’t like when others comment on their appearance, who say it's creepy, or weird, or misogynistic (it definitely can be; don’t get me wrong). But in Cartagena, regularly hearing from people all around me that I was beautiful, made a lasting impact on me. They would tell me not only that I was beautiful, but that I was radiant—that my energy was beautiful and nourishing for those around me.
Can I be vulnerable with you for a moment? Or for the rest of this post I mean? Before I arrived in Cartagena, I had very low self-esteem. That might be surprising to people, or maybe not, but it was the case. I’m not even sure if I realized it then, but now, here on the other side, I realize just how much self-love I was missing. Sure, I knew I was beautiful, that I was a good person, that I was intelligent and talented, but experiences in my childhood and life up until that point left me feeling invisible, not good enough, not worthy.
I grew up in a small suburb in North Carolina, and let me tell you, as a Black girl in a tiny white suburb, I had it bad. Most people were racist and prejudiced, whether they were direct with it or made it known through their questions, actions, or way of interacting with me, whether they realized it or not. I grew up as a dancer, and I loved going to classes at the dance school in my town because dancing has always been therapeutic for me, but as I built up my technique and skill there throughout the years, they broke down my self-image and self-confidence. There are many things I heard and saw there from my peers and their parents that said, “You’re good, you might be great, but you’ll never be enough.” I can count on one hand the number of Black dancers who were there while I was there, and the hostile undercurrent at the school made and kept it that way.
I dealt with rejection there and throughout my life in different arenas as an ethnically Caribbean Black girl growing up in the South. Unfortunately, there weren’t many other people who shared my culture growing up near me, so when kids began to poke and prod as they do to anyone or anything that is slightly different from themselves, I didn’t have others who shared and understood my culture to stand up for me and to celebrate the things that made me different. As the child of immigrants who grew up far away from my extended family and our culture, I myself lost touch with my culture. So when criticism came, I fumbled for words to stand up for myself and was made to feel less than.
And I know what you’re probably thinking: Amiga, where were your parents? They were there, but when your parents are going through their own struggles of separation and divorce, challenges like these are ones that children often end up internalizing and struggling with on their own. Shame (the thoughts that I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy, I am flawed) is so often a silent, internal battle.
People say that we shouldn’t rely on external validation, but when all the invalidation that hurt you in the past was external as well, the positive things people say to you can really help heal you. For the critical years of my life, I grew up in a place where everything about me was “wrong”: my skin color, my hair texture, the food I ate at home, the music I listened to, my origins. But then one day everything turns “right”, and I am celebrated for my beauty, for my personality, and for the interests and passions that I have and can share with others. In Cartagena, for the first time in my life, I finally felt a strong sense of belonging. There was no pressure to change who I was to “fit in.” I didn’t have to be anyone but myself.
Imagine a place where almost everyone is Black or afro-descendant, and this is celebrated and uplifted. Where there is finally, FINALLY, representation for someone like me. Imagine a long-lost part of yourself returning. That's how I felt in Cartagena.
Now, I would be naive to think that my time in Cartagena marks the end of all of my problems. I know I have a lot of work to do for and within myself. My time there shed light on why I think how I think, why I do what I do, and why I feel how I feel. It opened a Pandora's box of possibilities for living a happier, healthier, more fulfilling, and more supported life because of discomforts that were prompting, pushing, and forcing me to reflect on the past as I moved forward. These are the gems, the priceless souvenirs that we receive from travel—a deeper look within. This is the gift that Cartagena gave me, and I am so grateful.
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In closing, thank you so much to everyone who was a part of my journey in Cartagena, a part of the highs, the lows, and everything in between. I am sooooo grateful. Thank you for showing me so much love and teaching me how to love myself better.
