Café Cat

Yesterday I found my new favorite café: Café Cat. It has nothing to do with the location. It has nothing to do with the atmosphere. It has nothing to do with the coffee quality. It has everything to do with the experience and with the lady who helped me.

 I started the day off going to church. It was the first time going by myself. I stepped out of my apartment building and was blasted with heat. I’m not certain if it was actually hotter than normal outside or if I was just super sensitive.  I was smoking, not like good looking, but like really warm. Anyways, whatever the reason, I still walked to church.  It was great. They asked who was a first time visitor and I raised my hand. Then they rattled some things off in Spanish and said something about the corner. I looked and there was a woman waving me to her. Now, I didn’t really know if they were telling me to go over there, and I had no strong desire to stand up in front of everyone and walk over there, but there she was, waving away prompting me to come. I had no choice. Up I went and into the corner. Then she let me down some stairs into a secluded room.

Oh boy. I’m really sorry, señora but I don’t speak Spanish very well, I’m from the United States and I just recently arrived. No problem. She proceeded to explain to me all about the church, shard the gospel with me, and asked me to pray with her to accept Jesus. I told her I already had done that in the United States and she was pleased. Then she took down some contact information, invited me to prayer meetings in the morning, told me about a women’s retreat in October and before I knew it I was back in the main auditorium and safe in my seat.  It really wasn’t as painful as I had anticipated and I’m hoping to hear from them so that I can get more connected. Maybe I’ll make some Spanish friends that aren’t connected with the school. Sweet.

So how does this café fit in? Well as soon as church got done I began walking. And sweating. And still walking. It was quite hot and I had a long way to go. I attempted to find this mall, but somehow walked passed it without even knowing. There’s always tomorrow to go exploring again. After that turned into a fail I decided I wanted to find a café where I could do some work. Not just any café, one that is in the mall by my house. Not because the mall is awesome, but because the mall has something that resembles air conditioning and I would cool off. Into the mall I went and up the escalators. To be honest I haven’t explore this mall; I’ve only gone to 2 stores in there (one of them happens to be my grocery store). Therefore, today was the day to explore and find myself a café.

I initially found Café Cat but wasn’t really impressed so I kept meandering. I made it to the top floor where the food court is, but nothing there caught my eye either. Back to Café Cat I went. At least there were nice little tables and it wasn’t too busy. So I walked up to the counter and asked the lady for a café con leche (coffee with milk) and a bread thing. I don’t remember the name of it, but that’s unimportant. The nice lady asked me if I wanted a latte instead (because it was stronger) and I agreed. She told me how much and I began to struggle (as usual) with picking out the bills to pay. In broken English she asked if she could help me. Yes please. She helped me get all my bills figured out and I paid. Then she switched back to Spanish and asked if I had any coins. Yes, I told her, I have a few but I never use them because I don’t really know them. She told me she would help. Opening up my coin purse revealed “a few coins” to be close to 50. Ha! Her eyes got big. I’m serious, I never use coins because I don’t know them. She laughed (and so did the lady sitting at the bar) and told me to dump them out. Here is the gringa standing at the counter with a handful of coins, 1 Colombian woman wanting to help, and 1 Colombian woman joyfully watching the entire thing unfold.  It was phenomenal. The lady exchanged some of my coins for bills and told me I could take a seat and wait for my latte. Grinning, I turned and walked away.

When the barista brought me my drink we started talking a little bit in English. I spoke very slowly and we were able to have a conversation. Turns out she studied in Chicago for 6 months and hated the cold.  I told her I lived "relatively close" to Chicago.  Considering the distance from Michigan to Colombia, yes - Chicago is close to home. So we had some bonding time.

Well, the lesson of this adventure? I think I’ve found my new Sunday hangout spot. There is nothing about the Café Cat itself that would have me desire it, but the lovely Colombian lady with the gentle, helping spirit has me sold. I’ve made my first Colombian friend and she doesn’t even know it!...at least not yet :)