Meet the first guest, Hernando Antonio, Alessandra's uncle, who lives in New York City. They talk about his job in architecture and design, photography, and his childhood.
Alessandra: Hi everyone! Welcome to another episode of Madre Mía! I’m Alessandra.
Veronica: Hello, I’m Veronica.
Evelyn: Hello! Evelyn.
Alessandra: And today we have a very special guest, Hernando. And he is my uncle, my mom’s brother, and Evelyn’s son. Nando!
Hernando: Hello!
Alessandra: Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hernando: Hi, how are you? Well, I live in New York City. I am 58 years old and I was born in Colombia, and I studied architecture at university, although I do not practice exactly what architecture is, but in the area of design.
Alessandra: Aha, and your family: you have a son?
Hernando: Yes, I have a son, his name is Antonio, which is my middle name and my grandfather's name. And my wife's name is Staci. He is a very special person.
Alessandra: And Antonio spends summers at a sleep-away camp in Maine?
Hernando: Yeah he's in right now, we haven't seen him for about five weeks. This summer he has done a 100-mile canoe river trip, paddling 100 miles in a canoe, on a river in Maine.
Alessandra: Wow.
Evelyn: Incredible.
Alessandra: Yes, I’ve seen some photos.
Hernando: Yes.
Alessandra: Playing hockey.
Hernando: Yes, playing hockey. He is apparently very good at playing volleyball.
Alessandra: How good!
Hernando: From the people at his camp playing volleyball.
Evelyn: I also saw a photo of him playing frisbee, he's in the air trying to catch the frisbee, amazing photo.
Hernando: Yes, it is a project-- it is a very interesting program. They last-- they have-- the day is divided into certain hours, and for one hour he has a certain activity that he chooses and there are also mandatory activities. For example, one activity is swimming, and there is no pool at the camp. They swim in a lake, a very cold water in the state of Maine. I think they have swimming twice a day.
Veronica: And that is one of the activities that they require?
Hernando: Right, a necessary activity. There are many other activities like basketball, soccer, tennis, they also have photography, they have canoeing, they have-- learn to sail, water ski, rifle shooting, archery.
Veronica: Cool, cool.
Alessandra: He does everything.
Hernando: Yes.
Alessandra: How good.
Hernando: Yes.
Veronica: How has the quarantine been for you in New York? Tell us.
Hernando: Very good. Fortunately, I have had a job and have kept myself busy throughout my stay at home, working a lot. I have been finishing a project that I finally installed, about two weeks ago at LaGuardia Airport.
Alessandra: And you have to work at night-- nights, right? Staci--
Hernando: Yes, because like-- it's a job like, it's in the LaGuardia Airport terminal, they don't allow the work to be done during the day. Well, at the airport right now it's pretty empty. After eight o'clock at night there is no one, no one, no one, no flight entering that airport, it is totally deserted.
Alessandra: Oh wow.
Veronica: Good, so you're not exposed to-- a lot of people like that.
Hernando: No, no and obviously they put a lot of regulations-- the temperature, it has - you're wearing a mask all the time.
Alessandra: Did you say that your work is something between architecture and design, or more one than the other?
Hernando: It's a bit of both, which is why-- why I liked the profession of architecture. Very early in my career I started, part of what an architect does is investigate how things are created, how things are manufactured. For example, kitchen furniture or cabinets, furniture itself, desks and all that. So, very early on I started my career, I began to see how they are made, how all that furniture is formed. I became very good at that part, so when-- I wanted to leave architecture, I started more in design, and part of my design is how to create furniture or spaces that are very unique to the brand of space that I am creating. For example, how there is a McDonald’s, you go to a McDonald’s, you know what the experience of a McDonald’s is. So how do you create something similar, not obviously as a restaurant but similar for other brands. For example if you-- that's what they call “branded design,” or brand design, right? Also the design of environmental brands. So, it's creating spaces that are-- that you determine that clearly show, show the mission that a brand is. So, under that, I have the opportunity to create something, create these spaces or furniture that go within these spaces, and also the whole design and it is also to see how the design itself is made, how this piece of wood is joined with this another piece of wood, how it is screwed, how can this not be seen. So, it is to do everything in order to have a design that reflects the brand.
Veronica: Very interesting. I remember talking about how-- how things are-- how things are made, I remember when you were little, you took apart all kinds of equipment, radios, toasters, I remember you took everything apart to see how it was made inside and you can see that you have always been interested in that.
Hernando: Yes, I love knowing-- I've always loved knowing what the-- how things work and how they're made. And another thing is that I also always liked everything that is electrical, electronic systems, and then when they already started the topic of computers-- today I build my own computers, my own servers and systems, so it is something that it's more of a hobby than my career.
Evelyn: When you were little, I remember, Papa Nando gave us a huge device. It was a record player with a radio, and well, and a radio, it was a record player and a radio, those "Grundigs," I remember the brand. And I said well, let's-- we accept this gift, we took it home and within days the famous Grundig was completely disarmed. You had taken it apart to see what was inside. Yes, of course after that we couldn't put it together and had to throw it away after that. But in the same way, film camera, I remember you had a film camera that you completely disassembled. I thought you were going to be an engineer because of that, but you turned out to be an architect instead. Wonderful, you have had a very nice career, Hernando Antonio.
Hernando: Thank you. Yes, it is not, to be an architect is to have to be both creative and technical, to know both. So it is--
Alessandra: So it's a similar thing to what-- what your wife does, Staci. You have to know the-- the design and the math.
Hernando: Right. Well yes, Staci is a lighting designer who has a very, very good career here in New York. She specifies and designs all the lights in most-- in apartments, restaurants, offices. And it's a job in which she has to work with architects or clients, architects, contractors, engineers, interior designers, and also electricians, and technology integrators as well. So in a way she does work more on the architectural side than I do.
Evelyn: It is wonderful, I love to see the photos that she puts on Instagram because they are wonderful. I mean, knowing lighting is, it's like being-- it's part of architecture, right?
Hernando: Correct, yes.
Evelyn: Lighting creates the atmosphere, the atmosphere of a house-- very defined by the lighting. If you want a cold house, you put cold lighting, if you want a warm house, you use lamps, well, warm light bulbs and so on, because I can't talk much about that because I'm not an expert, but, and how we'd love to have her from-- as a guest here to tell us about it.
Hernando: Yes no, yes no, and lighting is also something very personal, right? Two people can have totally different tastes, so that's part of her job, the psychology of understanding the-- her client and knowing how to achieve and give them what they need. And she has some spectacular works, beautiful, luxurious apartments, and art lighting. So, and she is also very much with the-- everything that is the new technology in lighting, which today is the LED, LED. And so she's very much at the forefront of that in her work.
Alessandra: Yes, she loves her job, it seems to me. You also like photography. I remember when we went on adventures around New York, just taking pictures of everything and you also gave me my first Nikon camera, and after a trip I left it on the plane in the overhead compartment. I was very sad. Do you still take photos often?
Hernando: Yes, I tend to be a person who yes, I get interested in things and I put a lot into that interest. For example, photography is something that is that, and I don't know if you can-- you realize that, well, photography is technical and it also has its creative element. So that's-- it's that union of the creative with the technical to achieve something very interesting, special, to achieve something special, as an artist. So yes, I have always liked it, and I have liked the whole process of taking the photo, of calculating the-- all the measurements that have to be done on the camera, of-- well, that time was developing the negatives and putting them in-- in black and white and put them in an enlarger, enlarge them, create the-- the “prints,” how are they called--
Alessandra: To print--
Hernando: Yes, yes, the photos themselves, not the paper. And I've always liked it, but over the years my interests or my-- yes, my-- yes, my interests in something new always change, right? So there, for example, was a season that I loved the whole concept of making cheese. From how you cultivate the cheese with the penicillin, with the aging and the humidity of all that, creating something that in the end you enjoy, that is very delicious that you enjoy.
Evelyn: I remember participating in the tests of your cheeses, when from a gallon of milk came out a cheese about two inches large. But they came out exquisite and I remember some were a provolone type with brie, wonderful mixtures came out .
Hernando: Yes, it is a fascinating hobby, I would love to continue doing it but we have the problem, is that, well, the smells are not the best. At home, in an apartment in New York with people coming and going, so suddenly it is not the most beautiful thing for our guests.
Alessandra: He makes the cheese and I make the cheesecake.
Hernando: Yes, delicious.
Alessandra: Yes. Oma, what was Nando like when he was a kid?
Evelyn: Oh Hernando, when he was a child, he was a typical child, boy, at two years old in a talking devil, you know the saying of the "terrible twos." Well, he was one hell of a precocious kid. I remember expecting Veronica, me with my belly, he ran away from the house, ran down the street, and I couldn't reach him. And then when I was about to reach him, he would shoot out again. And well he was a very normal child, very normal. He would get in the trees, climb on the medlar tree that we had in Barranquilla to play Tarzan. And one day the branch broke and he broke his arm, typical things. Hernando Antonio was a very healthy child in that sense, a very, very, typical child.
Alessandra: Yes, the jokes. Nando, you and I used to prank my sister and my aunts, Mafer and Macata. We put a Tootsie Roll once, remember? In, in her bed--
Hernando: Yes.
Alessandra: To make it look like the dog went to the bathroom.
Hernando: It would have been-- we formed a Tootsie Roll into a dog poop shape. We put it on--
Alessandra: But did we put it in a diaper?
Evelyn: Ay, no.
Hernando: Ah, yes, that too I think.
Alessandra: I have very funny memories.
Hernando: That sense of humor I inherited from my dad who was always a very funny person, he always loved to make jokes and do bad things (pranks) to people.
Veronica: And, but you had a joke that didn't turn out very well, no, do you remember with my dad?
Hernando: No.
Veronica: That you were going to-- that you were going to scare him and he came to the house and you were hiding.
Hernando: I was, I don't know, Mommy, I don't know if you remember how old I was.
Evelyn: You were like six years old, I think, maybe five, six years old. And your dad came with a melon on his arm and you hid and when you came out of hiding to scare your dad, you tripped and hit your head on the door frame. Yes, there.
Veronica: In the scar.
Evelyn: And we run him to the hospital.
Hernando: It was my first scar.
Alessandra: First of many?
Evelyn: Yes, you once cut your leg with a Gillette that had been found, hidden in a cologne box. I don't know how he found it, but he took it out and hid the knife, crossed his legs. I knew he had it, because I saw the little piece of paper where he had unwrapped it. And he got on the bed with the-- the razor in his hands, crossed his legs to hide it, and when I tried to reach him he pulled out his hand and cut his leg, close to a vein. And we run to the hospital again. Already, by the age of five, when Hernando Antonio was five years old, I believe that he already had gone to the emergency room from the hospital at least once a year. They knew him very well in the hospital, << Ay, Hernandito again. >>
Hernando: I was a very restless person, very-- I couldn't--
Evelyn: You were a very normal child, a very restless child.
Alessandra: Okay. Now we are going to do what I call the favorite topics section. So what is your favorite food?
Hernando: Wow. Well, Colombian food for me is always going to be my favorite. Second is Indian food which I love too.
Alessandra: What?
Hernando: Indian food, from India.
Alessandra: Oh, ah yes.
Hernando: As for Colombian food, well, there are so many things that I think all-- I love everything. Sancocho, ajiaco, the-- rice, well all the plantains, the fried ones.
Veronica: Coconut rice.
Hernando: Arepas.
Alessandra: And Staci always says she fell in love with you when you made her an ajiaco.
Hernando: Right. It was the first time, I don't know how I dared this one time, I said, well I'm going to make-- I'm going to experiment with making an ajiaco to see how it turns out, and it turned out good. And well, she was more in love.
Alessandra: You were lucky. What is your favorite movie?
Hernando: Bladerunner.
Evelyn: Wow.
Hernando: Definitely. The movie has always been my favorite movie.
Alessandra: I haven't seen that movie either. Okay.
Hernando: It's from, I recommend it, it's from, like '81, '82 with Harrison Ford. And just, a year, a year and a half ago, they put out one-- the second part of the movie. It was also very good.
Alessandra: I have to see it. The last one: what is your favorite activity in your free time.
Hernando: Watch movies.
Alessandra: I know, I know. Well, thanks for being our first guest and I hope our listeners enjoyed it. Well, do you have anything else to end our podcast?
Hernando: Of course. Alessandra, I'm so proud of you how well you speak Spanish, like, I feel like you're a native-speaking Spanish. I do not even catch that you have to translate in your mind. I am very proud of you, very proud, very proud of you, very proud of what you are doing on your podcast. Well, I adore you, from the second I saw you.
Alessandra: Thank you. You can't see why I'm wearing a mask, but I'm smiling. Thank you I love you.
Hernando: I love you very much, GKW.
Alessandra: GKW, Greatest Kid--
Hernando: Greatest Kid in the World.
Alessandra: Ah, and Antonio.
Veronica: Sí, Antonio too.
Alessandra: I don't know, Ariana, I don't know. Good thank you!
Evelyn: Well, my son, I love you very much. Take care.
Veronica: Thank you!
Hernando: Kisses, kisses to all.
Veronica: Kisses!
Hernando: Bye.
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