Traveling in Colombia

A few weeks back we had two long weekends in a row which I spent traveling in rural Colombia.  I had to laugh at the different mentality Colombians have for schedules and getting from one place to another.


The first weekend was a trip to a little town called Toro to do some hiking and rappelling.

Our jeep out to the start of our hike.

When we finished our hike, Ximena and I went to grab dinner before heading back to Cali.  As we were finishing eating the woman at the restaurant mentioned that the last bus for Cali left La Union at 6:00.  The buses from Toro to La Union left at 5:00 and 5:30.  We both looked at the clock, 4:40, and thought "Oh, we have 20 minutes!"

Translation:
Me:  CRAP! We have 20 minutes.  Shove the rest of your food in your mouth and pay!  We still need to find where the bus leaves from and buy tickets! GO!
Ximena:  We have 20 minutes! Let's go get ice cream.

Her reasoning involved ice cream so obviously it won.  We met the rest of the hiking crew for ice cream and chatted until it was 5:30 and I saw the bus for La Union approaching.  *nudge*  Don't you think we ought to be going?  So we paid and were on our way.  When she ran into a friend and we stopped to chat, a second bus for La Union drove by and I was sure we were stuck in Toro another night.

Tarzan style vines hanging into the crevice

Upon arriving in the main plaza there was still a bus parked there.  After discussing with the driver we found out that there was absolutely no way were were going to make it to La Union to catch the last bus to Cali.  More discussion led to the conclusion that he would call said bus and have it wait for us in La Union.  He called.  The bus waited.






















The next weekend was off to Salento, Colombia's coffee region.

Coffee farm tour

When our first bus - which we were assured made absolutely no stops along the way - left half an hour late and then proceeded to make numerous stops to pick up passengers en route, we knew we weren't going to make it to Armenia in time for the last bus to Salento.

Horseback riding in Valle de Cocora

Arriving at Armenia's bus station a half hour after the last bus had left, we found another man looking to make his was to Salento that night.  We were told for 60,000 pesos they would drive another bus there for us.  Normally the fare costs about 3,000 pesos, or $1.50
                                                                   each.  But for 20,000 pesos - $10 each - they                                                                      made the trip an extra time.

Moral of the story:  Here schedules are flexible and there's always a way to get where you want go.

Medellin

Last weekend was a long weekend so I spent it in Medellin with three friends, two of whom are from there.  Since arriving in Colombia I have heard over and over again how beautiful, clean, and organized the city is, that it ought to be the country's capitol, and that I absolutely had to go.  Indeed, I fell in love with the city and sort of (really) wish I lived there!  It reminded me a bit of Minneapolis in that isn't very touristy but there is a lot of culture and its overall just a nice place to live.  My one regret is that it is the hometown of Fernando Botero and we didn't get a chance to see his sculptures.

We went to ParqueExplora which had jumping water fountains outside (LOVE them) with tons of little kids playing in them. 

It had a lot of exhibits similar to Minneapolis's science museum, a 3-D theater, and a pretty good aquarium.

 

That evening we happened across a little organic store that sold whole wheat flour.  Sheer joy after two months of searching!  My joy was compounded when we went to dinner at Naan, Medellin's only Indian restaurant (a step up from Cali, which has none).  Oh, Colombia, how you are missing out with your lack of Indian food!  Good food obviously made this evening the highlight of my trip!

Later on we went to Parque Lleras, a cute little park surrounded by a wide variety of restaurants, bars, and clubs.  Because of the perpetual beautiful weather, almost all of them were open air, producing a vibrant energy that beat Minneapolis's nightlife by a long shot!  One of our stops was at this little walk up bar whose sole purpose is to sell cheap shots.  Apparently these are not uncommon but I had never seen one before and was rather amused.

That night we stayed at Guillermo's parents house.  A few pictures from around the neighborhood.

The next day we took the metro cable up the mountainside, through one of the poorer neighborhoods.

 

The city has invested quite a bit in the neighborhood constructing the metro cable and a massive, beautiful library. I have a pretty serious love affair going on with Minneapolis's Central Library but this library was some pretty stiff competition!  When we hopped off the Metro Cable to go check out the library two little boys greeted us in Spanish, "Bienvenidos a nuestro ciudad!  Podemos darles una gira." (Welcome to our city!  We can give you a tour.) and then they turned to me and said, "Welcome!"  Irresistable!  So for a few thousand pesos we had our own tour guides for two blocks! :)

After our tour guides left us we found a woman making gelatina - basically marshmellows.  When I had woken up that morning my stomach was incredibly angry.  All three of my companions warned me that with an already upset stomach this was probably not the most sanitary thing to be eating.  She was after all, mixing the gelatina on a tree branch.  But let's be honest, good looking street food, especially something involving sugar, is no match for reason.  I clearly had to try this.  Within several hours my stomach felt better.  I'm fairly certain that the marshmellows contained bigger and badder bacteria that ate whatever I had woken up with but then they got stuck in all the sticky goodness and couldn't do any more harm.

Here's a few sights from the bus/transit system.  Miracle of all miracles, people waited for others to get off the buses before they got on!  This is a stark contrast to the MIO buses in Cali.  Stay tuned for Tales from the MIO.

 And a couple more views of the city before we move on.

That afternoon we headed outside of the city to Rio Negro where Kathleen grew up.  There are a lot of farms in the area including little traditional houses, massive ranches, and my dream house (on top).

The area was absolutely beautiful!

A Lulo plant.  Lulo is a common fruit here that people often turn into juice.  They get a bit bigger and turn orange/yellow when ripe.

The house Kathleen grew up in has been in her family for several generations.  Her grandma used to use the stone in the yard to grind corn.

Silence is Golden

I came across this post on another blog a few weeks ago and wanted to share it because I identified so strongly with it.  The author discusses what it is like to be an introvert.  He says:

Nothing excites me more than being part of a huge crowd — or performing in front of it for that matter. But I’m not necessarily that social. I talk low, large groups of people can really make me nervous, and in a group setting I often wait to speak until somebody addresses me directly.

The challenge of being an introvert is that sometimes people misread our inwardness as being sad or upset about something all the time, or else they think we’re arrogant, elitist, or standoffish.  I can’t tell you how many people have told me that they expected me to be an elitist prick before they got to know me because I’m so withdrawn or because I seem perpetually disinterested. But just because I’m introverted doesn’t mean I don’t like you, or that I don’t care about what you have to say. It just means I’m more interested in experiences and sensations than I am in filling up the silence.

At home I would receive comments on my introversion several times a month.  What's wrong?  Why aren't you having fun?  You should smile more often.  I thought you were a huge *#!@% before I got to know you.  I have a good group of friends at home though who know me well and know that not having a smile on my face or words gushing from my mouth doesn't mean that I'm not enjoying myself or their company.

Moving somewhere new, where no one knows me has been a rough transition.  It has meant that I hear comments like this several times a week instead of several times a month.  I know that the comments are well intentioned but it is harder to brush them off when they are so frequent and when I don't have people to spend time with who aren't going to comment on and question my personality.  And despite the best of intentions with the comments, what many people don't realize is that their comments imply a defect - that my personality should be something besides what it is.

Luckily, I have met a lot of amazing people here and am developing a new circle of friends who are equally as fantastic as the ones I have at home.  People that understand that sometimes silence is a good thing and that not everyone exudes copious amounts of emotion.

Getting Sick in Colombia is a Hassle!

Last week I caught a cold from a student.  A fairly common occurrence for a teacher, this shouldn't have been a big ordeal.  But while adjusting to an new culture, it feels like everything is a big ordeal!

Monday morning, I could feel that if I talked all day long I was going to loose my voice.  And sure enough, after a full day of using my teacher voice (shouting over the construction outside my room and my excessively chatty fifth graders) my students could barely hear me by the end of the day.

During our two weeks of "training" before school started we had had a laughable meeting on how to not loose your voice.  Ooops, maybe I should have paid attention.  However, we had not been told anything about the procedures for being sick.  So I went to inquire.
       Step 1.  Go see the school nurse.  She will tell you if you need to go to the doctor.
                     (Hmmm...that's funny.  Here I've been thinking all my adult life that I was 
                      capable of judging that myself.  Turns out I'm not.)  
       Step 2.  Go see the doctor.  He will give you permission to miss school.
                     (Ooook.....Needing notes for permission to do things doesn't end in high
                      school here.)
       Step 3.  If you don't want to go to the doctor, come to school tomorrow.  Since you 
                     clearly can't teach your class, we will find someone to teach it for you.
                     (Oh, so it is obvious that I've lost my voice and that that makes teaching
                      somewhat difficult? One would think that would invalidate steps one and
                      two but it doesn't.  A doctor's expertise is needed to confirm that what you
                      are hearing - or not hearing in this case - is indeed valid.)

I skipped step one, but the next morning when my voice hadn't come back, I did go to the doctor.  Despite feeling completely fine aside from not being able to talk, I wanted to get paid, so off I went.

I had been told there was a clinic close to my house.  Said clinic turned out to be a massive medical complex with signs and arrows pointing all over the place to medical specialties that I wouldn't know the meaning of in English.  Unfortunately, there wasn't a sign for "permission to miss work".  I explained to one of the security guards that I had "perdi mi voz" - lost my voice - and needed permission to miss work.  She directed me to the local police station.  Staring at her incredulously, I confirmed that not only did I need a doctor's note to miss work but I needed a police report!?!?!  After several minutes discussion I discovered that she had thought I said "perdi mi bolsa" - my purse.  We probably both thought each other equally crazy - her thinking I was at a hospital to report a stolen purse and me thinking the entire country was insane requiring police reports to be sick.  Misunderstanding clarified, she sent my on my way toward the back of the building. 

On my way I had to stop several more times to ask directions and kept being asked if I wanted to go to the emergency room.  So confusing!  In what world does loosing your voice constitute an emergency?!  Why did they keep asking me that?  Eventually I was directed to a little office where I explained my situation again to a very helpful woman.  She knew exactly what to do.  She escorted me to the emergency room.  On the way she explained that while loosing my voice is not technically an emergency I would not be able to get a doctor's appointment for the same day and, since I needed the note now, the emergency room was the best way to get it.  Standard practice in Colombia as most employers require a doctor's note to be sick.

Feeling only slightly ridiculous, I walked through the emergency room, past all the people laying on cots having legitimate emergencies.  Oh, excuse me, I lost my voice.  Pardon me, I need to check in so I can get a note to bring to school.

The doctor advised me that I had laryngitis, which is caused by a virus, and that I should go home and not talk for three days.  Such expertise!  He then asked if I wanted some medicine.  To treat something that will go away on its own in a day or two?  No thanks.  But he persisted.  I think he thought I was afraid of shots (I am) because as far as I can tell they administer shots in the butt for just about every type of malady here.  So he reassured me that the medicine was not a shot and that I really should have it.  Whatever, fine.  Easier than explaining in Spanish how I feel about unnecessary medication.  So I sat in a chair for 45 minutes breathing in who knows what through a mask.  I was in the final stages of plotting my escape when the nurse finally returned to ask if I felt better.  Nope, I felt the same.  Perfectly healthy, just like when I got there, minus the fact that I still couldn't talk.  Astounded that I wasn't better, he asked if I wanted to see the doctor again.  This is a real shocker but it turns out this particular hospital hasn't actually found a cure for laryngitis.  No thanks, I think I'll be ok without seeing the doctor again.

So three hours and half my day's pay later, I left the emergency room with permission to be absent from work.  Success!

But not really.  Had I actually been sick and not feeling well I would have needed several more days off of work to recover from spending so much time chasing that piece of paper when all I really would have needed was rest.  The worst of it is, the school doesn't usually hire subs.  They just rearrange classes so that the students have their area classes (English, Art, Spanish) while I am gone and I teach my classes when I return during the time that they would normally have their area classes.  Basically, they move all my prep time to the day I am gone and pile on the work for when I return. 

In short, getting sick here is far from convenient!

Bailamos!

Last weekend here in Cali was the Festival Mundial de Salsa, or the World Salsa Festival.  So of course that's where I was to be found Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening.

With Richie, my coworker and dance partner, and Catherine, my coworker and awesome new neighbor.  Eating passion fruit suckers which are also pretty awesome!

At the finals with Kathleen

There were several different categories for teams and pairs to compete in.  There were teams from other countries as well but apparently its rare for people who aren't from Cali to win.  And its not hard to see why; the speed with which they move their feet is downright impressive!

It was inspiring to spend the weekend watching such fantastic dancers!  Despite Cali being considered the world capital of salsa, I have to admit I've been a bit disappointed with the social dancing here.  Most people here learned to dance by watching family members as they grew up so their salsa is fairly basic.  It was a nice change of pace to spend some time watching some dancers who are truly phenomenal at what they do.

Here's to hoping this is me next year and to the many, many hours of practice coming up.  

 

This group is from the school that I am taking lessons at.  I didn't record much of them because their pink sequined (ie. AWESOME!) outfits were making it hard for my camera to focus.

There was even a baseball themed number......

......And Nicole, this one's for you! :)

Expensive Cookie Therapy

The kids had off of school today because of some bus strikes.  I walked to school this morning expecting to spend the day doing some much needed lesson planning.  Despite having two weeks of school before the kids started, our schedule was jam packed with meetings and I really hadn't done any planning.  I should have know better than to expect the day to myself to plan!  I arrived to find, what else?  A list of meetings posted for the day.  After many interminable (ok, it was five hours, but it felt like forever!) and unproductive meetings and only an hour and a half of lesson planning, I was GRUMPY!

I walked home from school contemplating whether I would rather go for a run or eat cookies.  Consider it a sign of my mental state that I preferred to go for a run.  Who chooses that over cookies!?!? Certainly not me!  However, I really only know the main roads around my house and I was not about to go running down those.  It would have resulted in almost certain death on account of the insanity of the drivers here.  So I settled for the cookies.  (Clearly my mental functioning has not fully returned because "settled for" and "cookies" never belong in the same sentence!)

The school bought me a little mini countertop oven so I am now able to bake four cookies at a time.  Perfect!  By the time I finished eating the first four, the next four would be done.  At the store I found no whole wheat flour and no chocolate chips.  I usually like to bake with whole wheat flour so I can feel like what I'm eating has at least minimal nutritional value, but at this point I just wanted my cookie.  Any kind of flour would do.  Chocolate chips - no problem, I'll just chop up a chocolate bar.  But when I asked where I could find the baking soda I was told they didn't have any.  Are you kidding me?!?!  Does no one here bake cakes, cookies, coffee bread, muffins....

After stewing up and down a couple of aisles I decided I could still make no bake cookies.  I got my $6 jar of cocoa powder and $7 jar of peanut butter and went back home.

I may or may not have eaten this out of the bowl by the spoonful before deciding to actually make the rest into cookies to put in the freezer.

School

School started last week and I have very much enjoyed getting to know the kids!  They are all very sweet!  I will be teaching Math, Science and Social Studies to two classes of fifth graders.

 

My incredibly adorable homeroom kids.

There are a lot of things that are very different from my job back home and some of them are going to take awhile to get used to.  Some of them are cultural things and some of them are just differences in the type of teaching position I have.  So far I'm absolutely loving having other teachers to work with and feeling more involved in the school.

Here's a quick tour.

Hallway outside my classroom

Inside my classroom:

I love that the classrooms are open and I get to enjoy the nice weather all day long!

 We get a computer but no way to project anything to the class.  We can bring them to the auditorium to project stuff but that's not very practical when I just want to show a 5 minute you tube video.  I'm so used to having a smartboard it's going to be challenging to get used to not even being able to project things.

View from the soccer fields.

These two buildings are the primary school with a little courtyard in the middle.

From the courtyard, this is the building that was on the right in the previous picture.  My classroom is in this building but on the other side.

Lunch room.  Also open air.  Have I mentioned yet how fantastic the weather is?

View from the lunch room and looking into the preschool.

This is right outside my classroom.  Administrative offices are in the building you can see and the high school is behind that.  The construction is on what used to be the library.  They are turning it into classrooms for French classes that are going to begin later this year.  The library is being moved to various buses around campus.  Bibliobuses are apparently the thing in Europe now and that's what they're going to try.  I remain unconvinced about the merits of this idea, but we'll see.

The Good, The Bad, and The Strange

After a couple weeks in Cali here's what I love, what I hate, and the things that are neither good nor bad but different from home.

The Good  
 
1.  The weather is my absolute perfect ideal!  Not too hot, not too cold.  It is usually in the mid to upper 80s during the day.  In the morning and after the sun sets it cools down a bit and which is a nice change from daytime and with a cardigan it is still warm enough that it is comfortable and I don't get cold! :)  LOVING IT!

2.  The city is full of palm trees, which of course makes me smile, and surrounded by mountains.  Gorgeous!

3.  I love hearing salsa music coming from cars when I'm walking down the street, blaring out of my neighbor's apartment, in the stores walking around the mall - basically anywhere I go.

4.  There are tons of places to dance here and I will get a lot of dancing done!

5.  The wide variety of delicious fruit.  Sugar mangos are my new favorite!


 The Bad

1. Because Cali is "so hot" - in my opinion just right - the vast majority of people do not have hot water.  This means showering has become the most dreaded part of my day.  If I don't return home at the end of the year it will be because the cold showers killed me.  If I do, it will be because of the cold showers.

2.  Not having an oven in my apartment.  I love to cook. Not sure how I'm going to manage a year without pizza or roasted vegetables! :(

3.  My neighborhood - too expensive and far away from everything.

4.  All the stores have someone to bag your things for you and they all tie the bag handles in a knot before handing them to you.  This makes them feel bulkier when you're carrying them around and then you have to untie them all when you get home.  Really pretty minor but this is going to be one of those things that just irks me.

5.  Getting around the city.  It's big and takes awhile to get anywhere via bus.  It gets dark early and I'm not comfortable walking around myself after dark - sometimes even the couple of blocks from the bus stop to wherever I'm going.  Which makes getting places quite a challenge!


The Strange

1.  Traffic rules are really more of guidelines that mostly don't get followed.  Road markings are more for decoration than to tell you where you can or can't go.  Lanes of traffic are non-existent.  I'm pretty sure that car horns are just to entertain drivers that get bored.  At night when the roads are less busy, red lights have no meaning. 

2.  The windows have no screens.  Remarkably, despite leaving my windows open almost 24 hours a day, I can count on my fingers the number of bugs I have seen in my apartment (aside from the ant fiasco).

3.  The grocery stores.  Eggs don't need to be refrigerated.  Who knew!?  You can also tell by the color of the yolks that their chickens are much healthier than the ones in the US. Milk, along with just about everything else you can imagine, comes in bags.  Other things that come in bags: water, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, apple sauce, pasta sauce, bbq sauce, tartar sauce. I'm told that this is because of shipping costs and the weight of bottles and jars.

4.  People here like to talk.  In meetings everyone gets a turn to share.  Even if your idea is the same as the previous three people who shared. Handouts that could be read on your own in ten minutes?  It's much more fun to read them in a group over the course of two hours.  Meetings here are looooooooooong. 

5.  Parking lots.  I was so confused the first time I went with someone to the mall and we parked.  They gave us a ticket. 
          -You have to pay to park at the mall?  
          -No.  
          -Well then what's the ticket for?  
          -So they know that it's your car.  
          -Well course it's your car.  You're driving it.  Why would you be coming or going in a car that's not 
            yours......Ooooooooh.....right.....
Different world!

6.  The hallways in the malls are all open air.  This means birds can strut around the mall with you.

7.  The carrots.

They only come in one size.  Massive.  No baby carrots here.

 

The ants go marching thousands by thousands...

Earlier this week a couple of teachers were discussing the lengths they go to to keep ants out of their kitchen. Hmmm.  My kitchen wasn't particularly messy but I also hadn't gone to any trouble to keep it especially clean.  And yet I hadn't seen a single ant in my kitchen.  Lucky?  Absolutely not! I was about to find out why they hadn't meandered into my kitchen.

I went home that evening to get all my laundry together for my laundry appointment.  One of the idiosyncrasies of my apartment building is the washer and dryer.  They are locked up in a cage and you have to call the apartment manager a day in advance to set up an appointment to do your laundry.  So in preparation for my laundry appointment, I sorted through my laundry and pulled the sheets off my bed.  As I pulled the sheets off the bed I found the corner blanketed in tiny little ants.  Literally blanketed.  I lifted up the mattress to find thousands swarming underneath.  Of course after I had disturbed them they proceeded to scatter all over the place.

Bugs don't usually freak me out.  I don't like to squish them, but if they are just crawling around, no problem.  But in that quantity?  And I had been sleeping on them...Not ok!  My principal said I could stay with her for the night.  As I hung up the phone with her, the apartment manager called to let me know he was here and I could come down and do my laundry.  Flustered, all I could manage to get out was, "I'm really sorry but I have to leave."  Annoyed, he asked if I wanted him to come back the next day.  I don't know!  I have five bazillion ant scrambling around my apartment right now!  I can't remember if I have anything going on tomorrow or not!  So I told him no.

The next day, the school had my apartment "fumigated", which I'm fairly certain meant that they sent a cleaning lady to sweep the floor and clean out the cake crumbs that were under the mattress.  Humph! And what about all the ants that ran all over my apartment and into all of my stuff?  No worries, I'm told, they're all gone.  They also called the apartment manager to explain the situation and got him to come back that afternoon, without the typical day's notice, so that I could do my mountain of laundry.  That ended with my clothes being locked up in the dryer overnight but that's another story. 

The next morning I woke up to find the ants had migrated to the kitchen.

My Schedule

A couple of you have asked about when I have off so you can come and visit.  Here's my school schedule. And if you're not coming to visit then you can just be jealous of all the three day weekends I have! :)


October
Mon 15 

November
Mon 5
Mon 12
Fri 23 

December
Wed 19 through the end of the month
25- 31 is Feria.  If you are dancer come visit me during this time! 

January
Mon 7

February

March
25-29

April

May
Wed 1
Mon 13

June 
Mon 3
Mon 10 

Petronio Festival

Last week there was a festival here in Cali celebrating the music from the Pacific coast.  Apparently there are a lot of different varieties but the night I went there were two different varieties that were played.  One, that I don't remember the name of, had violins and reminded me a bit of folk music from the US.  The other one, Marimba, I really really liked.  It uses an instrument that looks like a xylophone and sounds like metal drums but is made out of palm wood.  I haven't taken my point and shoot camera out yet, much less my DSLR.  I want to get to know the city a bit first before I bring either of them anywhere.  So unfortunately I don't have any pictures or videos from the night.  However, I found the following video from the night I went on YouTube.  Its incredibly long but just skip around a bit to see what marimba sounds like.  Its fantastic!

Home Sweet Home

Here's my new home for the next year.

My front door

Kitchen to the left of the door.  No oven though :(  I'm going to need to gather a collection of good stove top recipes.  If you have any good ones send them to me!

When you walk in the door the desk and closet are straight ahead.

Bedroom

 

Bathroom to the left of the bed.

Overall its a very nice apartment.  But it's small.  No living room and no where to sit except at the kitchen table or on my bed so I can't really ever have anyone over.

While the apartment is nice, I'm not a fan of the neighborhood.  The neighborhood is actually very nice too but it's crazy expensive!  Colombia is divided up into six different estratas, or levels.  Each neighborhood is classified as a particular level and the cost of housing and utilities go up according to the estrata that you are in.  So while you might find an apartment in an estrata three that looks remarkably similar to one in estrata five, the one in estrata five will cost much more.  The neighborhood I'm in is an estrata 5 or 6 - not exactly sure.  This means that all the shops and restaurants around my house are expensive!  The cost of living in this neighborhood is comparable to the cost of living in the US.  Problem is I'm making a bit less than half of what I made in the US, so I'm likely going to have to travel to other parts of the city to do a lot of my shopping. 

While some things like the fruit and vegetables are cheaper here, the things that are more expensive more than use up any savings you gained on those things.  I went out to buy a bottle of contact solution yesterday - $18.  Face wash - $8.  Basically anything related to personal hygiene is absurdly expensive.  When I come back home to visit this fall I will definitely be stocking up on all of that stuff and bringing it back with me!

Aside from the cost of my neighborhood, there is not really much here besides a lot of expensive clothing stores and restaurants.  There are no little restaurants where you can get a typical Colombian meal for about $3.  No cheap markets or grocery stores.  The vast majority of the dance studios and places to go out dancing are in the center of the city or just north of the city.  Basically, I will be taking about a half hour or more bus ride to get to most of the places I'm going to be spending a lot of time at outside of school.  And the buses stop running at 11 so when I go out dancing I have to take a cab home.  Cab prices are also comparable to in the US.

I asked the school if it was possible to move but they've got a year long lease on my apartment.  I was told that if they hire another teacher they could possibly take my apartment and I could move elsewhere.  I'd rather be close to where I'm going to be spending my free time.  I know how to get to school on the bus and I know the bus will always be running when I need to get to and from school.  Much easier than finding bus routes all over the city to any other place I want to go to besides school.  Their bus system is not simple!!!  So cross your fingers for me that they will hire a new teacher!

No Eskimos in Colombia

Sometimes I swear the midwest is populated by Eskimos.  Temperatures hit 70 degrees and people start thinking they are going to melt.  So everyone - homes, schools, stores, restaurants, banks - EVERYONE - cranks on the air conditioning to return the environment to near freezing.

I ended up having to spend the night in Bogota on my way here to Cali.  I woke up at three in the morning to head to the airport and it was probably about 50 degrees outside.  With a cardigan, long pants and sandals I was woefully underdressed!  Now mind you, this is the temperature that midwesterners start pulling out their shorts and wondering how soon they can fill up pools and start jumping in the lake.  In Bogota, everyone was wearing jackets.  Some were wearing mittens and scarves.  There was not a sandal in sight.

Here in Cali the temps have been in the 80s everyday and I am out of place in my shorts.  Pretty  much all the women wear long pants, a few dresses, and I think I've seen about two pairs of shorts here.  And no where, yet, have I encountered air conditioning.  No one here mistakes themselves for an Eskimo.  Home sweet home! :)

A Step by Step Guide to Turning the Procurement of a Visa Photo into a Full Time Job

1.  Read through the description of everything you need for your visa application, including the description of the photos you need which sound an awful lot like passport photos.
2.  Go to Walgreens and get passport photos.
3.  Return home, reread the description of the photo which specifies you need a 3cm x 3cm photo.  Measure your passport photos that are not 3cm x 3cm.
4.  Draw a 3cm square around your head thinking you can just trim them down.  Your head is too big. Dang!
5.  Return to Walgreens to ask them to reprint them for you at the correct size.  Their computer doesn't allow them to resize photos to non-standard sizes.  They kindly give you your money back.
6.  Return home again.  Call Kinkos to ask if they will print a passport photo and then resize it for you.  They tell you that they can print a passport photo but they don't have the capability to resize it.  Sit in speechless bewilderment for a moment.  But....that is the purpose of your business, right...to print things?
7.  Call another Kinkos.  Listen as the lady explains that they do indeed have the capability to do that but can not actually do it because that would be tampering with a government document and that is against the law.   ......*sigh*......
8.  Stack up a bunch of crap on your kitchen table, set your camera on top of it, set the self timer, and take a picture of yourself.
9.  Use Picasa to crop the picture into a square.
10.  Find a friend that has Photoshop.  Email her the picture to turn it into a 3cm square.
11.  Go to bed thinking you have been successful and that all that is left to do is put the picture on your flash drive and bring it to Kinkos to print the next day.  And seriously, this has been enough of a hassle for one day anyway!

12.  Two days later, at 2:00, on your way to Kinkos, stop at Target to pick up some photo paper.  Kinkos should have photo paper but they've been less than helpful so far so better to just be prepared.
13.  At Kinkos, tell them you have a photo on a flash drive that you would like to print on photo paper.
14.  Their photo printing kiosk will not let you print non-standard size photos and no, you can not print on photo paper from their computer work stations even if you brought your own photo paper.  You can, however, stick your flash drive into their massive printer/copy machine and print from there.  No they do not have photo paper.  Good thing you brought your own!
15.  Go out to your car to get your photo paper.  Return to the printer.  A different sales person approaches to tell you that that type of photo paper only works with ink jet printers.  Theirs is a laser printer.  Of course it is!
16.  Stare at each other for a few seconds.  Finally ask, "Sooooooo.....what are my options for getting this printed?"  They do have some shiny card stock card similar to photo paper.  Great!  Try that because you just opened your matte photo paper from Target and realized that it looks almost exactly the same as regular printer paper anyway.
17.  Print your picture.  It turns out grainy.  Who knew a 3cm photo from an 8 megapixel camera could come out grainy?
18.  Go back out to your car and cry because that's what happens when you get frustrated and this is only one of about 5 other frustrating situations occurring on that particular day.  Suffice it to say you are NOT having a great day!
19.  Find another friend with Photoshop who kindly offers to let you use his computer and printer at work.
20.  Drive to his office.  Successfully recrop and size your photo so that it is no longer grainy.
21. Print. You are orange.
22.  Change some settings.  You are still orange. *SIGH*  At least you have an appropriately sized photo with good resolution.  All that's left is to find a printer.
23.  Return to Kinkos.  The printer/copier crashes while you are trying to print.
24.  Switch to a new printer/copier.  For some reason, this time it is blowing your photo up to full page size despite the fact that you are doing the EXACT same thing as when you previously printed your blurry 3cm photo.
25.  Leave because Krav Maga class is about to start and by this time, spending an hour punching and kicking people is sounding really REALLY good and you are not about to pass that up.
26.  Aforementioned Photoshop friend texts to ask if you would like try printing from his printer at home.  You would.
27.  Go to friend's house after class.  Stick the crappy "photo" paper in the printer and print...and IT WORKS!  Except it still looks like crap because it's basically on normal printer paper.
30.  Drive back to Target to buy glossy photo paper. 
31.  Wonder if requiring abnormally sized photos is Colombia's way of controlling the number of immigrants that enter their country.  If so, it's rather effective.  You've almost given up.  Ponder in amazement that anyone ever tries to enter another country.
32.  Return to friend's house and successfully print the three required 3cm x 3cm photos!  TRIUMPH!!!!!
33.  It is now 11:00.  That's right.  It only took you 9 hours plus the several hours you spent two days prior to get a 3cm photo printed.
34.  You should probably be given a gold medal along with your visa.  Consider writing the consulate to request this.  Or at least a gold star sticker...


***Many, many thanks to Stacy and Julio for the use of Photoshop and your assistance!***


UPDATE:  When you get to the Colombian Consulate they will tell you your photos suck and that you need to go down four floor to take passport photos.  It would have been helpful a week earlier if you had been able to get past their automated phone system to talk to a real person or if they had answered the email you sent asking if a passport photo would suffice.  But now what fun would that have been?