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.