Loving Bogota....Oh no, sorry Medellin

I love Medellin, I really do. But Bogota has something, some je ne sais pas that makes it stand out in Colombia as a thriving Metropolis with hip, sassy people.

I went to Bogota this past weekend for the 3 day weekend with a friend of mine from Medellin, Ana, and two gringa friends living here, Ashley and Kirsten, happened to be going the same weekend. Ana and I were going for the Killers concert, an American band, on Sunday and the other girls were just going to explore the city. So after a crazy bustle at the bus terminal (with everyone going away for the long weekend) Ana and I set out on a 10 hour bus ride overnight while the other two gringas got on a different bus since ours was full.

When I went to Bogota the first time in December I just remember thinking how big it was and how it overwhelmed me too much to compare to Medellin. But this time, while walking around the city Ana and I just marveled at how cool it was and tried to hide the betrayal that we felt towards Medellin. On Saturday we took in the Gold Museum, enjoying all the intricate gold work (from breastplates to animal masks to penis coverings), with Ana commenting on how interesting it was that for such a poor country Colombia had a phenomenal amount of precious gold. After the museum we satisfied our hunger eating some amazing shawarma, a middle eastern wrap that I ordered with falafel. Bogota definitely has one up on Medellin in the food department, in terms of variety, though we were quite disappointed when upon arrival Saturday morning the only thing Ana and I wanted was an arepa (a thicker tortilla) with cheese and a hot chocolate. We asked at 3 restaurants and after 2 "no's" we finally satisfied our craving only partly so with a mediocre arepa that didn't compare to Medellin. The hot chocolate was even different!

On Sunday we went to another museum, taking in some national history and culture, and walked around. I'd have to say we spent most of the time getting lost, asking people directions on the street and instead of getting a standard "I don't know" answer, spent hours following the misguided directions of eager to help us Bogotanos (one of my biggest pet peeves here is Colombians' lack of communicating directions). I don't know if it was the fact that we were two bewildered girls, one blonde blatant foreigner and the other from Medellin this being her first time in Bogota, but it was like a mission anytime we tried to communicate with people from Bogota. Since Ana has a horrible sense of direction, I had to be the one on my toes analyzing people's directions and guiding us along. We managed to get lost not only on the streets, but on the Transmilenio as well, Bogota's version of a metro that consists of buses in their own lanes on the street with specific stops that people get on and off at. But the whole getting lost thing did help me participate in my favorite pastime-people watching.

Observing the people was by far my favorite activity as we meandered lost through the streets. The pepole are more attractive, they dress better, have more style (this could partly be due to the cold though. After Ana and I analyzed it we thought it's easier to have fashion sense, or there's more of a need to, when you need to wear various layers, while in Medellin it's pretty warm so it's ok to dress in a hoochie tank top with your bra straps showing and your belly hanging out). There didn't seem to be as many people sleeping on the streets -again the cold could play a role in this- and I don't know, it just FELT like a real city. The shop we bought wine in felt like one of those you would find in Europe that are narrow with high ceilings wiht bottles lining the walls. I pointed this out to the gringas and they agreed.

So, I didn't HATE Bogota, I was actually starting to really enjoy it, however the cold really got me. During the day I would wear a sweater and scarf and be good, but at night it would drop down to the 40s and I would need another jacket and hat. Also the fact that they don't believe in HEAT makes it hard to get cozy in the city. At the gringa girls' hostel we tried to snuggle up in the "living room" as they put it, (wooden tables and rickety chairs) near the fireplace (a wood stove) but were beyond disappointed when we found out there was no firewood to be found.

But I honestly think I've grown WAY too acclimated to the sunny 70 degree days and cool 60 degree nights here in Medellin as I honestly could not bare to go out into the frigid 40 degree air once the sun went down. I try to convince myself that going home will be ok, as I will be enclosed in warm, heated houses and will have more appropriate clothing. But I'm not so sure, as I know my parents love to torment me with keeping the thermostat below 65 in the house and saying it's not that cold, just put a sweater on! No thanks, I prefer the bra-revealing tank tops and just a light sweater at night here.

New House, New Characters

Two weekends ago I moved into this lovely house in the residential-ish neighborhood of Boston full of trees, parks, and old people. It's only a 10 minute walk to the very center, and still close to my work and all methods of public transportation.

View of the street from our balcony

I found this house a while back when I was planning to get a place with some girlfriends here, but when things fell through I never thought I'd actually live in this place. I came back when a guy I work with told me he was looking for a place too. Though it was only the two of us (the place has 5 bedrooms) we figured why not since we really liked it and I thought I knew some people who were looking. We met with the old woman who owns the house, who also lives on the floor below us, and she is just so sweet and also like any old Latina grandmother should be. She's lived here for 60 years in the same house and it shows. Her living room is full of this old furniture that reminds me of Cuba and it seems that as she accumulated furniture and tchotchkes over the years she just pushed stuff aside to make room for the new additions. Anyways, she's a dear and as a result of a freak accident is nearly blind and so she looks at me with this yearning look pats my hand and tells me that she knew some gringos before and they were real nice and I seem very sweet and nice and so she wants to skip the whole real estate business and let's just do the paperwork ourselves. Excellent idea I say, I find you quite charming as well. So that week my coworker Fredy and I are busy getting all the papers together-well mostly him since he's filling out everything as I don't have a Colombian visa or any type of Colombian social security number. One week after endearing myself to the señora I move into my spacious house and my lovely room sans mattress, sans furniture, but with the most important thing-a built in closet.

the kitchen

my closet!

This house isn't full of as many characters as my last one, but they've still got their own quirky stories, as I've found most people in Medellin do.

First off, the guy I work with who is in charge of the house with me. I first met Fredy back in April when I applied to work at the language center that we both currently work at. I went on a tour of the city at night with the school's English students and met Fredy and his ridiculous British accent. That night all I managed to get from him was that he was adopted by a German couple and lived in England for a few years. The rest of his saga didn't come out until much later. Turns out Fredy got adopted late, when he was 11, and therefore never felt quite German, nor had a great relationship with his adoptive parents. He came back to Medellin at age 18 just for a 3 month holiday, but when things weren't going too smoothly with his parents back in Europe, he made the split decision to stay put in Medellin and hasn't been back since. This was 8 years ago.

Fredy in his Blendex (where we work) attire

My other roommate is la Juana aka Juan Bernardo, a childhood friend of Giovanni's. Juana came to us after a breakup with his girlfriend of 8 years with who he has a 14 month old. He's one of those characters who you never see, except for at 6 o'clock in the morning when after opening the door to let out your boyfriend for work you come back inside to get the bejesus scared out of you by his werewolf impression. He works for a call center speaking English and Spanish and studies at a local university. Apparently he's also in the trial period to be some sort of stoke broker, making a 10% commission on every deal he makes, which start at $25,000.

Juana, in his werewolf phase (i.e. Halloween party)

These are the two most stable individuals. Next we have Kirsten, our kangaroo-loving, all things other-side-of-the-world expert. We weren't sure if Kirsten was going to grace us with her 6 week presence, as she seemed to prefer living in a corner of her boss's apartment outside of the kitchen, but last weekend she took the plunge and joined us. Kirsten has been outside of Oz for a year and a half and as no intention of going back anytime soon. Kirsten came to Medellin the first time in February with her Canadian boyfriend. When things went a bit sour she set off to do the gringo trail in Central America, managing to get stuck along the way at various points, even with this being her second time around. When she got back to Meds she decided it was time to straighten up (well at least a little bit) and fall back into the grueling routine of working for Adriaan, one of the characters from the old house, writing articles and teaching English to an old rich lady who's preparing to go on holiday to Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon.


We're still waiting on roomie #5, a gringo from Chicago. He gets here in a week or so. Character analysis to follow upon his arrival.

Learning Patience

Ok so I know I'm not the most patient person in the world. And I wear my heart on my sleeve-when I'm pissed off, sad, happy, whatever-everyone knows it. But I decided to muster all the energy I could to suppress these inadequacies and teach English to Colombians ages 15 to old señores and señoras with grown children. I thought the difficult part would be vocabulary and grammar, especially when I as a native speaker have no idea what the function of the word "do" is in a question ("Do you have a boyfriend"-a question I've been asked one too many times by my students) or what the Easter Bunny has to do with Jesus; this little lack of knowledge being discovered in a discussion of American holidays.

But honestly, after too many personal questions about why I'm here in Medellin, how long I'm staying, if learning Spanish is hard, and having to cut my speaking pace in half and act as if I were talking to a five year old, I thought I had learned a good amount of patience. But when people are idiots in English AND Spanish, I just can't deal. One example is my friend Gloria, a señora of about 40-something. She asked me a simple question, how do you say jabon in English. I told her soap. For Spanish speakers the word soap sounds like a lot like soup in English so Gloria asked me to spell it. Happily, I began S-O- and when I got to A, she didn't know what to write. She wrote H, and I said no, A, and she was confused. I said A, you know like the first letter of the alphabet. I said you know what alphabet is right? And she said yes. So I said the FIRST letter, holding up one finger to demonstrate. Scratching her head she didn't write anything. Ok, I said, testing the patience I had built up this first month of teaching, "Alphabet, what is that?" And she said alfabeto and I said good, ok so the FIRST LETTER. Still looking at me like a deer in headlights I began to write the alphabet on the board. "Gloria, what is the FIRST letter of this." I even pointed, A, for god's sake, A!!! I finally reverted to Spanish (something I don't do so much but I really should, because when they don't understand my English explanation I could just save myself the frustration and just repeat what I said in Spanish, but no, I want them to actually understand and learn English). I ended up saying the letters in Spanish to her through gritted teeth until she understood and said "ohhhh, it's just that when you say A it sounds like H," as if the problem were my fault, my ineptness at pronouncing my own language.

Other cases where my inabilities at remaining calm have been demonstrated when I've asked for more details from some of my students. Take Laura. She's a pretty 18 year old who finished high school and has applied to college to be a plastic surgeon. But again, she's not one of my brightest bulbs. She failed the university entrance exam for her major not just by a little bit, and always comes to class at least 20-30 minutes late. When she does arrive, I ask her how her weekend went, what she's been up to, etc to get her speaking in class. She responds with the standard "good" or "fine"" and then gives me nothing. When I ask what exactly she did she says "Nothing." I never take that as an answer. "You HAD to have done something!" What'd you do Saturday night for example?" Then she flashes me this braces-clad dumbfounded smile and says "I don't know, nothing." And I'm like think, come on you did something. You're an energetic, fun girl. And when she finally actually tried to think of what she did, she couldn't find the right vocabulary. Ok, so tell me in Spanish and I'll help you with the vocab. So she starts thinking again and says, "Ah no, I can't think of the word." This has been her response when I've asked her to tell me about herself, her weekend, or her interests. Ok, well I can't work miracles, so instead of getting frustrated and trying to force something, anything out of her, I give up and move on, telling everyone "if you're not going to speak in class, then don't bother coming because I am here specifically for you to practice talking."

So I've just come to terms with the fact that I can push people. If they don't want to talk they they're not going to talk. And if all else fails, then I should just speak to them in Spanish.

Wet Week

A remote beach set in a jungle-surrounded national park on the Carribean coast sounds just ideal doesn't it? When everyone recommends it, saying you have to go to the last campsite because it has the best beach they tend to leave out one minor detail: the 2 hour hike in 100+ degree weather. To be fair, most people leave their stuff at a hostel in a surrounding town, or come into the park via boat. I was not that unfortunate. I'd like to comment more on my way back, leaving the park. Even though I knew what I was in store for, I wasn't totally prepared for what was to come, but I made do.

To start with, my first day of my week-long trip I lost one contact lens and of course it was the one time I didn't have the foresight to pack another pair. So I was stuck with my glasses for the rest of the trip. Which would have been fine, if it hadn't been humid and sticky and ridiculously hot, leading me to have to push up my glasses off of my nose every five minutes while they simultaneously fogged up so I'd have to take them off and then have no where to rub them down because my shirt was soaked with sweat just from sitting down to a meal. But I was prepared for this as I set off on my 2 plus hour hike to get out of the park. I packed just my big backpack, so my front was free of my little backpack (my first mistake when I came into the park) and had put on a good pair of socks to wear my hiking shoes so I didn't get blisters (my second mistake). About a half hour or so into the hike, dripping with sweat and in the full swing of my glasses-push-up routine, I came to the part of the jungle trail that takes you to walk on the beach. First however, there was a bit of an obstacle to cross consisting of a saltwater pool that had filled up from high tides and rain the night before. There was a few sticks and logs going across the pool, inviting hikers to cross. I was unsure, especially with my 15 pound unsteady backpack. But when a local guy came by and said "yeah, no problem" as I was looking for an alternate route, I summoned up the courage and decided to cross with his help. After a few wobbly steps, I thought I had it, but when I went to put my foot on a small, slimy log, I slipped and soaked my entire left side. Great, well it wasn't like I wasn't already wet before, but this time I got to have the smell of salty stagnant water linger upon me. Excellent. This local man put up with my cursing and attitude for the next few minutes, and when I got over it, we actually had a nice walk back. I managed to step in a only a bit of horse shit and mud, but nothing too horrific. The guy was nice and kept me company, not asking the usual questions of gringos, but asking me if they have this particular type of tree in the U.S. and telling me how he goes up trees and fetches coconuts to ship out. Since he had worked there for 12 years, he knew the best paths and we made it out of their in an hour and a half total. I managed to catch a bus into town after a few minutes of chatting with a lovely old lady who sold me a pork tamal (which I swear was chicken, but she assured me) and told me how it was a shame that Colombians didn't get to enjoy their own country as much as foreigners. I agreed. Part of my plan all along had been to go to town to catch an overnight bus back to Medellin. I had only slightly anticipated the extent to which I would be smelly and gross, so when I got to the bus terminal, it was a relief to see a guy I had met back in Cartagena getting on the same bus to Medellin. While he watched my stuff, I made the required 800 pesos (30 cents) to use the bathroom and wipe myself down with an assortment of baby wipes, soap, and a washcloth. I had one more pair of clean underwear left and put on my last only one day-worn clean shirt. When I came back my friend came me the sniff test and I managed to pass. Then I prepared myself for the 15 hour freezing bus journey by taking out a long sleeved-shirt, a fleece, scarf, and sleeping bag to keep my toasty on the A.C. blasted bus. Twenty-four hours after my sweaty trek, salt water spill, and musty bus ride, I finally got home, scrubbed myself rotten, and fell asleep.

Some Things I've Learned From Backpacking

After being in Medellin for a bit and still not entirely sure of what I wanted to do here, I decided to do what a lot of people do when they need time to think: pick up and take a bus 12 hours away to the Carribean coast. When I first got to Cartagena I was a little unsure if I made the right decision of leaving my little Medellin bubble and setting off into the big bad world of backpackers who had been at it for 10 months and a whole new range of local people. After wandering around the city and seeing the historic colonial bit that people say looks like Spain, I ventured back to my hostel's pool to see if anyone would approach me. Let's be clear: yes I have traveled before, and yes I have traveled alone before even, but whenever I have traveled alone I always have had a place to go to with people I knew. So I'm not going to lie, I was a bit nervous about my first time out in solo backpacking land. Eventually, however, someone invited me up on the roof of the hostel to hang out. I played it cool and spent another five minutes or so in the pool and then darted off to shower (which really did me no good as I was sweating again immediately upon turning off the water) to look my best for my new temporary set of friends. They turned out to be a mix of people from places all over including Ireland, England, Australia, Sweden, Norway, and Dubai. We hit it off and I enjoyed the rest of my week traveling on the coast with different people from that first group. Some things that I know I learned from backpackers before but were even more reinforced in my brain this trip that I should point out is 1. Every night is a weekend; 2. It is perfectly acceptable to stay up all night because you have to catch an early bus but then end up missing it because you wanted to catch just an hour's sleep. When you're up and realized you've missed it, you can't just go back to sleep, you're already up so why not take advantage of the wonderful morning and have yourself a rum and coke while hanging out in the pool at 8 o'clock in the morning; 3. You say you're leaving today, but find yourself staying another week; 4. You say you're moving hostels today because this one is too expensive, again you end up back on the roof at 2 o'clock in the morning; and 5. For some reason hiking two hours with all of your gear, getting copious amounts of bug bites, sleeping in an uncomfortable hammock with no room to swing because you're packed alongside fellow travelers like sardines, and having to shower outdoors with your bathing suit on while other guests look on-for some reason all of that is ok because you are on one of the most remote beaches with cyrstal clear water in a beautiful national park, just with 100 other tourists who caught wind of the same "remote" beach.

Disclaimer: These things I've learned did not all necessarily happen to me personally.

Being in Latin America too long does funny things to the brain

I really don't speak Spanish all that much. Only two of the five people I live with speak Spanish, and I keep in touch with just a handful of Colombian friends. So why is it that my English has worsened while my Spanish has maintained a standard definitely-not-a-native-speaker-but-able-to-communicate-herself level? I've tried to "keep up" my English by going out with English-speaking friends, writing this blog, keeping in touch with friends and family from back home, etc. But apparently it's not enough. Either my English-speaking friends here (of whom only 1 is an actual native speaker, the rest being Dutch, German, and Colombian) have been here as long as I have, or I need to skype more.

A recent conversation I had with my friend Jessica back at home via gchat (Gmail's version of aim or a messenger application) subtly illustrates this:

me: is tha ta holiday in the US when you're going?

Sent Wednesday at 15:55

Jessica: ur english has gotten bad love

Whether it be bad grammar or just too many cases of malapropism (dictionary.com's word of the day meaning the "usually unintentionally humorous misuse of a word." And yes, I did have to click the speaker icon to have them pronounce the word for me about five times), it's inexcusable to claim that I'm stimulating my brain by reading the NY Times' coverage of the U.S. Open and witty fashion blogs after receiving a $120,000 college education. That's why I'm going to get a job. Maybe as an English teacher here in Colombia?

What's So Special About Medellín Anyways?

This is not your average Latin American city. Let's forget your tight fitting muffin-top jeans combined with the low cut plastic breasts revealing tops that are typical outfits of any "stylish" Latina, or your run of the mill fruit-selling men old enough to be your grandfather looking you up and down, taking in your blonde hair and light eyes a little too presumptuously. No, this is a list of some of the things that make Medellín stand out, amongst the others, like an Australian trying to speak Spanish, or Tom Cruise in a crowd of heterosexuals.

1. Cultural Activities
Tango: Medellín has a wide range of performances, events, gatherings, and spectaculars that make it quite a cultural city. While attending a free tango show at a local theater, I was delighted that there was a live band on stage, consisting of a keyboardist, accordionist, and bassist. The band was not used to much to accompany the dancing, instead it played fine melodies for a robust female singer with an explosive, deep (can I say man-ish) voice. While the singer was offstage and the audience enjoyed some real entertainment from the tango dancers, the band got to rest. This is when the sunglasses-clad keyboardist took the opportunity to pull out his cell phone and jabber away for a good portion of the dance. Though he wasn't upstage front and center, the lights were still shining on him while he sat chatting in the background. It was until the end when my friend and I realized he was pulling a Ray Charles with the shades when it occurred us that perhaps he didn't even realize that this was an actual performance. Maybe he thought it was just a rehearsal. Not his fault he couldn't see!

Later, I noticed some people in the audience were just as bored as the sly keyboardist. I watched as the couple sitting in front of us sneaked shots of aguardiente, a typical Colombian liquor with the revolting taste (in my personal opinion) of black licorice. I wasn't exactly sure because they had it stealthily hidden in the woman's purse, but when I saw them passing a bottle of Gatorade between the two of them to chase it, there was no question.

hard to see, but that's "La Dany" in a foil dress with a crowd of onlookers

Drag Shows: When my Dutch roommate told me "Come on, we're going to a drag show in the park," I of course obliged. Adriaan explained "La Dany" to me as not your conventional tranny. She put on this show in the park every week and used the money she raised to help feed homeless glue-sniffing kids on the street. They made a documentary on her even. She was legit. We get to the plaza early where La Dany is setting up for her show, strewing stuffed animals, broken electronics, wigs, costumes, toys, suitcases, bags, toy cars, and an assortment of other random crap around her in a circle on the ground. Her outfit did not scream transvestite either. Instead she wore a Shirley Temple like red collared dress, with her hair pulled out in two long and wild pigtails. She wore a pair of ballet flats and thick black plastic glasses to top it off. She was cute, sort of. She entertained everyone from children and families to gay couples to foreigners like me and my friends. Her show consisted of various comical skits with bursts of profanity and rage thrown in there. Halfway through the show, her wig fell off and she lost her teeth (after she had taken them out to do a bit about a person with no teeth), screaming like a girl and running around as if she were naked. She eventually composed herself, got herself a new wig, found her set of teeth, and proceeded. Unfortunately, we couldn't hear her all the time because she kept turning her back to us to address the rest of her 75-plus person audience. She used to have a mic, but people from the church where she does her weekly show in front of came out a while ago and took it away, denouncing her as a noise complaint and nuisance.

Ok so I have no other numbered items at the moment (I need to get some more interesting stories from the homeless man on the steps of my building) but enjoy these photos for now.

nope, that's not an IV drip bag, that's 350 cm³ (??) bag of water!

I went to an anti-Chavez rally and got stopped and photographed for standing up for affluent Venezuelans everywhere!

Almost Home Free

On Sunday we had a girl who dislocated her knee. All the girls were playing in the ocean and as they were getting out a big wave came and knocked them all down. This girl Taylor fell and twisted her knee, dislocating it. She screamed and I was up on the grass watching and I thought she just stubbed her toe or something. I ran down, saw the knee, DISGUSTING. Knee cap totally out of place. And of course we're on the most REMOTE place of this whole program. Let me just say that the transportation involved in getting this girl to a hospital involved 4 different modes of transportation and took 5 hours. At first I was like, wait Alex (my other guide) you're a WFR (wilderness first responder, people who when camping are trained to react to medical injuries), but since we weren't in the back country and they weren't sure if it was broken, we decided not to just pop it back in place. So they call for the taxi (which is an hour and a half away) and we start to make our way along the beach to go and meet the taxi. The only vehicle they have is a cart pulled by a small horse, so that'll have to do. We put mats down and the guys who work at the lodge lift up Taylor, who is screaming in pain because they're touching her leg. I've given her Ibuprofen by this point but it doesn't seem to be doing the trick. The 15 minute horse ride, as me and her friend Isabel walked/jogged alongside the cart, I tried to keep Taylor's mind busy and off of the agony of having to go over some big rocks or branches brought in by the high tide. I found out she has a younger brother, that her friend hates sharks and refused to bathe or shower for a period of time as a child thinking they would get her through the drain, and that Taylor has never broken a bone in her body or had any type of injury. Of course this happens in Costa Rica to her. We finally get to the end of the beach where we have to wait a half hour I'm told for the taxi. Oh and by this time it's raining, of course. We shuffle her under this overhang, which has about 15 wasps flying about their nests attached to the overhang. It's fine I tell her, you're just going to be sitting there not moving anyway, and they don't want to go out in the rain and bother you. By the time the taxi gets there, Taylor's shivering and I've run out of reassurances and things to talk about. The guy who brought us there just 5 hours earlier, William, pulls up in his Defender and says we have to get in now because the rivers we're going to pass through on this gravely bumpy road are rising fast with the rain water. Not knowing how to get her into the car, they get a foam pad and hoist her up onto in, which of course elicits more screams of sheer agony and sobs. After noticing that William has brought some muchacha with him (daughter? younger girlfriend?) and that now only one seat is left, I angrily swear in Spanish that me AND Isabelle are going and why didn't he bring this girl anyways? We make room and drive the 1 and a half hours to the nearest town with cell phone service and a hospital. Along the way William tells me in a know it all manner that they wont' be able to do anything but give her drugs in Puerto Jimenez, that we'll have to take a boat to Golfito, which is 30 minutes away, so they properly examine her, do x rays, and diagnose her. I say that's all well and good, but we're going to see what the doctors say when we get to the hospital in Puerto Jimenez. To pass the excrutiatingly painful ride, (I brace myself everytime we go over a pothole, digging my nails into my skin trying to inflict on myself just a slight piece of what Taylor is going through), I ask Taylor what her favorite Friends episodes are. We talk about the one with the Hannakuh Armadillo, and later about the One Where Nobody's Ready where Joey wears all of Chandler's clothes and Ross drinks the fat. Silence ensues as the next round of wails come from Taylor and I pull out my book and headlamp. If anything to distract myself and Isabelle from the sobs. I read the back of Middlesex to give the girls an idea of what it's about, and then start reading. I continue to read for the next 35 minutes, through screams, wails, and curses. Later Taylor asks me if the main character is a boy or a girl and assures me that she was at least half listening and did appreciate the diversion. When we finally get to the hospital, I feel that nobody pays attention to me, as I'm screaming at them in Spanish to be careful, it's THAT leg that is messed up, and where are you bringing her? What are you giving her? I'M the guide, yes I speak Spanish. They dope up Taylor what I can only hope is laughing gas or an anesthesia and confirm William's suspicions. They arrange for an ambulance and a boat, and within 30 minutes we are off on a motor boat with Taylor laying on the floor and the rest of us looking out in the gulf admiring the glow in the dark plankton. After that, everything goes pretty smoothly. Five hours after the incident, Taylor's knee is popped back in place, a old school made-from-scratch cast is put on her leg from mid thigh down to her ankle (to make sure the ligaments heal properly, she didn't break anything), and we are sent on our way.

Well it was just my first trip to the hospital with a kid this summer, not too shabby for the last trip. And it could have been worse. We could have been on the 3 day even more out in the middle of nowhere kayaking trip.

Scavenger Hunt

Wednesday I started my first week on the two week long scavenger hunt program, which I'll be doing two sessions of. I'm doing it with one other guide, Alex, who's a Costa Rican full time employee and is dating my friend Lauren. And then there's our married but womanizing 50-something moustached driver, named Don Omar, who likes to act just like one of us. So it's been a lot of fun with these two guys. We have 10 girls and 1 boy, who I'm 95% sure is gay. They're all getting along for the most part, which is cool. Of course we have the unusual ones, (those into anime and Japanese candies and talking really loud in the middle of other people's conversations) but you know, who wasn't awkward in high school.

The program is based on various competitions between two teams where the winners get x number of dollars to donate to a local school to help fund their construction project. The first competition consisted of making gallo pinto, the typical Costa Rican breakfast which is rice and beans with a little cilantro, onion, pepper and spices mixed in. We figured out these kids hadn't really had any cooking experience when they just threw everything into the pan at once (beans, rice, onions-though they did let the butter melt for about half a minute before they added these other ingredients), paying no heed to the woman who had given them step by step instructions.

The next day we were off to La Fortuna, the most popular tourist destination in Costa Rica, and where the Volcanoes program is based and is on the agenda for a lot of other Rustic Programs. Our first day there we did a scavenger hunt around town. This involved me getting into a cop car and pretending to get hand cuffed, hearing lots of great gringo accents from the kids when they used their broken Spanish to ask directions, and accosting a Costa Rican male on the street as their find for 'tropical mammal' (he had board shorts with flowers on). Pretty entertaining actually, even though it was pouring out. We followed that up with some non-competetive ziplining, followed by another hilarious spectacle when the kids had to reproduce two typical folkloric dances. We visited a local school where the schoolkids put on the 2 minute show and then went to teach our kids the steps. The steps were pretty basic, but again, remember awkward teenagers who either a. don't have an athletic bone in their body, or b. are dancers and/or cheerleaders and therefore over exaggerate their performance. Even better with some oversized dresses and typical blouses for them to put on over their clothes. We had some school teachers, Lauren, and our driver Don Omar serve as judges, with the latter being the harshest, observing the dance for mere seconds, quickly circling his numbers, and then leaning back in his chair with a serious, disappointed expression for the remaining minute and a half.

We climbed a 3000-something ft volcano as part of our next challenge. It was muddy, wet, and humid, but we managed to get through the complaints that endured for the first hour or so and made it up in the usual 2 hours it should take us. We all came down the volcano looking like we had rolled around in mud piles, while German tourists leisourly passed us without a speck of mud on their shoes! Don't know how, but I think it's just in our nature as Americans-if we're going to get a little dirty, why not just get all the way dirty? At least we had the natural hot springs for a reward at night. The pools were surprisingly hot this time around, the coolest one being at least 105 degrees, inciting one woman to exclaim, "my muscles feel like butter!" Which they in fact did.

After a good night's sleep, we came to have a kayaking race and some just-for-fun horseback riding at Rancho Margot, a sustainable farm with cabins for guests and volunteers to stay. The farm manages to grow most of the food it consumes, along with damming up a river on the property to get most of its energy. It has its own cows to make cheese, milk, and butter, and uses the methane gas it extracts from its animals to light its stoves. Pretty cool and relaxing place. Though during the kayak race I did get a little flustered when Alex just launched into the lake and I had to get 11 kids into kayaks and ready to race while at the same time coaxing Don Omar to give me the whistle and to let met countdown so the kids would actually understand me. When Alex came back from his fun in the water and claimed I had smoke coming out of my ears (ok so maybe I was a bit more pissed off than just flustered). Don Omar and Alex just laughed and made jokes at me (that being the way to cheer someone up right?) saying: "Relax, don't be so stressed gringita. Everything works out." And it does. I just didn't want to hear it. I'm still learning that though, learning how to be patient and accepting. I guess that's why I spend so much time here in Latin America, I'm finding my patience. Ah to think, just three more weeks left with these guys to help me find it!

Read in the Jungle

On the second week of the first session of my second summer with Rustic Pathways (wow lots of numbers, sorry) and everything is going really well, very tranquilo. We only have 6 girls and 3 guides on Heart of the Jungle and I really get along with all of them so that's awesome. One of the guides is from Connecticut (Fairfield county-yeah THAT area, haha though he is your typical Connecticut boy, he does crack some good jokes here and there) and Mary, a girl with a cute midwestern accent from Ohio who's really into outdoors sports like rock climbing and kayaking and hiking. Everything's been running pretty smoothly, no accidents to date (though we start our 3 day kayaking trip in a gulf tomorrow so knock on wood), and people have only asked for the med kit a handful of times for more hydro cortizone cream or band aids for blisters. We've been having good luck with the weather, and all of our activities like climbing a huge fig tree, surfing, rappeling a 150-ft waterfall, have all gone smoothly. Our community service has been going well for the most part too, except for today. We got to the school that we were supposed to prep for painting around 2 and no one was there to greet us. They usually get out of school around 12:30, 1, but today they got our even earlier and no one was left in charge to help us. Apparently the principal (who we only talked to and coordinated this with a couple of weeks ago when we showed up with our manager and had a look of surprise and confusion and vague recollection of our 10 week painting project at the school and then had to write down the dates when we would be there because everything works this way in Costa Rica. You really can't plan in advance and can't get anything done until the last minute because Ticos (Costa Ricans) won't let you! Frustrating!). Anyways, we got there and the principal had left the teacher in charge to deal with us, but he forgot to leave someone else in charge when he had to flee off to a meeting and anyways, we ended up playing games and telling stories to the girls to keep them occupied until we figured out what to do (which ended up being going back to the first and only air conditioned hotel of the 2 week trip to rest, pack for the kayaking trip, and watch TV!!).

One of the stories I told was about this book I'm reading which is really interesting. It's called Marching Powder and is about a Bolivian prison called San Pedro where prisoners have to pay an entrance fee, buy their own cell in a particular section that has a star rating, eat in restaurants and cook their own meals inside the prison walls, and bribe guards for everything, including letting their wives or girlfriends live with them in the prison or so they can have a 'night out on the town' and be back in their prison before 3 a.m. (which if they're not, they then have to bribe the guards even more to let them back in after the established curfew!). The book is told from the point of view of Thomas McFadden, an English guy nabbed for trying to smuggle 4 kilos of cocaine back to Europe. He smuggled it quite cleverly actually, hiding it in the wall of his suitcase and making sure not to leave and fingerprints or hairs and putting women's clothes in there so they couldn't trace the luggage back to him, but he was caught when the head police guy who he had bribed turned him. Eventually this guy started giving tours to foreigners who visited La Paz, Bolivia, of this wild, cracked-out prison, and Lonely Planet guidebook named it one of the most bizarre tourist attractions. A ridiculous story, and I can't wait to finish and see how this corrupt system comes to let McFadden finally go back to England.

Birthday Cards...?

If anyone is so inclined to send me a birthday card, postcard, any sort of piece of mail, I do have a birthday coming up (June 25) and I would just be delighted to receive something in the mail, especially after weeks of being sweaty, wet, and smelly in the jungle wihtout any contact from the outside world! You can send it to the Rustic Pathways office here in San Jose by addressing it in the following way:

Sarah Arnio

c/o Senderos Rusticos

500 m Norte de la Universidad Latina

Edificio Estancias Latinas#43

Vargas Araya, San Pedro

Costa Rica

Any type of unrelated birthday propaganda is also acceptable. Thanks!

Rustic Pathways Round 2

Just over a week in Costa Rica and it feels like so much longer! I'm back here to do Rustic Pathways, round 2, another three months of leading kids around on adventure, community service, language, and cultural activities.

I had a glorious reunion with Lauren in the airport when she came to pick me up. It was everything I imagined it to be, complete with a Love Actually embrace, sign made out on napkins with a pen, and lots of jumping up and down and picture taking. Guilherme, our Brazilian friend who we worked with at Rustic last year, was there too, and it seemed like everything just fell back into summer 2008's place. I spent the weekend with Gui at Kelly (another guide from last year and a girl I went to AU with) and Lauren's apartment and then we began a week of staff training in la Fortuna. This year instead of 60 guides, we were cut in half, making the pool of cool people a bit smaller with 35. Six of us were back from last year, designated as "senior guides" to help out the new guides, but mostly we just recounted stories of last year's problem children, medical episodes, and staff gossip. The best stories included the girl who got attacked by a cow, the girl who claimed her mysterious 22 year old boyfriend that her parents weren't aware of got into a car accident and therefore had to rush home ASAP, and finally the guide who kept calling the program "Kim"was on hoping to whisper sweet nothings in her ear. After we rapped up staff training, me and 2 other guides went with our manager Alex to check out the Osa Peninsula, where the program Heart of the Jungle runs. We had to meet with a bunch of operators (hotels, people who arranged community service, adventure activity companies, etc) while we were down there. We went around the geography that the 2 week trip covers in just 2 days. Today we drove 8+ hours from down at the tip near Playa Carate (zoom in, red dot at bottom of map). It's a gorgeous place right on the beach near the Corcovado National Park, which holds 2.5% of the world's biodiversity. It's so remote we had to have a horse take our bags and we walked along the beach for half an hour. I did this program last year, so it was nice revisiting these places. We met with most of the people who we'll be in contact with down there, but some of the community service projects are still not totally together. We met with the principal at one school today and she didn't even know when we were coming or what we were doing (apparently it had been arranged through someone else). But that's just how things work down here, everything at the last minute. Well the kids get here tomorrow night and the madness starts Wednesday so these blogs will be sporadic from here on out, sorry!

Emi's Visit

So my friend Emi who I met while studying abroad with in Argentina, and who I later lived with senior year, came to visit me here in Medellin last week. She was here for a week and I am just not getting a chance to write about it because we did so much, I was overwhelmed! I think the best way to capture our experience is through photos and talk of food:

Starting off, Emi arrived with lots of goodies she brought me and what my mom had shipped to her. Literally half of her suitcase was filled with stuff for me including: peanut butter, tampons, cheese (5 kinds including cottage, brie, and Colby Jack!), yogurt covered raisins, shirts, a pair of socks, a camera case, an external hard drive, among other things. I was bursting with joy like it was Christmas when I saw her pulling out all of this stuff. We immediately broke open the brie and I offered it to my roommates.

After she got settled, I took her to try a typical Colombian arepa de chocolo (corn arepa) with cheese on top. She had a list of fruits that she had to try given to her by her Colombian friends, so we got started right then with a Guanabana juice which she enjoyed. I got a tomate de arbol (tree tomato) juice so she could try, which kind of looks like a tomato, but taste a lot sweeter. On the way back the streets were crowded and I could tell was a bit overwhelmed with all of the hustle and bustle of the city. Even living in DC or Chattanooga, Emi wasn't really used to how crowded it would be. It's hard to have a conversation while walking because you're constantly dodging out of the way of people, food vendors, homeless people lying in the sidewalk, and buses. I live literally right smack dab in the middle of the city, the Times Square of Medellin, and Emi just had to use that walk to take it all in. She got used to it by the end though I think, and really ended up loving Medellin.

The next day we went with my roommate Checho to Guatape, a town a few hours away, where we climbed this hugeeee rock! We stopped and ate lunch first as this awesome place where the chef had studied in France. We shared some amazing crispy crepes filled with eggplant and cheese and brie and ham.

Then we drove to el Peñol, the name of the 5000 ft rock. We climbed the 629 steps, stopping a few times along the way to catch our breath, and got some amazing views at the top. The rock is surrounding by this giant river that has been dammed up creating all of these little rivers, with islands and bridges connecting them. It really was like a little paradise up there. On the way back to Medellin, we stopped and had some warm yuca bread and coffee. Yuca tastes like a potato on the inside but with a bit of a different texture, and it's used the same way as a potato (i.e. to make chips, yuca fries, in soups, etc).

el peñol-that's me jumping in front of it!view from the top of el peñol

Other things we did in Medellin included: climb to the top of a mountain in the middle of the city to catch a great view of the whole city, see a sloth while visiting the botanical gardens, hang out with my roommates giving Emi the chance to keep up her Spanish and introduce her to Medellin slang, witness some blonde American missionaries spread the word of Jesus with a huge cross and banner while walking up and down the streets of the center, buy typical Colombian food and drinks to bring back to her Colombian friends in the U.S., and walk all over this city. I think Emi really enjoyed it here, and that made me really happy.

On her last day she made a Spanish tortilla to thank everyone

Yellow Fever Vaccine

For the past couple of months, I've known that I should get the yellow fever vaccine. I knew it was necessary to enter Panama from Colombia, but I just found out a few days ago that it's necessary to travel from Colombia to Costa Rica as well. For some reason you don't need to have the vaccine if you're coming from the US, which is why in all of the emails to the guides in Costa Rica for the summer, there was no mention of getting vaccinated. I found out the news when my boss in Costa Rica frantically emailed me in all caps letting me know that I needed to go to the Red Cross ASAP to get the shot and that I needed them to put May 16th as the date of the vaccination. Why? Because to enter Costa Rica you need to have had the vaccination at least 10 days prior to your arrival or they won't let you into the country. Well it was already Thursday when she emailed me this, leaving only 8 days before my departure for Costa Rica yikes!

So I enlisted Giovanni's help and we found out we could go to the city's health clinic near the house where they will do it for free. We got there at 2:15 p.m. where they told us that they only did vaccinations from 9-2 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Argh. So we set off for the Red Cross, which was in another part of town. We got there and they told us it cost 50,000 pesos ($20) which sounded like an exorbitant amount to Giovanni, and frankly having gotten used to living off of just 50,000 pesos a week, sounded extreme to me too. But putting it into American perspective, it really wasn't that bad. First I wanted to make sure that the nurse would write the date I wanted on the yellow fever card that goes with my passport and that I have to present when passing through customs. I was prepared with a story that Giovanni and I had concocted about me not knowing about the job until just recently, and then not knowing about the vaccine rule until it was later than 10 days prior, etc. But that wasn't necessary. The nurse asked me when I was traveling and I explained to her my little problem and when I offered maybe she could possibly put May 17th or 18th please oh please, she said no problem, I'll put May 15th. Phew! She explained to me about three times that if they ask me at the airport that I tell them I got the vaccine May 15th, yes indeed May 15th I got it thank you! And I was ready to break out the tears if need be, but the nurse was very cool and I wondered if maybe this wasn't the first time she had bent the rules a bit. Seriously, Colombian people are so nice!

English Class Crushes

Last week I got a new student in my Tuesday/Thursday English class. Yesterday I asked Byron if he goes to college, and he said no. I asked him if he already went, he said no. So then I asked him what he did (he looked university-age) and he said he plays professional soccer. Ah cool who doesn't here in Latin America right? So I asked him which team, not that I really know any of the teams because the team spirit and football/soccer fanaticism in my immediate circle of friends is not strong and Colombia isn't really know in Latin America as having the best teams like Argentina was. He told me he plays for Medellin, and that actually rang a bell. It's one of the biggest teams here in Colombia's second largest city and my Dutch roommate is a big fan. Well the girls in the class had definitely heard of the team and became well interested and started shooting him all of these questions in a flurry of confusing Spanish: if he had ever been recognized on the street, if he lived with other players, when their next game was, etc. He's a sweet guy and I could see he felt a bit uncomfortable so I tried to draw the attention back to the exciting topic of possessive pronouns woo!

While I was leaving the institute that day, the director stopped me and told me about my class on Saturday (Emi was here last weekend and I wanted to spend time with her and I honestly had no energy to get up at 8:30 and go teach English to restless 10-12 year olds for 3 hours on a Saturday morning). Rodolfo took care of my students when I wasn't there. He told me that about 30 minutes into the class, when one of my students, 10 year old Santiago, found out that I wasn't coming in for sure, refused to continue to work and would only do the classwork for me. Rodolfo thinks he has a bit of a crush on me. Lorddddd. He's a sweet kid, but I always thought he was a bit slow and just didn't have it in him to learn English. Some people just have a knack for languages but he's one of my lowest students. Maybe it's like the Friends episode where a student of Ross's tells him he's in love with him and that's why he can't concentrate and does badly on tests. Ross ends up giving the kid an A cause he feels bad. Luckily we don't do grades in my class!

Bad nachos, good wine

Last week marked my first full month in Colombia and I can't believe it's gone by so fast! I only have one month left, which I am honestly very sad about. I've enjoyed volunteering for the amiga joven and writing random articles for Colombia Reports and hanging around with the guys in the apartment. We know have some girls here though! On Thursday a German girl arrived and replaced Patrick who not until Saturday actually. We could all really tell Patrick didn't want to leave, and up until last week he was looking for a different apartment to live in in Medellin. Things with the girlfriend weren't go so well, until last week she all of the sudden showed up and they went off to buy backpacks, hamster cages, and other items for their months-long trek around South America. A hamster cage you ask? Yes that is correct, Patrick feared bringing his guitar from England cause he thought it would be too much to haul around, but the girlfriend's hamster is just something she (and therefore he) couldn't part with. When Giovanni suggested she kill the current hamster and just buy another one when they were settled, she looked appalled and didn't allow him to touch it. What's funny is that as a kid I always wanted a hamster, but when I saw Daniela's beady eyed, white mouse-like hamster, I was immediately turned off. Anyways, Patrick has left us, off to go travel through Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru for a few months with his 18 year old girlfriend who somehow managed to get her passport before she got her social security number and according to him CAN leave the country (okkkk whatever you say). Anyhoo, the German girl, Katarina, will be here for three months at least, working for Adriaan on Colombia Reports. Her English's pretty good, but I don't know if it's good enough to be writing articles in English. Guess we'll see.

Adriaan's Dutch friend has also arrived, so we've got a full house, with 4 boys and 3 girls, and only 3 Colombians. Yes the gringos are infiltrating! She'll be here for a month basically hanging out with Adriaan and doing who knows what.

Besides the arrival of foreign girls, I've been busy volunteering, giving English classes (which have been going well, even my Saturday class with children is getting better), and hanging out with friends here. Giovanni and I went to a free play on Wednesday, that turned out to be quite shit and at the end guilted us into donating money. Throughout the play I didn't know if it was just me and my foreignness that was finding the humor stupid and unamusing, because most of the theater was laughing. But when we left Giovanni shared similar thoughts, which made me feel better and not totally inept at Spanish. Checho had seen the play and when we got home tried to explain the meaning to me, that it was about the everyday life of a nothing Colombian, work, work, work, no breaks, etc. I tried telling him yes in fact, I got all that, I just didn't find the clown piece about a guy falling asleep on the bus and claiming epilepsy when he started dreaming weird things and going crazy on the bus humorous. A few days later, trying to redeem ourselves cultural-wise, Giovanni and I went to see a Colombian film that had been picked to compete in the Cannes Film Festival later this month. I wrote a piece about Wind Journeys for Colombia Reports so I was familiar with the plot. Turns out it's one of those artsy films that has great camera shots and angles (like during one scene when the boy plays a drum it shows the drum beating from the inside), but the shots and scenes go on forever without anyone saying anything. I got that the old man was supposed to be serious and pensive, but after literally 30 straight seconds of him and the boy walking through a field of corn, enough was enough! It had some great scenery of Colombia, full of salt mines in the northeast, indigenous mountain wilderness areas, and hot Caribbean beach areas. First time Giovanni has seen a movie in the movie theater in a year and we choose a crap film. Damn.

The next day I taught English in the morning and then met up with Kirsten, the Australian girl who interns for Colombia Reports, for lunch in the nice area of Medellin. We shared a much needed bottle of white wine and had some Thai appetizers because food was half priced from 12-7 and it was happy hour "all day every day" (kinda defeating the idea of a happy hour, but we were alright with it). We started reminiscing about Mexico, because she studied abroad there in Guadalajara the year before I did, and noticed that they had Nachos on the menu. In hindsight, I realize this was a terrible idea: nachos at a Thai restaurant. It's like ordering fish in Argentina! But we were already halfway through the bottle of wine so we didn't notice our error until it was too late. First of all, the dish arrived on two separate plates, one for the chips, and one for the different condiments, which included guacamole, "sour cream," some meat substance, refried beans, and a salsa that registered as a negative 6 on a scale of 1-10. After a few bites it dawned on me what was missing, CHEESE! Nachos without cheese! It's like a CHEESEburger without cheese, or a grilled cheese without cheese, or or or ... LIFE without cheese! Of course we devoured the entire thing (again, we had the wine), but straight after we left went to a shop and bought ice cream.

All in all it was a good afternoon getting my English language fill, gossiping, and reminiscing about Mexico.

Coffee Land

Last weekend Molly and I went to la Zona Cafetera-the Coffee area of Colombia, about 7 hours south of Medellin. We didn't leave until the afternoon because I had to teach English in the morning and we also had gone out the night before so we were feeling a bit sluggish. By the time we got to Armenia, there were no more buses running to Salento, the pueblito we had to go to. So we spent $10 each instead of the $1.50 bus fare to get there at around 9:30 p.m. We thought it was good that we had called the Plantation House (the hostel we stayed at) ahead of time to advise them, but when we arrived and saw that there were only 2 other people staying in the dorms. We were so tired we immediately went to bed.

if I didn't get enough of it with the weekly trips to the coffee farm in Costa Rica, here's even more!

bamboo forest on hostel owner's land

The next day we got up early, as you do when in a small farm town with roosters crowing at dawn and the sun coming up through the window right next to your bed. We got up and explored the town, which was bustling on a Sunday, very different from Medellin which is dead on Sundays. It seems all the city folk go to towns like Salento. All of the shops were open, food stalls had been set up in the square, (reminded me SLIGHTLY of Marrakech, Morocco, definetly on a smaller scale) and people were everywhere trying to get us to buy peanuts, colored popcorn, and jewelry. We got some fresh squeezed juice in the morning and Molly found a cute cafe with a 100+ year old coffee/espresso machine to get her c!offee fill. Later, we had a yummy lunch of soup, trout with lentils, rice, plaintains, fried cornbread, salad, and guava juice-all for less than $3! Later Molly and I strolled around some more, bought amazing figs stuffed with arequipe (Colombians version of caramel/dulce de leche). So rich and good we each ate 3 in that first date and were on a bit of a sugar high.

don't pineapples grow so strangely

We also went on a tour of the hostel owner's farm. He had just bought a ton of land that had coffee trees, pineapple bushes, bamboo forest, avocado trees, mandarin trees, mint, strawberries, waterfalls, and great views on it. He showed us how he is going to start something no one is doing-sharecropping his coffee plants. He will allow people from outside the country to buy 10-20 plants and those will be their plants. He will pick the berries and do whatever the people want done with their specific 10 trees, whether it be go through the entire process of roasting the coffee and grinding it, or just processing it to it's yellow peanut-like state and then shipping it their way. It's kind of a novel idea, and he seemed very excited about it. While he showed us around he kept yelling out glees of surprise as he discovered a new path or a new addition that was put on the coffee house.

chocolate with cheese!

the lookout point

The next day we did the hike through el Valle del Corcora (the Valley of the Wax Palms). To get to the valley we were told to arrive early to the town square to hop in a jeep for the 45 min/1 hour ride. We had been warned that they tend to stuff people into these Jeep Wrangler sized jeeps but we didn't see how it could be possible to have more than eight. Well we soon found out. Picture a jeep wrangler with the back seats taken out and two benches fitting two people each facing eachother put in on the sides. When we got there, the back was already full, so Molly and I had to squeeze in, with me eventually standing halfway through the ride, and with other people squeezed into the open back area with us, three people on top, and three people in front, for a total of 14 people! Needless to say, Molly and I were ready to start walking when we arrived. The two hour hike to a finca with hummingbirds and hot chocolate with cheese was a muddy and consisted of many river crossings on two branches laid across the river, but we managed. It was Molly's first experience of the traditional chocolate con queso, and she was pleasantly surprised. Then we set off for the hour hike to the 2850 meter lookout point. We were already pretty high up, but the last 20-30 minutes of the hike to the lookout were steep and full of muddy horse tracks and poop. The forest we hiked through was different from any other part of Colombia we had seen, reminding us of forests back home. On the way down we saw the wax palms, 60 meter (about 180 ft) tall trees that dotted the hillside. Just a spectacular sight that I don't think my camera truly did justice to. Just having a view of the mountains, tree, peaks, forests was so impressive, it looked so untouched.

Molly surrounded my palm trees

Molly and I from the lookout point

Second Best

This past week I had a blast with Molly. It was nice having another gringa to play with in Medellin, I was just about having enough of all of these boys! We toured the entire city, crossing the river to discover new areas outside the center and enjoying the many parks and open spaces in the city.

One night we went on a tour that I got a random call about from a local English language institute that I dropped my resume off at. They weren't hiring when I went, but a few weeks later they called to invite me on a bus tour through the city at night. They told me it would be their English language students and teachers. I immediately understood: I got a free tour through the city and they got my native English. Alright, I'll take it. So Molly and I got on the bus at 7, of course it didn't leave until close to 7:30. We ended up going to 4 tourist spots, 3 of which we had already been to. En route to each destination, the teachers enlisted us (Molly, myself and 5 Israelis, who surprisingly did not speak stellar English), with the help of a microphone, to share our thoughts on Medellin, Colombia, and Colombian women (the last one mostly directed to the Israeli guys). The idea was for us to get off at each destination for 20 minutes or so and have the Colombians give the foreigners a tour of the area, speaking in English of course. The problem was 1. not many of the Colombians knew their own city and 2. the students were mostly girls and they all flocked to the Israelis when we got off of the bus. So Molly and I were left with a handfull of students who spoke pretty good English but knew nothing about the Pueblito Paisa (a traditional Medellin town at the top of a mountain in the middle of the city) or why you're supposed to take your shoes off at Barefoot Park.

Luckily, Molly and I had already been to Barefoot Park. There was a rocky area to "massage" your feet, a sandbed to soften them, and pools to sit down and cool off. We had passed many a great panaderias (bakeries) on the way there but didn't get a hankering for a pastry until we were at the park. Of course, there were no simple Colombian bakeries to be found; the area was full of posh sushi and sandwich restaurants. We couldn't believe it, panaderias in Colombian are like Starbucks in New York! So we settled on a piece of sad pound cake from a cafe nearby, and then headed to the Interactive Museum. Alas, another activity for kids we found out not too late, as we read the brochure and discovered that Little Bear wanted to take us a journey through science! We decided we knew enough about how electricity passes through water and we did not need to subject ourselves to that humility again. We did confirm what I had told Molly earlier about the water being drinkable in Medellin when a lady who worked at the museum accosted us when she saw the huge gallon-sized water jug Molly was carrying around. "Why are you carrying around that bottled water?" she asked us. "Don't you know Medellin has the second-best water in the world?!" Ok, well, I was unaware. We'll add that to the list of Colombia's 'second-best' awards, along with Colombia's Taganga being the world's second's most beautiful beach. Go Colombia and their runner-up bragging rights!

Botanical Gardens

Yesterday for our weekly get together with girls from the neighborhood where I volunteer, we took a field trip to the botanical gardens. I had just been to the gardens the week before with Molly, but they were really pretty and I was looking forward to going back again. The Dutch woman who I do the workshop with suggested we give the girls a list of names of plants, flowers, etc and then photos to go along with them and they have to figure out which names match the photos and then go out and find these things in the botanical gardens. She were running a little late so by the time we left it was drizzling outside. The 10 minute walk from the office was challenging to say the least. Having to worry about myself crossing the crazy busy streets of Medellin I worry enough, let alone with 11 highly active, giggly girls between the ages of 9 and 12 without a care in the world. That on top of the distractions I had from 2 girls who kept bombarding me with questions about the U.S., asking me to speak English, why I had my nose pierced, why I had a toe ring, and "Americans really do like to wear sandals don't they?" I patiently responded to their questions while keeping tabs on the cars and corralling the girls to keep them from gallivanting across the street head on into a bus, counting uno, dos, tres...11 girls every time we crossed a street. The Dutch woman was with me, but she had her hands full too at the front of the group.

When we got to the gardens the mayhem wasn't over. The girls immediately began to run around looking at the different flowers, trying to find the turtles in the lake, and complaining that they wated to go to the maze (there's a smattering of 5 foot tall bushes that form an intricate maze where the girls would run around and get so lost while screaming their heads off). Because the girls didn't really get a chance to look at the photos before we left, they had no idea what they were looking at or what the names on their lists meant. They kept calling me "profe" (teacher) and asking me to help them. Sorry kids but I barely know the names of flowers and plants in English, let alone in Spanish! Later, more excitement ensued when the girls discovered a turtle, which was actually a rock in the pond, and then when a girl got pricked by a cactus in the cactus farm area. That was when we decided to take a snack break and let the girls scream their heads off in the maze.

The way back to the office was equally exciting, dodging cars and buses, now during rush hour. After their parents came to pick them up or they walked back themselves (9 year olds walking home alone, even just a few blocks, just seems proposterous in the U.S. doesn't it?), I had to walk the half hour back to my apartment. When I got back I was exhausted and starving, but happy. For one thing, on the way home I had been asked by a Colombian for directions (unfortunately I didn't know where the Prado Clinic was, but I acted like a true Colombian and explained to them the vague idea I had of where I thought it was, so as not to just flat out say "no se"), and second I had a great time with the girls. I was glad to see they were easily entertained by the gorgeous flowers and big trees and maze-like bushes. When one of the girls was a bit down and then started crying, a few of the girls tried to comfort her. They told me she was upset because she didn't know how to read and couldn't do the activity with the list of flowers so the other girls took her list and filled in the numbers for her. I thought that was really sweet. This 11 year-old girl is a bit overweight, doesn't go to school with any of the girls, and seemed a bit of an outsider at the beginning, but the girls made sure she felt included after that.

Touring and Volunteering in Medellin

My friend Molly is in town, stopping in Medellin on her month-long travels through Colombia. It wasn't until she got here and asked me what to do in Medellin that I realized I have not done much touristy stuff here. I haven't visited any museums, the botanical gardens, the planetarium, aquarium, nor a handful of the cool parks that are located throughout the city. Good thing I had Molly.Plaza de los descansos (Resting Plaza) right outside planetarium and near botanical garden

Today we went to the botanical gardens, which honestly didn't compare to the botanical gardens that I got to enjoy during the language program in Costa Rica in Turrialba. No foul smelling fruit trees, Chanel No. 5 plants, or bamboo forests. The orchid square was made up of maybe 5 orchid plants, and the butterfly gallery was a bit meager, with more dead butterflies posted about than live ones (definitely no blue butterflies landing on my shoulder like in La Paz with Barb).

Molly under a weeping willow-like tree.

But it was impressive walking through an expansive garden full of different types of plants, flowers, and trees in the middle of the city.

I found the name of this plant hilarious: "Tongue of Mother-in-law"

Later, Molly and I went over to the planetarium. This planetarium was fully equipped, educating us about everything from cave people, evolution, and the dinasours, to Einstein, astronauts, and la via lactea (the Milky Way, pretty much a literal Spanish translation). I couldn't remember the last time I had been in a planetarium, and it was nice sitting back and watching the 25 minute presentation about the stars, planets, and the Andromeda galaxy. Molly and I didn't actually realize that the presentation was intended for children until the end when the voiceover said "queridos niños" (dear children) and realized the language was maybe a bit simple throughout the presentation. But we enjoyed the planetarium, especially when a guide threw us into a room, closed a door, and told us not to hold on (or did she tell us to hold on?) while we simulated our way through the universe to Mars and other planets. Later we got some info from an interactive video about our very own country: apparently we own an archipelago off of Australia called the Mariana Islands. The video likened it to Puerto Rico in the fact that it is a territory of the US and its 69,000-something citizens share US rights. Who know? Molly and I felt a little nonplussed with ourselves for not ever even having heard of these islands that are part of the 'US Commonwealth' and for even knowing that a US Commonwealth existed!

Hangout area outside the planetarium

Yesterday I went with Eydis from la Corporacion Amiga Joven (where I volunteer) to a talk she gave to 5th graders in one of the poor neighborhoods in Medellin about sexual assault, violence, and prostitution. Controlling 40 11 and 12 year old boys and girls was a job in itself, but a lot of the kids were only craving attention, and become fascinated with me when they found out I was from the US and spoke English. They kept asking me to say things in English, and one boy asked me how to say Playstation in English.

Like most of the kids, Laura was obsessed with my camera and offered to pose for a shot. She complained after this photo that I didn't get her whole body.

Later I talked with Eydis about how it breaks your heart to see these kids throw themselves at you, grab your hand after knowing you five minutes, and want to help you with whatever you're doing, as opposed to the US where kids at that age are ridiculously shy and don't warm up to strangers that quickly. Talking about heavy topics like prostitution and pornography with this age group is uncalled of in the US and would have parents ranting and raving to the PTO. But here, the kids are already familiar with these topics, and that's why it's so vital to fill them in and make them aware of what is not ok at this age. They seemed to really get the message at the end, which was really satisfying. After, some girls came up to us and told us about friends or cousins who had been touched inappropriately by a neighbor or uncle, which makes me question why am I so different? Why did I luck out?

Photos of my digs

Curiously, it wasn't until just a few days ago that I noticed the huge poster of Jesus looking down over me while I was on the toilet in the bathroom in the apartment.
Here are some photos of the patio outside of the apartment, the living room, and kitchen. It's a pretty sweet deal, this is the only unit in the building that has the patio. Not a terribly great view, but a nice garden.

When I stepped out onto the streets Thursday during Semana Santa (Holy Week before Easter) in Medellin it was ridiculously dead! I ran back inside and grabbed my camera. I have yet to take contrasting pictures of what the streets normally look like, but just image Grand Central during at 5:30 p.m. all the time!