First Colombian Manicure

As today is Open House and I will be meeting my students´ parents for the fist time (good thing I am blogging instead of prepping for it as I speak), I decided to treat myself to a mani-pedi. All in all it was not too strange, and was definitely cheap. A manicure and pedicure cost $10.000 (about $5-6 USD), although I could have gotten the promotion for only $7.000 and I´m still not sure what the difference would have been. There are no spa chairs here, no rolling warm soapy water, just a bucket with room temperature water in it. I told the woman from the start that I didn’t speak much Spanish, yet she kept asking all kinds of questions, and while my Spanish isn’t that terrible, I certainly don´t have the manicure vocabulary down. I think she caught on and I apologized, telling her that normally my Spanish is better, but it had been a long day teaching and my head “no funcionada”. When it came time for the color I could see there wasn’t too much to choose from. Another girl brought over a pink and a purple for me. I chose a reddish color and asked them if they liked it. She responded very bluntly, “¿Para Usted? No.” And they told me that the new colors they brought over were beautiful on white (blanca) skin and so I went with their advice and took the darker, slightly more tame purple, which turned out to be iridescent. While normally I would not where this color, especially when meeting parents for the first time, I´m banking on the fact that the parents will be impressed I even got a manicure and either think “she´s already so in touch with Colombian fashion” or “poor stupid gringa” and feel sorry for me. Either way, I will definitely treat myself to another manicure in the future, but might be more picky with the color they use.

Still Disconnected

Still no Internet at home, but we´re hoping it will get set up by this Wednesday. The problem is, the company wants to speak to one of use directly, but only have people who speak Spanish and have no one to translate, but insist that they must speak to us personally. Of course that meant Sebastian put on his best gringo accent and has been pretending to be David on the phone, and Scott and Michael. Friday afternoon they could finally go into the company to actually set things up, which David took care of (while I laid out and read at the pool). So with any luck they will be able to come by this week, which probably means next week. We did discover that Crepes & Waffles (yes that´s a real restaurant in Cali around the corner from us) has free Wi-Fi, but I don´t always feel safe carting around my laptop and displaying it in public. The biggest frustration is mostly because I was relying on using Skype to communicate with friends and family back home and I can´t get it to work at school, not to mention most people are working when I would be calling from school. Bah humbug.

Other than that not much to update on, spent some time this weekend relaxing with friends by the pool and drinking Sangria at Blondie´s, a great bar in San Fernando with a great selection of classic American music. I mean when the Grease medley is played, you know it’s a great place. Speaking of Grease, that is the all-school musical this year, and you better believe I´ll find a way to get involved in that. Students are still great, open house is tomorrow, so I´m going to get my nails done tonight, because the parent´s tend to be very interested in how teachers dress and present themselves, which means I also have some serious ironing to do since our maid doesn’t come until Wednesday. Yes we got a maid. Yes this is normal in Colombia. And while I originally thought it was just lazy to get a maid I realized the following things: 1. Cali is very dusty and ALL tile floors are VERY hard to keep clean. 2. No dryer means ironing everything. 3. Rosa was very grateful to have people to fill her schedule so employing someone else is really great 4. $33.000/visit (about $16 USD) is TOTALLY worth it.

Well now that I have sufficiently wasted almost my entire prep, I must get back to work. More to come later, including Cooking in Colombia!

Making Mistakes

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”

-Albert Einstein

I posted this quote in my classroom while setting up before the first day of school.  It turns out it is quite appropriate.  My students are so fearful of making mistakes on their class assignments or during labs.  They need constant approval and reassurance, no matter how many times I tell them we will go over the answers when they are done.  I remind them all the time that making mistakes is often how we learn the most important lessons or ideas and that its OK. 

This also caught my eye because heck, maybe this moving to and teaching in a new country is a huge mistake.  I doubt it, but I couldn't not do it simply because it could be wrong.  What kind of life is that?

Street Art

More art in Ciudad Jardin

Nirvana

Some photos from our day hiking at Reserva Natural Nirvana http://www.reservanirvana.com/.  The parents Association took all the new teachers to this beautiful place for hiking and lunch.  It was gorgeous.  We even had our own security personnel.

Club Campestre

Last Saturday the school treated us to a day at Club Campestre, one of the country clubs in Cali. Although the principals and director belong to another club, the administrative assistant and the community affairs director belong to this one. The big yellow school bus picked us up at our apartment around 10 and took us just down the road to the club. It is a beautiful place. We had a million choices of things to do thrown at us. After a short tour of the place, David decided to play Squash before playing some tennis while I went my first Rumba class at the gym for about $12.000 pesos, about $6-7 USD. Normally I would have run out of the room embarrassed by my lack of coordination in dance, but all the women with their Latin flare around me actually made me feel better because I KNOW I will never be able to move like them, so looking like a complete idiot was just fine. I was with the beat about 40% of the time, but man was it a workout. I thought time was standing still. An hour of that and I was done for. Some of us went and sat by the pool, although I foolishly forgot my suit, so I sat in the shade and read a bit before everyone met for lunch.

After lunch 6 of us along with Sebastian decided to go horseback riding. Now, if 1. you know me and 2. you are anything like David you just burst into laughter at the thought of me riding a horse. Although I was the second to least experienced rider, I survived, albeit barely. I told the gentlemen helping us that I was a beginner and I wanted a horse “muy tranquilo”. They told us they were all horses for beginners and my friend Amanda (who speaks MUCH better Spanish) said that Diego had told her Serpentina would be very calm and I could ride him. I had my suspicions given that it was the BIGGEST horse there, but took her and Diego’s word for it. I got on pretty smoothly. Ok that’s a lie. I almost fell of the opposite side of Serpentina having swung myself up too hard and almost choked the horse. And then Serpentina was walking off on his own and kept playing with the reins in his mouth and bobbing his head all over. Diego readjusted my hands on the reins at least 6 times before we were on our way. Once we started Serpentina and I were getting along just fine. Others had their horses trotting on the trail, but we stayed slow, UNTIL we got to a steep part in the trail and we were bringing up the end of the line so Serpentina picked up the pace a little. No one prepares you for how much you are going to bounce when a horse trots, but I was surprisingly ok with it. Then came the point when we got to an arena of sorts where they decided to let the horse’s trot and gallop, which they would all do after Amanda’s horse, the leader (and Serpentina’s mother) started. That was frightening. I tried to pull the reins to stop or slow down but it didn’t work very well. I managed some “No me gusta”s, and luckily after a time or two around the other guide pulled Serpentina and I to the side for a rest while others went on trotting their way around. The rest of the ride was uneventful (thank goodness) other than my horse kicking Sebastian’s horse who was much more discontent with it’s reins than mine, and apparently who none of the other horses like. I even managed to get off the horse without falling or hurting myself or the horse. Towards the end of our journey, Amanda shared with me that Diego had said that Serpentina was calm because he wanted HER to ride him since she was more experienced and the horse was actually kind of crazy. Go figure. But in the end, Diego told me that I did very well, and I was left with a very sore butt for a couple days.

After some ice cream we made our way back home. Olga and Matilde said that they would put our names in whenever we’d like and we can go up to 12 times a year and 3 times in a month. They also said if friends or family visited, they would be more than happy to put their names on the list to visit either with us or while we are at work. Just one more reason for you all to visit!

Random Thoughts in Colombia

I need to get some white pants. EVERYONE here owns and wears white pants. I wonder if its because they don´t have labor day…

American service in restaurants is sooo much better. Every meal here takes 2 hours, drinks come with you food if you´re lucky and they can never remember who ordered what. Granted the majority of our meals out have been with 15+ people but still…

I would kill for a clothes dryer right now.

I really dislike this Colombian keyboard on my school desktop. If you see _ I probably meant ?, which is actually up in the number line. And then there´s this second shift key. What the heck_ And I think if you use shift the character doesn’t appear until after you type another key, how am I supposed to know if I actually pressed it or not?! Also I´m pretty sure I´m not using the right ´.

I have more bug bites now than I had in 24 years in the US…

Fastest Blog Update Ever

First 2 days of school down woo hoo! I love my kids (I know I´ll take that back at some point this year, likely within the next 2 weeks), they are so darn cute and have the cutest little Colombian accents. They ALWAYS say hello and goodbye, and `Thank you Misses´ (with a long e sounds like meeeses) when class is over. One of my Manuela´s told me today that I dress beautiful, guess I´ll have to keep dressing to her standards. I have been on their case constantly about speaking English in class when they are doing group work, which then means they keep asking me words in English which is fun for me to try to figure out what the heck they are trying to describe. Yesterday we had and 8 period schedule for the first day, but today we had our standard 5 period, so I only taught 3 classes and was done by 12:50 right before lunch. Tomorrow I will only teach 3 again, but this rotating schedule is tricky to figure out: today class periods were A,B,C,D,E with a 30 min break between B and C and 40 minute lunch between D and E, but I only taught A, C & D. Tomorrow will be classes F,G,H,A,B with the same breaks and lunch etc etc. Although its tricky for planning, it gives me usually 140 minutes of prep time and the day seems a lot shorter. Still no Internet at home arrrggggagagrgrgrrgrgrgagag. Although I think I am getting used to it, I really hope we can get it up and running soon. Today after school some teachers are playing volleyball and tomorrow is softball, then next week starts yoga and body combat, no wonder everyone here is so fit! Oh and it should be noted that Middle School (me) beat High School (David) last Friday in kick ball 24-14. Off to plan some lessons before volleyball!

Retracing My Steps

Yes I KNOW I haven´t updated this religiously, but no Internet at home + first week of school + moving to a new country makes it difficult to find time for some of these things. But I will try to retrace the steps I have taken here in Cali since my first post.

Our first Friday here we had lunch at our director´s house which is here on the campus. We had arepa which is a traditional type of bread treat they have here and pan de bono which is hot cheese filled bread rolls, both delicious. It was also a juice workshop in which we got to try different juices and combinations of all the yummy fruits they have including caruba (David´s favorite), lulo, mango, papaya, maracuya (passion fruit), guanábana (my favorite) and a couple others I can´t remember. They were just as delicious as the food. During our lunch break Joe, our director (who is originally from Indiana), took out his set of Bocce balls. David and I quickly got on a team and showed off our skills. Everyone was pretty impressed with us and those who weren’t playing pulled up chairs around where we were playing and started watching. Our team won 3 of 4 if I remember correctly. David told me that I throw just like my grandpa, which if you know my grandpa is a pretty great compliment for any Bocce ball-er to receive.

That Saturday we spent the morning shopping some more and then moving into our apartments. Since the bus moved south to north, David and I had LOTS of helpers moving our things to our apartment. We unpacked and unpacked and unpacked some more, then decided to take a break for a swim. While we were up at the pool Sebastian and Matilde stopped back by with our Space Bag of sheets, pillows and towels we left on the bus. The security guard gave them a really hard time about getting in because he couldn’t call us because we didn’t have phones. We were glad to see they were being so strict. We decided not to go dancing that night and stayed in. We attempted to put curtains on our floor to ceiling glass doors in the bedroom, but they were too short length and width…and then the holder for the rod came out of the ceiling. Needless to say we were up preeeeetty early Sunday morning…

And so we ventured back to Homecenter (similar to Home Depot or Lowe´s) to return our cortinas and buy new hardware along with some other things we were in need of. I was worried about having to return something, but given my overwhelming experiences with returning things in the states, it wasn’t too bad. I was even able to double check (in Spanish) that we could use the voucher for other things if we couldn´t find curtains. We found some that are still too short, but they get the job done so they were good enough for us. In the afternoon we went to the new chemistry teacher, Wojciech's house where he and his wife Sonia made us homemade pizza´s and gave us a chance to make some pizzas of our own with the ingredients we brought. Very yummy and very relaxing after a busy week. Monday started a loooong week of meetings, but also gave us a great opportunity to meet all of our new co-workers. Those updates will have to wait for another time. Ciao!

First Days

I feel neglectful that I haven’t updated friends and family more about our first week here in Cali, Colombia. So here goes my attempt at a summary so far… Monday was our first full day in Cali and it was just the start to a busy busy week. After we had our complimentary breakfast here at the Radisson (best service I have ever experienced) we were on our way in a school bus with the 11 new international hires and Anna Luisa, Marcela and Sebastian, our HR saviors and new best friends. Here in Cali I can’t just tell them that my blood type is A positive, they have to check for themselves, so we headed to the clinic where we each had a blood test done, from which David still has a bruise about the size of a lemon. After that was pictures for our cedulla, or Colombian ID and finally we started the apartment hunting. We looked at about 15-16 apartments in total in three different areas. In the south there is Ingenio and Ciudad Jardin which are MUCH closer to school (and obviously where we decided to live given David’s aversion to mornings). San Fernando and San Atonio are further north but are considered the west neighborhoods, where about half of our new colleagues decided to live. San Antonio is a really cool neighborhood, but is almost all studio apartments. It is also home the the oldest church in Cali shown below with some cool street art.

At the end of the day another couple and two other teachers who decided to live together had secured apartments. And so day two started with 4 fewer bus occupants. By midday David and I were the the only two without an apartment; not our fault. The apartment that we had decided would suffice wouldn’t be ready until Monday (after they had told us Saturday, and later turned into Wednesday) which was too late for both us and the school. We went with Marcela and Sebastian to look at a few more 2 bed 2 bath, but we didn’t like them and there were some landlords we couldn’t get a hold of. We were starting to stress. The afternoon we got a tour of our BEAUTIFUL school and I got to peek into my lab desk and AC furnished classroom :-) Below are just a few shots of my blissful new work environment.

Wednesday everyone got to sleep in, as we weren’t meeting until 10, except for David and I who still had apartments to look at and had a 7:30am appointment. It was rough. Two more apartments later, we decided to get one that we had looked at on Monday…I think the rooftop pool may have influenced us. During lunch we met with the transportation coordinator about getting to school and around the city and how the Calles and Carreras work in the south. At night we went to our director’s house on campus for dinner and drinks. Unfortunately it was outside with a wooden patio so the one night I decided to wear heels was ended up with very careful stepping so my shoes wouldn’t get stuck between slates of wood of sink too far into the grass. Needless to say there was very little salsa and meringue dancing for me. Thursday, oy Thursday. Many many meetings and LOOOOOOTTTTSSS of paperwork. Although there was a bright side to all of it. I met with my middle school principal and we talked through various procedures, got our health insurance set up, opened our savings account and got cell phones. Who’s jealous of the Nokia 2200 I’m getting Monday?! I found out I could get someone on the street to put a new SIM card in my iPhone and it would work just fine down here, but “used” (aka stolen) cell phones are a huge market down here and I think that might make me a bit of a target, so old school it is. After all of our various meetings at school we all got on an even bigger bus and went to La Catorce, basically the Cali version of Target or Walmart, to do some moving in shopping. About half a school bus worth of purchases later, we went back to the hotel, while our things were kept on the bus until they are delivered to our respective apartments Saturday. Unforunately it’s time I get to bed, tomorrow is moving out of the hotel and in to our apartment day! Until next time..