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..