Tubing in San Cipriano

This weekend was by far one of the best weekends yet, solely because of a wonderfully planned day trip to San Cipirano.  Thank to some great planning by our friends Kristin and Kelsi, the day went off without a hitch.  We all met in San Fernando early in the morning around 6:30 (well 6:45 because I made David and I late, oops), got in a big white van and started our 2.5 hour trip.  Normally, people get on a public bus that heads to Buenaventura on the coast, but since there were 11 of us, it was best to get our own transportation, which was only $50.000 round trip (about $25 USD).  The drive was VERY curvy, so I made sure to have some Dramamine on had, which I only had to use for the ride home. 

When we arrived in San Cipriano, our van was kindly greeted by men and boys pounding on the sides of the van and chasing the van until we finally stopped.  No worries, they were just getting our attention to let us know they would be taking money for the brujas (see below).  We knew going into it they were try to scam the 11 gringos, but in the end, Kristin got them down to $6.000 a person each way, not too bad.  Now what is a bruja you ask?  Well, imagine a wooden platform with wheels that rides along abandon railroad tracks.  Now add on top some wooden benches, be sure NOT so secure them too well, the shaking and fear of falling off adds to the fun.  You have more than 4-5 people?  No problem, just rope tie another platform/picnic bench thing on and hope it doesn´t disconnect along the way.  But how do you get this wooden board/picnic bench device moving?  With a moto of course!  Prop the front tire of the moto onto the the platform and place the slightly flattened rear tire onto the right rail track.  And viola!  Now you have yourself a bruja (brujita).

Yep.  I´m serious.  This is what we had to ride from where our van parked, to the actual little village where we rented our tubes, got in the river and had lunch.  It was a treat.  To add to the fun, there is only one track, so when a brujita comes from the other direction one has to get off the track (moto, platforms, people and all) and let the other pass.  From what I could tell, who has to get off is usually determined through a staring contest.  Luckily our driver was a very good starer and very intimidating, so we only had to get off once.

In all honesty, it was a fun little ride, except when we had to go over bridges.  I hate bridges.  When we got off our brujita, we had a short walk to the place where we rented tubes, and paid $1.500 each to get into the park area.  Once we got there, they took our lunch orders so it would be ready when we were done, packed up the cooler, sun screened up, waited for the boys to get themselves ready for an extra 10 minutes and then started our 30-45 minute hike to where we could get into the river.  Along the way we made a little doggy friend who someone later named Sirius because he looked like his anamagous from Harry Potter (I have clearly found the perfect group of people to hang out with here).  He followed us the WHOLE way down, it was pretty cute and after a while I even stopped worrying that he might bite me and give me rabies.

Tubing was lots of fun.  We stopped along the way to hang out, jump off things and chat.  It was however a little bit more work than I imagined as there were quite a few areas with small rapids or giant trees obstructing the way that were nearly impossible to avoid, but fun nonetheless.  It was a beautiful day and we had the perfect amount of time on the river.  Near the end, we found a rope swing for jumping into the water.  Some (most) people were very good at it, like David, but I think the BLACK bruises on my inner thigh from the knots are a sign that I did not have good form.  I can only imagine what my jump looked like since I have no upper body strength whatsoever.  Luckily no one caught it on camera. 

I don't know if this was excitement or fear for what obstacles might lie ahead

Gorgeous day

David jumping

After our tubing, we walked back to the little tienda/restaurant place and changed and had a traditional Colombia lunch with Sancocho, rice, patacones (plantains) and I had some delicious camarones (little shrimp), but there was also a choice of fresh fish, chicken and I think some other seafood.  At 4 we made our way back to the brujita for our return trip, hoped in the van and made our way back to Cali.  It was a wonderful day trip that seemed perfectly executed, something I feel I won't always be able to say about plans we make here, or life in general. 

Last, big thanks to Sam and Kelsi for all the photos.  I need to invest in a waterproof camera, or some really good Tupperware in case anyone is wondering what to get me for my birthday or Christmas!

Life Without a Car: A Pro-Con-Con-Pro

The privilege of driving is a funny thing.  Before I was 16 I couldn´t wait to drive, I begged my dad to take me to get my license as soon as I got the paperwork, which in turn meant he woke me up one morning when he got home from a midnight shift at 7am to take me.  Then the excitement wore off a bit because I had to drive everywhere and I realized how annoying traffic really was.  When I headed off to the University of Iowa I did so sans car, and anyone who knows anything about my first month of college, that it was not an easy adjustment.  Thanks again to my big sis Nicole for 8 hour round trip drive and 1 night stay just to take me to Target.  By Thanksgiving of my Freshman year, I had a car again.  Then there were the 3 hour (yes, I can make it in just over 3 hours) drives between Chicago & Iowa City in which the reason for the drive determined if at the time I would enjoy or loathe the drive.  So really in the 9 years I have been driving, I´ve only been without access to a car to drive for about 3 months.  Coming down to Cali, I wasn´t sure what life would be like without my own car, but here´s what I´ve come up with so far:

Pro: More exercise walking lots of places
Con: Almost being killed by crazy drivers and motos while walking lots of places; commonly seen are motos driving on the sidewalk to avoid traffic. Scary.
Con: Grocery shopping is a pain
Pro: Not driving in traffic or in a city that appears to have a complete lack of driving laws
Con: Sitting in taxis in traffic or having a crazy taxi driver
Con: It rains a lot, so walking isn´t always an option
Pro: School provides bus to workP
Con: Paying for taxis-Ok this one is kind of neutral, taxis are SO cheap.
Con: Riding a bus to work
Pro: Public transit here is pretty legit, cheap, clean, mostly efficient
Con: CROWDED Buses
Pro: Not paying for gas
Pro: Other people can't ask me to drive them places

Overall I would say it has been more of a positive than a negative.  To be honest until someone else asked me, I had hardly thought about not having a car.  The adjustment this time around has been much easier.  And a good thing, because I doubt Niki would be as willing now to make that trip to Colombia for 1 day just to take me to La Catorce.

No Pork Castle for Me, Thank You

Every Wednesday I play volleyball with some other teachers, who happen to all be better than me, and speak more Spanish than me.  But, despite my lack of skills in both I managed to get the invite to play at the Binational teachers tournament in October, score.  Let's face it I'll probably sit the bench, but I'll take it.  Anyway, earlier this week (meaning yesterday, since its only Tuesday) one of the teachers, Octavio, sent out an email, which was entirely in Spanish.  Usually somewhere along the way someone will translate it to English, but this one didn't.  I read my way through it and used a little Google translate, but finally decided to kindly ask Amy to give me a quick run down of the invite.  As I suspected, Octavio was inviting us all to his house after volleyball Wednesday to celebrate the upcoming games as well as other various things, for some chorizos and beer, but if we preferred a pork chop (costilla de cerdo) to email him so he could order it.  I decided this morning that I'd be able to go and emailed back "Voy a asistir tambien, pero no castillo de cerdo para mi.  ¡Muchas gracias Octavio!", Reply All of course.  Now perhaps you didn't notice the slight spelling error, just as I hadn't, but my word has an O on the end, not an A.  Which means I replied "I am going to attend as well, but no pork castle for me.  Thank you!"  Within the hour I got a response informing me of my mistake, and when I saw Octavio on the bus he mentioned it too and assured that we'd all have a good long laugh about it tomorrow with our beers and castillos. 

Calle de Arte

This weekend celebrated a Colombian holiday "Amor y Amistad" or "Love and Friendship".  Its basically Valentine's day.  And no, David did not get me anything and we didn't even do dinner.  Buuuut considering he didn't go to work Friday because he was sick and felt pretty miserable all weekend, I let it slide. 

Saturday was also the day that San Antonio holds is annual Calle de Arte, or Street of Art. I hopped in a cab Saturday morning with some fellow southsiders while David recuperated at home watching what turned out to be an awesome Hawkeye win. He made our way up to San Antonio, which only took two cabs. About 3 minutes after Sam, Rita and Carlos picked me up, our first cab driver told us we better take a  different can as he didnt think his would make it up to San Antonio. At least he was honest. So we got out and switched taxis.

I had intended to complete all of my Christmas shoppin here, but as indecisive as I am, I walked away with nothing.  Not that there weren't things worth purchasing.  There was so much beautifully handcrafted jewelry, bags, art etc.  Apparently piggy banks are a big thing because it seemed as every other table had hand painted piggy banks.  Some favorites of mine were those painted and dresses as various characters suck as Batman, a singer from Kiss, Captain America and even Freddy Kreuger, creepy.  There was also music everywhere.  And beers.  Happy Saturday to us.

After shopping down the 2-3 streets filled with art, we made our way to a co-workers home where her French chef of a husband was making and selling Quiches. They named their place Don Quichote, fully equipped with lamenated menus and evrything.   How cute.  We met up wth some other techers are the festival and about 10 of us sat and had lunch at their house.  For $10.000 pesos each (about $5 USD) we got a slice of quiche of our choice, salad and a glass of wine. Can't beat it. 

Also, yay for me making a signature!  Check out my fancy HTML skiiillllz.

Apartment Tour

Living Room

Kitchen/Dining Room

Main Bedroom

Closets leading to main bathroom

Rooftop view

Cassie, Casi

Before coming down to Colombia, I pondered how people would pronounce my name since Spanish doens’t really have the A sound like in “aaaaapple”, nor do Colombians have an obnoxious Chicaaaaaago accent. They also don’t have the long A sound like in “basement” (no idea why that was the example that came to mind) which would rule out “Casey” that I have learned to respond to over the last 24 years. Which by the way people, its pretty obvious its Cassie with A like in “apple” and not Casey with an A like in “basement”, I mean look at it: 2 S’s and “ASS” is right there in case you needed help figuring it out. I digress. So when I came down I was not surprised when people would hesitate when saying my name because the only A sound they use is like in the word….well I’m stuck. It’s just a Spanish A, which kind of sounds like the sound an O makes in the word “obvious”. Also, I just realized that “ape” would have been better than “basement”. Darnit. Focus.

As if my last name were’t foreign enough, these poor people can’t pronounce my first name either. I kindly pronounce it for them as I would in the US and receive confused stares, not surprisingly so as this is a vowel sound unknown to them. However, it seems that they DO know the long A sound and alas, Casey I am again. I kindly repeat it using the Spanish sounds turning my name to Casi, with a Spanish A and an emphasized I (which soulds like a long E). I knew before coming down here that casi in Spanish means “almost”. Although I did NOT realize just how hilarious people would find it. Like when I play volleyball after school on Wednesdays with some Colombian teachers. I’m running and running for a poorly hit ball and just miss it and John Freddy (who speaks little English) says, “casi, Cassie” and then laughs to himself. Funny right? Or when I am running for the bus (which was leaving 3 min too early) after softball on Friday and Harold yells, “Corre Cassie, casi allí Cassie!” (“run Cassie, almost there Cassie!). Or when I almost get a hit past David in softball (because for some reason they always put us on different teams). Si casi.

I may have to change my name.

Team Tower

Some pictures of my students the first week of school doing a team building activity. They had to build tower out of speghetti and gum drops, but each team member could only use one hand. It was cruel really. The speghetti was way too fragile for the gumdrops, but the point of having to work together and think critically got across. But I’ll be honest, if a teacher had made me do this when I was in school I’d be pretty angry. Except that I did have to do this. In college. As an engineering major. At least we had masking tape and straws. I’ll have to plan better and be more considerate next year.

 

Meet the Parents

August 30th was our Middle School Open House and although there seemed to be a lot of hype around it, it was not that bad. Parents came at 5:00 for a meeting (which means it really started at about 5:20. Then at 6:00, they went through their students’ schedules to each of their classes for 10-15 minutes to get an introduction to the class from each teacher. Given that this is very much a social event for parents, the fact that my room is the most out of the way and that I needed a translator, it meant I actually had about 5 minutes to fly through everything I wanted to cover. Many of the parents speak only Spanish, so a translator was necessary, it also meant that if I sounded like an idiot in English or fumbled over my words, less than about half the people in the room noticed because they were waiting for the translation. I introduced myself, where I was from and where I taught before in Spanish to try to win the parents over and let them know that my Spanish was pretty bad, but I wanted to practice and that I would then be transitioning to English. Although my vocabulary is small and conjugations and sentence formation often fall to pieces, I have been complimented on my accent by a few people since I’ve been here. I don’t know if it’s because they are just trying to find something nice to say or if the genuinely think I sound slightly less like a gringa than other teachers they have met. Either way, I’ll take the compliment. Anyway, knowing that most people were not actually listening to ME, I spoke at my normal speed, superhuman fast, in order to get to my translator and through my whole 5 slides. Of course after one session, a parent came up to Clara, my translator, and asked “Does she always speak that fast?!” probably worrying about her poor child ever trying to comprehend something in my class.

Overall the parents were very nice and didn’t have too many questions, which I think is a good thing. I spent most of my time emphasizing my beliefs on grading and the fact that students have to learn (aprender) in order to be successful, which in general I have found parents genuinely appreciate. Unfortunately, I really had no idea who was the parents of which students, other than the few who had a second to introduce themselves before or after a session, so I’ll have to wait until parent conferences for that.

We Finally Have Internet!

Yes. Its true. I am currently coming to you (although not live unless you can somehow see this as I type…creepy) from our living room. David got the call during our Tuesday Spanish lesson that Telmex could come this week and LUCKILY Rosa comes on Wednesday’s so they were able to come while she was there. It did take some Spanish-English dictionary translating by David to send Rosa a text (she never answers her phone) that made sense, and leave a note just in case so she wouldn’t be surprised. I stayed and played Volleyball at school until about 6 or so and David played tennis with our principal so neither of us got home until later in the evening, of course assuming that something inevitably would have gone wrong, or we wouldn’t know the password and we’d have to wait another month for them to come back. When I walked into our apartment and saw our modem it was a little like Christmas morning. I know that not having Internet is a silly thing to complain about compared to a lot of other things, but I was relying on Skype to communicate with my family not to mention keeping people at home up to date with my blog AND planning and putting in grades. Life got a lot easier with that little modem. However, knowing that I can in fact survive without Internet in our apartment, I am going to try to make a point to not waste my time on it as much as a admittedly often do. You can expect an influx of blog posts in the next few days though.

As I write this David is streaming the Bears season opener and just turned his computer to me and exclaimed “Look! Its the Bears!” Apparently its still a little like Christmas morning, 5 days later.

Cooking in Colombia

Since I was a little girl, I have loved being in the kitchen, particularly when it meant baking with my grandma (and getting to lick the bowl) or watching my grandpa throw together his famous Chicken Cacciatore. While my actual skills in the kitchen tend towards baking, in the last year I have tried my hand at cooking meals. With some help and suggestions from my roommates Meaghan and Erin, I would like to think that I have since perfected my homemade white pizza with garlic, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes and goat cheese; my roasted garlic and vegetable pasta; egg and chorizo breakfast skillet and garlic shrimp pasta. However, when talking to my mom, the avid cooker and try-er of new recipes, about some meals I had made she said “You know Cas, garlic isn’t the only thing you can cook with.” Now as an avid garlic eater, I was offended, but decided to take on her challenge and try cooking meals that didn’t have garlic as the primary flavor, however tasty it may be. To help me on my way, she bought me a Williams-Sonoma “Essentials of Latin Cooking” cookbook to bring to Colombia with me. Having read through the book, I realized a couple things:

• There aren’t many Colombian recipes in here that will help me fit in any better, and I have been told that some of the ones in here are “fancy” Colombian meals.
• It should be re-named “Essentials of Latin Cooking If You Are Not Actually Living in a Latin Country and Have Every Ingredient Readily Available at Your Local Grocery Store and Every Piece of Kitchen Equipment Imaginable”. Not too catchy. There are certainly some modifications I will be making to some recipes due to the lack of tortilla press, grill, Monterey Jack Cheese, squash blossoms (wth?), red wine vinegar, or rosemary among other things. They don’t even have many types of peppers here (that I’ve seen so far). Luckily I have my handy dandy Magic Bullet to help me in my kitchen endeavors
• The majority of the recipes include garlic HAH!
• I’m not nearly as experienced in the kitchen as I thought. Yikes.

Never the less, I found an interesting recipe, but then decided to start small. My first “Latin” cooking experience here (outside of making juices) was making arepas, traditional bread made with corn flour, or Masa harina. There are several ways to cook arepas, but I chose one that didn’t require any deep frying. The recipe is simple: a 1 to 1 ration of ArepArina, or precooked corn flour, to water, with a teaspoon or so of sea salt. Kitchen foul number one: I bought sea salt crystals instead of already ground. Thank goodness for that Magic Bullet accompanied by an informative pamphlet to teach me how to grind spices.

After mixing the ingredients, letting the “masa” sit covered for 2 minutes I was instructed to knead the dough and roll it into an 8” (20cm) log and then cut it into 8 pieces and roll them into balls. Then flatten to 3” (8cm) in diameter. Metric units are something I’m still getting used to, so I’m grateful for the books use of inches etc.

Then I cooked the arepas in a pan with just a splash of olive oil for about 3-4 minutes on either side. I (attempted to) cut them open and we put eggs and chorizo inside for a lovely little breakfast. My arepas definitely need some improvement, I think I added a bit too much water because they were a bit moist inside, but delicious none the less. I had some of the left over arepas with a bit of cinnamon and sugar for a sweet treat later in the day. Check back later when I make arepas filled with chicken and chorizo with chimichurri!