Weekend Trips!

COLOMBIA TIP #28 – I have no idea how, but Colombians can ALWAYS tell you are a foreigner.

There is one thing about Colombia that I will never get used to – okay maybe there are two things.  The first is the driving.  It is absolutely crazy, traffic laws seem to be optional, the many motorcycles weave between cars, and I am constantly thinking that we are going to be hit from any direction.  The second is the countless stares that us gringos get as we walk down the street.  It’s very interesting to think about how they know we are not from Colombia.  I don’t think that we look that much different… maybe some people more than others (for instance, Allison, Amber, and Bill all have blonde hair).  And when we are speaking in English, I can understand that too!  But when I am just walking around with maybe one other person and we don’t happen to be speaking at that moment, we still get strange looks or comments like, “Hello gringo!” as they jokingly try to speak English to us.  It’s interesting because in Canada, there are people from all different backgrounds, colours, religions, etc, so when I see someone walking down the street, there is a very good chance that they are just Canadian.  But there is something in our faces or dress that tips people in Armenia off that we aren’t from here, because Colombian people aren’t as diverse as in Canada.  Just an interesting thought on country demographics.

The past couple weekends have involved trips to other places in Colombia.  The first visit was to a small town, similar to Salento, called Filandia.  Vero, Elia, Lina, and I just went for one day and did some shopping and wandering around the town.  We also met one of Lina’s friends named Andres who is working in Armenia at another school too.  There is a big look out structure called the Mirador where you walk up and around each of the five levels, looking out over the awesome landscape.

Walking up to the Mirador look out.

Vero, me, Lina, Elia on the Mirador.

The butterfly pool that is in the middle of the Mirador structure.

On each level of the Mirador, they had these types of signs posted showing which direction the different towns were.  I see Armenia!

While walking through the town, there were many little shops that had hand-made crafts in them.  The people that made them were also hard at work on other projects while we were walking around their shops.  There was one basket that was HUGE.

And people say basket weaving is a bird course!

However we were still able to test our skills at it.

Another weekend, Vero, Elia, and I went to Cali!  We went to stay with Elia’s friend Kerstin who visited Armenia a few weeks before when we went on the chiva.  We also met her roommates Dan, Dan, and Cathy who were awesome!  That weekend in Cali, there was a big Pacific Music Festival happening called Petronio Alvarez.  It was pretty neat!  It was basically an outdoor concert with lots of different bands playing.  It was music from the pacific coast which means that it had more of a Caribbean flavour to it.  These bands were in a sort of Battle of the Bands competition and they were all pretty good!  During the days, we really didn’t do much, but it was a great feeling to not have to do anything for once.  We went out for brunch a few times and this one restaurant had a drink that was coffee with ice cream in it – it was delicious!

I was pretty terrible and took zero pictures in Cali, but my excuse is that it isn’t as safe in Cali compared to Armenia, so taking out a camera may not be the best idea.  You can’t just take a cab off the street in Cali, you need to get your apartment doorman to call the company and get a password, so when the cab pulls up, you ask for the password to make sure he is legit.  It’s just another reason why I really, really like Armenia and how safe it is here!

It’s safe to say that when I got home from Cali, I had a lot of work to do for the next week.  The school work seems to never end…

Love, Friendship, and Gossip

COLOMBIA TIP #7 – Forget Valentine’s Day, Colombia has a whole month for Love & Friendship. 

Teaching Abroad Tip #1 – Keeping a blog is quite difficult when you have marking and planning and a lack of sleep and ten other things on your mind at once!  A lot has been happening and so I haven’t had much time to write, but tonight I have found myself (dare I say it) a day ahead in the planning department (but years behind on the marking part, but whatever).

A few weeks ago, a bunch of the teachers and friends decided to book this thing called a Chiva – basically it is a bus with benches along the perimeter and an open middle for dancing!  It reminded me of Across the Universe when they went on the big party bus.  It was very fun and crazy, with lots of aguardiente (it is a clear alcoholic drink that tastes like black licorice.  As I Google what exactly aguardiente is, turns out it has between 29-60% alcohol – no wonder it tastes terrible)!  There was a live band consisting of a clarinet, and two kinds of drums in the back of the bus, which was really neat.  We made a few stops at a few nearby towns where the band would get off the bus and continue to play for us.

We also decided to climb up on top of the chiva at one point…

That’s Vero, me, Elia, and her friend Kerstin that was visiting from her school in Cali.  Kerstin also came with another teacher from Cali named Sam.  Crazy story – Sam was in Con-Ed at Queen’s three years ahead of me and was on the Exec for Con-Ed’s Frosh Week before me as well!  This is her fourth year teaching in Colombia and she loves it.

The Queen’s ladies – Vero, Sam, me.

The chiva was definitely an interesting experience, one that would never happen in Canada!

In Colombia, the month of September is deemed Love & Friendship month.  There is a day (usually the third Saturday of the month) that is Love & Friendship Day (or Dia del Amor y Amistad).  So throughout the month, you can play “Secret Friend” with a group of people, which is the same thing as “Secret Santa.”  After a couple weeks of giving small gifts every few days (so far I have given things like chocolate, candy, bracelets, a coffee mug, a key chain with my person’s name on it, etc.) there is a big reveal where you give a final big gift.  I did Secret Friend with my Grade 10 Homeroom class and received some lotion and perfume as my final gift (so maybe I smell bad?) and the big reveal for the secondary teachers is this Friday (I’ve asked for a soccer ball, so we will see)!  I like the idea of giving small gifts throughout the time period because sometimes when I haven’t eaten breakfast and haven’t had time to go grab a snack from the snack bar, having a chocolate bar right in front of me is very useful!  It’s also really nice to see the students be kind to one another, more than they necessarily would.  On the Friday before Love & Friendship Day, there were a bunch of activities at school for students to buy candy, flowers, and take pictures together.  I received no less than five flowers from different students!  Vero, Sheryl, and I took a nice picture together and one with the 10A class (that Sheryl technically had that period while Vero and I had a free period) which was fun.  And no Love & Friendship month would be complete without students making speculations about my love life with other teachers (one day it is me and Bill, another it is me and Ferney the Colombian Physics teacher, and every time I am seen with another male teacher, my students give me the look – GAH).

Speaking of the students, classes are getting a little easier, but it is still a ton of work.  I keep thinking that next year will be easier, and the year after that will be even easier, so getting through this first year is the biggest hurdle.  Slowly but surely – we have October Break in a week and a half!

PS. The Leafs season is about to start which is definitely something to look forward to – Go Leafs Go!

Tennis and Soccer and Football, oh my!

COLOMBIA TIP #37 – Keep in mind, any sports teams you start to play with will be completely in Spanish.

In order to keep our sanity from teaching, a few others thought it would be good for us to get involved in some activities within Armenia.  Foreign teachers at GI get a free membership to a sports club called Bolo Club, so we have started to take more advantage of that.  Lina is a very big tennis player, so Vero and I tagged along a couple times for some lessons with the instructor, Victor.  He is really cool and nice, however he doesn’t know much English.  Well any English really.  Lina was acting as our translator for a lot of it, but my new knowledge of Spanish body parts continued to grow with his sayings like this: “Put your right hand on the racket here,” “Swing your arm through,” and “Keep your eye on the ball.”  Also turns out my forehand has seriously deteriorated and my backhand has improved dramatically, which is very backwards I think.  I’m just going to blame the altitude again.  It’s always the altitude.  Our hour and a half lesson cost $6,000 pesos each, the equivalent to $3.  We’ve already been back for another lesson and have another scheduled for tomorrow afternoon!  Speaking of tennis, apparently Canadian Milos Raonic had some intense match that ended in a heartbreaking loss – I don’t even know what tournament it was or who he was playing, but I liked that I was able to keep in the loop from back home just a little.

One night last weekend, we were all over at Matt, Elia, and Ferney’s new apartment (they had to move last week because of a leaky roof, termites, and a few other problems.  It was sad to see them go because they were great neighbours!  By the way, our apartment is fine!).  Allison and her boyfriend Augusto were among those that were there, and Augusto asked if I wanted to play soccer with Allison with one of the local teams.  Having not played soccer in about a year and having not even played in this futbol-crazed country yet, I said, “Sííííí!”  So a few nights later, Allison and I were driven across town to this women’s soccer practice.  Augusto’s friends, Alexander and “Pique” (they call him Pique because he looks like Gerard Pique, a Spanish soccer player!) drove us, and the whole time, Allison and I were discussing how nervous we were, that we didn’t know what to expect, and other such concerns.  Then one of the guys informed us that this girls’ team was the champions of Quindío (like provincials or state championships), and then we started to worry more!  The only thing that we were holding onto was that girls’ soccer in Colombia is never at a very high level because the majority of women here are the exact opposite of athletic.  We arrived and the soccer field was Astroturf and tiny – which meant that my kind of soccer (kick the ball far and outrun the other girls) was out of the question.  Once we started, we noticed that we weren’t the worst ones there, and the girls were really fun and nice (from what little I could understand).

SIDE NOTE: There’s a quote from the movie Hitch that says: “Sixty percent of all human communication is nonverbal body language; thirty percent is your tone.  So that means that ninety percent of what you’re saying ain’t coming out of your mouth.”  Somehow, I am starting to disagree with this because not knowing the words that are coming out of people’s mouths does not mean I understand 90% of what they are saying.

When Allison was close by, she would help me out with the translations, but then we were placed on separate teams for the practice.  So I was left to do a lot of see-what-they-do-first-then-join-in.  There was one drill that I think may have been practicing throw-ins as well as moving around to open space, but we were basically tossing the ball around with our hands.  So after a while, the coach stopped us, said god-only-knows-what in Spanish, and then we started to continue again.  The coach threw up the ball kind of in my direction, and me thinking, “Yes, I’m totally going to steal the ball off these girls by grabbing it out of the air,” I caught the ball and instantly heard all 25 girls yell and laugh, “Noo, con los pies!”  Silly, of course soccer is played with your feet…

I also heard some information about a teacher’s sports tournament that my school is hosting!  The interesting thing is that I heard it from Sarah and Eric (a couple of my friends who are teaching in Baranquilla, Colombia right now) because they have officially booked their tickets to come visit! I feel our school drops a lot of last minute announcements on us, cause I still don’t know much about this teacher sports thing.  But either way, I’m definitely going to sign up!

Yesterday, there was a big futbol game here in Colombia – it was a World Cup qualifier between Colombia and Ecuador.  I was not a happy camper because I had Detention Duty after school with Jen and I thought I was going to miss the game!  But then it was delayed by rain and by the time I got home and headed over to the bar where lots of teachers were watching, I had only missed the first 15 minutes.  AND within 10 minutes of me walking in the door, Colombia scored the first (and final) goal of the match.  Clearly, that was all my doing.  Because they won, I think they are now on their way to the World Cup, or there might be some small chance that they won’t if certain teams win or lose.  It was really fun to watch a country rally around their sports team like that (but I guess I’ve seen it in Canada with World Junior hockey.  But it’s still neat)!

On another sports note, my NFL Fantasy Football team is not looking so good in their first week.  Hoping to turn it around for Sunday’s games.