Football? No, it's called soccer. Get it right

On Thursday, us Peace Corps volunteers had the good fortune of finally getting a holiday off. Until then, we were required to go to training on both U.S. and Colombian holidays, while the staff got both of those holidays off. I think that actually is one of the lessons we are scheduled to learn about in our training called "Sometimes the world isn't fair kid, now stop crying." Regardless, I wanted to take advantage of this day off. It just so happened to be that the local futbol team, The Barranquilla Juniors, was going to be playing a playoff game here in Barranquilla on that day, so my host dad, Alberto, was able to score some tickets and I went with him and my Peace Corps pal Emily. Before leaving the house, Alberto told me that they didn't allow people to wear belts into the stadium. At first I thought "How peculiar," then I realized that this is Colombia and they take their futbol seriously and that a belt is a damn good weapon, just ask any member of the Jackson 5.

We got to the stadium about 45 minutes before kickoff, which was good because the stadium was going to be pretty crowded since it was a playoff game. They had various music playing on the PA system, which is customary in any sporting event. However, as they were playing some choice salsa cuts, the camera feed to the jumbotron was fixated on a beautiful, curvy woman dancing next to her seat. This practice too is familiar to many sporting venues, but they continued to keep the camera on her for over 15 minutes. Now, this would make sense if it was some sort of dance team or cheerleaders, but this was just some paying customer. Even though this dame was pretty damn attractive, that's a long time to point the camera at someone who doesn't work for the team. The fans didn't seem to mind, not surprisingly. They continued to cheer and whistle for her for almost the entire duration of her "routine."

Mike, another PC pal of mine, and his two brothers met up with us shortly before kickoff. There were some interesting characters at the stadium. I saw a man drinking beer out of a two liter bottle, aka the gentleman's chalice, and another man selling beer out of a dirty bucket. Man did I want some bucket beer. One thing that I will always remember about these Latin American futbol games is how loud they are. It seems everyone had an air horn, which is surprising that they are allowed in but not belts. I was lucky enough to sit right in front of a horn enthusiast. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a late night the prior night, so I had a bit of a headache. Let me tell you, in that situation, nothing feels better than sitting in direct sunlight with a guy making sweet music with his air horn right behind you. At least there were very few vuvuzelas. During half-time, there were only two fights which warranted hoards of police to break up by means of wildly swinging their clubs at anyone they see. Pretty tame. Between the fights, there was more music playing and that meant the camera was searching the crowd for attractive women. Every time it found a relatively attractive woman, all the guys in the stadium started whistling. Occasionally, the camera would find a cute child or someone that didn't happen to be a beautiful woman and the crowd would go completely silent.

This game was the second game in a two game series. The first game was held in the home stadium of the Boca Chicos, the team playing the Juniors. The game had to be called early because the head referee was struck in the face by a firework that someone in the crowd had launched and he began to bleed profusely. You know, just a day in the life. Luckily, Juniors ended up tying the game in fairly dramatic fashion, and for reasons that were explained to me but I failed to comprehend, they won the series. That was good news because if they had lost, we would have had to navigate our way through thousands of angry, rioting fans. Overall, a pretty good time.

A glimpse into the future

This past week, we finally received the formal information packet about our future sites. In addition, we met with our individual counterparts. Each volunteer has a counterpart, who is one English teacher at their school who will function as their main liaison. I know that seems unclear and doesn't really make sense. Welcome to my world. After a day and a half of meetings and lectures that weren't really necessary, each of us went with our counterparts to our respective future sites. Since I am going to be staying in Barranquilla, I didn't need to go very far.

When we arrived in the neighborhood, it more or less matched my expectations. It was a very poor area with a couple paved roads. Most of the side roads were dirt and filled with holes, trash, and debris. Simply gorgeous. That day, my school was actually closed because the teachers were having training at another nearby school. Also, kind of important, school around town were not in session because the school year ended, so this was a horrible time to visit our schools. So I went with my teacher to the other school to meet the staff. The teachers are about 90% female, which apparently is normal. One thing they kept noting was how young I was. Yeah, I know I'm young enough to be one you your kids, get over it. Also, the school is run by a nun. So, um, that will be interesting.

Olga had wanted me to sit through their training session, but after twenty minutes of listening to a woman ramble on about something, I had to get out of there. I asked if my counterpart, Zaira, could show me around my actual school. She didn't want to be there either, so she was more than eager. The school was actually nicer than I had imagined. It surprisingly has wi-fi. There are actual windows and not just holes in the walls. And, to boot, there were four, count 'em four fans in each classroom. Pretty swanky, eh?

After a brief tour, Zaira took me to meet my future family. I was going to be living with the same family that the previous volunteer at that site had lived with. The mother and her 18 year old son were home. They both seemed pretty nice. They gave me a choice of which room I would want to stay in. Either one that had corrugated metal ceiling that didn't fit correctly with the wall and no window, or the larger room with a normal ceiling and a window. You can guess which one I chose. I also found out that they run a preschool out of their back patio. That can be good and bad. I love kids, and preschoolers are adorable, but it's going to get pretty loud. It'll probably be fine. Something that won't be fine is the store across the street that has speakers blaring a five second loop of an advertisement, repeating "Dos Mil! Dos Mil!" and a couple other incomprehensible words over and over again. I'll be lucky if it only drives me to drink.

Turkey day

Thanksgiving was a highly anticipated day for all of us future volunteers ( I say future because we're not technically "volunteers" until we're sworn in on December 14). Not only would we be enjoying a break from our variety-lacked diets of meat and rice to enjoy a nice meal, we would also be finding out our sites that we will be working in for the next two years. Needless to say, everyone was pretty excited on that day.

We started the day by visiting the Museo del Caribe. This museum featured exhibits about various aspects of Colombia's Caribbean culture. There was a Gabriel Garcia Marquez room, which featured a 30 minute projector show of animation that corresponded with a few of his popular works. It was interesting and more than a little but trippy. The rest of the museum featured aspects of Caribbean language, dance, and the local ecosystem. It was enlightening. It also had this when you walk in the front door

 

 

 

 

 

 

Takes me back to simpler times. Simpler, more racist times.

We then took a bus back to the Peace Corps office where we would eagerly await the news of our future sites. Naturally, the conference room wasn't ready when we arrived, so we waited in the Peace Corps office, which was surprisingly devoid of staff, save for the secretary. So we all took to raiding the upper staff members' American candy stashes. Before you say anything, that candy was there for everyone, but maybe not everyone at once, but oh well. After a bit of waiting, we finally made our way to the conference room. The staff member that was mainly in charge of placing us, Olga, started calling individual people to stand up. She then gave a very brief intro about their site, almost always including over-the-top compliments (I love this place, the people are soooooo nice, this site is so beautiful, etc) and then said the name of the school and which of the three big cities it is in. My name was called about 2/3 of the way through. I was ready for the standard hype of my site, but I was surprised to hear her say that this site is going to be "very challenging," and they have "many needs" with "a lot that can be improved." I was in a state of partial shock. I didn't quite know how to react. Later, everyone told me that my face was priceless when she was telling me all these negative things about my future school. I was a bit upset and depressed that my school was the only one that she had only negative things to say about. It also didn't help that when I asked other staff members for more info, all they told me was that place was really dangerous. Great. According to Olga, with this presentation of our sites, we normally would get a packet of further information about our sites. However, there were a couple of the packets that weren't finished, so they were going to wait until the next Monday to hand them out. So, for a while, I was pretty bummed out about what I heard about my future site.

All I have to say is thank goodness there was Thanksgiving dinner to look forward to. I was more than ready at that point to eat my sadness away. And I must say, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of food available. Being in the Peace Corps, I've grown used to living with limited resources. But brother, resources were a-plenty that day. Everything thing was delicious, except for the broccoli salad. It would have been fine had someone no loaded it up with nuts. It completely ruined it, as nuts do to many foods (brownies, cakes, various salads). Man, nuts really grind my gears. Anyway, I was still happy to eat until I couldn't feel my feet. The dinner was held at staff member Fernando's house and he has one great setup. He has a floor all to himself with a great view and a ping pong table. You better believe I was all up in that table's bizness, yo.

Put me in coach, I'm ready to teach

Last week, we had our "field practicum," which involved us going to one of several schools in the Barranquilla area. Once there, we were to spend a day observing classes and two days actually teaching lessons. The purpose of this was to give us some hands-on experience teaching local kids. This was particularly helpful for me because I don't really have any formal experience teaching a class.

My group visited a school called Maria Cano Institucion Educativa Para el Desarollo Humano (The Fightin' Canos). Lots of schools have long, convoluted names like that. Like at all the schools I've visited, we drew quite a bit of attention from the students. Many of these kids have never seen white people in person, so it makes sense that we would be "show stoppers." We went to an empty classroom to meet the English teachers, in this school, there were only four, and to discuss the plans for the next few days. In this class, I was surprised to find a Smart Board, which uses some touch technology in unison with a projector. Most schools in the US don't even have these. I thought it was ironic that they had a Smart Board, which apparently no teacher knew how to use, but many classes didn't have air conditioning or even fans that worked well. We found out that it was a gift from the mayor to each school. Great Idea, Mr. Mayor.

In one English class we observed, I couldn't really tell what the topic was. The class consisted of the teacher playing the song "We Are the World" about five or six times and students had to identify words that were in the song. Then she went over some vocabulary words that didn't seem to relate to each other at all. In this class, there was a moderate level of noise at all times and kids would occasionally get up and just walk around the class. This actually was a somewhat well-behaved class in comparison to a class I would teach later that week. Later, we visited a third grade class that was incredibly well-behaved. The teacher is very talented at classroom management. Later that day, we were told which classes we were to give a one hour lesson and in which topic. Naturally, I, the one with the least experience, ended up introducing technical grammar lessons to students who haven't learned those respective subjects yet. Great.

That night, I spent a good deal of time planning my lessons. Per usual, I was worried I would be eaten alive. However, both of my lessons went well. My first was teaching the conditional tense to tenth graders. I played one game where they would stand up if they liked something I call out. At one point, I called out "stand up if you like sopa de mondongo," which is a soup made with cow stomach, and the kids went nuts. Apparently they love it. Who would have known?

The third and final day, I had some more simple themes that focused on vocabulary. I actually felt confident about the lessons I had planned. The first class went well, and as I was heading back to the teachers lounge I was asked if I could do a quick lesson to a class before lunch. I agreed and started regretting that decision about five minutes into class. I was told it was an eighth grade class, but it seemed like the ages ranged from about eleven to kids in their early twenties. The entire class, kids were yelling and walking around all over the place. Basically not paying any attention to me. I mean, it wasn't so bad. At least I didn't get robbed by any of them. But what made it worse was that I was drenched in sweat because the fans in the class didn't work. I was as moist as a rotisserie chicken by the end of class. It was gross. The last class I taught went exceptionally well. I actually made up a song about fruits and vegetables and I brought my guitar and played it to first graders and preschoolers. They seemed to like it. Take that, Wiggles.

Just me and some of my Maria Cano homies

Normal classroom. Notice the lack of windows, only wall holes.

A fat kid and Simon Bolivar. But which is which?

And a thumbs up to you too

Former students?

Here at Maria Cano, you too can be a fake child scientist, if you work hard enough

Santa Marta and Salsa. Que Caliente!

On Monday, we were assigned to visit current Peace Corps volunteers living in Cartagena, Barranquilla, or Santa Marta. The way we found out where we would be visiting was actually quite fun. The staff put post it notes face down on a white board. Each of us would come up, pick up a note, and read one of our names and where we are going. I was excited to hear that I was going to Santa Marta. Most of all, I just didn't want to stay in Barranquilla because I was looking for a change of pace.

So Monday afternoon, four other volunteers and I left for Santa Marta, which is about two hours north from Barranquilla up the Colombian coast. Santa Marta is mainly known for its natural beauty and scenic beaches. During the drive from Barranquilla, I look out the window of the van and I see things that remind me how close we are to the Amazon. Simply gorgeous. We drop off one volunteer who is staying with a current volunteer and her host family. Because it had been raining earlier and because, like Barranquilla, Santa Marta has serious water drainage issues, we had to drive through some serious puddles that stretched a few hundred feet down the street. After dropping off two more volunteers, we came to the hotel that Nolan, my Peace Corps Pal (PCP) and partner for this trip, and I are going to be staying in for the next two days. The part of Santa Marta we stayed was called Rodadero, which is the tourist sector of Santa Marta. The hotel was nice, but not anything to write home about. The great thing was that it was only three blocks from the beach.

Shortly after arriving at the hotel, we met up with the volunteer that we would be following around the next couple days, Eric. It turns out that he was the volunteer that I had skyped with a couple months before leaving for the Peace Corps. Eric's a great guy and he's really nice; however, the first thing I noticed when we met him was that he had a bit of a "micro-mullet" going on. Here in Colombia, a very popular haircut is a mohawk that is wide and short with a very short mullet in the back. I guess Eric is really immersing himself in the culture. We went out for dinner and I ordered a dish called choripapas. This consists of a bed of shredded lettuce, french fries, chorizo slices, lots of cheese, and one tomato slice. The "piece de resistance" is this sauce that is simply know as salsa rosada, which just means pink sauce. I've been told it's just mayo and ketchup, but it's so much more. It really makes the food sing.

The next day, we went with Eric to visit an elementary school where he volunteers. In each of the classrooms, a pile of broken chair and twisted iron sits it the back corner. There is graffiti on all the desks and walls. During the first two hour-long classes, Eric did the same English lesson, teaching four different emotions: scared, hot, cold, and hurt. Ideally, according to the Peace Corps, each volunteer would plan lessons with the teachers and would have limited roles in actually teaching. However, many teachers view this help as time they can just sit back and hang out while someone else teaches their class for them. During recess, Eric was telling us about the problems the school has, many of which are pretty commonplace around Colombia. At this school, there are many displaced children who have been forced from their homes due to natural disaster, re-zoning, or one of a variety of reasons. Actually, he said that in one class we viewed, 20 of the 25 students were displaced. If a student is displaced, they are eligible for free lunch. Unfortunately, the school hasn't received any food for their lunch in over 20 days. It's a sad state of affairs.

"So what, should I just like stand here or something?

"

We returned from the school and spent some time walking up and down the beach with the other volunteers and trainees in Santa Marta. One thing I'll never forget is how warm the water is. Walking into the water is like walking into a lukewarm bath. It was amazing. That night, after we bid Eric and the other volunteers adieu, Nolan and I each got a beer and drank it as we walked down to the beach at about 10 pm. You have to love no open container laws. We hopped into the water and, as expected, it was a marvelous temperature, especially for this late at night. There were people on the beach playing soccer and playing music in the distance. A bat was swooping in circles around us, seemingly trying to catch something in the water. I didn't even know they did that. But overall, it was a great, relaxing time. I don't know if I would want to be stationed in Santa Marta for two years because Eric and the other volunteers said that it is a bit difficult to make local friends there because most of the people there are tourists, so you see new people every day.


Friday night, several of us went to a renown salsa club called La Troja. Before we got there, we had a few beers outside a corner store. Each bottle cost 1500 pesos, which is less than one American dollar. Pretty good deal, eh? La Troja is composed of a large outdoor patio area with a lot of plastic furniture and some of the loudest music I've heard. People would dance in gaps between the furniture and wherever they could find space. We danced for a while we all got pretty how and sweaty. There was a small oscillating fan on the ceiling that we all congregated around. Later, we made our way up to the second floor, which had more plastic furniture and a small dance floor. To my surprise, there were some white-"er" people dancing up there. We were dancing for a while up there when this giant man, I don't think he was Colombian, approached me and was kind enough to tell me that I was a terrible dancer. Now, I'm not the best salsa dancer, far from it, but I didn't think I was bad enough to warrant being singled out. He tried to show me a few moves, very basic ones that I already knew. Then he made me dance with his girlfriend, which only added to the embarrassment that was being heaped on me. I danced for a couple minutes, she told me I'm not that bad a dancer, which at that point was little reassurance, and then I went and sat down in a flimsy plastic chair to wallow in my own pity. Now, I know I shouldn't get too down on myself, but anyone that knows me well knows that I tend to be pretty hard on myself. So it'll be a little bit before I get the courage to go salsa dancing again, and when I do, "Andrés" the giant better not be there to shoot me down.

Hey Ladies...

This past Monday, we learned which school we will be visiting in a small group as a part of Bilingualism Week on Thursday. So we had a few hours as a group to plan a presentation and something to keep the kids' attention. The school that I was assigned to was an all-girls school called Tecnico de Comercio. This was my first time ever going to an all-girls school, so you can say I was somewhat overwhelmed. These girls had uniforms that looked like something out of sailor moon. They had the sailor top and a skirt that was probably mid-thigh height. It was an outfit that would not fly for children in the U.S. Upon arrival, we were told of our schedule for the few hours there. It was mostly Q & A sessions, so we weren't expected to do our presentation. It was fine with me, because our presentation consisted mostly of introduction, Q & A, and teaching the children a quick 2-line chant "All we are saying/ Is give peace a chance." That was one of the other volunteer's ideas because she's a big beatles fan. So, first all six of us sat in the main hall area and watched a dance they had choreographed that was basically showing the coming together of traditional Colombian dance and American dance. Then the six of us were put into a room with about 25-30 of the girls to answer their questions. Since it was Bilingualism week, the girls asked their questions in their best attempts at English. Many of the questions were easy, like "What is your favorite animal?" or "how do you like it in Barranquilla?" But then, I don't know if it was on purpose, we got a couple stumpers or loaded questions. One was "What is one negative part of our culture we should improve?" Damn kid, you don't mess around, do you? After this first sesh, we were split into pairs to go to individual classrooms to answer even more questions from students. In the classes my partner and I went to, the students were all pretty shy. I speculate that it is because they are not used to seeing such a handsome, exotic white guy in person. I don't blame them. But we really had to work to pry questions from them. After a couple classroom visits, we convened again to talk to some English teachers at the school. This was a bit of an odd session, because out of the ten or so teachers there, only three of them said anything. And when they did, it wasn't really questions for us. It was more like they were just talking. After this, we went outside to wait for our bus to come pick us up. And this is where it gets interesting...

A teacher came out and said that we should wait inside for the bus, it would be safer. So we were inside waiting while many of the girls were hanging out in the central area. There was loud salsa music being played and some girls were practicing what seemed like choreographed dances. With this music playing, i couldn't help myself but to dance a little bit in place. Many of the girls noticed this and they started to scream and cheer. Then a teacher came up to me and asked me to dance salsa with her in the center of the floor. So we started dancing together and instantly, there was huge bursts of cheers from all over and girls started to not only make a circle around us, but also lined the upper balcony that looked down on the floor. Here is a short video that my group mate took of this craziness (you might want to turn down your speakers, its a bit loud)

Spicy salsa

After that, all of us got in the center and started dancing to various genres of music: salsa, meringue, reggae-ton, even swing music. All the while we were surrounded by hundreds of screaming girls. It was unlike anything I've ever experienced. While we were dancing in the middle, occasionally some of the school girls would get up and dance with us. There was this one that started dancing with me and she was trying way to hard to grind up on me. I kept backing up and she kept forcing the issue. I somehow managed to escape her. I kinda felt bad for some of the girls that danced with me, because I became really sweaty really fast. After about 40 minutes of dancing, one of the peace corps staff told us that the bus would be here soon, so we said our goodbyes, but not before several girls asked me to be in a picture with them. So yeah, I was pretty popular there.

Pointing out our hometowns

The girls of Tecnico de Comercio. Go Fightin' Comercios!

Pictures, you say?

Have the Colombians discovered sustainable tree energy?

Me and some of me host family

There is copyright infringement all over the place. I love it.

Nice hat, eh?

Colombo? Isn't that a TV show? / Riding the crazy bus

Every day, we have training at an American University on the northern outskirts of Barranquilla called Colombo. The first half of the day is for Spanish language training. The classes are really small, mine only has three people including myself, so there is pretty individualized attention. The weird thing about the class is that it is sometimes a bit hard to follow because my Spanish isn't very strong, but then the teacher changes gears and goes into lesson befitting a beginning Spanish class ("Como te llamas? Me llamo Tyler," etc). I feel it is because they have certain curriculum that all classes have to go through and since there are some classes that have people that don't speak any Spanish, they have to start somewhere. Not I'm upset that we are going slow sometimes. It really boosts my self-esteem when I'm knocking basic verbs and phrases out of the park. Then there's lunch, which is catered for us every day by god knows who. Lunch consists of a piece of chicken or fish, rice, soup, and two sides which could be fried plantains, salad, a bag of lentils, or this tasty fried mashed potato ball. It also comes with a cup of juice. A pretty complete meal. That's how they do here in Colombia. Most meals here have most of those things. After lunch, we have mostly classes based on teaching us how to teach English as a foreign language. They also mix in a few information sessions of stuff we should know about being in Colombia. The interesting thing about the Colombo campus is that it's basically a tropical jungle for most of it. There's some exotic wildlife that inhabit the campus. Yesterday, we say a five foot long wild iguana strolling across a grass field. That was the first time I ever saw a wild iguana. There's also some tropical-ish birds. I say "ish," because I'm not a birder and I don't want to make any bold claims and anger all the birders that frequent my blog. The bad thing about the "tropicality" is the bugs. The place has so many flying bugs that always know when our lunch time is and are instantly up in our business. Also, there's the occasional group of bees that swarm anyone with coffee. I guess it has to do with the heat coming from the coffee, but then again, I'm no entomologist.

I have to hand it to the locals here. Figuring out and getting around on the bus system here requires some serious skill. First of all, there is no map of the bus routes. You just have to be one with the bus. Like a bus whisperer. There are like four or five different bus companies that go around and each one is decorated different on the inside. Many have short, tasseled curtains and random things hanging from the ceiling around the driver. Plus there are no "bus stops." You just wave down the bus to get on and push a button in the back to get off. Getting to Colombo isn't too bad, since it's in the middle of nowhere. But trying to find your corner on the way back is very stressful. First of all, the bus fill up pretty decently on the way there and by the time it reaches my corner, it's packed. Luckily we always get seats because Colombo is one of the first stops. However, in the area where my corner is, the traffic clears up, so the driver always floors it. So here we are. I'm about six or seven blocks away form my corner and closing in quickly. The bus must get to about 40-50 mph in a small 2 lane street, so I'm a bit worried about the clanky old bus disintegrating at any moment. So I have to get up and squeeze my way through a wall of people to the back door to push the stop button, which looks a lot like a doorbell. All the while I'm trying to time it so that I arrive at my corner, because I can't see out the window while I'm squeezing my way through the mass of bodies. But so far I'm two for two. Let's hope I keep up the streak.

Moving in with the host families

Sunday was the day that we learned about our host families and eventually moved in. In the morning, we each got a brief profile of each family that included each member's name, age, and relation, some local information about crime and local bus stops, preferences by the family about expected volunteer behavior, and whether they had pets. They also had a big map of Barranquilla that showed where each person was going to be living. During my interview the day before about housing, I told the staff that I loved kids and pets, so naturally they put me in a house without either. At first I was a bit worried that I wouldn't get along with them because the paper said they were a mother and father that were in their fifties and sixties and a wife in her twenties. I didn't really understand the family dynamic. But when the family got there I didn't really recognize them from the paper.I recognize the older man as the dad but there was also a man in his late twenties/early thirties. Turns out he is married to the younger woman and he must not have put himself on the form. His name was Alberto and he could speak English, but the Peace Corps wants the families to speak Spanish all the time so that the volunteers learn it better. However, I was glad he spoke English because that way if I don't know a certain word in Spanish, he can help me out. The three of us took a tiny taxi with a waiter named Johnathan from the hotel that many of us have gotten to know because he speaks good English and he's very nice. Apparently he is a good friend of Alberto.

We get to the house and, like every other house in the city, it has bars on its doors and windows. Inside, it's a bit nicer than some of the houses in the area. I'm shown my room and I was pleasantly surprised. Although it's on the small side, which I would have expected, it has a closet, mirror, and a TV with cable. But the best part is that the family has wi-fi that's actually pretty fast. The first thing that we did once I put all my thing in my room was look at some of Alberto and his wife Milly's wedding photos. These were great to look at because they both look so serious in many of them. They told me it was because they were very nervous and I don't blame them.

Soon after, Alberto took me on a walk around the barrio. The name of the barrio that we live in is called Los Andes. He showed me all the little shops, the supermarket, etc. He told me of the old mayor of Barranquilla, I think it was, that stole a lot of money that was supposed to go for improving the city, and that is one reason the park and the roads are in such poor shape. We visited a friend of his when it started to rain.

One phenomena that happens in Barranquilla when it rains is that there are many streets that do not drain well, so there are quick flowing rivers of water that form. They are called arroyos, which means stream in Spanish, but they are basically rivers. They are very dangerous and many people get swept up in them every year. We were shown pictures of piles of cars swept away by huge arroyos. So as we were walking back from Alberto's friend's house, we encountered a few arroyos. We were told never to cross one, but we ran into one that blocked our path and we couldn't go around. It was a really small one, but they didn't want to cross it on foot and get their shoes wet. Normally, one waits for a bus to come by and asks to cross, but there wasn't one coming. So Alberto came up with the genius idea of throwing bricks from a nearby pile of rubble into the arroyo. It wasn't working out so well, so Teresa, Milly's sister, decided to just wade in and fix them so we can walk across. Right as she walked in, a bus came by and we crossed to safety while she was all wet.

For dinner, the family cooked me a pretty traditional dish of beef (on the bone. I have no idea what part of the cow it was), rice, fried plantains, and this strange drink that consisted of a soda very similar to Big Red but they added chunks of watermelon. It was tasty, but very hard to drink because I had to keep sifting the contents of my mouth to pick out the black seeds. The strange thing was, though, as I was eating this huge dish of food, everyone else was eating just bread. I was a bit uncomfortable and I was wondering if I was basically forcing them to eat bread in order to afford to feed me this. The said that many families like themselves eat a big lunch and usually just bread or something small for dinner. They say it's healthier that way. Perhaps.

The Hotel Caribe Files

I decided to start a new post because the last one was getting pretty long. So the group of Peace Corps volunteers are staying at the Hotel Caribe from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon for a variety of presentations about Peace Corps policies, what to expect, Spanish diagnostic sessions, and more. The hotel was not anything to sneeze at. They fed us three square meals a day. Breakfast was some form of eggs with bread; just ok. But lunch and dinner consisted of some meat, chicken or beef or one night ham wrapped in chicken, smothered in gravy or sweet fruity sauce, really tasty rice, mashed potatoes, and some kind of vegetable side. Plus they gave you a glass of quality fruit juice that could be guava, passion fruit, or some other flavor that belongs in a pack of tropical starburst. I approved. There were a few vegetarians in the group and since everyone got the same thing, they usually offered their meat to someone else. I got a few of these extra portions, but Chance "The Garbage Disposal" usually sought out these people immediately at each meal to strike some sort of deal for their meat. One dinner, I swear, he must have had four portions of meat. I must say I was impressed.

One thing I'll always remember is how almost all of the Peace Corps staff are very distinct characters that make for hilarious impressions. Adam does the best impressions of them, but everyone has their own take on each staff member.
There's Oscar, who is native to South America. He has a soothing and hypnotizing Latin American accent and always has an extra button on his shirt undone just for good measure. He could definitely be in a local old spice commercial. Once he met with me to talk about my host family and what things, if anything, I would need them to know. We were sitting on a balcony because it is always hot here and the balcony had a nice breeze. As he was talking to me, the wind was blowing his hair ever so gently and his gratuitously unbuttoned shirt was billowing in the wind. It was like I was in a dream. For a second, I think he was on a white horse, but I'm not entirely sure.
There's Bill, who is the Bert to Oscar's Ernie. He has two voice tones. Monotone and Super monotone. I'm pretty sure Oscar must dislike Bill because often during Oscar's presentations, Bill would but in with, "what Oscar is trying to say is..." when usually we all understand. Once Oscar was talking about the local tiendas and Bill interjects, "By the way, tienda means store." Thank you Bill, for the Spanish 0 refresher course.
The yin to Bill's yang is Danny. He is this spunky older man from Fort Worth that is always upbeat and seems to refuse to pick up any kind of local accent. Its really funny hearing him speak Spanish. I don't really know much about Danny except that he loves pancakes and has an awesome straw hat.
And finally there's Frank, the security coordinator. No matter how dangerous Colombia is, I'll always feel safe if Frank has my back. He looks like an ex-marine that's done some stuff that normal people only see in movies. He gave us crime stats for the area, which were much higher than I expected, especially murders. He says that contract killings are the 2nd highest form of crime overall. And he says these things so matter-of-factly, so i feel like I shouldn't worry, but then I see the figures and I do worry a bit, but I know Frank will "take care" of anyone that gives us trouble.

On Saturday, Mike, Nolan, Samantha and I recorded a podcast with Chance. We talked about some of the things we are going through in the training. Chance has been making and will be making podcasts, so thats something you should check out at http://peacecorpspodcast.com/

Bienvenidos a Colombia

This is the first blog post I have been able to do because the last few days have been pretty hectic and I finally have some time to sit down and do this. I should start at the beginning. The trip to Miami for staging was quite the ordeal. I flew out of SFO in San Francisco at around 11pm this past Tuesday and I was scheduled to arrive in Miami at about 11am the next morning, factoring in the time change. My staging sign in was at 12:30, so I was getting there just in time. I barely got any sleep on the plane, and when I arrived in Miami, I realized I didn't know where the hotel the staging was going to held. I figured I could just use the wi-fi at the airport to find it, since I had the address in my e-mail. I found out that I had to pay to use wi-fi there, so I decided to bite the bullet and pay, but I had to figure out how to do that first. I ran all over the airport and asked four different people how to do this and no one knew anything. I finally found someone who could help and I eventually got to the hotel at about 12:15, just enough time to scarf down most of a melted Twix bar I had in my pocket before going to the sign in. And of course I didn't have my paperwork done beforehand because I figured I would have some time once I got to the hotel, so I quickly filled them out and thus began my Peace Corps Career.

I didn't know what to expect in terms of other volunteers before coming to staging, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone I talked to was friendly and outgoing, which is great for me because I am normally somewhat withdrawn by nature, no matter how hard I try to be outgoing, and being with such friendly people helps me break out of my shell. Staging mostly consisted of icebreakers and some Peace Corps policy review. That night, at the end of staging, they gave us some money to reimburse our traveling expenses, which I definitely did not expect. So all of us decided to find a place to go out to dinner. There is 23 of us, so it was not easy to accommodate everyone. We went to a seafood grill and, for some reason, I ordered a burger. I figured that since we all will be living by the coast, we will be eating a lot of seafood, so I ordered an American specialty. The burger was pretty mediocre, but since it was the only thing I ate besides a twix bar in 24 hours, it tasted pretty damn good. When we got back, most people went to bed, since we had to be ready to go at 4:30am the next morning. However, I hang out with the guys in the hotel bar until about midnight as we were living up our last night in the US.

Needless to say, getting up in the morning was not easy, but at least going through the Miami airport went smoothly. We flew from there to Panama and from there to Barranquilla. We flew on Copa Airlines out of Panama and I have to say, they know how to fly. It was a short flight, I think around an hour, but they served many different kinds of alcohol and gave out mystery meat sandwiches. I didn't get alcohol because I was running on very little sleep and I felt like anything I drank would get me real drunk, or at least semi-belligerent.

We were greeted by some Peace Corps staff members at the airport. There was Jason, who has a pretty thick Minnesotan accent, George, Frank, who I believe must be ex-CIA and is someone you can tell has seen some shit, and Danny, who I would come to know as one of the most adorable old men ever. I'll talk about these guys later. The drive from the airport to the hotel took about a half hour and we drove through possibly the sketchiest area in Barranquilla, a neighborhood called Soledad. There were crazy drivers, people running around all over the street, and donkeys pulling carts. This was quite the ghetto. I was just glad when I found out we'd be staying in a much better part of town. We eventually got to our hotel, Hotel Caribe. After a quick presentation from Peace Corps staff, we carried our giant luggage up to our rooms. I roomed with Mike and Nolan in a pretty big room with a great view of the immediate area.