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.