Life is not a chick flick

The street artist I’d passed just a few minutes before caught up to me a block later.  “What do I have to do for you to let me draw your portrait?” he asked.  He invited me out for a drink.  I declined.  “Do you like ice cream?” he asked.  I countered with a question of my own, “Why are you asking me out?”  “I’m in love with you!” he declared, “You’re the princess of my life”.

But, unfortunately, life is not a chick flick.  He was not young and devastatingly handsome.   I didn’t find myself  swept away in some romantic fairy tale. Instead, I laughed, and walked away.  

San Gil, a photo journal: Friday April 6

7:00 am
Another beautiful morning, and I wander off in search of breakfast.  I'm disappointed (and astonished) that the first bakery I peak into doesn't have hot chocolate.  By the time I make it to the bakery by the river, I realize I don't really have time to sit down and order breakfast.  I get a buñuelo and a cold oatmeal drink to go and head back to the hotel.

8:30 am
We head over to the office and wait for our ride.  We drive along the river again until we reach a small town where La Cueva del Indio (The Indian's cave) awaits us.  We suit up- hard hats with headlamps and life jackets- and then walk across town to the cave's entrance.  Our guide tells us a little bit about it's history on the way.  Supposedly back in the 1600 when the Spanish Conquistadors were taking over the region, the local Indian tribe hid in the cave to escape slavery.  The Spanish eventually found them there though.

It's a gorgeous sunny morning and I dash down the pathway to the caves entrance.  "slow down!" the guide admonishes me.  I laugh to the girls, in English, "some people like long walks on the beach.  I like haphazardly running downhill in the woods.  Preferably barefoot."

We duck into the cave (which, the guide tells us, is more accurately a cavern- caves have only one entrance, caverns have multiple entrances.)  It's dark and smells bad.  Lots of bats live here he informs us.

After navigating the first passageway easily- it's wide here and the ceilings aren't low- we come to a large open area.  The guide instructs us to sit down and turn out our head lamps.  As soon as we sit, we here the wings around us.  Bats swoop low.  Some people scream.  It's a bit creepy, but I'm not scared; I went to too many state park service campfire talks growing up and read too many magic school bus books not to know that bats are good, mostly.  They eat insects.  They know where we are and aren't likely to fly into us by accident, and have no desire to fly into us on purpose.  Finally, after our eyes have accustomed to the dark, the guide turns on his flashlight and shines it towards the roof of cave- there are hundreds of bats clinging to the walls.  He whistles and some of them take off flying.

We head on to another section of the cave where there's an underground river.  They have to close the cave when the weather is very wet or it's impassable.  We wade through water up to our hips.  We're cold and muddy.  We pass an area where stalactites and stalagmites have joined, forming columns.

Farther on we reach a drop off, the water flows below us.  "Now it's time to jump!" instructs our guide. We jump in, obediently, braced for the cold water.  Then, he walks around to the other side, and we realize there was a way around jumping in.  We should have figured that out when just moments later he has us army crawl through a tunnel, and then takes a different much wider passage to catch up to us.

The end of the cave tour is the scariest.  The part of the path we are following ends at a 5 meter cliff.  The river runs below us.  There's a ladder down to the river, but the 8 or 10 year old boys we're with jump into the water.  Then their parents do.  Then Rae Ann and Ingrid do.  It's just Jen and I left.  I can't be outdone by a 10 year old, so I count to 3, and then freeze.  The water looks so far away.  I try it again.  Finally, I jump.  It takes forever to hit the water, and when I do, despite my life jacket, I sink beneath the surface.  My back almost touches the bottom before my life jacket carries me back to the top.

We swim and wade, following the river back up to the light of day.  We've covered about a kilometer and a half underground, down hill almost the whole way, and we have to climb back uphill through the woods, our wet, muddy clothes somewhat drying in the sun.

12:30 pm
Back in San Gil we're hungry and ready for lunch.  It's Good Friday and all inter-city public transportation is closed for the day, so we decide to just relax and enjoy the city.

After a mediocre lunch, we each go our separate ways.  I walk downtown in search of the perfect photo.   I love the colonial architecture of the city.  

One of the things I love the most are the balconies.  In my mind, I design my dream house.  It will be painted beautiful bold pastels, and have a balcony.

Children are playing in the fountain on this warm, sunny day and chasing pigeons in the park.  There's a painting exhibition with local artists painting outside in the park. I pause to admire their work, wishing I were brave enough to ask to photograph them painting up close, but I don't. 

I run into Rae Ann in the park and we head down to the river together.  She decides to buy the specialty in this department of Colombia- hormigas culonas- a large deep fried ant.  We buy the little packet, do some souvenir window shopping, meet up with the other girls, and then head back to the hotel to try our new "treat"

5:30 pm
We have to work up the nerve to actually eat the ants.  One by one, taking pictures as we go, we pop the ants in our mouths.  They're not as bad as you'd think a giant fried ant might be.  They're crunchy and salty, and not so bad at first, but the oily aftertaste makes me want to wash it down with lots of water.

7:00 pm
We head off downtown to eat some street food.  We buy corn on the cob and shish-kebabs. It starts to drizzle but we decide we need some ice cream.  Once again, our adventures have tired us out and we all go to bed before it's too late.

(not so) Ordinary chaos

As they always seem to whenever I walk in the door, a million things greeted me at once.  When I finally managed to slip upstairs to print out tests for Julian, it seemed like things were going smoothly- the computer was on, the printer connected, pages even started to print.  I breathed a sigh of relief, went to open the last document and tell it to print when there was a sudden pop and hiss sound.  The computer went dead.  The printer stopped working.  And then, I looked down.  The cord connecting the surge protector to the outlet was on fire.  Sparks were spitting everywhere.  I looked at it, frozen in indecision.  The flame looked too large to just stomp out, besides, stomping on a sparking electrical cord didn't seem like the brightest decision.  I looked around- I think you're supposed to smother electrical fires, right? I thought to myself.  There was nothing around that seemed too helpful- newspapers, Fabian's sweatshirt (ok, as a last resort, but the fire wasn't spreading yet).  I looked anxiously at the wood floor.  I better figure out something, and soon.  I ran downstairs and burst into a classroom, "You're not supposed to put out an electrical fire with water, right?" I asked breathlessly.  Ana Yivi and Julian looked up, concerned.  "There's a fire upstairs!  Will you help Julian?" I asked.  "Use the yellow fire extinguisher" suggested Ana Yivi.  I dashed downstairs, grabbed the fire extinguisher, and headed back upstairs.  It must have almost burnt itself out in the meantime, because Julian told me he blew it out.  It was definitely bigger than blowing out size when I ran downstairs.

**********

The internet had been on again off again, so we called the internet provider.  They came and fiddled around, supposedly "fixed" things, but I soon realized that while the wireless network was working better, the internet was now completely non-functioning on my office computer.  It was Wednesday, Juan, who helps with all our tech problems, was already on the way out the door.  He only comes once a week.  The next Wednesday rolled around.  Juan fiddled with my computer between classes.  He got the internet back up and running, and then decided to upgrade my CPU, switching it for a better one in the computer room.  He finished up as I was leaving for the day.  Thursday, my computer wouldn't turn on.  It still won't start a week later, and he isn't able to come tomorrow.  No computer, no internet... it's hard to get my work done when I can't even access my documents.

**********

I've been trying to get one of my student's parents to come in for weeks.  She never came back after she enrolled him to finish filling out paperwork, and we've been having disciplinary issues, so we really needed to meet.  I finally did what I hate to do- set an ultimatum: Come to school on Tuesday or your son will not be able to come to school on Wednesday.  Her appointment at 10 came and went and she never showed up.  I was busy and lost track of time, and then had to sub a class.  I called when the class was over.  No answer.  Finally, sometime after lunch, she called me back.  "You had an appointment at the school", I reminded her.  "I'm just wondering what happened".  "Oh, I'm on my way," she told me.  Two hours passed and she still hadn't shown up.  I rang the bell to dismiss students and tried calling her one last time.  "I'll be right there!" She told me.  "You need to be here in 10 minutes, or I may have already left", I told her.  Finally, 5 hours after her scheduled appointment, she appeared.  At least we got to talk, and I can let her son come to school tomorrow.  

**********

"Katrina's on the phone for you, Annie", Lilia told me.  She was calling to let me know that the Former Colombian Interior Minister was targeted in a car bomb attack and that I should let the staff know that they should take extra precautions and make sure they told someone where they were going and when they expected to be back.  Around the same time Ana Yivi came in to let me know pretty much the same thing.  I called the school where our continuing ed students go and asked them to please tell the children to take a bus on the septima, and not the transmilenio, since the car bomb had gone off on the Caracas, the same route the transmilenio takes.  When everyone was together for lunch, I let all the staff know they should take extra precautions and encouraged the children to go straight home after school and stay away from the Caracas.

**********

These past few weeks have been a bit crazier than usual, though there's always something going on. Maybe it does help to explain why I've been overwhelmed and stressed lately though.  Fires, bombings,   not being able to get my work done when I am at work.  Hmm, I guess that might explain it. 

Field trip!

Mist over the mountains

Last Tuesday was a holiday, so we decided to take advantage of a free day to take some of our older continuing education students on a field trip.  The church of Monserrate is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Bogotá.  It's on the mountain overlooking the city and has amazing views. The walking path up to it was closed shortly before I first arrived in Bogotá, and just reopened the end of last year, and I've been wanting to go since then.

The morning didn't look to promising- grey clouds covered the sky as it gently drizzled outside. We met the kids outside the jungle around 8am and walked through the city towards downtown.  I noticed as we talked our breath coming out in puffs of white.  I wasn't sure that  a cold, grey, drizzly day was the best for this, but we were committed now.  Jessica bought some bread at the local bakery to share with the kids since not all of them had eaten, and we started off.

The girls taking a break at the top

We hadn't walked very far when we passed our first group of riot control police.  The girls were unconcerned, "oh, yeah, there's a march today", they mentioned.  Jessica and I looked at each other, slightly more concerned.  "It's labor day, it's a workers march" I said.  "I don't think it should be violent."  As we approached the Septima (the main street leading through down town) I became a bit more worried.  Riot police lined both sides of the street, with a sprinkling of regular police thrown in for good measure.  "Who's idea was it anyway to take a bunch of kids on a field trip through a protest march?" I muttered, "oh, right, it was my idea. . . " Jessica went over to ask what time the march was coming through and how long it would last.  They weren't sure, but it wasn't expected to get violent.  As we crossed the street we realized we were just in time- we could just see the beginning wave of marchers headed towards us and hear them chanting.

The church of Monserrate

ferns and moss growing along the way

We left the march behind and headed to the foot of the mountains and the entrance to the pathway.  Our beginning altitude was somewhere around 8,832 feet above sea level.  (That's roughly 3, 600 feet higher than Denver, CO).  The path up to Monserrate is steep as you climb over 1,500 feet in altitude over the course of roughly a mile and a half.  The mixture of gorgeous views of the city with beautiful Andean mountain forest makes it well worth the burning lungs.  Half of the group took off running, but I stayed behind with the kids who wanted to take it slow.  We stopped for pictures, just to catch our breath, and to buy freshly sliced pineapple and bananas at a stand at the half way point.  It was still drizzling off and on, but walking had warmed us all up and my sweatshirt was off.  I was actually feeling glad it wasn't sunny.  The sun at this altitude and latitude is strong, making it feel hotter than the air temperature is.

View of the city on a grey day

Jessica and I

Mass was in session when we arrived, so we didn't go inside the church.  We sat outside and bought almojabanas and ripe roasted plantain with cheese and bocadillo (a guava based sweet)  to share with the kids.  It got cold sitting still in the shade of the church, so we got up to explore.  There are a lot of souvenir shops, an outdoor "stations of the cross", and a path to the view of the mountainsides behind the church.

The souvenir shops

We finally decided it was time to head back down, and started off running down the mountain.  Stone steps that are wet from rain are not easy to navigate, so running didn't last long, at least not for most of us.  When we got to the
bottom, hot and tired, with the sun finally peeking out from the clouds a bit, Edwin bought us all ice pops from a street vendor.

That's when I wished we could take a bus back, because we still had almost 2 miles to walk across town to get back to where we started.  We finally made it, saying goodbye to kids along the way as they passed their homes.  Six and a half miles of walking had tired me out, so I decided lunch and a nap were a good way to spend the rest of my holiday.