A different world

Spring has been struggling to arrive in Finland- the buds are coming out on the trees, but for every one spring-like day that made me think spring had surely arrived, there were a half dozen days of "takatalvi" a Finnish word for the winter that comes back after you think spring has arrived.

So, Tuesday night, I was walking through a snow shower, bundled in my hat and scarf and gloves and coat, and now here I am sitting barefoot in a hammock with tropical plants blooming around me.  It's been a rather dramatic change.

Finland

Guatemala

It isn't just the climate that's changed. The architecture, the flavors, the colors, the people, the language, everything around me is about as different as you can get.

Finland

Guatemala

Today I walked up a hill overlooking Antigua and sat to enjoy the view.  An older woman was sitting next to me. "It's a pretty view, isn't it?" she asked, then proceeded to tell me how she and her brother were visiting Antigua for the first time and were from a village on the other side of the volcano.  She asked where I was from, what I was doing in Guatemala, how long I would be there, then wished me a pleasant stay in Guatemala when I wandered off to take photos.  She's not the only one.  I've learned bits and pieces of the life story of half a dozen people here and they've learned bits and pieces of mine.  Quite a change from Finland where I can count the social interactions I had with strangers in 2 years: one conversation with a stranger in a bank, a brief introduction from a stranger on the bus, and 2 people asking for directions.  I'm pretty sure I'm in a different world. And while Finland is a wonderful place, I'm incredibly happy to be here in Guatemala now!

Finland

Guatemala

Longing for the sun

My "winter blues" treatment plan

I haven't seen the sun in days.  Weeks, maybe.  It's not that the sun doesn't rise; I'm not that far north. We've just had 100% cloud cover for almost the entire month of November.  Sure, there was one sunny day 2 weeks ago.  I admired the blue behind the clouds as I rode the bus to church, and then, peeking out the window during the service I saw as the sky gradually cleared.  By the time I left church around 1:30, the sky was completely blue.  As I walked to meet a friend for coffee, I stopped in the park to turn my face to the sun and marvel at how warm it felt, even on a cold wintery day.  We sat near the window to enjoy the blue sky, but by the time we left, 2 hours later, it was already dusk, the sun setting for the day.  


But since then, I've only caught a glimpse of the sun 3 or 4 times, peeking out from behind the clouds.  I may or may not have squealed, "my shadow!" out loud a week or so ago, when the sun peeked out long enough for me to cast one.  It might help if there were snow, and we have had a couple of days of white loveliness everywhere, but then it warms up to just above freezing, and there's nothing but mud and dead brown and grey everywhere.  Every day.  Except when it's dark (which is about 18 hours a day) Every morning, when the sun finally "comes up" around 9, I open my curtains, hoping for a glimpse of blue.  It's usually the same view:

(In case you're fooled by that glowing, lighter area in the clouds, that's not the sun.
That's the reflection of my lamp through the window)

It's hard to deal with that kind of weather, day after day, week after week and wonder if it will stay this way til March.  I've been feeling extremely tired, lethargic, drained of energy, of hope, of ambition.  I was starting to feel like maybe there was something wrong with me, til I got together with friends the other night.  Turns out we all feel the same way.  Going out at night (which right now means anytime after about 4 pm) takes a sort of battle of the will.  Getting out of bed in the morning requires another (if it's the weekend and I have to turn on the light in my bedroom to read, it's not really light enough to get up, right?  Oh, wait, that means I have to stay in bed all day) I'm fantasizing of moving to somewhere warm and sunny.  I've heard the weather is great year round in Guatemala. . . But since I have a pesky matter of a thesis to finish I guess I'll just have to deal with it.  And take my vitamin D supplement and eat chocolate, and drink a glass of wine now and then.

Sometimes

Sometimes, when it's 50 degrees and rainy, and the wind is blowing in my face as I bike back home, and my hands are freezing where they grip the handlebars because I didn't think it was cold enough to need gloves, sometimes, I allow myself to think about what life would be like if I'd never left the States.

I imagine myself- this would be my 10th year teaching.  Would I still be at Lincoln?  Would I have an established set of friends that I'd known for years?  Maybe I'd even have met someone and gotten married.  Possibly I'd have had a kid.  Surely by now I would have bought a house and I'd be making mortgage payments.  I would have a car; rain and cold and late dark nights would only be minor inconveniences.  I'd have a paycheck automatically deposited in the bank every 2 weeks.  I wouldn't have to worry about exchange rates and international money transfers.  I'd have a living room.  And probably, in my kitchen, I would have things like cupcake tins and casserole dishes.

As I'm biking, cold and wet and miserable, I envy that imaginary self, the one who never left. The imagined security and coziness, the imagined roots.  But then I stop myself.  My life might not be rich in things right now, but I don't want to measure my life by things.

Glancing at my shelf, the latest children's books I borrowed to practice Finnish catch my eye. Along with Moomins, the Finnish children's cartoon I watch while I eat my breakfast, they're my fun way to learn Finnish.  I am rich in opportunities to learn.

Fanny's living room was cozy, and the 6 of us sat around, our conversation zig-zagging from the past to the future and back again, until we decided it was time to cut the cake and sing happy birthday to Jhania.  I am rich in friends.

On Sunday at church, I sang How Great Thou Art in 3 different languages.  There was something about the beauty of a familiar song in an unfamiliar language surrounded by my brothers and sisters in another country that almost brought tears to my eyes. I am rich in fellowship.

I was a little nervous leaving Switzerland as the passport control officer looked suspiciously at my passport. "How long have you been here?" he asked.  "In the Schengen zone?  Since January, I think. . ." I said, quickly fishing for my German residence permit so he'd know I hadn't illegally stayed past the 3 month tourist limit.  He waved me on, and I headed off to Croatia, officially my 24th foreign country to visit.  I am rich in travel adventures.

Later this week I will take a walk to a nearby pine forest to look for pinecones.  The leaves are changing colors and the river glimmers with reflected lights when I'm downtown after dark.  I am rich in beauty.

Most of all, I am rich in grace.  This journey that I've been on across continents has shaken me to my core.  I'm not the same person I used to be.  I am sometimes bitter, sometimes cynical, and often discouraged.  But, I am always being filled and refilled with grace.  And because of that, because all these unmeasurable riches have made me who I am today and because, most days, I like who I'm becoming, I'm glad I took the risk.  I might not have a fully stocked kitchen.  But I am rich.

What are you rich in?

This Beautiful Adventure

I'm so happy to see Anna's smiling face at the airport, that I almost re-enact the scene from Spanglish when Flor runs into the sliding glass door.  Her words as she greets us, "I did manage to get a car after all" make 2 travelers, overladen with bags, more than happy.  She hands us "Welcome to Germany" snack bags she made for us, anticipating we'd be hungry after our long day of travel.  When I see a soft pretzel inside, I'm sure of it, I've come to the right place.

After a 2 hour drive from Munich,  the thought on our minds as we open the door to our rooms is "I wonder if we won the lottery, or we lost it?" 1 person apartment, 2 person apartment, or dorm room with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities for 10?  Those are the possibilities in this building.  As the door swings open I glance quickly around: bed, bookshelf, desk, wardrobe, and YES! another door next to the wardrobe.  I think I've won the lottery.  The 2nd door leads to a tiny little kitchen with a bathroom off of it, and a 2nd bedroom on the other side, and I'm lucky enough that Liza, one of my classmates, got the key to it.

The next day, as we hurry from one errand to the next, we can't help but stop and admire.  From one bank of the Danube river, the cathedral and houses reflect into the water below.  The perfect blue sky is such a relief after nearly a month of grey skies in Turku.  I stop in delight- there are snowdrops and crocuses growing in a garden.  Not only have we arrived in a fairy tale, we've arrived here in spring.

Today, orientation over, I head off to try and open a bank account.  I'm not successful in the attempt (the bank closes at 12:30 on Wednesdays. . .), but I do manage to find the German equivalent of a dollar store (a euro store).  Nothing is cheap in Finland, so finding rolls of tape in a 5 pack for a euro, and notebooks for .55 here made me excited.  Now I know where to go if I need toothpicks or batteries or random party supplies.  On my way back, a double church steeple catches my eye.  I make a detour, hoping for a closer view, delighted at such a pretty church, right here in my neighborhood.

I'm here, starting a new adventure, studying a new map, meeting new people, stumbling through words in a new language.  It's lovely and challenging, and exhausting and thrilling.

Weekends

I've been loving weekends lately.  Last weekend we had two perfect days.  The sky was cloudless, which is rare in Bogotá.  On Sunday we headed to Parque Simón Bolívar after church.  I couldn't have asked for a better day.  It was sunny and breezy.  I lazed around and took pictures and enjoyed the sun on my face- exactly what I needed.  

We ate a picnic lunch and bought ice cream from vendors in the park.

 It was so nice we stayed until sunset and didn't even get cold (again, unusual in Bogotá- 4 layers a day is my average)

This weekend the weather hasn't been great, but I've been wanting to make an apron for ages and my friend brought back a sewing machine after her last trip to the States and we went to a fabric outlet on Tuesday, so I had everything I needed, other than matching thread.  So, Saturday after getting housecleaning out of the way, I headed across town to buy thread and then came home and made this apron.  Pretty cute, if I do say so myself.  I found a picture on the internet that I liked and, better yet, a partial photo of the pattern, so with that I figured out how to put it together.

Of course, a new apron means I had to do something with it.  We have an 8 year old staying at our house this weekend, and I had some peanut butter chips that friends from church sent in a package, so chocolate peanut butter chip cookies seemed like the best option.

He was excited to use the mixer, and I was excited to eat amazing cookies and wear my fun new apron.  Win-win situation.  

If you're in the neighborhood and stop by within the next 24 hours, I just may have some cookies to share.  ;)

A rainy Sunday

A rainy Sunday morning, 6am and I'm wide awake. It's a good thing though, I told a friend I'd bring dessert to a picnic Sunday afternoon, and now I have time to bake before church. Of course, the only thing I have in the house is flour which won't get me very far.

I head out into the quiet streets at 7. One lone car drives past, spraying water from the small lake that's accumulated from the night's rain. The corner store opens late on Sundays, but it doesn't matter, the bakery should sell everything I need.

I buy a stick of butter, a dozen eggs for baking and breakfast, a small bag of sugar, and chocolate bars for making hot chocolate, the closest thing to baking chocolate I've found. I buy 8 hot rolls just out of the oven, and a sweet donut-like creation with arequipe inside.

Back at home, as I mix my brownie batter, I pray they'll come out well- between a lack of real measuring cups, a gas oven with no temperature settings, and high altitude, baking is hit and miss for me here. The fact that I halved the sugar since the chocolate was pre-sweetened doesn't make me any more confident in the consistency.

The brownies are out now, cooling on the counter. They look to be a little different than normal, but nothing like my failed coffee cake from last weekend. Now I'm enjoying a quiet cup of tea before heading to a new church I'm trying out that's just around the corner.

Why does it have to be so complicated?

My sweater smelled like mildew yesterday when I pulled it on, not because I’d left it sitting in the washer for too long but because with the rainy, cold, damp weather and our much too dark area where clothes hang to dry, it takes so long to dry that some things just smell like mildew.

It was the last straw. Sara and Stephen and I have been talking about buying a dryer, and Sara and I decided to go after work to buy one. In Bogota, everything has it’s own section in town. Sara had just happened to run into appliances while looking for shoes the other day. So, we set off in a drizzle that soon turned into a downpour, feeling thankful that soon we would have a dryer and wouldn’t be worried about damp sweatshirts.

On 15, shop after shop of gleaming appliances waited for us. We walked in and out of stores, comparison shopping. It wasn’t until somewhere around the 7^th store that we ran into trouble. “Sure we have electric dryers”, the man said, “for 220 voltage”. We looked at each other, confused. “Is there any other kind of voltage here?” we asked. Turns out there is- 110. We had no idea what kind of voltage we have, so we called our friend Tony who’s done some electrical work for us. We have 110. Turns out they don’t make dryers for 110 voltage, and if you try to run a 220 dryer on 110 voltage you won’t get good results (I’m not really clear if it takes longer, costs twice as much, doesn’t fully dry the clothes or all of the above)

Between the 3 salesmen we talked to on our way back (as they helpfully asked if we’d found anything after all) we learned we basically have 3 options- 1. Learn to live with mildewy clothes and waiting days for dry jeans and towels. 2. Get a gas run dryer. Call the gas company to come out and give us a quote on what it would cost to put in another gas hookup, then have them do the physical labor. Or 3. Get a “trifasica” which is some sort of converter operation or something which changes your voltage.

I’m frustrated because I was hoping to have a dryer delivered today, and instead now we have to make phone calls and do research and hope that notoriously slow service here doesn’t mean we don’t actually not end up with a dryer for months. We’ll also end up spending more money since neither the trifasica nor the gas hookup sound like inexpensive options.

Oh well. Such is life.

Sol solecito

sol, solecito, calientame un poquito

por hoy, por mañana, por toda la semana

(the beginning of a popular children's rhyme- sun, sunshine, warm me up a little bit, today, tomorrow and all week long)

Today was sunny! After work I went for a walk. I was pretty sure I had seen a "This is your park- live it!" sign somewhere on the 127, so I went in search of Parque el Country.

It was a delightful surprise in the middle of the city- wide open green space surrounded by hedges that cut out almost all the traffic sounds, a deserted old stable yard, and an amazing blue sky full of backlit clouds.

The day felt like a gift from God. On my walk to take the bus this morning, cutting through a different park, several little birds swooped low, chattering in a birdsong I'd never heard before. I stopped to watch them, delighted, realizing I didn't need to rush quite as much as I was to make it on time. A woman, coming from the opposite direction smiled at me, "they're greeting you", she said. Waiting for the bus, Peter said "if it's sunny like this in the morning, it will stay sunny all day, I promise". I prayed with my students during devotions that it would stay sunny, and then reveled in the sunshine during recess, on my walk to the bank to pay my insurance, and as I walked barefoot through the park, the thick grass squishy beneath my toes. A long anticipated ice cream cone from an ice cream parlor that I've been wanting to try for months ended my afternoon in the sun.

Rain, rain go away. . .

It's raining. Again. Today, hail fell while the kids were inside watching a movie since recess doesn't work out so well in that sort of weather. It was so cold inside, I could see my breath. I've become a master at wearing layers- tank top, long sleeved shirt, cardigan, sweatshirt and a heavier sweatshirt on top. I'm tired of rain.

Rain is so de-motivating. I'm feeling frustrated about a misunderstanding with a friend, and I just want to go outside and walk it off. I'm thinking about maybe making finger paints or no-bake cookies with my kids on Friday, and I could go to the store to pick up the ingredients I need, but I don't feel like it in the rain. I'm housebound and restless with my lessons for tomorrow already set to go. I guess I'll curl up with a good book and pray that one of these afternoons, the sun will be out on my way home and I can stop in the park and enjoy the outdoors again.

A very Bogota day

The short version

Bikes

Waiting in line

Rain

Buses

Almuerzo Executivo

Museo de Oro

Juan Valdez Cafe

Septimazo

Transmilenio

The long version

Ever since I got to Bogota, I've been saying I never want to drive here. Today, I decided that riding a bike might be worse. Edwin and Alex left their bikes at our house the other day, so we decided to ride over in the morning and leave them at their house. Bikes have no rear view mirrors. They have no side view mirrors. Nothing separates you from the cars that pass too close. I suddenly realized how full Bogota is of potholes. And, we didn't even have helmets. We mostly took residential roads with very little traffic, but it was still a harrowing experience.

On our way back to the 127 house, we stopped at the bank so I could pay my insurance bill. Here, to pay bills, rather than sending checks or paying automatically online, you go to a bank, fill out a form that identifies the institution you are paying your bill to, and then stand in line with all the other people paying their phone, water, insurance, gas, electric and who knows what other bills. We waited for 40 minutes. When I finally got to the front of the line, I realized I'd written my cedula (Colombian issued id) number on the line, instead of my passport number which is the number I'd used to register for my insurance. I had to go back and fill out all my forms again, but fortunately then I could jump to the head of the line.

While we were in the bank, it started to rain. Fortunately, we were on bikes so the trip to the 127 house didn't take 40 minutes. Unfortunately, rain makes riding a bike even scarier and harder. We showed up, soaking wet and cold. We hung out til we were hungry and realized if we were going to do any site seeing it was now or never.

We caught a bus to the center and, guided by our stomachs, walked into a place serving "almuerzo ejecutivo". These set lunches are served all over in Colombia. They usually start with soup, then you have rice, beans, a small salad and your choice from 2 or 3 different kinds of meat. They're tasty, more food than I can finish, and usually cost around $2 or $3. The 3 of us split 2 lunches and then wandered through the drizzle until we found the Gold Museum. They have, I believe, the world's best collection of pre-Colombian gold artifacts. It's a nice museum with incredible exhibits and a lot of great information on gold and metal-work, the culture of the indigenous groups who lived here before the conquistadors arrived, and the significance of the different gold ornaments.

We followed up our visit to the Gold Museum by going to Juan Valdez Cafe. Think the Colombian version of Starbucks, complete with comfy chairs and tempting pastries.

By the time we left Juan Valdez, Septimazo had already started and Anna wanted an arepa, so we walked along Septima in the drizzle. Tuesday is Independence day, so there were stages set up with school kids' performances and someone rapping, as well as a parade complete with people on stilts and a small army of Simon Bolivars with giant heads.

When we were chilled to the bone and had seen all there was to see, we headed back home on the Transmilenio. On our way back, we stopped at the grocery store for 30 eggs (it's a whole lot cheaper to buy them that way than to buy them by the dozen) so we could make pancakes for dinner. Pancakes and home fries rounded off our very Bogota day with an American ending.