Baru: First Impressions

Hello from Santa Ana! I have survived finishing orientation, moving/starting to adjust to Santa Ana, a week of teacher meetings, the first two days of school, moto and ferry rides, drinking some tap water, a bucket shower, and ridiculous heat and humidity! Tomorrow marks a month in Colombia, and I still haven't been sick at all, by the way (knocking on wood right now). It definitely doesn't feel like February here, it feels like....extreme summer, I suppose.

The 8 of us Baru volunteers flew into Cartagena on Saturday the 22^nd. I will never forget watching the screen on the seat in front of me as the plane was landing. 60 degrees, still way up there in the air....descending...70 degrees...descending...80 degrees...landing....86 degrees plus almost 100% humidity. Now I know why when I would check Cartagena on weather.com it would say “86 degrees, feels like 99.” Leaving the plane was like walking into a green house, and I haven't left that green house since then, although I have adjusted to it considerably.

We hopped into trucks for the first leg of our 1 to 2 hour (depends) trip to Isla de Baru. Another entry about Baru transportation to follow later. We left Cartagena, said goodbye to paved streets in Pasacaballos, crossed the canal, and drove 20 minutes or so though dust and potholes to Santa Ana.

                                                               Crossing the canal

I have to say—I can't lie—my first thought in Santa Ana was “what have I gotten myself into now?” I felt, and still feel like I've stepped into a rural Africa that speaks Spanish (although the Spanish here on the coast sometimes doesn't sound a lot like what I learned!). According to my friend who spent time in rural Tanzania, this observation isn't far from the truth. Fortunately, my “What am I doing here?!” outlook has changed drastically since then, although I know the culture shock is far from over.

Santa Ana is an Afro-Colombian pueblo of 5,000 to 6,000 people. The community here was formed when slaves whom were once living in Cartagena were pushed south onto this peninsula. The people who live here now are their descendents. Concrete houses, many without windows or doors, line the dirt roads. Garbage is strewn about the streets and smelly green puddles of water stand in the ruts in the road. The dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, cows, and donkeys just wander. Already, though, my attention is drawn so much more to the people who are so beautiful and so friendly and caring. Kids run around barefoot on the streets. Some play with tires. A lot of the adults sit outside in the shade during the hottest part of the day. Music blares from giant speakers day and night, kind of like a continuous dance party. Some of the kids are particularly eager to practice their English with us. Whenever we pass people we exchange a “Buenas” or “Adioooos” (also means hello!). It's a lot of work to greet that many people, but its also so great to be acknowledged so often! I think all the locals agree. As there are only 2 schools in the pueblo, I met many of my students on the street before classes started...

On our first night we met Magalys, the vice-principal of Barbacoas, the school where I live and work. She had prepared dinner for us! The next day she invited us to her restaurant, Baru Grande, where I had one of best meals I have had in Colombia and the best chicken I've ever had in my life.

Eric, a WorldTeach volunteer from last year who is now a full time teacher at Barbacoas, took us on a tour up and down the streets of Santa Ana. We visited some people along the way. When doors are open that means you can visit, and there is a lot of that here. I'm already enjoying visiting people. I've befriended the family that washes my clothes and went to my first Colombian birthday party last night for a student who turned 12 years old. Soon I hope to be starting home visits to just meet the families of all my students to talk about their progress in English and to learn more about their lives. On our first full day around town we also located a store that sells miscellaneous items, various little food tiendas, and the panaderia (bread store) where we are frequent visitors for the bread, ice cream, beer, and everything else. All of these are hole-in-the-wall or step-up-to-the-counter types of stores, which makes encountering large stores with air conditioning in Cartagena a little intimidating to tell the truth!

We've been to Playa Blanca twice now. On one side of Playa Blanca is the giant hotel, the Decameron. While Santa Ana on the Caribbean coast, the town is a 20 minute moto ride from the sparkly blue water and white sand beaches. The contrast is the epitome of the gap between the rich and the poor. Many of the people in Santa Ana work in the Decameron or as artisans on the beach. On many occasions my conversation with an artisan that began with “buy a necklace” has ended with a conversation about his or her kids, whom inevitably are students at our schools, or an impromptu English lesson.

I am teaching 3^rd to 5^th grade English here at Barbacoas, the charter school. The classrooms are open-air and the other buildings are lined with bamboo, and it is definitely the most beautiful part of all the town! School started on Monday January 31^st. We spent the past week sitting in meetings that were especially long in the heat of the middle of the day, witnessed several arguments about teacher uniform shirts (a decision was finally just made), re-vamped the entire English curriculum, and though we still don't have a class schedule we've managed to get a bit of teaching in.

The eight of us volunteers live in the Villa along with some medics from a university in Cartagena who are on a rotation in the local clinic. The Villa is 2-story convent turned dormitory on the edge of the Barbacoas property. We have a balcony on the 2^nd floor and I have a small bedroom, bathroom, and a fan (very important!) to myself right off of the balcony. The Villa is a fortress as the biggest, tallest building in all of Santa Ana. A few of the stray animals around town have been adopted by us and have the privilege to live inside the gates of Barbacoas. Eric has Palo the dog (“stick” in English), and I've really warmed up to a crazy little partially malnourished puppy which we've named Jafara (her face reminds us of Jafar from Aladdin). I've been teaching Jafara some commands and I'll be giving her pieces of bread for treats. A lot of dogs here, though some are starving, will refuse dog food because they are so used to peoples' food scraps.

The students are very sweet and also very talkative! I just wish a lot more of their talking was in English! They've warmed up to me so quickly. I have a great time just talking with them around the campus or on the street. I have already gotten a lot of “Teacher TL! Hello! How are you? I am fine, thank you!” when walking through the pueblo. It's going to be slow going with these students, but they never cease to amaze me with their joy despite the harsh realities of everyday life that many of them have endured and likely will continue to endure for years. It sounds cheesy, but they warm my heart and it makes me so happy to know that I can be here for them for 11 months at the least , and I couldn't ask for much more than that!

I'll enjoy the hot weather and the white sand beaches for you, and someone please enjoy the snow for me!!!

Hasta luego.

                                                          View from my bedroom

Depende

I arrived here to Bogota on January 2nd with 35 other volunteers from the United States.
For the past few weeks we have been living and working out of a retreat center called Santa Cruz in Cota, which we affectionately call"the convent", right outside of the city of Bogota.  Bogota is at about 8,000 feet and the weather feels like summer in the Rockies--I'm loving it.  I'll be flying out of Bogota to Cartagena on Jan. 22 and will then be traveling to my placement on Isla de Baru.  I'm making the most of this weather because soon I'll be in inescapable heat and humidity!


Although our current housing situation is like "Real World" without as much partying and with 8 to 12 hours of work a day, I have been enjoying getting to know my fellow volunteers.  We do not have internet at Santa Cruz and we did not have Colombian cell phones until very recently so that definitely has helped with the bonding process.  This morning we had to say goodbye to four of the volunteers who are leaving a few days early for their site in Cartagena.  Everything already feels incomplete without them!


Depende is the mantra of orientation...seems that everything just "depends" here.  I've determined that accepting uncertainty must be the key to sanity in Colombia.  I've gotten used to a not expecting a solid answer to anything.  The schedule "depends," information about my teaching site "depends", traffic "depends" (and I've never seen traffic this bad in my life!), hot water in the shower "depends", and time really "depends"--meal times and meeting times in particular.


I had a nice blog entry saved on my flash drive, but the flash drive decided to snap in half yesterday, so instead of a well written blog post, here is my best list of the most notable situations I've run into so far.

-I bought a pirated music CD of 150 songs on the street for the equivalent of $1.
-There are two tiendas/bars/houses accross the street from Santa Cruz that are frequented by our pack of gringos almost every night.  Beer costs the equivalent of 75 cents and the adolecsent Colombian boys love to impress us of their knowledge of American 80s songs from the jukebox.
-80s music and Lady GaGa seems to be pretty popular everywhere.
-I am currently staying in a dorm-style room with 5 other friends--well, 2 of them left for their sites this morning :(   We fall asleep laughing and wake up laughing, and we know far too much about each other than probably should be known.
-I have a great running route along the back roads by the fields.  I pass a cilantro patch along the way and it smells so good.  There are also countless stray dogs running around.  I often run with a rock to hit them so they will run away.
-The cows and goats tied up to the sides of the road are great natural lawn mowers.
-We blow out the power in Santa Cruz a lot.  This is probably why even the cheapest Colombian phones come with a flashlight feature.
-Every beaurocratic process here takes about 10 times longer than you would wait at the DMV.
-The other day we went on a tour of La Catedral de Sal.  In this salt mine about an hour from Cota, miners sculpted an underground cathedral out of the salt.  I licked the salt on one of the walls and haven't gotten sick yet!
-We have two Spanish classes with our training, the beginning/intermediate, and the advanced.  I am in the advanced class and am probably farther behind than anyone else, which is incredibly frusterating.  It is also frusterating to currently be living in "gringo-land" where my Spanish hasn't yet had a chance to improve. 
-I co-taught a 45 minute 5th grade English class at La Montaña, a school nearby, for my practicum.  La Montaña is probably one of the most prestigious bilingual private schools in the country, a stark contrast from where I will be teaching in Baru, but it's been exciting to be at the school still.  Entry about the Colombian social strata and education systems to come later.
 -I'm lucky to get 3 minutes of hot water in the shower, which is still 3 more minutes of hot water than I'll be getting in Baru. 
-Food here is a bit bland.  I tend to eat rice and potatoes twice a day, and they are customarily served together.  I also eat far too much chicken and quite a bit of salad, yucca, and plantains.  The plantains are fried, baked, chips, etc., and luckily are growing on me.  Again, this is probably as good as it will get.


Una Noche "Tipical" del Transporte

Last weekend, two of my friends and I embarked on typical Colombian adventure from Cota to Bogota.   We left around dinner time to catch the local bus that would take us to Portal 80, where we would then transfer to the TransMilenio, Bogota's bus-version of a subway system.  On better traffic days, this is a 15-20 minute journey.  As usual, the local bus was packed when we got on, and as usual I wondered right away why I hadn't taken any Dramamine.  Sitting in stand-still traffic, the driver decided to make a u-turn, and soon we were on a dirt road dodging pot holes, mud puddles, people, bicycles, horses, trucks, and other buses, until up ahead we were forced to stop.  A bus identical to ours was stuck in the mud in front of us and all of the passengers were trying to push it ahead with all their might.  And so we sat there in the bus and waited.  And we watched them try to push the bus.  And watched them some more.  By this point I was sitting down next to the driver because I felt so nautious, and I asked him after a few minutes what we were planning to do.  We were planning to wait until the bus ahead of us was out of the mud, and then we could continue, since of course our identical bus wouldn't get caught in the mud.  The bus in front of us never made any progress, and after about 15 minutes, we made another u-turn, once again dodging everything in our paths, and headed back to the smooth main road, breifly relieving my stomach.  Soon I recognized that we were back in Cota near Santa Cruz, actually driving on my back road running route.  Around the cilantro patch we turned right onto yet another dirt road, and after around 15 more grueling minutes of potholes and mud puddles, but fortunately few people and animals and busses and the like, we arrived back to the main road, and eventually made it to Portal 80, nearly marking the half point of our journey after over an hour. 
How long does it take to get from Cota to Bogota?  Depende.

Welcome to my blog!

Buenas!  Hola de Colombia.  I hope to update my blog throughout the year at least every couple of weeks or so. 

I had a long entry written out but it appears that my jump drive just broke, so you'll all have to wait.

Here's a bit about where I am.  I have been in training with 35 other WorldTeach volunteers since January 2nd.  We are staying at a retreat center called Santa Cruz in Cota, right outside of the city limits of Bogota.  On January 22nd I will be flying to Cartagena and then traveling to my placement, Isla de Baru, about an hour from Cartagena.

Soon I will have more regular access to the internet, so hopefully I'll get a real update up here soon.
If you want to get regular updates from my blog, click "Follow" on the upper left part of the page.
Also, let me know if you'd like my Skype name or my Colombian cell phone number (on my cell phone I can receive calls and texts from the United States for free!)