Happy Halloween!

Casa San Miguel, our home here in Colombia, is a large Spanish style home with large open patio over looking a beautiful yard and garden. When ever we have friends over the first comment they make is this is the perfect house for a party. So, early in September one of the other teachers in the school approached us and asked if we would be willing to host the annual Columbus School Staff Halloween Party. Not knowing what we were getting into we said sure and quickly forgot about it until the all school invitation was sent out announcing the event. Costumes were required to enter and a 10.000 peso (about $5.00) charge would be collected to help cover the cost of the Salsa band. This was our first clue this was going to be a bit bigger than we expected.

The day of the party we went out and purchased as many pumpkins as we could carry and began carving them. Around 4:00 four of our friends and the true party planners arrived to help decorate the house and patio. It took about an hour and lots of balloons, jack-o-lanterns, dry ice and several packages of cotton cobwebs to transform our home into a haunted house. Then Daisy, Carlos, Carolina, and Jose left to get ready and we began to prepare our costumes.

Sean was the perfect American tourist, with terrible fashion (unfortunately wearing clothing he already had in his closet), camera around his neck, and maps and guide books sticking out of every pocket. Heather was a terrifying sight to any teacher on the weekend- a Columbus School Student. Wearing the school PE uniform, every piece of jewelry she owned, lots of make up, and headphones in her ears she was a dead ringer for a Colombian high school student.

At 9:00 the first cars started arriving. Just to give you some perspective on the event let us tell you a bit about the Columbus school staff. There are about 160 teachers in the school that is subdivided into four smaller schools. Half of the teachers are Colombian and the other half are North American. The four schools hardly ever integrate and it is rare for Colombian teachers and American teachers to socialize together because of the language barrier. So, you are lucky to see about an eighth of the school staff regularly. Because we are in two different schools we have a bit of an advantage and know about a quarter of the staff by sight. Now remember when we do see these teachers they are in professional wear and look about the same every day. But today is not a normal day, it is Halloween. As people unfold themselves from packed cars and start hugging and kissing us (typical Colombian greeting) all that is going through our heads is: Who are these people?

We begin to relax as we recognize more people. (But that is only about one in four of the people arriving.) After around 60 people have poured into our house and back patio the band arrives. It is a 10 member salsa band; three singers, flute player, several percussionists, keyboardist, xylophonist, and guitar player. They set up on a corner of the patio and begin to play. They are fabulous playing a blend of known salsa hits and some of their own compositions. Dancing, laughing and socializing takes over and we realize this is a great way to get to know the people we work with. (Hopefully, we will recognize them on Monday.)

At around 5:30am the last car is pulling out of the driveway, the sun is coming up, and we are filling up garbage bags. It takes about an hour to clean up and we crawl into bed at almost 7:00 am. A great night, lots of fun, and now three hours of sleep before we wake up and catch the bus up the mountain to a friends house for a day of lounging in front of the TV and watching American Football on the satellite.

Rio Claro

At 5:30am Jill (high school English teacher) and Tully (Jill’s seventh grade son) pick us up in a cab to take us to the El Centro metro/transportation center. We are on our way out of town for the three day weekend with a group of 15 or so other teachers and friends to go camping in the jungles of Colombia. This is a record of our adventure.

At around 6:30 we get onto a brightly painted bus with 28 seats. By the time we pull out of the station at a quarter to seven all the seats are taken. Within 15 minutes of leaving town and a few stops to pick up locals from the roadside the aisle is packed with at least 25 more travelers standing shoulder to shoulder ready for the 4 hour trip to Rio Claro and the 7 hour trip to Bogotá (the destination for the majority of the travelers). The trip will take us along the main highway between Medéllin and Bogotá, a two lane mountain road.

The bus creaks along for several hours stopping frequently to pick up passengers or produce. About an hour out of Rio Claro the bus gets a flat tire. No worries, the driver and porter hop out pump up the tire and we continue on for about 2km before the process is repeated, over and over and over. Finally, we limp into a repair shop that mysteriously appears on the side of the road with a Coca Cola stand and nothing else for miles. The mechanic quickly springs into action and puts several cinder blocks under the bus, which is still loaded with over 50 passengers, and removes the tire and rim. After an hour long repair job with people getting on and off the bus we are ready to continue our trek.

Twenty minutes later the bus passes through the town of Rio Claro, with its five or six houses, road side dinner, and waterslide park (?!). The four of us get off the bus at the restaurant and begin the one mile hike up the dirt road to El Refugio, an eco-park that is nestled in the jungle and limestone gorge that is cut into a valley by the Rio Claro. As we reach the “lodge” Taty, one of the caretakers, meets us and instantly knows we are part of the gringo group. In her English, that is much better than any of our Spanish, she welcomes us and lets us know we are the first of the group to arrive. While Sean and Jill check in Tully and Heather explore the lodge. The lodge is a three story open air structure. The bottom floor is an eatery area and front desk. The second floor is divided into a few rooms strung with hammocks and a storage area of kayaks, river rafting equipment, and other outdoor equipment. And the third floor is again subdivided into rooms with nothing more than several single beds that overlook the river.

After check in is completed we begin the 5 to 10 minute walk to the cabanas. The path is a cobble stone like path follows along the river cutting around and in and out of the lime stone cliffs and caves. Near the cabanas we reach moon rock; a large rock that creates a natural beach and is where most visitors enter the river. It gets its name from the textured surface which resembles the dimpled cratered surface of the moon. Over looking the river and moon rock beach are the cabanas where our room is. There are two cabanas that are similar in structure and layout to the lodge; open air platforms subdivided into rooms with beds and nestled high on the hillside and treetops. Our corner room is on the upper floor of one of the cabanas. The room has two open air railings, one wall we share with the next room (were fellow teachers will be staying) and the fourth wall hides the bathroom and shower. As we plop down on the beds we look over paradise and our playground for the next two days.

The river is the place where we spend most of our time; swimming in the roped off area, floating downstream in inner tubes, or jumping into it from the zip line 8m above the water’s surface. During the few occasions we choose to stay dry we go on hikes to near by caves, some with stalactites and stalagmites, others with waterfalls pouring out of them. Lots of time is spent walking the trails and observing wildlife including an oddly colored tarantula the size of an open hand and large iridescent Blue Morpho butterflies. Heather was even daring enough to try canopying; a system of zip lines that criss-cross the gorge and sends you flying over and through the canopy of the rainforest. From this unique few she was able to spot howler monkeys and many colorful birds.

One trek we wanted to do but were unable, because of the broken down truck the lodge used for transportation, was a trip to Pablo Escobar’s nearby finca (country home). This legendary farm is where Pablo set up his own personal zoo and filled the country side with exotic animals from around the world. After his death the animals were sent to zoos throughout South America but the grounds are still rumored to be inhabited by several wild hippos that were never able to be rounded up.

After two days of playing and relaxing in the 80 to 90 degree tropical hideaway it was time to head back to reality. Eleven of the 15 of us set off hiking down the dirt road toward town to catch the bus back to Medéllin together. After waiting about 10 minutes at the open air restaurant the bus stopped to pick us up. As our backpacks were stowed under the bus or tossed on the top we climbed aboard the packed bus. All the seats were taken so we began to fill the aisle standing and sitting to get as comfortable as we could for the four hour ride home. At around 5:30pm Monday evening we pulled in to the central bus station in Medéllin and back to big city life.

Columbus school: Beware of Falling Rock and Burning Brakes

We have been here almost 3 months now and have not yet written a blog about school. There are many reasons for this. Primarily, a lack of time. And secondly, it is difficult for us to keep current on all the changes that are taking place.

Everyday we get picked up by a small escolar busetta (a mini-van sized vehicle that seats 14 seven year olds comfortably, and 14 adults miserably) and we head up the mountain. The main road up to school is Las Palmas, a two lane mountain highway, very similar to Mt. Baker Highway near Artist Point in quality (much better than many imagine being in Colombia) and terrain. However, this is the main road to the country, the airports, and many schools in the area. Two lanes just isn’t enough so the department is widening the road to four lanes. This requires blasting away at the mountain side from 8 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon; thus, closing the main road to school.

So, two weeks ago the school board, parent committee, and administration changed our school schedule to accommodate the road closure. The school day was changed from 7:45-3:00 to 9:45-5:00. The main route up to school would be up the very steep Escobero road, very beautiful but dangerous when wet. (Oh, did I mention that it is now the rainy season in the “rain forest”!) Then, after a long day with children who have been on buses since 8:30, we leave school at 5:00 to go down Las Palmas after the road re-opens. We usually arrive home around 6:30. It sounds like a good plan, a bit of a long day, but safer going up and down.

But what happens when you blast away at rocky mountain side in the middle of the rainy season? Mud slides and falling rocks! Not something I would like to drive or ride through after a long day. So, after two weeks on the “long schedule” the school is changing the school day and transportation yet again. Starting on Wednesday, we will be going up and down the Escobero, with an 8:15-3:30 school day. The school has hired full time mechanics to inspect the brakes on all the buses every day before going down (burning brakes is a common sight on the Escobero). The upside to this schedule change is that hopefully we will get home with some daylight left and two days of school off while the transportation department resets bus routes and inspects the buses.

How have the kids been handling the changes? Remarkably well in the elementary school. The past several weeks the second grade classes have been deeply involved in their habitat study. With five classes, the teachers decided to give the kids a quick overview of several different land and water biomes and animal needs. Then we each turned our classrooms, with the help of the fabulous integrated arts teacher, into five different biomes (Heather’s class is the ocean, others are the deciduous forest, rainforest, arctic tundra, and desert.) The day before the schedule change was announced we had given our students the assignment to research one animal from their given biome and create a project showing and telling how the animal meets its needs in its habitat. Quite a project but the kids were thrilled and got to work. Then the schedule changed and they were leaving home at 8:30 in the morning and returning close to 7:00 in the evening. Not much time for a large project. But the kids and parents were already too excited to stop and last week each classroom invited parents and all the other second grade classes in, one at a time of course, and the kids taught each other about their respective animals and habitats. It was thrilling to see how quickly their English writing skills and oral skills jumped when the kids were excited about what they were learning.

So, there is a quick overview of the Columbus school. It truly is like most schools anywhere, a few kinks to work out, but the reason we are here is for the kids and the challenge of bringing excitement into learning.

Oh, Canada! Happy Thanksgiving Take 1.

Over half of the import staff of the Columbus School are Canadian. With three turkeys, many different salads and side dishes, and even more deserts we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving in style. Around 50-60 teachers and significant others crowded into the penthouse apartment of Danny, Liza, and Diane.

The day started at three but many, mostly the Americans, filtered in after the American football games had finished. (Several teachers are from Dallas and 2 are from Philadelphia, so the Eagles and Cowboys game took precedence to the food, in the same manner they would in a traditional American Thanksgiving.) People lounged downstairs, on one of several balconies or in the loft eating appetizers, drinking and enjoying good company.

It is impossible to tell exactly how long things take to cook here. The apple pie that we made took over 2 hours to bake. Oven temperature is not extremely consistent. Around five the last turkey had finished cooking. We all dished up and ate, talked and took several rounds through the buffet style line. At around 6 the desserts came out: Bailey’s cheese cake, chocolate cake, pumpkin pie (made from mixes smuggled into Colombia in June for the sole purpose of Thanksgiving dinner), apple pie, brownies and the list could go on.

On Thanksgiving, even if it is October and you are not Canadian, it is a time to reflect on how thankful you are. And sitting in a two story apartment looking over a third world city where a large portion of the population is struggling to eat meat once a week and have one meal a day while we gorged ourselves on copious amounts of food did cause us to reflect. At around 7:00 the most important part of the evening began: an auction to donate money to several charities in the area. Just some of the causes we were supporting were; a soup kitchen in a poorer barrio trying to provide at least one meal a day to the children of the neighborhood, a community center for teenage street girls that teaches them trades such as cooking and crafts so that they can help support themselves, and a sponsorship program for abandoned drug babies similar to Big Brother, Big Sister, where the sponsor takes the child to events, pays for their schooling and provides a responsible role model.

People from the school donated goods to the not so silent auction. Dinners for six, weekend getaways in people’s homes in the country, baked goods, trinkets and small items made by the children who we were supporting, and items purchased at San Alejo craft fair were all up for auction. The goal was to raise 3 million pesos (about US $1,500). The bidding started silently through sign up sheets around the room and then prices were raised through traditional bidding later in the evening. We proudly purchased a beautiful Mola tapestry, two classes worth of subbing (for Sean any Friday afternoon), and chipped in for an Indian dinner for six cooked by Gurjit the drama teacher. At the end of the evening the grand total came in at 4,670,000 pesos. With the average meal costing around 2 pesos, it is wonderful to think about how many children we fed even though it is a mere drop in the bucket.

Be thankful for what you have, the friends who surround you, the food on your table, and what you are able to contribute to the greater good. Happy Thanksgiving.

Ride Report

Cycling is huge here, very much focused on Euro/racing. Everyday on the ride to work we see dozens of cyclists on very nice bikes - the most common of which are carbon Treks with Campagnolo components!?

There is a cyclist at school and I went with him 2 weeks ago to buy a used bike. Tomassini, probably new in the mid-80s. The frame is a bit small for me, but 60cm is as large as they come here. I bought the frame by itself, and then bought parts separately. Unfortunately, due to the racing culture, non-racing parts really aren’t available. I ended up with a Shimano Sora parts group, brifters and all, and an amazingly narrow and uncomfortable saddle. The frame was scratched and ugly (red and yellow always remind me of McDonalds) so I had it painted. The painter is amazing – she has no access to decals, so all of the script and emblems on the bike are painted on. This paint job cost 100,000 pesos – roughly US$50!

My inaugural ride commenced at 5 AM, Thursday morning. Medéllin is nestled in a river valley, and the valley walls rise 1000 meters on both sides. Traffic is amazingly complicated and chaotic in the city, so the only place to go is up. Not something you want to do on your first ride in 2 months, on a double-chainring bike when you are used to a triple. But what do I know?

I was quickly dropped by my riding partners, but managed to settle into a rhythm and crank up the hill. I am remotely familiar with the area, but was not sure how far my companions planned to go. Cars and trucks buzzed by, but they are aware of cyclists here and I felt pretty safe. The major danger to a cyclist is road debris – potholes, large rocks, gravel, and trash litter the shoulders of the road.

I finally caught up to my companions at a scenic overlook (maybe 400m above the valley floor), and soon after we turned off the main road and descended back into the city. As a former bike mechanic who is used to maintaining his own bikes, this was especially scary and it took me a while to trust the brakes. This road was steeper than the one going up, and my brakes quickly began to overheat, so I had to modulate their use while negotiating turns, speed bumps, and the morning’s traffic.

I was back home by 7:00, with enough time for a quick nap before the bus came by to take us to school. Of course, I was reminded of my ride and that exceedingly narrow saddle for the remainder of the day, every time I tried to sit down…

Click on the thumbnails to see details of the bike and its paintjob.