The South, the East, and First days of class

The South

Last week I went to visit Cally (the other Rotary scholar here) in the southern part of Bogotá. For all of you Bogotanos, she lives south of el Portal de las Americas. When I tell all of my Colombian friends where she lives, they're all like, "she's living where???!!!" You see, the south is supposed to be the "dangerous" part of town. Everybody warns me about the south, but after going there, I didn't see any reason to fear. Of course, along the way there were many places that looked pretty sketchy, but the neighborhood where Cally lives is amazing. I mean, it's definitely not New York, but rather a very simple, quiet neighborhood. There aren't many cars, the buildings are much smaller than they are in the north, and there are children of all ages playing in the streets.

I didn't feel that my life was in danger while I was in the south. I'm not saying it's not dangerous; the Colombians know better than I do in regard to safe places and dangerous places. But there's a part of me that feels like there is a certain fear between the different social classes in this country. Maybe not a fear, but more like a mutual understanding that they each have their "places" in society, and that it is not common for them to mix amongst each other, unless one side is working for the other. But I guess this can be found in all societies. However, when I was in the south, I felt really comfortable, and I felt like this little neighborhood reflected how most Latin Americans live.

The East

On Saturday I went with Cally, Vane, my professor, and another gringa on a short roadtrip to the east of Bogota, to a small city called Choachi. To get to Choachi, we had to drive the winding streets that go through the eastern portion of the Andes Mountains. The night before, we had gone out dancing and drinking, and that, along with the horrendous road conditions, did not make for a very pleasant drive. The sites we saw along the way were amazing, but my stomach was not too happy to be thrown from side to side for the hour and a half it took to get there.

Upon arrival, we walked around a bit and eventually went to have lunch at a Swiss restaurant. I had no idea what Swiss food was like (except for maybe cheesy), so when I saw "conejo en salsa de vino" I thought to myself, "Bugs Bunny! What are the Swiss thinking?!" You see, "conejo en salsa de vino" means "rabbit in wine sauce". I mean, kudos to the Swiss for being all passive and neutral with pretty much everything, but come on...rabbits?! But, since eating rabbit is evidently a Swiss custom (I'll need my european friends to verify that), I figured that I would order it. Would you believe it tastes like chicken?

On the way back, it was no longer the aguardiente sloshing around in my stomach that bothered me while we made the twists and turns of the road, but rather it was little Peter Cottontail that I was trying to keep down. And then when we were halfway home my professor decided that now would be a good time to tell us that this particular area of Colombia used to have a heavy FARC influence. And when I say "used to", I mean like 3 years ago. At this point only two things went through my mind, "please don't vomit, please don't vomit, please don't vomit," and "my parents would freak if they knew where I was right now."

First days of class

I have now finished my first two days of class. Surprisingly, I was able to drag myself out of bed at 5am both days in order to arrive on time at 7. Even more surprising, I wasn't tired during class, and I was able to pay attention the whole time. However, after these two classes I'm beginning to see just how much of a rough road it will be to keep up with everything, given my strictly-conversational Spanish language abilities. But this is exactly what I signed up for. I knew it would be hard, and that it would take me 3 times longer than the other students to finish my homework, and I'm totally up for this challenge.

Welcome to La Javeriana!

Front of Campus

On Campus

My classmates are very nice and helpful. There are supposed to be 11 or 12 of us, but so far only 8 have shown up. There are 3 foreigners: me, a girl from Russia, and a guy from Spain. Fernando, the Spaniard, has an interesting accent which I find hard to understand. When he speaks, all I hear is, "yo th th th th th th th está th th th th en la televith th th th bien" (for you spanish speakers, you know exactly what i'm talking about). There is also a major in the Colombian army in my class, and it is very interesting to hear him talk about the conflict in Colombia, because he's been in the middle of it all for the past 15 years or so. But enough for today, I dragged my derrière out of bed today at 5am, so it's time for my SIESTA!

Travel Sickness

Ugh. It's that time of the trip...time for my weak, "I-only-eat-food-prepared-in-sterilized-environments" stomach to make that transition into a stomach that can handle random foreign microorganisms. I am sick, and I have been sick since Saturday. As my friend Cally would put it, my stomach feels like a swamp (and you can use your imagination from there). It was so bad Saturday that I couldn't even go out dancing (OH NO!!!)

This happens every time I travel to Latin America, so I'm used to it, but I would prefer to just skip this part and go straight to having a stomach of steel, like most people in lesser developed countries have. The US and Europe are way too darn clean. We worry about germs and microbes so much that we clean, clean, clean, sanitize, sanitize, sanitize, and our bodies are hardly ever exposed to anything that could be potentially harmful. Because of that we do not develop the antibodies to fight random sicknesses that come from less sanitary areas. That's why it is harder for us northerners to adjust to food prepared down south than it is for southerners to go up north.

I'm seriously going to make my children eat dirt for the first 5 years of their lives, so that they never get sick during adulthood.

Congratulations!

I'd just like to congratulate from afar some friends from back home who have just taken that big step into "big-kid world" and decided to get married.

To my friends Andy and Laura, who got engaged last week,

and to Adam and his girlfriend (now fiancé) Natassia, who got engaged yesterday,

CONGRATULATIONS! I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST OF LUCK!

suckers.

I see that right now in Minnesota it is -11F with -25 to -40 windchill (For you foreigners, that's -23C with -32 to -40 windchill).

I'm glad I'm not you right now.

Colombian "Big Dogs"

Colombians eat more hot dogs than gringos eat. When in a restaurant, you can easily find over 10 different types of hot dogs to buy. Traditional dogs (which, by the way, come with ketchup, relish, onions, 1000 island sauce, mayo, and sometimes chips), Mexican dogs, Italian dogs, and many many more. I thought the hot dog was an "American product" but these people have stolen it from us and completely warped it into a full-blown meal.

First trip to the University

Today I took my first trip to La Javeriana, and I must say that I absolutely love this university. It is an incredibly beautiful university, and is quite a bit larger than what I'm used to (20,000 students at La Jave...Scholastica only had 2,000). It's 80 blocks from where I am staying now, which means that I will need roughly 40 minutes to go back and forth from the house to the school.

The director of my program was incredibly welcoming. When Vane and I arrived, he dropped everything and spent the next 4.5 hours showing us around the campus, talking about the university and his studies, and then he treated us to lunch across the street (I wonder if he had any work to do???). He was a big hippie while he studied in the US during the '70s, and he has tought Conflict Resolution classes at universities in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Uppsala, Sweden. I'm very excited for Jan 28, when my classes will finally start.

I know why Colombians are thin.

They dance. Until they are blue in the face. Until all the bottles are empty. Until they can't move anymore. They can do this for 5 hours straight. And what a workout it is! The US should learn something from this. If gringos would just dance we wouldn't have an obesity problem in my country.

...my feet will hurt in the morning.

Day 1

Arrival

Finally in Bogota!! I left my house at 5:30am on Wednesday January 9th, to catch my flight out of Fargo at 8:15am. Because I like to leave everything to the last minute, I was awake all night, packing my things and talking with friends. After a whole day traveling, I finally arrived at 10pm. Last time I came to Bogota 3.5 years ago, I spent almost 2 hours in customs and immigration; this time, no more than 20 minutes. Although it has improved, the Colombian airport is still complete disorder. But it works, so I can't complain.

Vanessa, Juliana, and Juliana's mom Jasmin picked me up, and from there we went to Juli's house and sat up talking until almost 2am. I slept like a baby, and didn't wake up until after 1pm, still fatigued from the long day before. I had my first Colombian breakfast, arepa con cafe, at 1:30pm.

Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzales

As many of you probably know, today was a big day in Colombia, and I'm lucky that I arrived in time to experience it. Today Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzales, two Colombian women who have been in the captivity of the FARC for the last 6 years, were set free. This is HUGE news in Colombia. Every channel is airing footage of this stuff. From Juli's room, we watched live footage of Rojas and Gonzales being set free in the jungle (note to self: don't stray from the beaten path while visiting the jungle), and then on the phone with Chavez thanking him for all his hard work to set them free (probably won't show that in the US), then in Caracas, Venezuela meeting their families for the first time in 6 years. Definitely a touching event. These women were held in captivity in the jungle since December 2001. They slept on hammocks, with chains around the neck every night. Many hope that this is one step closer to freeing Ingrid Betancourt (French-Colombian kidnapped in 2002). I personally feel that it will be years until Betancourt is set free.

Things to remember when in Colombia

1. Speak Spanish: This isn't Europe. It's not easy for a Colombian to switch from his native language to English when a foreigner shows up.

2. Refrain from saying things like "I am American": This confuses the Colombians. In Latin America, "American" means anybody from the western hemisphere. Latin Americans prefer to use the word "gringo" for anybody from the United States.

3. Dance: You're in the south. Shake that culo.

4. Toilet paper goes in the garbage, not the toilet: this one makes sense. I mean, really, when you think about it, why would you put paper into the toilet? Nevertheless, I still have to verbally remind myself every time I go to the bathroom... "in the garbage, in the garbage, in the garbage". I'm successful about 50% of the time.

5. Blondeness: In Spanish, the word for "blonde" is "rubio". In Colombian, the word for blonde is "mono" which is the same word for "monkey" (hmmm I wonder what the Colombians REALLY think of northerners).

6. Never turn down a shot: That's just rude, man.

7. Remember to eat: Ok, so you're used to food processed in the US. US food does not satisfy you. Colombian food is satisfying, and today I had to remind myself to eat dinner. I wasn't hungry; Lunch 8 hours earlier was still holding me over.

8. Time differences: "I'll come over at 3pm" means "I'll start getting ready at 3:30, and hopefully I'll be there by 5:30".

9. Traffic rules: Green means go. Red means go if nobody's looking.

Welcome

Welcome to my Colombian blog! Just got my ticket today...I leave Wednesday Jan 9 at 8:15am from Fargo, ND. Pretty stoked about finally leaving!! More to come after my arrival in Bogota!