The Good, The Bad, and The Colombian

THE GOOD-

Wow. It is beautiful here. We wake up every morning to a view of the vast expanse of the ocean. Our apartment is exactly what we were looking for, located in the colonial part of Cartagena. There are amazing restaurants at every turn. We can step out the door and walk to get pretty much anything we need. The fruit is unbelievable. Fresh mangoes and papayas and avocados as big as your head (well- pretty close). 

Although some things are really expensive here, services are dirt cheap. You can take a taxi pretty much anywhere for the equivalent of $2-3. Pedicures are $5. We have a maid that comes twice a week. She does our laundry, our ironing, general cleaning, buys groceries, and makes us dinner. I'm a little ashamed to say how much we pay her, but it is almost twice as much as the normal rate. The typical pay for a maid is 15,000 pesos per day. We pay 25,000 which is about $13.

It's hot. As Steve puts it, sweating is a part of life now (for him more than me) but still... it's hot. One day we walked several blocks to have lunch in the middle of the day. We stepped into the restaurant and after walking a few steps I noticed Steve was no longer next to me. I looked back and he was standing there with a look of disdain. He looked at me and said, "My knees are sweating." My eyes scanned down from his face and yes, there were circles of sweat around each knee. He added, "Hey- any time between noon and two, we're taking a cab. I don't care how close it is." 

We joined a gym that is located in a hotel that has all the equipment we need to work out within the comfort of air conditioning. And it also has a pool. We have started the routine of working out in the afternoon and then laying by the pool reading for an hour or so.

THE BAD-

It's hot.

We are part of an interesting community. This is new to us... the international teaching circuit. We are fresh meat in this new school. We are the ones with the energy and enthusiasm and it is difficult to find that lacking in some, not all, but some of our colleagues. I can't imagine trying to run a school with such a turnover in teachers. Can you imagine? Trying to maintain balance and consistency when your staff is completely new every two years? I don't envy that position.

The school we are teaching for has built a brand new campus. It's a beautiful building and the facilities are supposed to be state of the art and ready to go. This is simply not the case. As with any new building, especially a new building in Colombia (we've found) there is glitch after glitch after glitch. And there is not a body of organized individuals equipped to deal with these glitches. We are anticipating a very chaotic year. Shall I give an example? Ok, I shall.

We arrived at the school Tuesday, prepared to begin readying our classrooms for school the following week. Upon our arrival, the director of the school announced that the workers are still around "finishing final details". We soon found that these "details" were minor things like air conditioning, electricity, functioning bathrooms, covering outlets, supplying unnecessary objects like desks, etc. Of course, this required patience on all parts. Unfortunately, patience seems to be a God-given gift not bestowed on all of mankind. Or perhaps it's an acquired talent and some chose to take piano instead. Whatever the case, one of our fellow teachers was so fed up on Friday that he did not yet have air conditioning that he took drastic action.

This teacher, who shall remain nameless, decided that to get anything done in this culture he needed to do something unexpected. So he climbed on top of the roof-- yes, I did not expect this either-- and he sat next to a worker and claimed that he would not move until someone fixed his air conditioning. Only a few moments passed, as the word spread like wildfire- teacher on the roof-, and the director of the school was shouting this teacher down from the roof. I still don't think he has air conditioning.

THE COLOMBIAN-

As alluded to many times, things function differently here. There is a coastal attitude. It's laid back and things will get done whenever they happen to get done. Once you have adjusted your expectations accordingly, there isn't much difficulty in it with the exception of an occasional incident.

Steve and I went to buy a printer at a local store a few nights ago. We spent about 30 minutes picking one out. Then we sought out an employee to help us match one that was boxed with the model. He looked a little disconcerted to be drawn from a group of fellow yellow-shirted friends to actually help a customer. With his assistance we soon found that the model was the only remaining printer of its kind in the store. We asked if we could purchase it anyway, but he said it would not come with cartridges like the others. Naturally, we wanted to know how much cartridges would cost, but without the box he did not know which type of cartridge we would need. So, he left us to search for the original box somewhere in the back of the store.

We waited about 20 minutes and within this time made the startling realization that the models on display didn't seem to match the boxes and boxes of printers below them. We started pulling boxes out and taking them to the cashier to find out their prices. Finally we found a different printer that would suit our needs perfectly and at the right price. We decided not to wait for the guy to return and to simply purchase the other printer. At the checkout we realized we had been meaning to sign up for rewards points at the store. So we left our purchases at the counter and headed downstairs to information to sign up. Imagine our surprise to find our friend who was "looking for the original box" sitting at the information booth chattin it up with a particularly pretty yellow-shirt.

We signed up for rewards cards, returned, and purchased the printer thinking we had faired decently well in this Colombian exchange. But before we were ten feet from the counter, the cashier stopped us, set our printer on a bench, opened it, and began to check its contents. To our dismay, the cartridges were missing. She proceeded to open up all similar printers... they were all missing the cartridges promised on the box to be included! Thus began our real nightmare.

We spent over an hour waiting for various people, talking to various people, meeting new various people because we stayed there through a shift change. We were told by various managers to either return the printer or BUY the cartridges that were supposed to be included. The crazy thing was that the cartridges would have cost us MORE than the actual printer. Persistence finally paid off when we stumbled upon some other various manage who managed to help us. Once he showed up, it took about thirty seconds for him to say, "Ok, we'll give you the cartridges." And he did.

Then we less than joyously waited twenty minutes for an unenthusiastic yellow shirt to register and print our warranty for us... not that we would EVER venture to take advantage of a warranty here. No thank you. Buying a printer was experience enough.

I'll leave you with a final image. Each yellow shirt had what I can only assume to be a company-issued button pinned securely on their chests. It read, "Es mi pasión servirte."

"It's my passion to serve you."