Negative Nancy Rides Again

Wow. It's been a while since I've posted... and looking back I suddenly realized that perhaps I came across as a negative nancy in the last post. I didn't mean to be. Perhaps I shouldn't have written immediately after spending eight years trying to buy a printer in Exito.

That said, let's explore the bright side. There is in fact much of it to explore.

Everything is going well. Steve and I are really settling into a healthy routine. We are up at 5:30 in the morning to catch the bus at 6:30 and usually home at 4:00. We have been going to the gym three to four times a week, less now that I am taking a pilates class and doing swim aerobics. Don't laugh-- it's hard. I find myself on the brink of collapse every Thursday and Saturday. And it's all Oscar's (the trainer's) fault. I'm doing lunges across the pool, swimming ten laps at a time, thinking that any moment I will sink to the bottom and stay there, and if I even think about pausing, he's magically there yelling "ánimo" or calling me "floja".

But it's a healthy humiliation.

I am starting to adjust better to the school. It is SO different. There are lots of things I miss about Lakewood, especially the staff and students. Here there is camaraderie with the staff outside of school, but there is no teacher's lounge and therefore I rarely see other teachers during the school day. And the students are completely different. It is in no way a bad thing... just different. It is difficult to capture their interest in English literature. They enjoy learning new vocabulary and even grammar, but when it comes to the actual texts it is difficult to convince them of their relevance. I am gradually adjusting my approach and the results are beginning to change. It is like starting over as a teacher from scratch. Even though it's hard work, it's good for me.

Amazingly, my surprise AP class is turning out to be a very rewarding experience. It's also a lot of work, but the students are completely diligent and invested. It's a joy to teach them.

The community we live in is awesome. We feel completely safe and welcome. Our apartment has been remodeled but our building is old and it is not a tourist hot-spot. We are getting to know our neighbors. On our floor there is a woman who sells soda, cookies, and beer out of her apartment. We stopped by to get some coke (COCA COLA) for Steve and upon entering, I was immediately swept away by the beautiful paintings completely covering the walls of the whole apartment. They are honestly magical.

To my surprise Teresa (our seventy-something- year-old neighbor) is the artist. She happily took us into another room, also covered with paintings, and began to tell us of her accomplishments. One day she was selling paintings on the street and a man approached her and asked her if she had more. She took him to his apartment to show him all her paintings. He was incredibly impressed and asked to purchase a very large one. Little did she know he was the President of the European Union. That painting is now hanging in the EU headquarters in Holland. She was also commissioned to paint a mural for the Gabriel Garcia Marquez movie "Love in the Time of Cholera". She has a certificate from the city of Cartagena recognizing all of her accomplishments. It's amazing. And to think... our little old neighbor who sells soda and cookies. She's an incredible person.

The pictures above are a few views of the streets in Centro (the old city of Cartagena-- where we live).

No-longer-negative-Nancy-over-and-out.

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."

Cairo

Actually written sometime in June...

It feels like I am trying to write the first line of a magnificient novel when in reality I’m only trying to come up with the opening line for a blog that most likely no one is going to read anyway. Ah well, that’s the best I can do. Two things have been pressing on my lately. The first is how terrible I am at keeping in touch with people that I care about. The second is that crazy things always seem to happen to me. I’m not sure if this is because I do not seem to lead a normal existence or because I react abnormally to the standard occurences of daily life. Either way, I am trying to deal with both of these pressing issues with one solution. Maybe if I write a blog regularly I will be better able to keep in contact with those that I care about. And perhaps I can also record some of the bizarre experiences that seem to cross my path.

For example... the very first thing I did upon landing in Cairo was to find the restroom. After a long flight from New York my top priority was to brush my teeth, wash my face, and change my clothes. We had seven hours to wait before our next flight. I entered the bathroom, chose the cleanest looking stall, and managed to wedge my carry-on suitcase in there with me. But seconds after closing the door, I heard a knock. At first I was simply confused, so I waited... another knock. It was on my door. I opened it as if I was opening the front door of my home. There stood a woman with opaque eyes, a shabby scarf draped around her head, with a bottle of blue liquid. She pushed me to the side and approached the toilet. She then proceeded to pour a handfull of blue liquid into the palm of her hand and rubbed the toilet seat with it. With the palm of her hand! The toilet seat! She repeated this a few times before pulling gobs of toilet paper from the adjoining roll and drying the seat for me.

I simply stood there, dazed, managing to nod my head in thanks as she backed out of the stall. “This is another world,” was all I could think. I changed my clothes and didn’t even use the toilet seat she had so aptly “cleaned” for me. I exited the stall, approached the sink and brushed my teeth. There she was again, standing at my side. This time her palms were empty as she held them in front of herself, extending them to me, hoping for some change.