Our Colombia Experience

Kirsten and I left around 9 to go check out the school.  Noelle drove us, it is about 15 min. north just off the autopista.  It would be a good bit more than 15 min. during rush hour.  Unfortunately, it is not easy to take the transmillenial because it doesn’t go far enough north. They are doing a lot of renovation at the school,  recently finishing the first part of the new construction.  All middle and high school will be in the new building, except for the science labs. The old building is set up in a typical spanish style in 2 squares with rooms open to a central open air grassy square.  It is a great location, well gated and guarded, well kept up with lots of open spaces, good sized library for a small school and lots of super dedicated people.

     Turns out I am going to have 5 classes out of 8 periods; geometry, Algebra II advanced, precalculus, calculus and physics.  I was just going to do advanced physics, but it was decided that it would be better to put the two classes (advanced and regular) together and have a second teacher work with me so we can split the group as needed.  Hopefully, he will take care of a lot of the laboratory set up and operation.

     It will be nice to have the extra prep periods…never had that amount of time before.  Hopefully, I will get everything done at school.  We have to leave for school by 6 am, 5:30 on Fridays which makes for a long day. 

     Kirsten went with some friends to a movie…in English with Spanish subtitles.  Meanwhile, Andrew and I made our first excursion to el Exito for some major grocery shopping.  For a whole $2.80 we got a taxi to and from the store and help bringing in our groceries!  It is interesting how
Colombia is just starting to sell foods that are pre-packaged and prepared.  For the most part, food is sold by the ingredient and requires daily preparation.  It is still pretty rare to find cake mixes, instant pasta or rice dishes, etc.  It makes sense when you figure that maid you pay only 12$ a day usually stays to get dinner started for you.

    

Sunday morning we went to church with Robert and Noelle and their kids. They have a ministry with the very poor people in southern Bogota. The day also happened to be the day of the patron saint of drivers. I have never seen a parade of decorated cement trucks before! They had blue and white balloons all over them along with crepe paper streamers. There were long lines of buses, cement trucks, taxis, etc. in small parades all over the place. Hence the traffic was horrendous (even more than usual). The church is located in an area of dirt (ie mud) roads and semi built houses (again, the people build their houses as they can afford the bricks. The church used to be a house that they opened up the second floor to make the sanctuary. The roof was like a greenhouse roof so there was lots of light. They had a piano player Paula, and the son of the pastor was the drummer. Paula’s husband also sang, prayed and read scripture. We actually did recognize some of the songs, although everything was in Spanish. Noelle had warned me about this, but I was still really surprised. No matter what the song leaders did, no one could keep the beat when they clapped. It got to be pretty funny. The people sang so off key and even with the good drummer, they could not keep proper time! Scott would have been tearing his hair out!!! But to see these people, with nothing, come together to worship was really incredible.
Afterwards we went to McDonalds for lunch..pretty expensive. While parked you pay this guy to watch your car. Next door was a fairly large store so we did a bit of grocery shopping. We got home around 2 pm.
Andrew had made friends with 2 of the guys on Sunday, Carlos and Caleb. Caleb came over on Sunday afternoon and he and Andrew played halo II all afternoon. That evening we did experiment with ordering dinner. Andrew and Kirsten were not too adventurous with hamburgers, but I tried a patacone con pollo y queso. Patacones are plantains (those big funky looking sort of bananas you occaisionally see in the US markets) that are mushed pretty flat (these were REALLY thin) then fried. It was topped with shredded chicken that tasted like that canned chicken, and cheese. Then there was some type of sauce on it. It was actually pretty good. Sort of like a compuesta or Mexican pizza with patacone instead of a taco shell. Caleb left around 8:30 and we all got a good night sleep.

Carlos’s dad is the one who drove us to the mall on Saturday. As the boys started talking they realized that they were all really into paintball. We then mentioned Oklahoma D-Day which I had just taken Andrew to in the beginning of June…..huge reenactment of D-day using paintball by over 5000 people north of Tulsa in Wyandotte. Well, it turns out that Caleb, Carlos and his dad are all really into paintball, they are from Oklahoma and had just that morning been lamenting how they wished they could get to OK D-Day!!! They will be back in the states on furlough in 2 years and we decided then and there that we would all try to meet up at D-Day 2009. It constantly amazes me the connections you find between one another.

July 20^th was the first full day we were in Bogota and it is also the Colombian Independence Day (as well as Andy’s birthday….big 42!)  There were a lot of people around but just like in the US, all the stores were still open.  In the morning we took a walk around the neighborhood on our own.  Maria Jose had taken us for a quick tour the day before so we felt a bit more comfortable.

     As we left the apartment building it was really different to have the front door opened for us with a cheerful Buenos Dias.  Every apartment building has a security door man who is really just like the doormen you see in the movies.  He runs to get the door for you, will call you a taxi, help you with your groceries, check ID of your visitors before he calls up to ask if you are expecting them, and is always smiling.

     Kirsten observed that it is like living in a little neighborhood.  There are all kinds of little stores and shops for everyday things (not shops like clothes).  There are bunches of beauty salons (pedicures are $4.00!) dry cleaners, a gym, little convenience stores (a latino 7-11!), small little restaurants, a fruit and vegy store (all fresh), a butcher, a cheese store, and icecream and fruit shop, a few bakeries, movie rental store, computer repair, telephone store (it is cheaper to go to these to make calls than to use the home phone), a few internet cafes and stores, and at the end of the 150^th at the autopista del Norte (main N/S highway 5 short blocks away) is a small grocery store.  If we go to the autopista and turn south, there is a vet and pet supply, furniture store, and my favorite place that I have to check out, a tile store (if you don’t know, I love to do mosaics and am looking forward to see what I can do with local materials!).  The really cool thing is that every single one of these places will pick up or deliver directly to your apartment!  Restaurants, grocery store, vet, all of them.  You go around and collect all the phone numbers and just call for whatever you need!  That is taking a bit to get used to, but will it ever be hard to give up next year!!!

     Anyway, we walked down, almost to the autopista to this little bread store that sells pan del horno….bread sticks with cheese mixed in the dough.  Oh are they good!  They also sell this drink called arena.  This actually means oatmeal which is in the drink, but there is also milk, maybe coconut, vanilla….like a thick sweet milk.  For 5000 (5 mil) pesos we had breakfast.

     After breakfast we went to visit Robert and Noelle who live just 2 blocks from us.  Noelle was the high school principle last year and Robert works full time with his missionary organization (although this year he has apparently been recruited to teach 9^th grade science at ECA as well!)  They introduced us to a great phone service called Lingo which will let us get a phone number with an OK (405) area code and we can make and receive calls via the internet.  I have subscribed already and am waiting for the equipment to arrive; will give you the number when we get it. I am trying to get our 285 number that we had in Edmond.  They have really been life savers in explaining how various things work, how to do things, etc.

    That afternoon, one of the high school girls, Natalia, was able to arrange for a group of the kids to go to the newest and supposedly largest mall in all of South America, El Centro Commercial de Santa Fe.  It is located on the autopista about 10 minutes north of us.  One of the dad’s picked us all up (9 of us squished in this SUV) and off we went.  Because it was a holiday the mall was pretty crowded.  It doesn’t appear that the mall has “anchor stores” as we think of them.  There is a large store attached that is like a Target.  But it is primarily high end small retail shops and it is fairly expensive.  Being a holiday, there were a bunch of bands and as we were leaving a large open coffee shop area there was an incredibly good saxophone player performing. (The coffee shop is called, of course, Juan Valdez and apparently they are really expanding….watch out Starbuck’s!)

     After 2 hours of walking around we walked across the autopista (lots of pedestrian bridges) and had dinner with one of the other teachers, Kathleen.  She and her husband are here with a mission that is serving very low income boys who live and learn at a farm outside of Bogota.  If I understand correctly they are serving about 24 children.  That evening, they drove us home and were we ever exhausted!

    

We were very lucky to have an apartment waiting for us here in Bogota. It is 3 bedrooms, 2 baths (only showers), a living/dining room, kitchen and about700 sq. ft. There is a washing machine but no dryer and a small fridge.
Our first bit of excitement came with the laundry. I found out that it is not fun to wash socks when you have hang them dry! The kitchen is long and very narrow, with a window at the far end. On the left are the cabinets and stainless steel counter top. On the right is a cabinet that used to house the electric water heater, but is now empty, then the fridge, then the small washer, about 3 ft. of space which now houses the cat litter, then a scrub sink. Above the scrub sink and the space is a 4 ft. x 3 ft aluminum construction hanging from the ceiling on which to hang the laundry. There are rods at each end and then parallel rods at various intervals to hang the clothes over. You really wouldn’t think it so bad until you realize what the weather is like in Bogota. Jeans take up to 2 days to dry and they still aren’t really fully dry!
But anyway, the excitement. As I said, the heater is gone. Apartments are going to those gas heaters that only heat the water when you need it. They are starting to advertise them in the states…Renai is importing them. When the hot water is turned on somewhere in the apartment, the flame kicks on and heats the water. Well, the laundry hangs right in front of the water heater which hangs on the wall above that empty space. Well, you guessed it. The first time one of us used the shower one of Andrew’s t-shirts was a bit too close to the heater. I did realize it before it caught fire, but it was really warm. Actually though, I did learn a good lesson….clothes dry faster in the morning while everyone is taking showers!
We also had some fun with the stove. Maria Jose who owns the apartment had shown me how to use it, but I hadn’t paid very good attention. You have to turn on the main gas line below the counter, which I did. I then went to light one of the burners with the push button spark thing and all four burners lit up with various levels of flames. Scared the u no what out of me! The area around the little knobs all had a mark for off, but none of the marks on the knobs actually line up when they are really off! After I figured that out we were fine. I am not looking forward to trying out the stove!
The apartment is furnished. The living room is beautiful. There is a big window overlooking a playground/park across the street. We are on the 5th floor so there is a little view. But we face west and the mountains run N/S on the east side of the city. There is a blue couch under the window, a blue wing back chair, coffee table and some built in bookshelves. Also in this area is a dining table with 4 chairs and a floor to ceiling glass area with door out to a very small balcony, just big enough to sit one of those plastic patio chairs. (about 3×3 ft.). The kids each have a twin bed, but I am going to have to buy Andrew another mattress. They are just mattresses that are basically a thick piece of foam. Kirsten is fine with it, but Andrew is not. Overall, the furniture is really nice, I am very thankful we don’t have to go and buy furniture!
All of the woodwork is very different. It basically looks like unfinished pine and all of the doors are put together with horizontal slats. You can actually see light through the front door during the day. It gives the place a very caribbean feel.
Living here is very economical. The rent is 1,000,000 pesos/ month, the apartment fee is 150,000 pesos per month and I was told the utilities, phone, internet, etc. are about 400,000 per month. It is a little under 2000 pesos to the dollar just now, which makes everything around $800 per month. We are also going to have someone come in to clean, do laundry and start dinner for about $12 – $18 per day.
I mentioned the weather…it is cold here! You think South America and of course it must be really warm? NOT! The average high temp is really only 70 degrees F all year round and it goes down to the low 50’s at night, sometimes high 40’s. But it never freezes. Because of the temperate climate, the apartments do not have ac or heat. If you want heat you buy a space heater. There are a few blankets on my bed, but it is taking a bit to get used to. Layers is the key. It also rains a good bit, there are often clouds on the mountains and a light shower in the afternoon. But when the sun shines, it does heat up. Because Bogota is at 8500 ft. (yes, you read correctly) you really need sunscreen all the time. I found that out today, I can feel the sunburn on my face!
We are living in the northern part of Bogota. The southern part of the city is very poor and very dangerous. The government assigns a number 1-6 to areas of the city to indicate income levels. Southern Bogota is a 1, the school is located in a 5 area. We are living in a 4. Your utility prices are based on this number. If you live in a 4 you pay exactly what you use. If you live in a 5 or 6 you pay a percentage more in order to subsidize the cost for the zones 1-3. In zone 1 you find unpaved roads, houses built as the people can afford the bricks, extremely low income….under $150 per month. Many of the people who live in these areas are essentially refugees, people who have fled the guerilla fighters and civil war in the country. In zone 4 you find doctors, lawyers and other professional people as well as service industry owners. From what I have seen it is the lowest end of the safe areas to live.
Bogota is a city of over 8 million people, it is very crowded. The area we live in is entirely high rise (5-8 story) apartments for miles around. The streets are very crowded with taxis and automobiles and private buses as well as the occasional horse drawn wooden cart that is used by the very poor to collect recyclables. A few years ago the Colombian government built a modern bus system called the trans-millenial. They have lanes in the centers of the large roads that are completely dedicated to these buses. You cross via pedestrian bridges to the median of the highway. One trip on the TM is 1400 pesos. Once you go through the turnstile you can change buses until you arrive at your destination just about anywhere in the city without paying again. These buses actually often have 2 lanes in each direction which allows express buses to bypass the local ones that are stopped at a station. It is a very efficient system, for the most part safe, and relatively cheap (I say relatively because to me it is cheap, but on $100 per month it is not!) On the other hand, if all three of us go somewhere it is almost cheaper for a taxi. The taxi to the Exito (like Wal-mart) about 1.5 miles away was 2800 pesos. It is amazing how cheap some things are and how expensive others are. This is probably due to the wide disparity in income.
As I think of more to tell you about the city, I will. If there is anything you’d like to know, please just ask!