Bogota, Colombia
I am in Bogota at the moment to work – essentially, even though we spent the day – playing. You might be asking yourself what Bogota is like. Well, I am going to tell you. In some ways it reminds me of Brazil. There is crazy traffic everywhere and there are billboards all over the place. Most of the construction has that decadent neglected look to it that I first noticed in Uruguay. So in a way, it reminds me of there too. But on the other hand it is much cleaner than Brazil and lush in a totally different way. Everything you hear about flowers in Colombia seems to be true – I can assure you that I now know everything about the place because I have been here for more than 24 hours! Yeah – right! But that part about the flowers is true. Get this! They sell bouquets of orchids at the traffic lights. So that puts that question out there – is there any other place in the world that sells orchids on street corners? I will wait on the answer to that one.
We started our play today in a taxi and we first went up a funicular to a cathedral on a hill that overlooks the city. The city is built between two stretches of the Cordillera de los Andes and so pretty much wherever you look from up at that height you see mountains. That is something that I am definitely not used to and in a way it reminded me of La Paz. Anyway, after our trip up the mountains we took our tour to the center of town to the old colonial section. The Spanish colonial architecture there reminded me of Peru. So I did a lot of remembering today. In the old town we visited the Fernando Botero Museum and I was reminded of other trips I have taken and just how much I love an art museum. When we were done with that we continued our tour on foot. The thing that struck me most was the police presence on the streets. There were army, police and civic guards all over the place. In fact when we went down to the President’s “Palace” the street was cordoned off and they were checking people’s bags as they went in. one of the teachers in our group tried to walk near on the sidewalk closest to the palace and was told that was not allowed. From there we went on to the square on which the Supreme Court is located. On the steps of the Supreme Court building the riot – SWAT – or Elite Troops were guarding the building complete with helmets, knee pads, those “plastic- sheildy things” they use and obviously, machine guns. That was crazy. I have never seen anything like that before. In fact, that made the bullet-bomb proof Range Rover that had the sides extended all the way to the ground that I saw in Belfast look like a child’s toy. Apparently protesters gather in the square in front of the Court building and sometimes the protesters are infiltrated by the bad guys and the elite troops are there to protect the people. Okay.
After that we had a realy nice typical lunch and the soup we had reminded me of my mom’s corn chowder. Now, that is a good memory! From there we went to the Gold Museum and it was really worth the visit. It is amazing what artisans could do with gold way back when and there is no getting past the fact that it is just beautiful! After that we went to the crafts shops and bought prezzies for ourselves and our loved ones. That part was really fun and I bought a couple of really cute things from a very nice nun. Apparently all the goods in her stall were made by women who were the prime bread winners in the family. She was so warm and friendly I wished I had more time to spend with her and look at her stuff. I was at the end of my budget, so buying was not really an option! We had a cup of Juan Valdez’s best and took a cab back to the hotel.
We worked a little tonight when we registered for the conference and attended the welcome session/reception at the school. It was really dark and hard to see, but it looks like the campus is massive. It is built on a hill and so I am worried about my high heel-bunion combination for tomorrow. It is really high here, altitude-wise, compared to what I am used to and I notice I am getting winded very easily. I had a massive headache yesterday and a bit of an upset stomache. It is a lot cooler here than home and I was cold enough leaving the school tonight that my teeth were shivering. I am such a wimp!
Futher proof for that is the following: When I got to the check-in at the airport to come here there was a problem with my ticket. To make a long story short, the travel agency had changed the status of my ticket to make it say reimburse. I was totally thrown by that and when no one at the airport could make that status change. I called the school. It was too close to take-off time to get a reasonable price on the ticket, so I decided not to go on the flight. R$5000 to Bogota seemed a tad high. The travel agent called back at one point and got me on a later flight. So that was fine. (This all took the better part of 3 or 4 hours and multiple telephone calls back and forth, mind you.) When I got on the plane by myself I recognized a teacher from another school in Brazil. I chatted with him briefly and then stayed to myself on the flight. So here’s where I am wimpy. I did not want to figure out on my own how to get myself to the hotel on my own. So I followed them around. First they got their luggage and I waited for them. Then they exchanged money, so I did too. (I hadn’t thought of doing that on my own.) Then I wandered around outside the airport to see if there was anyone there to take me to my hotel – there was not. So I followed the other teachers to the taxi stand. We are not in the same hotel, so I got in a cab on my own. The cabbie was nice enough and chatted to me all the way to the hotel. I understood him and thought I was in good shape with my Spanish – I am not by the way, but I can understand a lot! Phew! I tell you though, if those other people were not there to glom onto in the airport I might have had to have waited for the next gringo installment to arrive, because I was incapable of getting my butt outta there on my own. Pretty wimpy, right? Where did my travelling bravado go? Do you lose it after age 40? Let that be my second question out there to you!
St. Patrick’s Day
I forgot to wear green today, but I received this Irish Blessing from a friend and thought I’d share it with you:
May the road
Rise up to meet you
May the wind
Be at your back
May the sun
Shine warm
Upon your face
The rains
Fall soft upon your fields
And
Until we meet again,
May God hold
You in the hollow
of his hand
Proud Mama
I guess there is no reason why we are not allowed to brag a little about our kids on our blogs, right? Even if the answer is no, I am going to anyway!
Chichi did a painting of a cat in art class, as did the rest of the first grade. However, hers is placed right near the door to the library in a position of honour. I was so surprised and pleased that I got all teared up when I saw it yesterday. I phoned my husband and he and Chichi went to see it after school. She and I went to look at it today and we checked out all the other kids’ paintings too. She seemed quite proud and I know I sure was! I was also really proud of her the other day when she was doing her nightly reading. She has started reading at night with her Dad in Portuguese and I am surprised at how well she is doing. She can read most of the books that we have for her in Portuguese and she seems to becoming more fluent in her reading. However, I was thrilled the other night when I read one page of “Go Dog Go” and she read the other. We did the same last night for the Curious George original story. When Lu wanted me to read and sing Itsy, Bitsy Spider to him, Chichi wanted to read “Green Eggs and Ham”. I told her no, and so she went ahead and read it on her own. She was reading it to herself, but it sounded like she was really able to read it on her own. I was so happy about that.
In other developmental milestones, Lu went through last night diaper- and accident-free!
In further developmental milestone delays, Chichi and Lu started going to sleep on their own last Friday. However, they both ended up in our bed at some point during the night. The update on that: they have been in their beds ever since. That my friends is only about 3 years late!
Wowsers…
I’m not sure if I have been lazy, busy or a bit of both. One thing is for certain – my blog has been left behind. So here’s what’s been going on. I was away last week with some students and I am off again next week for a conference. (That in itself has meant that life has been busy, not to mention all the other things I do.) At the conference I am going to be presenting a case study on blogs and so I had my students create their own blogs today. It was interesting to see their enthusiasm and think about all the great things they will write in their blogs. The nice part about this blog is that it really is not about me, but my kids. They are doing well and are as funny as ever. Chichi received her first award at a school assembly the other day which really seemed to perplex her. I found out from someone else and asked her about it. She really had no idea what it was for and why she got it. As it turns out it is for helping and learning from others, which is a huge step forward for her. I was so happy for her. Chichi has also been writing notes to the family about what food is hers in the refrigerator and I am including one of those notes here: 
In case you are not fluent in 7 year old language, let me explain this to you. It is a mixture of Portuguese and English and is sort of a “Portuguized” version of an English word. It is referring to Chiara’s school snack. It is very creative spelling to say the least and closer to how you would say the English word in Portuguese. My husband was rather surprised and I must say I was pretty perplexed by the note that greeted me first thing in the morning!
On the other hand, Lu has taken to referring to himself only in the 3rd person which is a riot. He has also started to really procrastinate on eating and now wants to be spoon-fed again, which is a pain. He doesn’t eat within a reasonable amount of time and wants everything put in the refrigerator afterwards. In fact, this morning he pulled out his bread from yesterday afternoon and ate it, exclaiming: “How delicious!” He even got me to try a bite. It was not bad, but I definitely have had better. Our dog Brownie had an eating adventure the other day too. Someone accidentally left the door open and he sneaked into the house and slept on the couch. He also polished off the rest of a panetone cake and even managed to get the clip off and open the bag. What a mess that was!
So everything is pretty much the same as always except that I am trying to be more organized. I will tell you if I am successful after I get to my conference. Let’s just say that I had to do a teeny-weeny bit of scrambling to get ready for last week’s trip. That reminds me. How do you spell diddly squat?
