Ora et Labora: Gettin' Ma Jesus On

Yeiner, Gerson, y Esteban take a walk after lunch. Habits don't stretch like the belly does!

After more than two weeks of adjusting to city life in South America, we finally started working at the high-school we came to teach at, Colegio de San Benito. I realize this sounds an awful lot like the College of Saint Benedict, but colegio actually means high-school. Devon is helping out 10th and 11th grade English classes, and yours truly is struggling to remember 8th and 9th grade English in an effort to not completely mislead my students. Even calling them my students feels premature, especially since I am not the lead teacher. D and I are assistant teachers, at least to begin with. Next semester we could have the opportunity to lead classes, but are content to serve as glorified pronunciation experts and the good cop in our teaching duo.

In what little educational experience I had prior to finding myself at the front of a Colombian high-school, I learned that what you're teaching is often not as important as how the kids are dealing with it. Are they confused or overwhelmed, eager or receptive? What can go a long way in helping this process is putting yourself in your students' shoes, which can be tricky here, especially if your shoe size is larger than the majority of the Colombian population's. But, since I feel like my previous posts have been more about what I've been exposed to - be that information or sights - maybe it's time I walk the walk and talk about how I'm doing. This is probably also where most people will stop reading (waits for the majority to click the small 'x' on this tab).

I have insulted this country with my presence for nigh on a month now, and after every day ends I'm glad it hasn't kicked me out yet (even though we have yet to try to get our Visas?...). Each day seems to get better, or at least I feel more and more a part of this place. I should really say these places, since I'm operating in two distinct places these days.

Firstly, as I'm living within a monastic community, Jesus and I have been hanging out a lot lately; I ask him 'what's up' everyday and in return I get to drink his blood. Sac-religiosity aside, spending time with the monks at Monasterio San Benito de Tibati has been an unforeseen privilege. As most students' experiences with the monastic community at Saint John's involves getting written up by a Faculty Resident or needing a drink after a Philosophy test, I wasn't exactly expecting to become as good of friends with some of the monks in Colombia as we already have. What helps is that this monastery is small (14 total) and many in it are young. Sure, the four priests are older gents, but all of the brothers and novitiates are around 30, or younger. They are a strangely fun group. It can often feel like hanging out with a host of older male relatives with how they poke fun at each other and try to trick us volunteers into saying Colombian swear words. We play a lot of ping pong and watch a lot of movies. They'll stop by our rooms just to shoot the breeze for a bit, and they've also been caught in the act of throwing rocks at my window to get me to come outside.

Our movie theater

More importantly, they are also some seriously genuine dudes. Whether it's accompanying us to the center of town to work out cell phone business, inviting us to paint with them in their art studio, or chatting with us late into the evening to help us with our Spanish practice, the monks of Tibati are intent on making us a part of their community. Last week, I developed some lovely tendonitis in my left foot. And while this would have been tragic for Daniel Day Lewis, I had the help of the monastery's unofficial medic, Brother Jorge. First, he poked and prodded to find the pain. After concluding that it was probably tendonitis instead of a broken bone, he took me to the hospital mostly for my own peace of mind considering my pretty shitty medical history regarding my lower left limb. After two hospitals wouldn't take my insurance, we found a hole-in-the-wall doctor's office that epitomized the stereotypical South American medical facility: stairs up into a building that feels like a repurposed apartment, waiting in the 'lobby' which was most likely a dining room at one point, paying 15 dollars to see a doctor who takes your blood pressure to incept his own legitimacy into your mind before twisting your ankle and poking/bending your injured foot, scribbles on a pad, gives you some pills and tells you to have a nice day, all while a telenovela blares in the background.

Needless to say, I'd never felt more confidant in my medical attention, though St. Cloud's not much better. Through all of this, Jorge was doing the talking since I wasn't even going to attempt medical terminology in Spanish. After it was determined that it wasn't actually a stress fracture, Jorge asked if I wanted to go back to the monastery or explore the city more. This is how I found that because the monks have to get permission to leave the monastery, when they do, they make a whole day out of it. First we saw the National Stadium, where the main soccer games are played. Then we grabbed coffee and a snack at Jorge's favorite cafe. After that, he showed me one of the main areas of the city which had a huge mall, discoteques, bars, and other touristy shopping centers. We each got a couple things, and he insisted on paying since he was on both monastery time and cash.

For less than a dollar, you can have someone bike-carriage you around

They'll write down anything I tell them to, it's great.

My other world is at the school I teach at, a mere five minute walk from our rooms. Much like the monastery, all of our colleagues have been welcoming. Many enthusiastically greet us when we walk in every morning, and just the other day three of them approached me and asked to tutor them in English during a shared open hour. We also have started helping out the boys basketball team after being asked on the first day by the coaches if we wanted to show up to practice that day and help out.


The teacher I help, Wilmer Urrega is also new (having been hired the day before classes started, and I showed up to class on the first day not knowing if I'd be teaching solo or not), so we both have been having some fun getting used to the place. I'm not sure I could have asked for a better teacher to assist. His English is pretty damn superb, he's always asking me to correct him and help him (he, too, set up a free hour with me to tutor him further, though I'm not sure what more I can teach him!), and he's always open to new ideas I might have for class. He also trusts me to take over the class, as evidenced when I had to teach solo for an hour that he had an appointment scheduled. As much as part of me wants to teach my own class, I'm more than happy to be assisting such an open-minded, kind, intelligent dude for the time being.

Wilmer with his sandwich at Friday communal breakfast

What helps is that our kids really make teaching fun and easy. Sure, every class has their twerps and slackers. But, considering I was both for much of my educational life, I'd like to think I have pretty good ways of dealing with them. For the most part, our kids are sincerely eager to learn English. Even the ones who aren't are aware of how important another language is for their professional lives and will reluctantly put up with us. At first, I was a bit worried about being the foreign volunteer. In the states, the volunteer or substitute is usually in for a rough time as students are anxious to see how much of a pushover you are, or how much they can get away with. But, dare I say it, I might be respected at this place. No doubt they'll wise up in due time!


I'll most likely write a post specifically about my classes and students, but suffice it to say that things are going better than I could have expected. It's been a good month.

J.

Song in my head lately: Imagine by John Lennon. I trust that all will know it and I don't need to put a link to it. It's in my head because it is one of the choice songs to play in passing times between classes at the Colegio. When the song ends, you'd better be in your classroom. That goes for students and teachers!

Spanish word of the day: Lechuza - Owl. The monks like to watch movies. Especially since the school many of them help out with (San Carlos) hasn't started yet, they have more time to catch up on films. Over the course of the past two weeks we have been racing through the Harry Potter series faster than you can say Quidditch, having finished up El Principe Mestizo (Half-Blood Prince) last night. Some of the movies have English subtitles, many don't. Lechuza is a word I hear often.

Ps, check out my good friend Ari's blog here for book reviews, rantings, and more!
Also, Devon's blog is here. He posts more than I do, so if I go another two weeks without posting and for some strange reason you actually want an update from us, he's your guy!

Haaaave you met Bogota?

If you're near my generation in age, when you think of Colombia you probably think of either Shakira or James Rodriguez. If you're any older you probably think of the drug cartels, cocaine, and violence, especially in Bogota. You also may think, "Colombia? That's, like, near the equator, right? Must be nice there this time of year." But while Rodriguez' face smiles from every billboard and your geographical prowess is truly something to behold, allow me to dispel three myths about where I've chosen to spend a year.

James Rodriguez, Colombian futbol star, wants to know more, too.

Myth 1: JJ went to Columbia

No, no. JJ went to Colombia. Columbia with a "u" is a United States outerwear and sportswear manufacturing and distribution company founded in 1938. Alternatively, if you're as much of a nerd as my brother (love you, dude) Columbia could be referring to Columbia Gear, an integrated supplier of custom gearing and power transmission products including internal and external precision spur and helical hears, splined gears and shafts, and good grief is this sentence as hard to read as it is to write? My personal favorite, though, was when I ambiguously told someone I was going to Colombia and they responded with, "Oh, really? What will you be studying out east?" While I forget with whom this conversation was with, I appreciate their polite naïveté in believing I was going to grad school at a private Ivy League research University in New York.  

Colombia with an “o” is a country at the northern tip of South America, bordered by five other countries as well as the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Once a well-traversed corridor between North and South America during ancient history, Colombia is now a constitutional republic that declared its independence from Spain in 1819 after 300 years of Spanish rule, give or take a few massacres. Colombia with an “o” is also the third largest Latin American country behind Brazil and Mexico.

Nitpicky? Yes. Assholery? A bit strong, but I can't disagree. Don't worry, this is the only time I'll point out the difference, since correcting those I care about when they demonstrate they care enough about me to ask about my time here would not be demonstrating how much I care about them. If you can figure your way through that sentence, feel free to pronounce it or spell it whichever way you please. Colombia, Columbia, tomato tomahto, I just thought there would be some that would want to know the difference.

Myth 2: Due to its proximity to the equator, Bogota is a tropical paradise.
Let me show you two weather reports for the next ten days:

Folks back home are familiar with the second report, as that's the weather for St. Joe over the next ten days. The first one is for Bogota over that time.

So, why the hell is it so cold here even though we're only 4 degrees north of the equator? I mean, in contrast, St. Joe is more than 45 degrees north of the same damn line! Sure, ocean effect causes some discrepancy, since Colombia borders the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea and MN is severely more continental (thereby seeing colder winters and hotter summers). But, more importantly, where the elevation back home is barely above 1,000ft, Bogota rests in a highland plateau at almost 9,000ft. So while it will be 90 degrees all week in the rest of Colombia and St. Joe, all the wind into the capitol city has to rise over the mountains surrounding it, vastly cooling it. Tack on to that the rainy tropical climate typical of equatorial areas, and I'm left with chilly, wet mornings waiting for the sun to poke through the clouds. Sweaters are the norm here and shorts are unheard of unless you're being sporty, leaving me almost no opportunity to flaunt my gringo upper thighs!

All in all though, it is essentially MN fall year-round. And though the lack of deciduous trees do not lend Colombian hillsides to the same fiery landscapes as those in Collegeville, it's a small heartache compared to shivering through Minnesota winters that make Winterfell look like your Cancun condo.   

Myth 3: Mainly because of the drug trade, Colombia - and especially Bogota - is incredibly dangerous

Books and films have been written about this subject, so I’ll stick to an abridged version that will keep my mother’s heart from stopping.

First off, you might have heard of Pablo Escobar, known as the King of Cocaine. With his drug cartels he was able to have a near monopoly on the global coke trade by the late 80s. While seen as an enemy to U.S. and Colombian governments for bribing/killing law enforcement officials, he was popular with the people since he funded the construction of churches, hospitals, schools and sports complexes. It should also be noted that much of the demand for his product came from – you guessed it – good ole U. S. of A. I’m not suggesting his actions are our fault, especially the killings, but there are always two sides to a story. Either way, for those concerned, Escobar’s activity was mainly centered in the city of Medellin 500km northwest of Bogota. Also, since Escobar died in ’93, his and other competing cartels’ activity was diminished when the Colombian government cracked down (pun intended) and killed or arrested all cartel leaders.

Pablo Escobar

So let’s focus now on Bogota, since it indeed was once considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world. For Colombia, the 1950s was a decade of civil war between the Conservative and Liberal parties, known as La Violencia, which followed the assassination of popular liberal president Jorge Gaitan (1948). During these times, violence reigned supreme and more than 200,000 people were killed. Those killed were mostly peasants and laborers nearer to the edge of the city, away from government forces. After too long, the Conservative and Liberal parties were all like, Oh shit, we’re destroying ourselves, so they agreed to establish a bipartisan political system in which each party would take turns governing (late 50s).

Because it invested heavily in agriculture – the primary economy of Colombia – this system appeared to help, at least on paper. But there are two reasons why it did not:

1. The new system promoted industrial agriculture and provided subsidies for large-scale private farms. This caused many small-scale farms to go out of business. Couple that with the lingering violence in rural Bogota, and the result is a massive population increase towards the center of the city. In fact, in less than thirty years, the population of Bogota went from less than a million to more than 5 million residents, many considered unskilled workers. 

2. This wonderful new system also happened to strengthen the military enough to help suppress political reform and radical politics that might want a different form of government.

So, what do you get when you essentially force low-income, unskilled workers into the city center while refusing to take care of them politically? If you guessed more violence, you are correct!

Eventually – and let’s be honest, unsurprisingly – guerrilla and radical groups formed to combat the restrictive government. The most well-known group is probably FARC, or las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (which I trust I don’t need to translate). For decades these radicals fought big government through terrorism, kidnappings, and killings. However since their leader died in the late 90s, their power and influence have diminished.

Though many in the world know Bogota as the violent city that it indeed was for years, it has gotten safer. Fun fact: where the capitol city was once in the top 5 for murder rates, it now does not even crack the top 50, whereas Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans, and our own country’s capitol proudly put our stars and stripes in the top 40.

A lot of Bogota’s salvation came from politics in the form of firm but not tyrannical leadership, as well as movements that called upon the public’s help to reduce crime. Like any large city, most crime can be avoided by simply avoiding the wrong places at the wrong time without doing the wrong thing. Wrong thing here means showing off expensive camera, sorting through cash at an ATM, walking alone at night in bad areas etc. 

The mantra for this post is, "ColOmbia is cloudy, often rainy, and safer than it used to be. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go photograph downtown Bogotano nightlife and ask the street vendors if they have change for the biggest bills Colombia has.

JJ

Song in my head lately: oddly enough, I've been whistling the Santa Bear lullaby as I walk through our echo-friendly halls. I couldn't even find a video of it, but if you've ever seen it, it's when Santa Bear sings his mouse friend to sleep. Wrong season, random song. But hey, you can't choose what gets stuck in your head. 

Spanish word of the day: Ajiaco is one of the more popular Colombian dishes. It's a soup that has anything and everything in it, the most common combination being potatoes, chicken, rice, and vegetables. It's basically a watery MN hot dish, so count me in!

  

"Hablas Ingles?"

A view of the majority of the 600mi² city of Bogota, Colombia

Our first few days in Colombia have not been without adventure. If I haven't mentioned it before, Brother Paul Richards - the creator, curator and of the BVC - was in Bogota the day before we arrived. Considering that he had mentioned during our two week retreat in May that he would only show up to our sites if something was seriously wrong, we were understandably taken aback when we heard he would be there. But he assured us that his stay was solely to maintain strong ties to the monastery in Bogota; to keep a face to the name, so to speak. That, and he "got a cheap flight!"

Our hesitation rapidly turned into anticipated mirth as we pictured our director trying to find his way through a Spanish speaking country, which may sound mean unless you know him. When you first meet him, Brother Paul can easily come off as straight-faced and strict. This is only because his humor is so dry and sarcastic that he's probably making fun of you if he's scolding you (essentially, he and I are on the same page here). He will dish out grief to anyone any chance he gets, but he is also able to take a fair amount of it himself ("Everywhere I go, in any country, everybody just makes fun of me!!") He also hates being in pictures - something I can empathize with, though he will take it a step further and give the camera the middle finger if he is feeling so perturbed. He also abhors the thought of being mentioned in a public forum such as a blog or other social media, so this whole paragraph is enjoyable to write for myself and those who know him well. Overall though, he is generous with his time, makes sure we volunteers are comfortable in our sites and offers valuable suggestions at every step. In particular, he made a point of telling us to get to know the cooks, guards, janitors, and maintenance workers - "you never know when you need some help." He also thought it would be a good idea to get acquainted with public transportation early on in our venture, which brings us to today's events. 

Devon and I were eager to observe this man very much out of his habitat here in Colombia. However, much to our surprise - and admitted disappointment - his Spanish was very much passable. Sure, he might only know how to speak in the present tense and knew very little vocabulary, but what he lacked in jargon he made up for in willingness to try. Or, as he put it, "Who cares?? I'll never see any of these people again!"

It was the first of July, and our destination for the day was Monserrate, one of the mountains overlooking the city of Bogota. Since it is around 20 kilometers south through the city center, this was to be a hands-on lesson in the TransMilenio, the public bussing system of Bogota. And what a lesson it was.

First off, we had to take a local bus to simply get to the center highway where the TransMilenio  runs through. Naturally, it stopped past where we needed it to, and therefore had to navigate back to the desired platform. Now, the TransMilenio is an incredibly unintuitive web of bus lanes that stretches mainly from the north to the south of the city, but also has routes extending into the suburbs, or barrios. The busses on the north-south main line - where we were travelling - would be relatively easy to figure out if it weren't for the fact that not every bus stops at every platform. Some are more direct while others make multiple stops. This means that you could easily take longer than necessary to get to your destination or completely miss it and have to backtrack, though one will undoubtedly encounter both joys, given enough time. 

Br. Paul striking a pose like few others can

At the ticketing station, Paul first asks if the ladies speak English. They give him a look that perfectly blended slightly offended with pitiful laughter, as if to say, "Dude, you kiddin??" After a very one sided conversation in which little progress was made, a teenager emerged from the growing line behind us to offer some help. He explained in broken English which stops to make. With his help, we were able to discern two stops, "Ruta Facing" and "Tercer Milenio." We weren't sure the order nor the direction thereafter, but figured we would simply get off if we saw either name on a platform we stopped at.

As the TransMilenio travels further south into the heart of the city, the busses quickly fill with commuters, shoppers, and solicitors of all varieties including - but definitely not limited to - those asking for money for music, speeches, injuries, or dulces (candy). Standing on the bus, we were soon pushed up against the walls by other passengers.

After we had been riding for about half an hour without seeing any recognizable platform name, Br. Paul began what I call the "Hablas ingles?" game. This is when someone who knows very little Spanish - usually a gringo tourist - asks anyone in the vicinity, "Hablas ingles?" (Do you speak English?) If they shake their head, avoid eye contact, giggle, or outrightly respond, "No hablo ingles" (I don't speak English), move on to the next person.

After successfully alienating half of Bogota, Br. Paul was able to find a man who said he could help us, even if his English wasn't much better than Paul's Spanish. We got off at the next platform with him, only to find out from security posted on every platform that we had indeed gotten off too early. Frustrated with the whole affair, we simply decided to walk the remaining 20+ blocks to the base of Monserrate. After riding the cable car up to the top of the mountain, Br. Paul seemed to have had enough, so he pulled out his book and said, "See you in an hour." After Devon and I explored the church and the city views, we all met up with Paul and rode back down.

He claims he's been to the top before.

The Funicular (Cable Car). 

               


The return trip was not without its navigational mishaps. But, all in all, while it took nearly 4 hours to get to Monserrate, we spent no more than two hours getting back to the monastery. None of us were too overwhelmed, this was to be a learning experience after all.

The cherry on top of the day came when we were almost at our stop. Devon and I had been separated from Br. Paul by a few people on the TransMilenio after he had found a seat and we were pushed further backwards. Devon and I were prematurely reminiscing about the days laughs when Devon yelled to our monk to get his attention. Br. Paul looked up and made nearly every Colombian on the TransMilenio crack a smile when he responded with, "No hablo ingles!"

Thank you Brother Paul, for the laughs and the lessons.

JJ


Song in my head lately: No Envy, No Fear by Joshua Radin. It speaks for itself.

Spanish word of the day: Refajo is a Colombian drink made from mixing beer and a Colombian soda aptly named "Colombiana," though other soft drinks work as well. Much like a Chilean Fanshop (which mixes beer with Fanta), be careful to not use this word in this context outside of Colombia because refajo also commonly means "slip," referring to feminine undergarments. Ordering that at a restaurant elsewhere could get interesting.

Church at the top of Monserrate.

I'm lichen this cross.