Work Hard, Play Harder

Last weekend, I had accepted the defeat that I had finally lost my wallet in Colombia. I had looked everywhere for it, and it wouldn’t be easy to find considering it’s just a small billfold with enough space for an ID, credit card, and a few folded bills. For some reason, one of the first questions my kids in class ask me is if I’ve seen a tornado. I usually say no, just a twister or maybe a formation of one, though never one that has touched down. But that answer might have to change after what I did to my room looking for my wallet. It had been turned into a Tarzanian jungle of pants and jackets with the pockets inside out, both my backpacks and both shoulder bags emptied on my bed and/or floor, and the contents of my desk drawers and shelves hanging down in a sad, open gape. Later that evening, I sat down in my mess to read some Dao. I won’t take too much time to explain the Tao Te Ching, but suffice it to say that it’s a series of short readings to make you relax, think, and reflect. It was a gift from a friend, who got it from another mutual friend, and I have taken it with us on our Boundary Waters trips as well as my travels in South America. I go through phases of making myself reading one every night, but had gotten away from it by the time I was looking for my wallet. So, back in my mess, I pick up the Dao. And sure enough, right under it was my wallet. If me finding it after giving up doesn’t reflect the Dao’s “do without doing” mantra, then I don’t know what does.

 *          *          *

Sergio and I loving workshops.

            For better or worse, however, I did do a lot of doing the last two weeks. At school, we were all busy with teacher workshops, whether that meant learning about the school’s code of conduct (apparently boys are supposed to have short hair, so I’m setting a great example), how to properly discipline a student, how parent conferences work, different tips on getting kids engaged in the classroom, etc. There were also a lot of team building exercises that turned out to be more fun than the last sentence. One activity, in particular, involved drawing on a large piece of paper something that expressed who you are. While most teachers drew smiley faces, doodles, and sports, the two kids from Minnesota drew woods, rivers and lakes (oh my!) When talking to some other teachers afterwards how much I enjoyed that activity, they said they could tell that it made us think of home. But while it was hard to be away from Minnesota fall, seeing the temperatures in St. Joe these days doesn’t bring too many tears to mine eyes.

            As hard as we worked during the week, I was lucky enough to have a little fun during the weekends. This last Friday I had just returned from school ready to decompress and enjoy my last weekend before classes started up again. As if they read my mind, some fellow teachers called me up and told them to meet them at the bus stop to go out for a drink. It was a slightly different crowd of teachers this time. Usually, I find myself out with the other coaches like Sergio, Alex, Danny and Felipe. But this time I got my humanities time with Santi and Juan Felipe (Social Studies), Eliana (French), and Laura (Spanish). We ended up spending the whole night out at various locations, and where I usually remain in the background listening to conversations trying to learn some slang, they kept me very much involved and kept asking me questions about life in Minnesota. The two female teachers also kept pressing me to rate the other female teachers on a scale from 1-10. It proved embarrassing at first, until Laura (who is also my Communication department boss) told me to raise my hand and take an oath that nothing anyone said that night would be repeated at school. Drinking and dancing became much easier after my oath.

            The next morning, I was up and out of the monastery before breakfast to hike a mountain. My friend Tatiana, whom I had met in Mocoa a few weeks ago, had said that she and a friend would be hiking the Quebrada la vieja early since they stop letting people enter the trail after 8am. So I rode the bus over 100 blocks to where they were waiting for me, and we headed due east towards the mountainside. We were soon joined by others hiking up and down the narrow forested path, and even had to avoid those wishing to run up and down it (making me feel even worse for how out of shape I was… or am). After about an hour we reached a forest of tall pines that stretched far up out of the city and left a light brown carpet of long needles at its feet. It was yet another reminder of Minnesota, and one I hope to return to during my tenure here.

Vanessa, Tatiana, and my white ass, amongst the pines.

Two Saturdays ago, if you’ll excuse my desire to go further back in time, my friend Sergio’s friend from college told me to come to some indoor soccer fields later that day for Sergio’s birthday party. Assuming Sergio knew what was happening, I didn’t even text him, instead thinking that he was already in the know. I found out that it was actually a surprise birthday party, and all of Sergio’s buddies were at the fields awaiting his arrival to play a celebratory game of soccer. When he showed up flabbergasted, he hugged and pushed all his friends and yelled, “You even brought the gringo!”

Post soccer Colombian dudefest.

            

After the soccer game and a few drinks, the night was still quite young, even for a middle school teacher who lives in a monastery. So I texted my friend Tatiana,  who had invited me to a party at a club where some friends of hers from Mexico were playing their cumbia-electronic music that Saturday night, but I had told her I probably couldn’t go on account of said surprise birthday party. She confirmed that she was indeed still going, and that she had two extra tickets in case I wanted to invite someone. Being the good BVC partner I am, I told Devon to meet me there.

Tatiana breaking it down with the band.

Now, my dancing started out pretty hesitantly, which I convinced myself was understandable considering my out of shape body had just played two hours of soccer and didn’t want to make too much of a fool of itself in front of a sizable gathering of footloose Colombians (I’ll take this opportunity to inform reader(s) that Colombians regularly outperform the field at international dance competitions and local nightclubs). But I gotta say, this is one gringo who can dance up a storm, cut a rug, seal a deal and… ah who the hell am I kiddin’? I was still bad, but after I couldn’t feel my legs I stopped caring and just went with it. And went with it we did, all the way until 3am, with Tatiana, her friend, and the band after they finished playing and came and joined us. After being ushered out well after closing time, I was about ready to drop on the street and use the curb for a pillow. But our hosts were having none of that, so we proceeded to find another club, one with a pretty stiff cover charge of 30,000 pesos (I know, barely ten dollars, but this guy still scoffs at Sal’s $2 covers). And there, we danced for a couple more hours before I fell asleep on the couch in the club. That’s no hyperbole. I was woken up within minutes, however, and told we were finally leaving. So I hauled my sorry ass up and outta that club and into the bright Bogota morning at 5:30am on a Sunday, getting back to the monastery just in time for bed church!

Spanish word of the day: In English, we have essentially one verb to explain dancing, to dance. This is because most people whose first language is English suck at dancing. For Spanish cultures, dancing is very much a part of their lives. Thus, there are numerous verbs to talk about throwing your body around in an artsy way. One verb I learned recently was contonear, which means "to move your body from one side to the other, focusing on moving waist and hips in a sensual manner" (translated from definition).

Song in my head recently: There are a lot of good Radical Face songs out there. Though his song, Home, is probably one of my favorites, I only recently discovered Always Gold, which is also, well, gold. If you're not a fan from the beginning, don't worry, it picks up the pace around the minute mark.

Daniel, with whom I help coach the basketball team, and I leading a group activity during workshops. 

Camping in the Rain Forest

Well, teacher workshops have started. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t able to get in a little more traveling last week.

Back on New Year’s day, my friend Amber came to visit. She’s starting work on a farm in southern Ecuador through an international organic farming organization, and decided to make a visit to Bogota. We were only in the city for a couple days, making the obligatory trip up the Monserrate mountain for the city view (my fifth time up so far, thanks to visitors), visiting a Colombian poet named Carlos Satizabal who had conducted poetry workshops in our Spanish classes at CSB/SJU, and playing ping pong with the monks in the monastery.

Bogota to Mocoa, ~11 hours. That's if your bus
doesn't make eighty stops and no local throws
a rock throw a window, shattering it and causing
a delay of an hour as workers tape plastic
over the now totally removed window. But
that only happened on my way back.

Since she was on her way southwest to Ecuador, Amber suggested visiting the town of Mocoa, which is on the way. I was glad to have another opportunity to travel, especially since we have similar ideals of traveling, mainly bussing and staying in cheap hostels while avoiding organized tours and instead leaning towards local outdoor attractions like hiking or camping. My confidence wasn’t exactly sky high, however, when – after we had already bought bus tickets – we were able to find out very little about this place. The internet couldn't tell us much since it isn't a popular gringo attraction, and most Colombians I’d asked knew almost nothing, if they knew where it was at all.

Feet a-danglin' o're the end of the world. 

So with that solid, concrete plan set in place, we arrived in Mocoa the morning after an overnight bus ride. A tent borrowed from the monastery was stretching the top of my small pack as we rolled out of the main part of town, because the price was half if we camped instead of opting for beds. After getting set up, we decided to check off the only attraction we knew of up to that point: a hike along a river that is comprised of mostly a series of cascades with some serious cliff jumping opportunities before arriving at the top of a huge waterfall that overlooks the southern Colombian rainforest, a location appropriately called El fin del mundo (meaning the end of the world, though I’m sure numerous worldwide locations are named as such). After some cliff jumping, swimming, and dangling my feet over a 230 foot waterfall (seriously, there was no fence or guard rail or anything, I wonder how many have died here), I thought to myself, Okay, we have four more days to occupy ourselves with outside of a small town in the rainforest. What followed were some of the best days I’ve spent in this country, and it was all thanks to the great people we met at our hostel.

            After returning from El fin del mundo, one of the guys who’d been staying at the hostel helping out for a couple of weeks, Julian, mentioned that the next day would be the last day of the New Year Carnavales, a week long party. We caught a ride into town the next day to find the main square cordoned off with police barriers, and little old ladies outside selling cans of spray foam and baggies of flour. We quickly learned that these materials were one’s ammo, and once through the police barrier, anyone and everyone was fair game to be sprayed and splashed with flour. Beer and food vendors flanked the edges of the square, but everything and everyone else was covered in white dust and a haze hung in the air as kids in pairs darted from victim to victim, dousing them in clouds of flour. And let me tell you, when you work in a school all day, if you get the chance to pelt grain and spray foam at adolescent and prepubescent children, you take it. You take that opportunity, and you enjoy the hell out of it. The only downside is, as we soon realized, is that you will eventually be outnumbered and out-floured, wiping foam from your sunglasses and coughing up white dust as child after child runs around you with glee. 

Just trying to enjoy a beer. But no, damn
kids had other ideas.

After the battle, we grabbed some nearby dinner before catching the parade through town. Much like the Fourth of July parade, this was a series of floats celebrating their history and culture. Instead of marching bands, there were numerous dance groups. And instead of weird central Minnesotan staples like the Shriners and unicycle jugglers, there were neon spray-painted indigenous characters. Don’t worry, there were still bands pulled by horse carriage. Oh, and a Star Wars float, can’t forget that. Still shaking off flour with every step, we were carried with the crowd back to the main square where the bandstand soon got going with music. Some of the other people who were staying at the hostel managed to find us in the crowd, and we danced and drank the night away, everyone adding layers of foam and flour to everything they were wearing.

Traipsing through the jungle.

            The next day was no less incredible. Some others helping out at the hostel invited us to go with them to the Salto del Indio, a waterfall from a river that springs from the mountain and feeds the local river system. We had to hitch-hike to the next town over, and hike for about two hours through pastures and flood plains before entering the jungle to find the river. Our trusty crew today included Sebastian, Laura, Gustavo, and Tatiana, Amber and me. After swimming and snacking in the falls’ misty grotto, we exited the jungle and walked back along the flood plain of the dried riverbed. Approaching sunset, we stopped and made a bonfire on the beach and chatted. Shortly after the pinks and purples had disappeared behind the clouds, some local kids approached us with fish that they had just caught and wanted to fry right then and there over the fire we had made. And after feasting like a horde of Gollums, we decided it was about time to try to find our way back in the dark. Since the light from my phone was strongest, I took the rear and lit most of the path as we crisscrossed the river and sand dunes, dodging huge spiders resting on the sun warmed rocks as we went. I also managed to spot a snake everyone else had apparently not noticed, and when we all gathered around, we quickly discovered it was a coral snake. Gustavo was trying to say something about how it might be an imitator, while I just said something to the effect of, Who the #$%@ cares, let’s get the hell outta here!! (Since returning, I’ve done some research (Googling) and found that the phrase is “Red touching yellow kills a fellow,” meaning that if the red and yellow bands of the snake are touching, it’s the deadly coral. If not, it’s one of the imposters. Now I didn’t take the time to examine color order. But if you look at the different kinds, the venomous one has definitively more black than the others. And I remember seeing more black than the others. So for drama’s sake, I maintain I walked past a deadly snake.) We made it back to the other town only having been bitten by bugs, and found a lucky ride back to our hostel in the form of a cattle transport. So as we bumped along in the dusty manger that was the guy’s trailer, we looked out the open back at the stars that lit up the road behind us.

            The next two days included trips to a small canyon carved by a cutting river, as well as a visit to a nearby animal rehabilitation center and botanical garden, guided by none other than one of our own from the hostel (Laoreano). These got placed on a long list of things I hope I will never forget. First, there’s the weather. We were in the rainforest, but rain never impeded our adventures. Conveniently, it only rained in the early morning before we were “up and at ‘em,” and our tent from Jesus let in no water whatsoever (must have been coated with whatever he put on his feet the day he walked on water). Though it was the most humid place I’ve been to, and gave up showering after the first day since I was sweating as soon as I put fresh clothes on. Secondly, while I freely admit to preferring traveling on the cheap, the prices in this place were barely believable. It was either two dollars a day to pitch a tent, or five to have a room, prices that are at least a half to a fourth of what normal hostels rate. Also, food both in the market and at a restaurant probably amounted to twenty dollars between the two of us for the whole week, with a meal at restaurant never costing more than three dollars apiece. Some of this financial benefit was due to sharing meals with people we met at the hostel, which brings me to the third thing I’ll never forget.

            There are many people in the world who’ve traveled more than I, but I have stayed in my fair share of hostels in various countries. But I’ve never stayed in one where fellow guests and those staying longer to help out were such phenomenal human beings; Laoreano, Julian, Laura, Sebastian, Juan Carlos, Gustavo, Tatiana, and the rest at Posada Dantayaco. I’ll never forget the day trips we all took together, the struggles of trying to get 6+ people a ride while hitch-hiking before giving in to the fact that we’d have to temporarily split up, and the time spent hanging off the rails of trucks or sprawled out in truck beds watching the Colombian countryside zoom past with mountains in the background of everything. I’ll never forget the nights spent under the roof of the kitchen and lounge area attempting to teach each other card games and drinking cheap Colombian beer, listening to someone play a guitar. I’ll never forget those same nights because of our dinners that consisted of everybody bringing something to the table to create massive feasts for ten, and we would spend the night trying to finish all the food.

Spanish word of the day: the verb llevar can mean a variety of things, predominantly "carry" or "take." So when we hitch-hiked, we would say something like "Nos puede llevar?" or "Nos lleva?" which both mean something like "Can you take us?"

Song in my head lately: Not a huge pop fan, but Walk the Moon has some solid tunes. Shut Up and Dance, especially, is a song you can't really listen to without, well, shutting up and dance.

Sweaty Holidays

Growing up, family vacations were like walking on thin ice. We always made adventures of them, whether it was going to Yellowstone or Glacier, or driving to Alaska. But so much time spent with family can often be a fragile set of explosives, and any nudge or jab can blow everything up. I’m still grateful for those trips, and grateful to my parents for using their vacation time to help us grow up and learn about the world. Today, we seek out each other’s company rather than reserve it for holidays like many families do. And we hardly argue anymore, mostly because we’ve already argued and fought about anything and everything there was to disagree on. So it was saddening to not have the whole family in Bogota for Christmas. But, though we weren’t going to let missing a third of our party from trying to have a good time. So, after Christmas, I dragged the family out to the Caribbean.

Prior to arrival, my parents had expressed an interest in going someplace warm after Christmas since Bogota is pretty balmy sweater weather. I first thought of Colombia’s north coast along the southern Caribbean Sea. Cities like Cartagena and Santa Marta had been recommended to me by locals as prime beach destinations, so I started looking there. I soon discovered that the cost to fly to the northern coast was actually the same as it was to fly to San Andres, a Colombian island off the coast of Nicaragua. It didn’t take much convincing before tickets were purchased, and the day after Christmas we left Bogota in search for some Caribbean heat, mon.

Technically closest to Nicaragua.

The homestead + family

Our first day on the island was spent finding our lodging. That didn’t take too long, since the island is only eight miles long and ten square miles in total. Planning where to stay wasn’t easy, as holiday season amps up pricing while availability quickly plummets. We took a chance on a house I found on Airbnb that was located on the southern tip of the island, far away from all the hotels and tourist beaches of the northern end. We didn’t know what to expect, but wow, did we luck out. It was a great two-story house tucked in the jungle just inland from the waves crashing upon the coral beaches that contrast with the sandy ones further north. Not only was location great, but the renter’s sister, Cristina, lived next door, and her and her husband took us on a tour of the island and got us a good deal on renting a souped-up golf cart. They also took us to their two-hour Baptist service on Sunday, which included tons of jazzy, Jesus tunes and cloud parting, complete with “I said, CAN I GET AN AMEN??!?!” It was entertaining to say the least, and we stoic German Catholics could probably learn something about shaking things up for mass.

The next two days were spent speeding around in our cart, getting as much sun as we could in the few days we had. We took a day trip out to some islets just off the coast, where the water is shallower, snorkeling is more popular, and the water is a kaleidoscope of blues. Treading the line between tanning and burning, as we are all too often wont to do, we enjoyed cruising around like the pirates of old.

Juice maker, Reggae singer, organic farmer,
Job Saas.

Our other notable visit was to the homestead turned organic farm of a local islander, Job Saas. He inherited almost two acres – quite a chunk for an island so small – and instead of selling it to realtors to turn into hotels, he turned it into an organic farm and gives tours to those willing to donate to further the cause. He also has his own reggae band on the island, and has toured in South America and Europe. Not only that, but he makes some killer juices from the fruits on his farm.

I’m of the opinion that anyone who feels like retiring to live on the ocean beach has never spent time on the ocean beach. Yes, looking out to endless waters while the warm wind blows your hair back is a feeling worth experiencing. But when you turn around, you see buildings whose fragile foundations that have seen years of hurricane damage and cars rusted out from the salt blowing in from the sea. And that soft sand you like to dig your toes into? It doesn’t stay on the beach. It gets everywhere. Last year around this time, I was canoeing in the Everglades and Gulf of Mexico, and after two weeks of sand grinding into everything I owned, I was convinced that ocean life wasn’t something I could handle in the long run. But don’t let my complaining make you think I didn’t enjoy my time. Less than a week was the perfect amount of time spent with some of the family. But once more onto the ocean shore simply made me realize how important my Minnesota lakes and rivers are to me.

J.

Spanish word of the day: Despite the English meaning of stadium, arena is Spanish actually means sand. So when I say arena gets everywhere when you’re near the ocean, I don’t mean that the island of San Andres is just a big sporting complex.

Song in my head lately: We ended up getting a few CDs from our trip. Two were from Cristina’s husband, Luis, who writes and performs Calypso music as well as producing television shows on the island. One we got from Job Saas after our tour, and since I lean more towards the latter on the Calypso-Reggae spectrum here’s one of the English songs they sang, appropriately called Beautiful San Andres.

Roske Christmas: Escape to Bogota

Año means year, but someone tried to erase the tilde

on the n on this sign in an effort to make it say ano, which means anus.
So, happy anus everyone!

Like Yin and Yang or the balance in the force, every Christmas has its ups and downs. There was one Christmas where I took a hockey puck to the face from my dear older brother. There was also that fateful Christmas morning where I started hyperventilating because I was so excited about Santa’s delivery. I’m not certain in which year that last one was, but probably more recent than my memory would like to admit, I’m sure. But that’s not the point! The point is, there are good and bad parts to the holidays.

This year, I was excited to have (most of) my family come down to spend Christmas with me in Bogota. Molly had already visited and Ben recently got a great new job, so he and Ellory didn’t have as much free time around the holidays to make the trip. But I was able to pick up Mom, Dad, and Michaela from the airport a few days before Christmas in order to show them the city I’ve come to call a second home.

Following proper holiday tradition, their first day was a mixed bag. The monastery was having a luncheon fiesta for the cooks, janitorial staff, and grounds members on my family’s first full day in Colombia, and we were playing lawn games and people were dancing. It would have been a grand old time fit for Christmas lore had my mother not gotten sick later that day, probably a combination of the altitude and diet change. Everybody gets sick here at some point. Later, one of the quieter monks, Fabio, apologized to me for not being as interested in having a good time with everyone else. This was because his mother had recently passed away, and he said he still found it hard to enjoy himself. After I assured him that an apology wasn’t necessary and was sorry for his loss, I also thought more positively about my own mother simply having a headache and feeling queasy.   

Family, minus Ben and Molly, plus driver, Plinio.

The next couple of days involved showing the family the surrounding area. We organized a day trip to Villa de Leyva, a colonial town north of Bogota, as a way to see what this part of the country was like before the Bogota metropolis sprouted. The next night, Christmas Eve, involved a celebration here in the monastery. The main event was a game of celebrity charades, where we split up into two teams and acted out whichever name we were given. Apparently, I drew the short straw, because while the person before me got Shakira (just shake your hips and Colombians understand who you’re talking about) and the person after me drew Obama (just look professional while you mime talking, and their first answers will be either the Colombian or U.S. president), I got Anselm Grun. Don’t know who he is? Neither did I. Frustration commenced. Google tells me he’s a German Benedictine who has written more books than most read in a lifetime. Still never heard of him. A playful twist on the game was that some of the monks were included in the names drawn, which meant those who drew their monastic brothers had to act out their most unique character traits, something that wouldn’t be possible at larger monasteries. After the fun was had and the food was eaten, gifts were handed out to each of us. My parents had also brought gifts from home to give to the community, so explaining the Collegeville and Saint John’s picture books was interesting. My Dad had also made a Benedictine cross and lasered into the back the words “Monasterio Benedictino de Tibati, de la familia Roske, 2015.” I trust I don’t have to translate that. It was great to see such appreciation on the monks’ faces, especially since I’m pretty bad at gift giving. Come to think of it, I didn’t make the dang cross, just presented it. So, I'm still bad at gift giving.

Christmas morning is less important than the night before in South America, which meant we had no obligations and decided to head back into town. Unfortunately, the Gold Museum, which is one of the more popular sites in Bogota, was closed. So we made up for it by going to see the new Star Wars. I had already seen it, but still enjoyed watching that beautiful lady Rey discover the power of the force all over again.

 

Another Roske tradition, Santa Bear.

Again, the good was soon matched by the bad. Later on Christmas day, I was on my way to the monastery to deliver a sweater to a monk who had become one of my closer friends here. I had commented to Brother Esteban one day that the sweater I was wearing, which had been a gift years back but I had rarely worn it because it was too small, would be his Christmas present. Making good on my promise, I made my way to his door. After presenting the pretty modest gift (yet another example of my gift giving abilities), he asked when my family was leaving. I said tomorrow, we were going on vacation to a warmer part of Colombia. He said, oh, I’ll be leaving before you get back. I asked for how long, to which he responded, “Oh, a while…” It wasn’t until later, when Prior Philip asked me to help him print a document with the monastic letterhead that I understood what Esteban meant. A friend was leaving the monastery, and I found out when I printed his Exclaustration documents (required when leaving a Benedictine monastery, sort of like annulment papers, but from the church). I was taken aback, though not shocked, as Esteban had mentioned before how he didn’t know if this was the right place for him even though he’d spent more than a couple years here. People enter and leave your life, even the monks who you perceive to be staples of the monastery for the rest of their lives. I guess you just have to appreciate and learn from them as they come and go.

J.

Spanish word of the day: A couple years ago, I found myself in southern Chile with a good friend, Craig (who's currently in Spain with the BVC this year). It was Chilean Independence, and we had found our way to what was essentially a barn dance. The details can be found here, but my favorite part involved a drunk woman coming up to us and blabbering about how we have to take advantage of our time here. When saying this, she used the word aprovechar which means to "take advantage of."

Wait, wait, wait, since friends leaving and drunk Chilean women would be a sad way to end a Christmas blog, I can't go without mentioning that this Christmas evening brought the twenty-fourth installment of the Michael and Peggy Roske Christmas song. For those of you not in the know, my mother has taken it upon herself to write a song sung to the tune of various popular Christmas carols as a way to personalize the holiday for her family (as well as serve as the Christmas letter sent out to neighbors, family and friends). Each child gets one verse about their lives since the last Christmas, making for some lengthy songs over the years. It’s a great tradition, one that brings as much teasing as it does joy, since our parents usually only run through it once or twice before “performing” it. Since we were down two siblings in Bogota, it was recorded by Michaela. Therefore...

...the song in my head lately is Michael and Peggy's 2015 Christmas Song!! I've posted the lyrics here as well, if you can't hear all of them. Also, we Skyped with Molly for it, so if you see my parents talking to no one, it's the iPad. 

24^th Christmas Song

for Our Family:

2015

[sung to the tune of

“Go Tell It On the Mountain”]

Refrain:       Gone visiting the [Andes] mountains, Christmas abroad, we’re nowhere near you

                         Gone visiting our BVC-er, were off to the southern hemisphere [almost]!

When J.J. reached his last year of college at St. John’s, he thought he’d try his wings out by going back abroad.

Cum laude in hand he signed on with the Benedictine Volunteer Corps [BVC],

And off he’s gone to Bogotá, teaching middle school as Señor “Hota Hota”! [Spanish pronunciation for “J.J.”]

Refrain:       Gone, living with the monks at Tibatí, lesson-planning, tutoring, and coaching basketball,

       Gone but with new skills for his resume and blog, including Spanish, long-hair styling and ping pong!

                                               

Master’s in hand, our engineer hit the pavement hard this year, until WindLogic finally hired him Ben had had to persevere.

Likewise did wife Ellory, awaiting her career to pursue,

Friends & family, brews & board games, Frisbee teammates—having good times and each other got them through.

Refrain:       Gone to work a job he’s waited for, Ben’s now reached a nice new level of stability 

                         Gone off work for now is Ellory, time to nourish her own creativity.

And Molly had a great year at the Cloquet Forestry Center, her boss/mentor kept her busy as administrator & presenter.

Closer than she’d been since college, she deepened ties to friends and family – ‘twas great,

But then she followed the job when it moved her from Minn to Colorado State [University, Forestry Dept.]

Refrain:       Now Gone is Molly to the [Rocky] mountains, we moved her there this fall, a pleasant road trip to Ft. Collins,

                         No more quick drives home to visit family and friends, but we keep an eye on “Cheap Flights” from both ends.

Michaela works too hard – Grampa Tom sees that first-hand [she lives with him, so he can still be at home]

Her students are so lucky, as is Habitat [for Humanity]’s extended clan [she’s even on their Board now]

Confirmation class, Parish Council and service on a bunch of committees,

And a Spanish Club she recently founded (about one member we’ve started to tease [her]!)

Refrain:       Gone with us to the [Andes] mountains, Michaela’s used to hills on bike and           metaphorically,

                         Ups and downs with Grampa and her students and friends, she’s got challenges she scales ‘bout every day.

We two traipsed off to the [Sierra] mountains with G & G [Hal & Dorothy] last “Feb” [visiting Sandy & Don],

And sailed Leech Lake with Eggermonts, a great time back in “Sept.”

But ‘15’s peak was early, when the kids blew us away, with a surprise 60^th birthday party – we’re both now getting gray!

Refrain:       Soon returning from the mountains, Woodshop to run, Archives collection to move (twice!)       We’ll be praying for another good year, and hoping yours is every bit as nice.

Peace and Love to all from the Roske Family!   

Nailed it.