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