Notes From Friday

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I usually try to focus these blog posts on a single topic/story, but sometimes there are just a few tidbits here and there I want to pass along. So, without further ado, here are some of said tidbits.

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I've mentioned this once before, but it was just a quick aside buried deep in a mostly-unrelated story, so I thought I'd mention it again: last week, a teacher band was formed for the purpose of playing at the school's first mass. I played (play? Not sure what our future is yet...) drums in said band. I'm telling you this because my colleague E wrote a blog post about the mass, so check it out! And check out the rest of her blog while you're at it!

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Another reason I wanted to mention the teacher band is because one of its members is a new friend of mine, and he's involved in both of the other two tidbits of today's post. This new friend's xlog-name is M, and he plays electric guitar and bass in the teacher band. He's one of the two music teachers at school.

And last night, M and I almost got arrested!

Okay, not really. But we could have been, because we were doing something illegal. Namely: we were men and we were outside.

I'm serious! This sounds like something you might read on Ian's Blog (I am just linking all over the place today), but in Colombia? What's the deal?

Apparently, last night was some sort of women's night in Barranquilla. At first I thought this meant men couldn't go to bars, but in actuality it was much more wide-spread than that; we weren't even allowed to be on the street! Obviously, I had a lot of questions about this, but M didn't know much more than I. This is not a regular event; last night was the first one, ever. M's understanding was that it was some sort of social experiment to see if nightlife-related violence was reduced, but he also brought up the very good (and also hilarious) point that of course nightlife-related violence would be reduced, since nightlife-related violence is usually alcohol-fueled, and without men, who would be buying the women drinks?

Anyway, last night M and I went over to J's apartment for the evening (if you don't feel like clicking the link, J is a displaced Canadian who I met on the bus this week. I also found out last night I am J's 3rd replacement at my school - meaning he taught the same classes as me 3 teachers ago), and even though it was only about a 10 minute walk (more like 25 on the way back...), we were terrified! Okay, we weren't terrified. What were they gonna do? Give us a stern lecture? I would have just pulled the gringo card, and I would have got out of even that. (by the way, maybe this is common knowledge, but I just found out last night that gringo refers specifically to Americans, so I'm not one - as someone who is often, and wrongly, referred to as a gringo, J was sure to make this point very clear.)

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Before venturing out into the wild unknown of no-men-allowed Barranquilla, M and I had been hanging out at my apartment. I had invited M over because we take the same bus and we were thirsty, and I had drinks.

We were thirsty because yesterday after school the teachers had a Friday soccer game, which I believe is a regular thing (there was one 2 weeks ago which I had to miss because I had to go get my blood taken or some other moving-related administrative thing (by the way, I'm O negative, which I already knew, but I guess they won't let you just tell them your blood type), and then last week it was raining), though I didn't find out until yesterday that these Friday matches aren't so much games as training sessions (they're effectively the same thing, I guess it's just the motivation that's different).

Training sessions for what, you ask? Well, as I just found out yesterday (I found out a lot of things yesterday) the teachers are going to a soccer tournament soon. It's a tournament for all Colombian SACS Schools - SACS is some kind of accreditation that allows students to receive both a Colombian and American high school diploma, and my school just got accredited last year.

So anyway, there's this SACS soccer tournament in October. As far as I know, that's all it is. Maybe there's some sort of educational conference component to it, but I haven't heard about that. Oh yeah, and the tournament is in Bogotá! I don't know yet if I'll get to go, since, as mentioned, I just found out about it yesterday, but that would be amazing, obviously.

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One last note: yesterday I got my Cedula, which is the Colombian everything card - it's like a combination driver's license/SIN card/probably everything else? The most important result of this is I can now open a bank account and consequently receive a pay cheque. Things are coming up Dave.