Octobarch Break D. Day and Other Notes From Nowhere

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I lied, they're notes from Barranquilla, Colombia.

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I don't think I've mentioned this yet - currently, my school is on a week-long break. The students, anyway. The teachers have professional development all week, except Friday, which we're getting off in addition to Monday's holiday. Given the similarity of this week to Canada's March Break and also P.D. Days, I've termed the week "Octobarch Break D. Day". Hopefully it plays out more like your typical Octobarch Break than your typical D. Day.

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Since we have a 4-day weekend coming up, I'm probably gonna take off somewhere. Originally, K and E and I had planned to go to La Guajira, a coastal desert (oxymoron?) region not too far from here. However, one of the main draws of La Guajira at this time of year - flocks of thousands of pink flamingos - is being decimated by an unexpected shark attack. The regions where the flamingos can typically be viewed are shut down, and this really is an unexpected attack - apparently it's never happened before, or at least not on this scale. It's definitely disappointing, but also kind of hilarious, and ironically not the first time this blog has featured animals unexpectedly eating other animals.

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Today, for the first time, my iPod application that's just a pure white screen (i.e. a flashlight) came in handy when the power went out around 10PM. Stupidly, the first thing I did was use it to find my one candle before realizing that lighting said candle had become superfluous with the re-discovery of the App.

Also: this power outage illustrates another reason the wireless USB internet device I get my internet from is useful. I can't turn on a light, listen to the radio, or watch TV, but I can be on the internet. For about 10 minutes, anyway. My battery sucks so much. Sorry if this entry seems hastily thrown together, my impetus for writing it was the aforementioned lack of power, preventing me from doing what I was doing before (marking), and I'm trying to squeeze this in before my computer randomly shuts down at 56% battery, which actually only takes about 13 minutes to get to (I just calculated based on what's left).

Kicked in the Nuts

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Most Fridays, the teachers at school get a soccer game going after school. I've participated three times so far - the first time was just teachers, 5 on 5, the second time was a bigger game, teachers vs. janitors, 7 on 7 on an expanded "pitch" (more of a court), and today was the third match, this time teachers vs. students from grades 10 and 12, 6 on 6.

(Today's match also happened to be much earlier than usual, because of a school-wide power outage (not the first time this year) which started around 8:30, and by the time it was back on at 12:30, the students had gone home early.)

I look forward to these matches every week - as most of you probably know, I love to play sports, and this is the only regularly scheduled sport I've got going on right now. One week I even stayed like half an hour after school in expectation, only to discover everyone else had left.

Now, in week 1 I was pretty bad. I mean, I'm a decent athlete, but I don't play soccer very often - I don't think I had played in 2 or 3 years, and when I have played it's usually been smaller games, like 2 on 2 or 3 on 3, with friends who are equally inexperienced.

Let me tell you, Colombians are great at soccer! I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise, but it really is amazing how every single kid here (I am not exaggerating, at least with respect to the boys in my grade 8 classes, all of whom I've seen play) knows the game quite well, and even though you're always bound to find a spectrum of athleticism and coordination, every kid somehow makes it work and is pretty darn good.

So when it came time to lace 'em up in game 1, I quickly discovered that being able to run fast and kick the ball hard have almost nothing to do with playing soccer. I lacked that inate sense of the game that one only gains through experience.

By game 3 (today), though, I made some progress. Actually, that's a bit of an understatement - of our team's 10 goals, I scored 4 and assisted 2. Of course, what that actually means is that, on four separate occasions, I happened to be standing in front of the net when the ball magically appeared at my foot, and two other times I accidentally tripped over the ball, causing it to somehow ricochet in the general direction of a teammate, who made some amazing play and scored.

I really do notice the improvement, though. Especially in the area of not making idiotic mistakes and losing the ball because of accidentally kicking the air instead of the ball and then pulling a cartoon-feet-up-in-the-air fall.

I still have a long way to go, though. There are lots of skills I can't perform, and instincts I haven't developed. For example, today there was a ball that found its way into the air and was coming down near where I was. Taking the ball on the body and then subsequently gaining control of it is one skill I've developed somewhat reasonably, so this is what I attempted to do.

Unfortunately, the choice of what part of the body to block the ball with is not an instinct I have, apparently. You know what's coming. I went to stop the ball's flight with my crotchal region, while an opponent simultaneously went for the mid-air kick. The good news: I got to the ball before he did. The bad news: He got to the balls before I did. It was hard, and it was not in the least off-center. Kicked in the nuts!

This kid knows what I'm talking about.

Today is a Good Day I Think For Some Blogging

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...to paraphrase the immortal T-Rex.

In reality, today is just a good day in general, not only for blogging. For existing, I guess!

Why, you ask? Well, there are several reasons.

First, today I got a battery! No, I don't have an Energizer Bunny fetish. It wasn't just any battery; it was a battery for the pick-up in my new guitar! Now I can plug it in to the speakers that K graciously gave me, and I basically have an amp. In fact, I was so happy that I could amplify that I made up a song! Have a listen!

Sorry if you were expecting something different based on the photos.

The second thing that is great about today is very similar to the first! In the same shopping trip in which I bought the aforementioned battery, I also finally got around to buying a cord that can connect my computer/iPod to the speakers. Only, I got the wrong cord, and had to run back on a second trip, but it all worked out, and I am now the proud owner of a brand new headphone jack -> stereo converter, as well as a brand new completely superfluous other cord.

Check out all my new technology!

The next piece of good news is probably the one I'd been waiting the longest for. On the night I moved into my apartment, I had a terrible sleep, for 2 reasons: first, my pillow was very thick (I'm a thin pillow guy) - I've since fixed that problem by cutting open my pillow and ripping out about half the fluff. Second, my mattress was way too soft - unsleepably soft. Since that first night, I've been sleeping on a tiny mattress that was under the main mattress of my guest room bed, placed on the floor beside my actual bed frame.

Well, today I finally got a new mattress! Check it out, with my old sleeping arrangement beside:

Lastly, today I played baseball for the first time in like 2 months! It wasn't exactly what I'm used to when I go out for some ball - among the people I was playing with was a 5 year old, so I wasn't exactly dialing my fastball up to 65 or launching moonshots over the infield, but it was something. And it felt great.

Today wasn't all great, though. I went to the school nurse because my baby toe was in pain - about a week ago I stubbed it, and though it hurt a lot for a couple minutes, I didn't think much of it until I realized today that it still hurt despite being a week later. The nurse wrapped it and the toddler toe in a bandage and told me to shower with a bag on my foot (let's be honest, that's gonna be fun) while keeping it on for 3 days. Hopefully it heals - but while it's healing, it hurts a lot more than it did before. When she first wrapped it I had to walk with a noticeable limp for a couple hours, and though it's somewhat better now, it's still a lot more painful than it was before the treatment.

Also: the nurse did a great job of wrapping the toes in skin-coloured bandage, so it looks like I have some sort of weird, huge hybrid toe on my right foot. Look:

I was concerned about wearing my sandals when I went shopping for the cords, since I assumed people wouldn't be able to stop staring at my freak four-toed foot, and then would assume that all Canadians had this deformity, and I didn't want to give you guys that unfair reputation! But never fear, it turns out my baby toe doesn't come out at the top of the sandal.

Oh yeah, one other not as great thing that happened today: I picked up some food from the local corner store, and upon arriving in my kitchen, discovered the hard way that one bag of pasta was already open.

Yes, that's 3 different vertical layers of pasta spillage. Oh well. Pasta Mañana, blog readers! chuckle chuckle chuckle chuckle chuckle

Taganga Episode VII: Wrap-Up

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This week is "Taganga Week" at Xave's Xlog. Check it out:

Taganga Episode I: The Trailer

Taganga Episode II: The Town

Taganga Episode III: Wildlife

Taganga Episode IV: Cacti

Taganga Episode V: Sunday

Taganga Episode VI: The Recovery

What a week at the old Xlog! How did I stretch one weekend out of town into 7 full days of blogging, you ask? Well, it takes a special talent. I just have a knack for finding the boring in everything. Anyway, today's post is devoted to mentioning smaller things that weren't worthy of their own full post.

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I don't eat fish. Or any seafood. The reason is simply that I don't like it. However, I've never liked seafood, so I eat it so rarely I don't even know what some things taste like. Therefore, I've made it my mission to try some seafood while I'm living on a coast. So, on Saturday night, I had this for dinner:

This is a very common meal 'round these parts: fish (I don't know what kind), with lime to squeeze on top, coconut rice, patacones (fried green plantains - green meaning they're not sweet plantains), and a salad consisting mostly of lettuce and onions.

And at the risk of sounding totally cliché, it wasn't that bad! I almost ate the whole fish. I probably ate parts I wasn't supposed to eat, too.

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Anticipating I would do some hiking while in Taganga, I brought my running shoes along in addition to my sandals. But I forgot to bring socks. Good work, Dave. So, as it turns out, climbing a steep foothill with no paths while wearing sandals isn't the greatest idea. There were several occasions in which I nearly became an avalanche. H

Speaking of avalanches, here's a formation I found which I assumed to be the work of avalanches.

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I had a fun time getting home on Sunday. First I took a small bus from Taganga to Santa Marta, followed by a moto-taxi to the bus terminal in Santa Marta, followed by an inter-city bus to Barranquilla. All of these things were documented yesterday.

That wasn't the end of the journey, though. After retrieving my iPod, I was determined to figure out how to take the bus back to my part of Barranquilla rather than paying for a more expensive taxi. This proved difficult, as I got wildly varying opinions from the locals.

After a cat and mouse game of seeing the bus go by on the other side of the street and going to that side only to watch a bus zip by where I had just been standing, I decided to see how much the moto would cost. The first guy I asked flat out refused to go to where I wanted to go. The second guy quoted a price that was almost as high as taking a cab. Soon, I somehow found myself among a group moto drivers, asking all of them simultaneously if they would take me where I wanted to go at the price I wanted to pay. This was an unproductive bargaining session, because I just kept saying my price, and I'm pretty sure their response was something completely incongruous. Here is how the conversation might have gone (honestly, I have no idea):

Me: I need to go to Buena Vista.

Them: We don't go to Buena Vista.

Me: How about 5000 (pesos)?

Them: That's way lower than we would accept, even if we did drive people to Buena Vista. Generally, if you're trying to convince someone to perform a service for you that is outside of their regular duties, it's not a good idea to make your offer less attractive in an attempt to convince them to perform said service.

Me: What if I paid you 5000?

Them: You already said that.

Me: 5000? Yes? No?

Them (to each other): Maybe he means 5000 dollars? I wouldn't put it past this guy to actually pay us 5000 dollars.

Me: Do you go to Buena Vista? What about for 5000?

One of Them: okay, just get on, I'll take you to, umm, Buena Vista, yeah, haha, that's right. Cough.

Me: 5000, right?

That Guy: yeah, um, right.

So anyway, That Guy drove me a few blocks (for 2000 - $1), and then waited with me for, I assumed, a bus. Turned out he was waiting for a new form of transportation I hadn't even been on yet - a taxi with a little trailer on the back of it, and several people already in the taxi, so it was really carrying like 8 people. The moto guy said something to the driver, so I assumed I'd be taken to Buena Vista.

Nope. I got about halfway there, but not before one of the guys in the trailer almost got in a fight with the driver over, well, I have no idea, obviously. But I did exchange eye rolls with the guy beside me. Even if I didn't know what was going on, I played the social situation to a tee. Smooth, Dave.

Anyway, I had no idea where I was when the cab driver told me he wasn't going any farther (i.e. when he kicked me out), so I just found a cab, which was the thing I was trying to avoid in the first place.

In the end, in getting from door to door, I took a small bus, a moto, a big bus, another moto, a shared taxi, and a private taxi. 6 things! That's a lot.

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E and K (twice) both blogged about Taganga, so if you just haven't gotten enough over the past seven days and 8 million words here at XX, check them out. We didn't spend much time together over the weekend, so they have lots of different stuff.

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This isn't Taganga-related, but sometime in the last couple days, the little visitor counter on the right side (if you scroll down) crossed the 1000 mark! Sweet, thanks guys! (And that's just 1000 since I installed the counter, which was 3 or 4 weeks ago.) I'm sure most of those are mom and me though.

Also, after a 2 or 3 week absence, I finally got internet at home today. So that means lots more bloggggggg!

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Finally, here are some more pictures from Taganga.

Upon climbing the foothills beside Taganga, I was amazed to discover I could see Santa Marta. I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised since I knew it was only about 5km away, but I was so disoriented when we arrived I had no idea which direction we had come from, so suddenly seeing a huge city just over the hills was a pretty startling sight.

It thought this house looked like Lego.

A shot of Taganga from above.

A cool tree.

Triangle hills.

Taganga Episode III: Wildlife

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This week is "Taganga Week" at Xave's Xlog. Check it out:

Taganga Episode I: The Trailer

Taganga Episode II: The Town

I took lots of pictures of animals this weekend. Animals are cool! Check them out.

This was the view from my hostel balcony to the next yard over. Not pictured: a lot more goats and one extremely loud donkey.

On Saturday, I spent a few hours hiking in the hills surrounding Taganga. This was not something I was supposed to be doing, I think, given the lack of trails. Not that anyone cared. It was probably less against the rules and more why would anyone do that because there's a national park with hiking trails right beside Taganga you idiot xave.

"Long day? Take a load off. What'll it be?"

On my hike, I ran into a lot of these little dudes. I didn't get a great shot of this guy's underbelly, but it was bright yellowy green (you can kind of see it in the next shot). Some of them also had shockingly blue tails and faces, but I didn't manage to get a good picture.

Here's a picture of a really weird bee-like thing.

And his butt.

"Hey George, one of those giant things is here! 

Better show it the traditional peace offering!"

Near the end of my hike, I heard a high-pitched scream recurring every 10 seconds or so. Whatever was happening to this thing sounded really painful. It sounded like what would have happened if Nick Jonas had entered my classroom today (today is Nick Jonas' birthday, as I recently found out).

Eventually I spotted what was making the noise. I guess I can't blame for screaming, since it was standing on a cactus. Then when I got close enough to take a picture, it flew away... and stood on another cactus. Stupid bird.

Crab Series #1: Camouflagey

After my hike I went for a swim some 2 or 3 coves over from Taganga, which is where I had naturally ended up. I walked home through the shallows along the coast, and in one little cavey area I saw some crabs. They were really hard to capture, not because they kept running away, but because they were so camouflagey when I looked away to look through the camera I kept losing them.

On Sunday, I spent the day with a few people from my hostel on a day trip run by Santiago, the hostel owner. At the end of the day, we popped over to one of the camping areas of Tayrona Park to drop off 3 of the people who had come on the trip, as they were staying overnight in the park. We spent 30 or 40 minutes relaxing on the beach before heading back to Taganga, and I found some more animals, including the birds above.

 Crab Series #2: Blue

Crab Series #3: Red

Here are some more birds.

"Robert, we need to talk about our relationship. 

Robert! Robert, look at me."

Some other wildlife I saw but didn't manage to capture cameraly:

• a literally neon yellow butterfly
• many fish while snorkeling, including one that might have been an eel and one that might have been a republican
• a bigfoot (I swear!)
• a crazy guy who kept growling and then pinched K's butt

Music, Explosions and Lesbians

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Dude, with a title like that, how can this not be great? I'll try not to let you down.

Yesterday was Friday (because today is Saturday. I am not sure if you are aware of how weeks work, so I just thought I'd offer a refresher. (Ed. It is actually Monday. I must once again apologize for the lack of blogging, but I don't currently have an internet connection) and because it was Friday, I used my afternoon and evening to do not schoolwork.

I could just leave the blog entry at that, since "not schoolwork" is broad enough that I could just leave it up to your imagination (and with the crazy title, that could be fun.... go ahead, try it before reading on.

Okay, ready? Hope you had a good daydream), but you know I'm not going to do that, because I'm long-winded.

So the first thing I did after school was head to the mall near my house for some groceries, which I was running fairly low on but had been unable to acquire because I was also running low on the thing that is generally exchanged for goods and services: money. Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts. Fortunately, Friday was the first pay-day of the year (and as I later found out, the first Friday of every month is pay-day for everybody who works everywhere, and therefore there's a specific word for the first weekend of every month because it's the weekend when everybody goes out and it's a big party!), so I had sufficient funds to get myself some eats and drinks.

Upon arriving at the store, I discovered that it was also Tigo Day! Tigo is my cell phone carrier, and every Friday is Tigo Day (getting paid and Tigo Day in one day?! Mayhem), which means if you put money on your phone on Friday you get all kinds of crazy bonuses (pre-paid cell phones are the norm here, I'll write a more detailed thingee about it sometime). So I decided to take advantage of Tigo Day, and put some money on my phone. Unfortunately, this took a while, and by the time I was finished I realized I didn't have enough time to go home, so I couldn't get many groceries; I just got a snack for the walk over to Colonial Music where I had plans to meet a friend who would help me look for a guitar.

I won't bore you with the details of the journey; suffice it to say I still had my books from school and was still wearing teaching clothes and I was still a little bit sick and it was friggin hot and it was a long walk and I had to backtrack a few times near the end of the walk so I was pretty exhausted when I got there. But this isn't a whining xlog, this is a xaving xlog.

So my friend M was delayed in getting to the store, but that was actually a good thing because it gave me a chance to try out a bunch of guitars for a while without being self-conscious about making M wait around. The store had a good selection of guitars, and I narrowed down my favourites to 2. I didn't want to rush into a purchase though, so we checked out 2 other stores in the area, neither of which had the selection of Colonial. Furthermore, M assured me that finding a used guitar is basically impossible, unlike in North America, the Land of Craigslist. So with that knowledge in mind, and also the infusion of cash, and also my hunger to play some geetar after a painful month-long absence, and also the help of M's friend-employee, I decided on one of the 2 top choices and, well, I bought it! Check it out:

Obviously, his name is Wally.

It's pretty great, it's got a nice sound and a built-in pick-up too (a luxury I have been without my entire guitar-playing life). Also, I recently got a pretty nice (or at least large) stereo-speaker system from K (it came with her apartment, but she wasn't using it), and I'm pretty sure I can use the speakers as an amp for the guitar as soon as I get a battery for the pick-up. Oh, and tomorrow I'm jamming with a couple musicians I met at a jazz bar! (Ed. that didn't happen, but it will at some point) Things are coming up musicdave.

So after dropping the guitar off in its new home, I met up with J, who had told me he had plans with his co-workers (he works at another school on the same street as me) and that t"You are going to really enjoy the place we're going to :-)"t (t" "t means text message quote). So after dropping by his apartment to see his incredibly awesome 5 year old son Little J (who is so bilingual he just speaks in both languages) we hopped in a cab and headed further "downtown" than I've ever been before (someday I'll do a post on the city, but I don't know it well enough yet).

The place we went to is called Las Vegas, and is like a huge open air restaurant/dance hall/bowling alley. Except they don't play bowling, they play a game called Tejo, which is kind of like horseshoes, except instead of throwing a horseshoe at a post you throw a rock at gunpowder. In the novice game, you throw from a distance a little less than a horseshoe pitch, or whatever they're called, and there's an expert version that's more like bowling distance. It might not sound very hard to hit something from horseshoe distance with a rock, but the explosions were pretty rare.

We stayed there for a couple hours, enjoying beer and loud music which inspired much dancing among the crowd, even though it was still early.

And then a Mariachi band came! It was someone's birthday or something, so they had been hired to serenade said person. It was a full-on affair, with 2 guitars, a guitarron (one of those friggin huge guitars), a violin, 2 trumpets and 2 singers, costumes and friggin huge sombreros (not as big as the friggin huge guitar). They played 3 or 4 songs, and then asked for requests, all of which they, of course, knew, and then one of the guys in the party who had hired them even sang a song and was incredible, showing up even the real singers.

We stayed for a while after the band left, and the good times continued. As you can imagine, dancing is a huge part of the culture here, and will likely inspire a post or 2 of its own later on. I'm picking up tips here and there, and got some (seemingly genuine, but who knows) compliments last night, particularly about my feet (always moving in the dancing around here). It was fun, and J has one co-worker in particular who was an amazing dancer, and I found out later to my complete and utter lack of surprise that he used to be in dance troupes professionally.

Eventually J and I left to go play dominoes with lesbians. I am only specifically mentioning the lesbian part because J felt it necessary to qualify the event in such a way every time he brought it up (in case you're wondering, the lesbians are J's friends, we didn't just go to some sort of lesbian domino bar).

Aside: I don't have much of a handle on the attitude towards homosexuality around here, but I get the idea it's a lot more difficult to be gay here than in the places I've lived before. Apparently, there was a gay teacher at school last year, and he didn't last very long, and I get the impression it was because of precisely this.

Anyway, the fact that we were playing with lesbians (and one gay dude also) wasn't the only distinguishing characteristic of this phase of the evening. Namely, we were playing dominoes! In a bar! And you don't even have to BYOD! They've got it all set up. When was the last time you played dominoes? I'm not even sure I've ever played dominoes properly. It was fun. We had a friendly game, but J pointed out some more serious looking games that were definitely being played for money (or, at least, the drink bill), were played in total silence (using knocks, like in euchre), and could result in heated arguments.

A fun curiosity of the bar: the men's bathroom was just at the back of the bar, like not even in its own room. There was a wall... which went about halfway, leaving the rest of the urinals exposed.

After dominoes ended, we turned to the game which took up most of the floor-space of the bar: pool. Except Colombian pool is totally messed up, man. It starts with most of the balls on the side in some particular arrangement (the girl sets it up for you, you don't touch it), and then the goal is to sink the balls in ascending order, like in 9-ball, but you get points for each ball you sink - the number of points is the number of the ball (i.e. 8 points for the 8 ball). You also lose points for things like scratches.

It was a fun night, and distinctly Colombian. Even though I hadn't planned on going out, since I had to get up early for Parents Day at school today, I'm glad I went, and I got enough sleep anyway.

Sunday

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Pre-Script: this was supposed to be posted on Sunday night, but I haven't had internet at my house - an issue which has been solved in a theoretical sense but not a practical one (i.e. I know what the problem is, I just haven't been able to fix it yet). So, sorry for the lack of bloggage - and put yourself in the mindset of "Sunday night" when you're reading this.

Today was a weird day.

I woke up with a brutally sore throat, which came as a total shock. Usually, I can feel a sore throat coming several days in advance; it starts as a tickle in the back of my throat, and gets progressively worse until the 3rd or 4th day when it reaches an apex. In other cases (particularly after nights when beer is on the menu), I wake up with a sore throat that gradually dissipates throughout the day, never to be heard from again. Today's seems to be the natural, non-alcohol-induced kind (I did have some beer over at J's house on Friday night, but I've never encountered any sort of delayed alcohol-induced sore throat, that seems unlikely), but there was no lead-up.

I suppose it could have been something I ate - I ate a lot of crackers yesterday, maybe the salt? It's not like I ate a whole package, though. I had sushi for dinner, and at the end I had a couple bites of straight wasabi, because I love the wasabi spiciness - the brief but powerful rush of tingling in your mouth and nose, and the fact that it doesn't linger like "regular" spiciness - so I suppose that could have been it. Maybe the salt of the soy sauce contributed too. But that's never happened with sushi before, so I'm skeptical.

(By the way, side note about sushi last night. The entrance to the sushi restaurant was inside the deli next door. When we arrived, they didn't have any tables, but they had extra tables set up inside the deli. So for the first 20 minutes or so, we sat there at our plastic table and chairs, studying the menu as customers filed in and out, picking up their groceries, before being ushered into the very posh sushi restaurant.)

It's no Sushi Kan... Deli Kan?

So, as is often the case when I feel even the slightest bit sick, I resolved to stay home and take it easy today. I tell myself this is so that I can nip whatever may be coming in the bud, but in reality it's just an easy excuse to be lazy.

Of course, this led me to stay home all day, and aside from stepping onto my balcony for a few brief moments, I haven't been outside. This is something I've been trying not to do while in Colombia, so hopefully I'll at least muster the energy to take the garbage out to keep the streak going (ed: I didn't. The streak is over). But so far, most of what I've seen today has been the inside of my apartment, and since I'm nicely settled in and used to the place (pictures soon, I promise), when I'm inside it doesn't feel like I'm in some exotic new country.

At some point today, I decided to listen to an album by the Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (that's the one with Do You Realize on it). I hadn't listened to it much before; I just downloaded it shortly before leaving the other continent, so apart from the aforementioned state song of Louisiana (or Oklahoma? I forget), I wasn't particularly familiar with the music. But as I was sitting at my desk, either doing some schoolwork or reading, the music made me stop what I was doing, close my eyes, and enjoy the moment. This is not a common occurrence for me; even though I'm constantly listening to or playing music, it's not often that I get totally absorbed in it. I think this has something to do with the logical and mathematical nature of my brain; whether I try to or not, I'm always simultaneously listening to the music and analyzing it. Concerts are never the superlative, life-changing experiences they seem to be for other people. But it does happen every now and then.

Sometime in the evening I started getting hungry (this, on the other hand, is a common occurrence), and I decided to make something large for dinner so I could take the rest for lunch tomorrow. Since my fridge isn't yet fully re-stocked, and I'm still accumulating kitchen equipment, my cooking possibilities for this type of meal are limited: basically, rice or pasta. Last time I made rice, so I went the pasta route, and the sauce was a very traditional (for me) mix of onions, green peppers, broccoli, tomatoes and a bit of tomato sauce.

So it was that I sat down to dinner, excitedly awaiting the first bite of a nostalgic dish, listening to the same Flaming Lips album (it had been put on repeat by this point). And it seems like all of these things - the mild sickness-induced drowsiness, the lack of outside reality, the tastes-like-home food, the affective music - conflated to sweep me away in a wave of emotion. What emotion that was, I cannot tell you. I wouldn't call it homesickness, because I wasn't particularly sad. And also, as mentioned, I feel at home here. Maybe home-wistfulness?

Or maybe it was simply living on another continent setting in. I've been in Colombia for three and a half weeks now, and I've bathed in a mud volcano, eaten lots of interesting, new food, and been immersed in a totally different culture, but I never got an overwhelming sense of I'm here now. Now, I didn't really get that sense tonight, either, but it was something close. Something like the feeling you get on a cold autumn night - a general warmth and sleepiness, the summer over and a long winter about to set in.

I don't know what that means, since the closest thing I'm getting to winter around here are the trade winds that come around in November for a few months, and give the 32˚ air a bit of a breeze to cool us off. Not exactly snowball fight weather. I suppose the significance is that it was something that felt like home, a feeling I've had every year of my life up til now. But this is home - for the next 10 months, at least.

Sorry to get all meditative on you guys. It's back to silliness and things being lost in translation tomorrow, I promise. Maybe I'll even get around to posting pictures of the school and my apartment.

The Food Fiasco

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Warning: this is a very long post in which not much happens. Though I guess that's the case with most of my entries, so if you've gotten this far, you're probably committed (thanks mom). Also, as each day goes by I get better at Spanish, so these harrowing tales of dumb foreignerism may not be long for this world. This may be my Stupid Canadian Magnum Opus.

(Who am I kidding, I'm going to get into all kinds of crazy trouble! Stay tuned!)

Let's just say the past couple days weren't kind to me as far as food went. No, I'm not violently ill because of some weird Colombian street food, thankfully - it was more of a frustration-based fiasco than a vomit-based fiasco.

It started Sunday morning when I woke up to discover my fridge was unusually warm. I fiddled with the settings all morning before eventually concluding that it was just simply broken. So, there went a bunch of perfectly good food - I don't know any of my neighbors well enough to beg for fridge space, and it could have broken as early as Saturday afternoon, since I was out most of the day on Saturday. I thought about telling the security guard at my building, but I don't really know the Sunday guy as well as the weekday guys, so I decided to wait and tell the school people who are helping me with the transition once I got to school on Monday.

By the way, not only did I not have any food, but I had just run out of water (and though I'm one of the most liberal tap water drinkers you'll find, I don't drink the tap water here), so unless I wanted to drink 30˚C Coke (I didn't), I was going dry.

*****

So, on Monday, after not drinking anything for breakfast and then talking for 3 and a half hours, it's safe to say I was thirsty. I knew enough about how the cafeteria worked to get myself a bottle of water during recess; I just had to buy some tickets (they come in multiples of 100 pesos, or 5 cents), and then present my tickets at the cafe. No problem. I headed back to class, water in tow, and talked for another 2+ hours (sheesh, long mornings at this school - class starts at 7, lunch starts at 12:30), this time well-lubricated.

Upon the half-hour of lunch, I headed down to the cafeteria since, conveniently, I was on duty there, so I could make good use of my time by trying one of the tasty-looking creations they conjure up here for lunch.

This proved more difficult than I expected.

I still had what I believed would be enough tickets for lunch. I discovered that it wasn't, in fact, enough for the corn dish I wanted, but it was enough for a hot dog, so I waited at the hot dog stand for about 10 minutes. I was just thinking I was pretty close to getting my lunch (it's kind of hard to tell, there isn't much of a line system) when one of my students noticed what I was trying to do, and informed me that I couldn't use regular old tickets to buy the food, and I had to get a special hot dog ticket. Okay, that's stupid, but I figured I'd just go get myself one of them hot dog tickets, and 10 minutes later I'd have my food.

Then he (the student) told me they weren't selling the tickets anymore; they stopped selling at noon. GAH. So, I got back to patrolling the cafeteria. Another 10 minutes went by, and another of my students, somehow aware of my situation (I guess when the stupid Canadian teacher tries to do anything it spreads like wildfire), informed me that I could buy tickets at the cafeteria office. So I headed over there, and asked for a hot dog ticket, only to discover they weren't selling hot dog tickets, only corn tickets, and I didn't have enough regular tickets to trade in for a corn ticket, but whatever, I just shelled out the cash for a corn ticket and held on to my regular tickets (are you still with me?).

So THEN, I went back to the hot dog/corn guy, and showed him my ticket. He told me there was no more corn, and I could plainly see that he was making hot dogs, despite my inability to buy a hot dog ticket.

Okay, seriously, is the world conspiring against my ability to get anything to eat???!

So I asked a student, who cleared up the situation: they simply ran out of hot dog tickets, so people were paying for their hot dogs with corn tickets, which COST MORE, so it's stupid, because why can't we just pay with the REGULAR TICKETS, since they come in 5 cent intervals (as opposed to the hot dog and corn tickets which are face value of the item). Man!

Anyway, the end result was I got myself in on the last batch of hot dogs before the bell rang (only with the assistance of yet another student - by now the entire student population knows I'm an idiot - apparently I had to tell the guy I wanted one even though I was standing right there looking desperately hungry), but luckily I had the rest of the afternoon off (since I had already talked for more than 5 and a half hours) and was free to enjoy my hot dog in peace. It was tasty. And weird. I'll describe it sometime.

*****

After my satisfying lunch, I headed upstairs to ask the school director if there was any word on my fridge getting fixed. As a matter of fact, there was - there would be a guy at my apartment at 3:30, and the landlord's secretary would also be there in case they needed to go out and get parts, or something. Great! I could relax with the knowledge that my fridge would be fixed right after I got home, and then I'd be able to head to the grocery store and re-stock, all before dinner time.

Of course, that's not how things happened.

I got home by 3:30, as instructed, and waited.

At 4:30, I got a call informing me that in order to give me time to get home from school (I had already been home for an hour), the guy had been told to come after 4. The timing of this call was, to say the least, conspicuous. I waited some more, and sometime after 5 I put in my own call to see what was up. This time, I was told the guy got delayed, but would be there "soon". So I waited some more.

I should note that the waiting game is a tedious exercise for me. I can't really focus on anything important while I'm waiting - I can do minor tasks, but I can't get started on something like a lesson plan (which, coincidentally, I had to make) when someone is coming to my house to fix an essential appliance "any minute". So I kept waiting.

Around 6:30, I got a call from the school director. Unfortunately, it stopped ringing after 1 ring. I called back twice to no avail. I kept waiting.

About an hour later, the director called back to inform me that she had tried to call me but her battery had run out mid-call. She had been calling to see what was up; she had no news of her own.

I kept waiting.

At about 8, I got too hungry, and made myself a tasty albeit dry meal of pasta with olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano, with air to drink. I was just about to give up waiting...

...finally, after what seemed like slightly less than an eternity (an eternity is so inconceivable a length of time the hugeness of it becomes meaningless, so slightly less than eternity is a much more impressive amount of time. Thanks, Douglas Adams), the dude and my landlord's assistant arrived. It was 8:30.

Of course, you can probably already guess they weren't able to fix the fridge. The dude needed another part, which he couldn't get because it was too late and the stores weren't open. The whole point of the landlord's assistant coming was in case this happened and they needed to drive somewhere and get the part.

Oh well, at least I could stop playing the waiting game, and Walter assured me he'd be there the next day at 4 with new part in hand. He also he would come by himself. This was significant because I understood all of these facts, which is definitely progress for me on the Spanish front.

*****

Fast forward a day. I arrived at school with no lunch in tow for the second straight day (I don't need to explain why), and during the 4-hour break I had between classes I resolved to get myself a corn ticket, and do it right this time. So, just before noon, which is when the ticket office closes (even though it was open the previous day sometime between 12:30 and 1 when I had my previous adventure - this is one thing I haven't yet figured out), I headed over. On the way, I ran into fellow whitey K; she was successfully returning from the same mission I was currently on. During the conversation, the door to the food office, which was about 3 meters away from me, slammed shut. Foiled again.

(By the way, seems like a dumb idea to me that the food office should close at 12 when senior lunch is from 12:30-1. I guess they're saying if kids forget to pick up their tickets earlier they just can't eat?)

So I headed up to the teacher's lounge and explained the situation to very helpful and fully bilingual teacher H. He very graciously took me under his wing, leading me over to the kitchen and explaining the situation to the two Lovely Ladies of Lunch, and though I couldn't understand the conversation, I presumed he was (purposely) making me out to be a pathetic and clueless foreigner, which was also the pose I was attempting to meekly strike in the background.

Unfortunately, that idea didn't pan out, since the Ladies haven't started making hot lunches yet (that starts next week).

Shortly after this failure, my bus hero got wind of the situation and took it upon himself to lead me around in search of the chick who sells the food tickets, since I am a teacher, it's not like she's just going to turn me down (I would have used this tactic if I remembered what she looked like/had any idea where she was - I had already tried knocking on her office door).

Of course, she somehow proved to be nowhere on the school grounds.. well, okay, for about 10 minutes. The school is tiny, so it seemed like we were walking around for a long time, since we looked everywhere more than once. Anyway, eventually she was found, I got my ticket, and ate my corn and cheese dish.

*****

At 4:00 I got to play the waiting game again, but this time it was only for about 45 minutes, and shortly thereafter Walter had fixed the fridge. I sped over to the local grocery store, having forgotten that it was 20% off produce day (every Tuesday!), and I needed produce!

So you know what? Throughout this entire escapade I never missed a meal, and in fact, all of my meals were pretty good. And I got 20% discounted produce! So, for all my griping, I don't really have anything to gripe about. Thanks for wasting 2,000 words of your time! Come again!

Connections

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Connections are great. I'm speaking of people-connections: the kind that get you free stuff because of who you know. At my age, these usually take the form of friends' parents. Some of my better connections in the past include: a family member of a family-run microbrewery, who would bring cases of beer to band practice, a fellow sports fan whose father could get good tickets to Leafs games, and restaurant tickets to Jays games, and my sister who, being a musician, has been able to sneak me onto guest lists for various concerts through her music friends. One of these concerts was even a fairly well-known band, Islands.

And let me tell you, if this past Friday was any indication, living in Colombia is going to have its perks.

Allow me to explain. After talking music with some teachers last week, a couple mentioned they were going to something called the "Miche Rock Festival" on Friday, and invited E, K and I to go with. The Festival was basically a battle of the bands, mostly local bands with a couple coming in from other parts of Colombia, including Cartagena and Bogotá. (I just learned how to easily do accents! It's so much easier than I thought! Just option-E and then the letter you want the accent to be over. On Macs, anyway.)

Well, it turned out that one of said teachers (who we will call K2, like the mountain, since there's already a K) was able to get us in to the VIP area, since her boyfriend is in a band which has played at the festival before. Sweet! There's our first connection. I don't know if this is how all concerts work in Colombia, but VIP area simply meant the best spot. Front and centre. Also, there were dudes constantly wandering through, selling beer for a dollar and plantain chips for 50 cents (though that was probably the same in the commoners area).

And you know what, the bands were pretty good! I wasn't sure what to expect, since it was a rock festival, and all of the music I'd heard so far down here had been exactly what I had expected: salsa, merengue, tropicalia, latin pop, etc. I hadn't heard the faintest hint of rock. But there were some very solid bands, and only really 2 that I genuinely wasn't interested in, and in both cases this was because they played some serious death metal, with growling and everything.

(Aside: whenever one of the heavier bands played, and there were 3 or 4 that fit this description, a fairly large section of the commoners area turned into a sort of rotating mosh pit. People just ran around in a circle, like that game where you get a bunch of people in a pool and run around the outside until the current is strong enough that you can just float along. They were relentless. Between the 3 or 4 bands, they must have been running in a circle for more than an hour. I kept expecting the circle to start levitating, like a gyroscope.

More aside: During the second-last band's set, the VIP area, which had been fairly tame compared to the revolutionary commoners, became a hockey style mosh pit. This is the type where people run at each other from several meters away, ultimately ending in a body check. The funniest part was when the male host of the event, an energetic and engaging radio-DJ type, came down and started hockey mosh pitting with 4 10 year olds, getting them all to team up on him. They loved it.)

The best band of the evening by far was a sort of reggie-ska group, who had, in addition to the standard band set-up, a trumpet, flute and congas. They played a Bob Marley cover (all bands were required to play one cover), and a couple of their own songs, which weren't as reggae, but in the same sort of vein (I'd describe it better, but I don't remember all that well). Also, when the radio started blasting through the loudspeakers right in the middle of one of their songs, they just shrugged it off and started the song over, which was a stark contrast to one of the growlers, who had walked off the stage after their own sound problems.

At some point, I asked K2 what "Miche" was. She told me it's a local music store, owned by a guy who is coincidentally named Miche. Good to know - I've been wanting to get a guitar, now I know at least one place where such a transaction may be possible.

Oh yeah, and Miche is a parent at my school.

After Miche Rock wrapped up, we headed over to a latin jazz bar which we had been invited to by M2, another teacher. M2 also happens to have lived in the U.S. for many years, after growing up in Barranquilla, and has been tasked with taking care of us North American teachers. In the last week, she helped us get cell phones, internet, and apply for our Cedula, which, from what I've gathered so far, is sort of like a SIN number with a photo ID, and is necessary for doing almost anything around here.

Anyway, this jazz bar is a favourite spot of M2's, and on Friday it was her sister's birthday, so they had a big crowd of people there. It's a really nice bar (no 1.00 beers, that's for sure), and is completely hidden from the street - there's absolutely no way anyone would know anything was happening inside this building without already being in the know. In addition, M told me this is where the musicians from Barranquijazz (Barranquilla's upcoming jazz festival) will be hanging out after their shows - and there are actually a couple of pretty big names, namely Ahmad Jamal and Joao Bosco.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that the owner of the bar is M's dad? Good old connections.

The Volcano

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After arriving in Colombia on Wednesday and then spending Thursday meeting some school people, touring the school and seeing a bit of the city, the school set us (and when I say 'us', I mean the two other North American teachers, who we will refer to as K and E, K's mom C, who is visiting for the first week or two, and me) up with a trip to Cartagena, the 5th largest city in Colombia (right behind my hometown Barranquilla), and is about 100 km west, along the Caribbean coast. Cartagena (Carta-hay-na) is known for its old city, which dates back to the 1500s, and was the target of several famous pirate attacks!

I'm not going to tell you about Cartagena today, though - rather, I'd like to tell you about something we did on the way. Namely, we bathed in a volcano.

There's the volcano! Okay, it's not that impressive as far as volcanoes go.

There were literally no other tourists at this place when we got there, even though there were something lke 30 or 40 employees ('employees' is a loose term - lots of them were just hanging out, and somehow I doubt there was any sort of pay structure, employment insurance or union).

So we had the place to ourselves. As soon as we had figured out how to pay, we changed, and started up the rickety staircase. Soon enough, I was climbing down into the hot, molten lava.



Wait, actually I forgot, we weren't bathing in hot, molten lava. It was a mud volcano.

And it was so weird.

It was the most buoyant substance I've ever been in, so when we lay down we were actually lying on top of the mud. The funniest part was when the guys organized us into a row of mud people; they first oriented us correctly, and then slid each one of us into our proper slot, like they were parking us. Being the last one of the four in, I had the privilege of seeing this process in action. Below is the result.



After we were shuttled into our places, the three guys spent about half an hour giving us massages. They also had to periodically wipe mud out of our ears and eyes. It was probably more effective than trying to hop on one leg, though given the density of the mud (the guys weren't standing on anything), we probably could actually have hopped.

About halfway through, we were flipped over so that the dudes could work our backs...

Lower... lower... too low! Lower...

After the dudes finished with the massages, we got to play around for a while. I spelled my name and drew pictures on the surface, a testament to how thick that stuff was. When upright, we came to equilibrium when the mud was about at our belly buttons, and it was almost impossible to go down any further without someone pushing us down. Not that there wasn't anywhere to go; apparently, the thing is 2300 meters deep!

Eventually we were forced out because the next group arrived.

Um, they had a lot of people.

Whereas we spent more than 30 minutes getting massaged and generally frolicking, they got about 5 minutes, if that. And many of them didn't get massages. Also, there were at least as many people waiting in line as you can see in that picture.

The early bird gets the mud volcano massage, I guess.