At long last....

Finally, I have a few pix for you all. My batteries were low and then they completely died so it took a few days to get some new ones. Luckily Dieter has some rechargeable batteries, he is loaning me, so let's see how these do. I only put 4 pix on now because I do not know how long they take to download, so let me know if there are any troubles out there and/or give me a rough approximation of how long it takes.

The first pix is the guest house and where I am staying. The next one to the right is the view out of my house. The next two are views from the back of the house. This is where we we eat all of our meals, looking NE out into this stellar view. The buildings you see are of Girardota. You can see the patio in the picture on the right and underneath the structure is an outdoor kitchen with a sink and campstoves. The next photo is the main house. I included a picture of the rooftop because this is the most common roof I have seen. They look like interwoven terra cotta pots that are in half. Dieter was told that you can not stand on the roof itself because it will break. The last photo is M & D's gate. I will have more pictures of gates. They are very decorative here and every house is different. They also have decorative pieces in front most windows down here as well.

Dressing up the Gringa

I love it here! It is very peaceful. Lots of walks which is great exercise since it is so hilly around here. We walk down into the village and then we have to walk up to get home. I have even taken a few walks by myself. The people here are really nice and it is very common to greet others on the street with "Buenas". They more often drop off the tardes or the dias than include it. They have been really patient with my Spanish luckily. When I have gone on a few walks by myself, I have run into a few of the neighbors or kids from the classes. So I have had chances to just stop and say hello for a bit.

I have enjoyed the English classes with the kids. In the afternoon class, we played a Secret Friend where we made things and bought small treats for them. We got a lot of mileage out that game with very little planning :-) After Friday's class, while Marcela was helping one of the girls' with their English homework, I again played another outdoor game that I really like. It is similar to Freeze Tag except the only way to release the frozen one is to crawl under their legs or other body part depending on how they got frozen when they got tagged. For instance, a girl was crawling under another girl's legs when she also got tagged. She then went into a downward dog position so somebody else had to crawl under both of them. Is is a fun game but much easier if you are small or maybe if I played with big people it wouldn't be so hard. But crawling or shall I say slithering to get under a 9 year old legs is not the easiest thing in the world. To start it off or choose a person who is "it", they did something similar to Eeny Meeny Miney Mo. After I heard them do it several times, I showed them Eeny Meeny Miney Mo and they loved it. What a great way to practice English. We did it at least 4 times.

The neighbors came over for a barbeque on Sat night. They are super nice, welcoming and really supportive. We ate, drank, laughed, told jokes and just had a good time over all. They really like the liquor Aguardiente (which they even have some without sugar) which they think is similar to tequila but with an anise flavoring. Shots galor! They sure like the stuff :-) They even dressed up the gringa and were quite surprised I knew what a poncho was and was even more impressed when I knew how to put one on. People are so funny! Chistoso :-)

Medellin

Marcela, Dieter and I went into Medellin. We took a bus into Medellin and then traveled by the train. It was nice as far as cities go. The train and the stations are really clean and nice (much better than the river unfortunately and gosh I am soooo grateful our water does not come from there). I love how people get up and offer their seats to mothers and children, the elderly and people with special needs. It is a common practice - even during rush hour/high traffic times. I love the respect that it shows and the nurturing that it provides for all! I did see a sign or 2 posted of these expectations, but it is a common practice. A teenager even offered me his seat the day Marcela and I were coming back from the airport and I had my backpack on.

M&D wanted to visit the language school that I have been looking into. The school is Nueva Lengua and they have 3 schools - one in Bogota, one in Medellin and one in Cartagena. I was originally planning on attending the school in Medellin, until I found out it would be about a 2 hour commute 1 way. We all liked the school and it seems like a good match for me. I will have classes each day in the morning and then I volunteer with an agency (school, orphange, hospital etc) in the afternoon 3 days a week. Eventhough, I am studying a lot here (Marcela has been great with correcting me and going over my daily paragraphs that I write discussing my days, the LiveMocha website has been a helpful tool and is even a social network connecting me to people who live down in Colombia, and I have been studying from my 2 Spanish books that I brought), I want some more structured learning as well as someone being able to explain the how's and why's of things. So my plan is to travel to Cartagena for a week. Studying Spanish at the Carribean mmm, shall I say anymore??!!! Cartagena is north, about 14 hours by bus, from Medellin. I will go for a week in October sometime.

Back to Medellin - the City of Eternal Spring - we went to a park, Cerro Nutibara where we got a good view of the big city and we explored a replica of a typical Antioquian village - the Pueblito Paisa. It was a nice park, small but with some awesome trees and sculptures. My favorite thing about Medellin was the cable car ride. Medellin is a hilly city. There are numerous barrios (neighborhoods) that are high up in the hills. So in one of these, they have created my favorite form of commuting - the cable car. It is just like the amusement park rides but it is an extension of the metro system. At one of the train stations, you go up the stairs instead of down and get on the cable car. We rode up and back just for the ride and the view. Supposedly, since they built this cable car, it has cleaned up the barrio quite a bit and has made it a whole lot safer. The city is starting to build an extension of the cable car so that it can reach the top of the mountain. I have loved commuting to work via biking or walking - propelling myself. I have always thought I would love commuting by ferry but I now have a new mode of transportation - the cable car!

Life here in Colombia is relaxing and peaceful. There are beautiful views, good company lots of new things to learn. I have met a few of the neighbors and we ate dinner with a family the other night. The people here are quite kind and warm. They have been open to me talking to them in my broken spanish and the elder woman of the household even will correct me (thank gosh!) the neighbors have a bunch of coffee trees and sell the beans to M&D who then have them processed to get a thin but difficult coating off of the beans and then Dieter roasts the beans himself. You would think - Colombian coffee would be everywhere right? Guess again. All the coffee beans get exported out so we are fortunate to have neighbors who grow the beans.

Today we had our 2 english classes for the kiddos. I enjoy helping them pronunciate the words correctly. After the second class, Marcela helped one of the older girls with her English homework - it was insane must i say. The 14 year olds were asked to translate this article from English into Spanish. It was hard! I just hope it does not discourage a lot of the children from trying. The public schools down here are really pushing English language but are expecting all the teachers to teach it, regardless of whether they know, want to know or even can promounce the words of the English language. therefore the students are doing a lot of rote repitition and worksheets for homework. AARGH! So while Marcela was helping this child with her homework, the other kids and I played outside. We played tag - but a version where you can only tag a person who is wearing the color of the moment (of course we had to use the colors in English to help them practice) and Hide and Seek. Man I have not run so much in quite awhile but it was fun. The kids are super sweet and really look out for each other :-)

I also got to go to the elementary school today with Marcela. The kids all wore uniforms - girls in dresses and boys in slacks. The students all sat at desks and had similar environmental decorations - days of the week, months of the year, student of the month, painted pots made out of plastuc soda bottles with plants in them etc... There was just less of them, as compared to schools I know, but somehow seemed calmer. We went from class to class and gave a mini English lesson to the children (and teacher's as well). The kids loved it and were quite interested in the visitors. The 5th graders swarmed around us during their recess - asking lots of questions such as "What is my name in English?" One child wanted to know how to say "garden" Two boys came up and asked "What is f--- you?" I was quite shocked. Not something I really would have thought of children throughout the world knowing.

It was really fun. The teacher's were open to us and I hope to go back daily while I am staying here. I can learn a lot of Spanish from the students and the teachers! I have to meet with the director on Thursday to organize what it will look like. In the 1st or 2nd grade class, there is a child with special needs, who was not there today, so I am hoping to help out with her as well. It was really quite cute seeing the kiddos from M&D's english class at school - some were really excited and I think it helped create more of a bond with the kids (not that running around and chasing kids doesn't do the same thing!)

Tomorrow M&D and I are going to travel into Medellin. It's about an hour away via public transportation and has about 2.5 million people. Stay tuned :-) Love you all!!!!!

My second day

Well it rained throughout the night - not as much as the previous night but we woke up to blue skies and sunshine :-) There was a lot of lightning that we can see from their house, which Marcela and Dieter say is common, at night but without any thunder.

Marcela and Dieter teach English classes to the local children twice a week - Fridays and Mondays with one class in the am and one in the afternoon. Each class has 6 children - the morning class is all boys and the pm class is mostly girls with one boy. I got to attend both classes and help out. The children are anyway between 6 - 20 years and they were really cute and shy at first. They had to use English to introduce themselves, ask me my name and say nice to meet you. The boys were incredibly shy and did not want to at first but warmed up by the end of class where one of the boys even wanted to take my picture. The girls class was hilarious - very rambunctious with lots of laughter. It was a lot of fun. They got to help me with my Spanish and I helped them with their pronunciations. I look forward to Monday's class.

We walked down to the village again to do some shopping. There are really no sidewalks so one has to be very careful with all the speeding cars, mini buses and motorbikes - which seem to be the most commonly used by the people here. There is this narrow space between where the blacktop ends and the where the curb and grass are where we typically walk to get out of the way of the vehicles.

They have an open market down in the plaza every day (during the week there are only a few vendors). The supermarket was a trip because I did not recognize many foods - only the cereals from Nestle and Kellogs (Corn Flakes, Fruit Loops, Cocao Krispies etc) and the beauty products like toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner etc. Wild. I am going to have to adjust to a life without nuts and peanut butter. The fruits here have been very good. Marcela and Dieter (I will use M&D from now on) have banana bushes and mandarin trees on their property. They get eggs, pork, meat and asandos (sp?) from their neighbors here. The asandos (I wiill ask Marcela for the correct spelling) are similar to thick tortillas. Since we were pressured for time, we took a collectivo (public taxi) back to the house. Again I am amazed at the personal space - the collectivo is probably the size, if not smaller, than my VW wagon. It has a seat in the front, open space in the back with 2 benches facing each other for 4 people on either side. We got in and were the first ones there, so we had to wait for 6 other people. At one point, one of the passengers is trying to recruit people they know to get in. Quite hilarious to me! When we were full, we took off. The collectivo and the mini buses drop people off when they say they want to get off. There are no bus stops. A couple of times, a person gets off and then not 100 yards away another person gets off. Interesting

The money here is both in bills and coins. The coins are in the hundreds of pesos and the bills are in 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 20,000 denominations. One US dollar is approximately 2,300 pesos. The bills are beautiful and I love the back of the 1000 mil peso on which it has a quote "yo no soy un hombre, soy un pueblo. El pueblo es superior a sus dirigentes" A quote from Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, a leader who was assasinated before ever coming into the presidency. The quote translates into "You are not a man, you are a village. A village is superior to the leaders" If only all people could embrace this thought throughout the world.....

My first day

WOW! I have arrived in Medellin Colombia, South America - an entirely new continent, new culture and new language. I arrived Wed evening just as the sun was going down so I got a chance to see all the green lush mountains everywhere, with a few rainbows speckled in, from the airplane. The rainbows were quite apropro because I had just finished a chapter of Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman where as she was descending into Guatemala with doubts and concerns over her new journey, she sees a bunch of rainbows and takes it as a good omen. Although I was not concerned about my decision and I was excited to start my journey, I still felt reassured and laughed at the serendiptous universe :-) Unfortunately, they lost my baggage so i left the airport with only my daypack in hand but with 2 wonderful hosts greeting me at the exit.

They drive me to their home which is a village of approximatley 40,000 people about 45 minutes away. They show me a wonderful guest house where I will be staying. It is wonderful to see Marcela again and to meet Dieter. [For those of you who do not know, Marcela was a former colleague of mine at EC CARES in Eugene and her and her husband left Eugene last September to move to Colombia where Marcela is originally from. They traveled for 3 months in their truck with a camper and arrived in Colombia just in time for Xmas last Dec 2008.] They showed me around their property and we got a chance to visit. During the evening, the airport called and said my backpack has arrived but we will need to pick it up the next day. We discussed options on how to do this - public transportation or drive there and decided to make a decision in the morning. It rained during the night and then much to the surprise of my hosts, it was cloudy and rainy during the day. It was the first day it has rained during the day in Colombia since they arrived last Dec. They say it rains at night but is typically sunny and warm by day. The rainy season here is typically in Oct and Nov.

We decide that Marcela and I will take the public transportation to the airport. Actually we have no choice because their road leading up to their house (which you need 4 wheel drive for) was closed for maintenance so was not passable by vehicle. So in the late morning, Dieter and I walk down to the village ( it takes about 15 min or so) and pick Marcela up after her class, have a quick bite to eat, and then we head off. WOW what an adventure - we traveled by bus, train and mini bus to get to the airport having to transfer 5 times (Gosh how grateful I was that Marcela was with me!!). 3 hours later after traveling through Medellin and the town of Rio Negro, we arrive and find my backpack ready to go with all my things in it :-) Luckily it only took 1 1/2 hours to get back and only 3 transfers. I was just so grateful that Marcela was there to help. Colombian public transportation is clean and tightly packed. They do not have a need for as much personal space as we Americans do. Sitting next to and touching complete strangers is common and expected. The train seemed timely and the buses/mini buses leave when the buses are full - not on a schedule. So sometimes you get on a bus and leave and other times, you wait for people to get on. The roads in the smaller towns of Girardota and Rio Negro are very narrow and busy. there are people walking, bicycling, animals about, buses, mini buses, collectivos (like a taxi for about 8 people) and motorcycles. The vehicles do not pay much attention to the people/animals so pedestrians need to be careful. The drivers will zoom on by and again do not attend much to personal space. Their side mirrors can clip you if you do not watch out. Very interesting!

My last day

Today is my last day in the states for awhile. I can't believe it! Months of talking about traveling, planning it, packing up my things, saying goodbyes and now it's time to go. I am a bundle of emotions - grateful for all my truly wonderful friends and family (which without everyone's support, I probably could not do this), excited for travels to new places, a new language and new cultures and plain old terrified of the unknown!

I named this blog the Eagle Connection from the Incan Eagle and Condor Prophecy. The Inca prophecies say that now, in this age, when the eagle of the North and the condor of the South fly together, the Earth will awaken. The eagles of the North cannot be free without the condors of the South. Now it's happening. Now is the time. The Aquarian Age is an era of light, an age of awakening, an age of returning to natural ways. Our generation is here to help begin this age, to prepare through different schools to understand the message of the heart, intuition, and nature. Native people speak with the Earth. When consciousness awakens, we can fly high like the eagle, or like the condor... The Elders of this continent remember and talk about a prophecy that foretold how we will come together and reunite as one. We are like a body that was broken into pieces and this body will come back together to be whole again. They speak about this in the South, Center and North..... Willaru Huarta grew up in the jungles of Peru, studying with the shamans. He says that his native Quechua Incan prophecies predicted the white man's coming would bring 500 years of materialism and imbalance. But now they say that era is coming to an end and the Age of Aquarius will "signal the return of Light to the planet and the dawn of a golden era. We live in a time of the fulfillment of prophecy." Now he tours the world teaching his simple message: "Humanity should cure itself and give help to the poor. Regenerate yourself with light, and then help those who have poverty of the soul. Return to the inner spirit, which we have abandoned while looking elsewhere for happiness."...Our Elders tell us that we will unite and get our strength back like many arrows that will not be broken. They remember the history to keep the fire alive. We have to come together to be one, to have complete understanding. The main tool used was the arrow because our ancestors all over the continent were hunters. In time they added this arrow to a sacred bow. This bow is used all over this continent and is what we call the half moon. They knew we would be around and this bow would be again in the center, marking the direction that we should take. If we take a step we send this arrow to follow.

So with some of this knowledge, I do hope to stay in the heart, listen to my intuition, reach out and connect our cultures and help to balance the heart and the mind. One small order heh?