First week in Cali

I'm here!

After missing it since December, I'm finally back in Cali! I arrived on Saturday, June 5th and my friends picked me up at the airport. There is a lot to adjust to, but I'm so happy to be back here and so far I am loving it.

Home

I'm living with my friend Mauricio's parents, Elizabeth and Ramiro, who are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Elizabeth and Ramiro have a nice, big house that they designed themselves (they are both architects). I have my own room and bathroom, which is nice. The house is really open; we don't have window screens or air conditioning, which I love! The only thing that has been difficult to get used to is that we don't have hot water here at the house, which means cold showers (yikes!). We live in a nice neighborhood, but many places in Colombia do not have hot water. Even though it is typically very warm here during the day (upper 80's), it is cooler in the evenings and mornings (mid to upper 60's), so a cold shower is still hard to get used to! Also living in the house is Pipe, the world's cutest dog - even though I'm a cat person, I love Pipe because he's really low key, well behaved, and intelligent.

Elizabeth and Ramiro's house occupies one side of the building, and the other side is a series of apartments where Mauricio, his brother and his brother's wife, and cousin live.

What do I do every day?

I'm currently taking a TEFL certification course (TEFL = Teaching English as a Foreign Language) in the afternoons/evenings at a school called ISSO. In the morning, I usually get up pretty early and either run errands with Elizabeth, or work a bit from home. I leave for class in the afternoon, around 2:45. Class doesn't start until 4:30 but we live in the south and I have to make it to the north for class. I take one of the public transportation systems here called the MIO. It operates basically like a metro, but it's a bus system. On certain days, the MIO likes to cooperate with me and show up in a timely fashion, and switching buses goes smoothly. On these days, it only takes about 40 - 45 minutes to get to school. However, since this is Colombia, many days the MIO does not like to be efficient or organized, so I end up waiting for 30 or 40 minutes to change buses, and when the correct bus finally pulls up, it's so full of people that their faces are plastered against the windows and people fall out of the bus when the doors open. On these days it might take me more than an hour and a half to get to school. There are other buses but they all have different routes and they don't announce the stops, so without the MIO I'm lost. Also, lucky for me, I can catch the MIO one block from my house, and it drops me off one block from school.

Apparently the transportation employees here frequently go on strike (called 'paro'). When they do this, they gather at the university just down the street from my house and bang on things and throw bombs to get attention, so you hear explosions all day and you have no idea which buses are going to be operating, including the MIO. Again lucky for me, I have a friend from class named Jennifer who lives nearby, and she is from Cali, so when that happens I go with her on different buses.

The TEFL class goes from 4:30 - 7:00pm. I'm enjoying the class so far, and I really like the instructor. Sometimes I get a little bored with some of the readings because all of the educational ideas and methods seem kind of nebulous and made-up compared to what I'm accustomed to reading in scientific literature. Still, it's a nice change of pace, and we are talking about some interesting things having to do with psychology and how we learn information. We haven't got much into grammar review yet, but I'm sure that's going to kick my butt.

My instructor drops me off close to home in the evenings, and Mauricio picks me up. Since he lives right next door, Mauricio and I usually eat together and hang out in his apartment. He lives on the top floor, and he has a hammock out on the balcony. Sometimes I go lay in the hammock and look out at the street and think, 'This is awesome, I'm living in Colombia!'

Jobs

I have a job!!! Starting in August, I will be working as an English/Literature teacher at a bilingual school here in Cali called Colegio Bennett. I went into the school last week to drop off a copy of my passport and begin the visa application process. I met almost everyone I had been in contact with, and they honestly could not have been any nicer. I'm so glad I will be working under helpful and friendly people. Colegio Bennett is also in the south part of Cali, just a few minutes from where I am living now. The school will be providing a furnished apartment in the area, to share with another teacher, so that will be nice because I should still be close to Mauricio and his family. There is also a possibility that I can bring my cat, Pancho, with me. The school has said it's ok, but I am waiting to get my future roommate's contact information to clear it with her. (Keep your fingers and toes crossed that she is not allergic to cats!!!)

I also (hopefully) have a short-term, second job that my TEFL instructor offered me the first week of class. I am supposed to be teaching a series of review classes for a group of Colombian professors at another bilingual school called Colegio Berchmans. There has been a bit of confusion on their end about starting the course. Harold and I showed up on Tuesday for the first day of class and ended up having an organization meeting instead, and then they cancelled the class for today (welcome to Colombia!). The supposed first day of class is now on Tuesday, but we will just have to see what happens.