Day 78 - A Day of Camp and Travels

So... we are currently without internet, so I am sitting at the local McDonald's enjoying a little taste of home!  I am eating a twix flurry... mmmm.  Delicious.  I really feel like I have been transported to the States, other than the Spanish everything of course.  BUT!  Here, you get to put some of your condiments and toppings on yourself!  So... if you want extra pickles, they have a little table with pickles on it and you can just MOUND them on!!  I am going to have to actually order food next time.  You can get jalepeños too!  This is super weird because every Colombian that I have talked to so far hates spicy food!

Very recently I had the opportunity to visit some fellow Mennonite Mission Network workers who are stationed in La Mesa, Colombia.  La Mesa is about an hour or so away from Bogota.  They are a married couple with two young sons who are teaching English in a Mennonite school.  It was so nice to connect with them and learn about what they have done and hear their stories and share mine as well.  We were able to talk about experiences and I gained a lot of insight and knowledge.  We stayed up late and talked.  Since I am still learning Spanish it is difficult to have truly deep and meaningful conversations with people.  Most conversations are fairly surface level and a little deeper.  It was such a blessing to be able to talk about things that have been on my heart and things that I have wanted to talk through with someone.

After my time in La Mesa, we went to Cacipay retreat center in Cacipay, Colombia.  Here, the Colombian Mennonite Church held their national pastoral assembly.  Generally, MMN workers attend as well.  It was very interesting to meet so many people from all over the country!  It was a fairly basic church meeting.  Over the course of the next three days they discussed finances, committees, prayer concerns, happy times, and challenging times. 

It was an interesting experience being able to see so many different places in Colombia.  I was touched by the amount of hospitality that I was shown over that week as well.  Recently, I was talking to a friend about how much of a blessing it is to be a Mennonite; when people find out you are a part of the denominational family, you are instantly family.  I stayed with so many people that I didn’t know before this meeting, and wouldn’t have known otherwise.  But I was given the hospitality of room and board in two locations because of a connection that we had.  I didn’t need to find a hotel or even feel unwelcome.  It was a wonderful experience.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was finding this nice little watering hole!  Gorgeous!  These rocks were about 10 and... 13 or 14 feet off the water.  People were jumping off them and it was really sweet!

When in Rome...

Day 69 - A Day of Recaps and Travel

Well team...

I have been rather absent from the blogosphere recently (apparently according to my computer blogosphere is a real word...).  Things here have been pretty good.  I am still definitely trying to figure out where exactly I fit in all of the happenings here in the wonderful Colombia, but I am loving the journey!

Some fun things that I have learned about Spanish/Colombian culture.

1.  It is rude to say "no" if someone asks for a favor.  However, if you say "ahora no, pero de pronto adelante" that is basically the same thing.  It is an understood "no" but there is still the option.  Literally translated it means "right now no, but soon... later."  It would be like saying, "Ya, I can get to that later."  It feels like a lie but it is more polite, haha.

2.  Arm is "brazo," hug is "abrazo," and a clamp is "abrazadera."  I love it.  It is like the... hugger. Oh that one makes me laugh!  The more I learn about Spanish the more I just fall in love with it.

So, this weekend it the national assembly for the Mennonite pastors in Colombia.  They will be holding it at the first ever Mennonite mission... place...  This place is a farm called Cacipai (really crude spelling. I will update on that later).  In the 1950's, I believe, some Mennos came and set up a center/clinic/home for people with leprosy.  They also set up a school for the injured people's children!  It was on a farm and it is up in the mountains and apparently gorgeous!  I can't wait to go see it!

Gamaliel and I traveled from Barranquilla to Bogota this morning.  We flew with Avianca (I prefer flying with LAN because they give you bags of mixed nuts with Almonds, Peanuts, Macadamia nuts and Cashews! Also, a delicious caramel and coconut thing... oh I love it!).  But that is not important.

Then, we took a bus to La Mesa.  We showed up at the bus station about 2 minutes before our bus left, phew.  The trip was nice, I had some time to read and took a very short nap.  But, then the mountain roads came.  It is hard to read and sleep when the vehicle you are in is constantly changing directions!  The view though... oh the view.  I should have taken a picture.

Then I met up with some fellow MMN workers and I am staying with them!  It is a couple and their two kids.  They are teachers at a school in a city called La Mesa.  I just love how the Menno bubble connects people the way that it does.  I have never met them and we are even from completely different parts of the States, but they were kind enough to open their home to me and we had a great evening getting to know each other.  Oh connections.  Tomorrow I am going to go and visit the school they volunteer in and see what it is like a day in the life of a Colombian student!  Now I will get a little more insight on what some of the kids are work with are up to every day too!

More to come...

Day 61 - A Day of Hostels and Lizards!

So... I took a little two day excursion to meet up with some friends from CMU.  It was AWESOME!  I haven't seen them in quite a long time, so it was incredible seeing them again.  One of them had his parents with him, they came down for a couple weeks and just met up with them in Colombia!  I think it is cool that they decided to do that.  It was also really interesting getting to know them.

We stayed in this wonderful hostel in Santa Marta (which is a little over an hour from Barranquilla).  We just hung out and chatted and caught up and had an incredible time.  They have been traveling for almost 5 months now, so it was great hearing about their journey and where it has brought them so far.

It was nice to get some time away and gain a little perspective and to feel like a tourist rather than living somewhere, haha!

We met some new friends, two girls from Australia who came from Panama to Colombia in the same boat with my friends.  So it was cool that they got to meet up with them again.  They were great girls and it was exciting getting to know some new people while also catching up with old friends.  I will also be thinking in an Australian accent for the next week now.  So that is exciting.

I also enjoyed the idea of hostels but I actually really love them!  First of all, my stay was 18,000 pesos a night (which is around $9 US), awesome.  But there is a real sense of community to hostels that I just really enjoy.  There were people from... I would say at least 10 countries in this small hostel.  It could probably host about... 30 people and I think there were about 25 maybe.  It is also interesting that the "travel language" seems to be English.  I was talking to someone from Sweden, who is traveling in Central/South America and she doesn't speak a word of Spanish, but because she speaks (perfect) English she is able to travel here with ease.  At one point I observed a table with four guys playing poker.  One from Russia, Germany, Argentine, and England.  They were playing a game speaking in English.  Only one of them had English as a first language.  I just found that fascinating!

It just made me really excited to travel.  I also learned about some really cool traveling opportunities that are actually really close to where I am.  I think that during my vacation time I will have to check some of those out!  I would definitely like to return to this hostel at some point!

Day 57 - A Day of Spaghetti and Eggs

Hey team.

It has been just a little while since I have updated anything.  Things here have been very relaxed lately and I haven't really done anything worth a blog update.

I went to Bogota to have an orientation with some people that were beginning a term with MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) and I actually learned quite a bit!  It was incredible helpful and I also really enjoyed myself.  Something else that I really enjoyed were the mountains.  I loved seeing mountains.

After getting back we took the youth kids to Cartagena (literally after getting back.  As in, I made it back to the apartment at 1am and we left the apartment at 6:45am haha).  It was a GREAT trip!  We were at this really sweet hotel and we rented out two apartment's that the hotel had.  So we had access to a kitchen and lots of beds.  It was fun to just hang out with the kids.  We swam in the pool a bunch and then we also just spent a lot of time relaxing and chatting.  One of the nights we took a little tour of "old" Cartagena.  Cartagena is an interesting city!  It is a fairly old city, but also a very modern city.  The old city is close to the ocean and has beautiful old architecture.  Then if you walk farther inland it gets to a point where it just turns into modern.  Then you have tall buildings and lots of glass and metal.

Since then everything has been pretty basic.  I have been teaching my English lessons and having youth group and things like that!

I hope that all is well with you all back home!

P.S. We made Spaghetti the other day and Amanda asked me how I wanted my egg.  I thought that was an interesting combination but I said over easy.  Then she put the egg on the spaghetti.  I was a little weirded out at first but it was DELICIOUS!  Random combinations.  But I really enjoyed it.