Day 144 - HOT days and HOT deals!

Today was a fun day.  It was one of those days where plans got changed a bunch but the day ended up being just as great as it would have been if the original plans had been kept.

Today was supposed to be the day that I started volunteering with a school here.  A good friend of mine works as a teachers in a bilingual school here in Barranquilla, this is also where her daughters and some of the other kids from the youth group go.  She has been talking to her boss about letting me come and work with some of the classes a couple times a week doing fun activities like reading books in English and things like that.  It would be really basic things in grades one and two I think.  But I love working with kids so I am excited!  Then, there is also a chance that I will be able to work with some of the older high school kids and have mock interviews and other more advanced English conversations.

It finally worked out with both of our (planned) schedules that I would be able to come!  However, this morning something came up.  I think that they had an impromptu field trip or something like that.  Sad day.  But this is a fairly common occurrence in Colombia.  That is something that has been a bitter sweet about it here.  You always have to be on your toes!  Sometimes things happen, like people's bosses planning surprise events haha.  Oh well, we are going to try again tomorrow :)

But!  Since I wasn't able to go work with kids I decided to call a good friend of mine and go to the center of the city today, this is something that we have been talking about doing for a long time.  The center of the city is where they sell a lot of things for fairly cheap (it would have been a lot cheaper for my friend if I hadn't been there, haha!).  They had EVERYTHING you could possibly want!  Oh my goodness!  They had souvenir type things, they had household items, they had decorations for your house, they had fresh fruits and veggies which I loved, they had fresh meat (which I didn't love and wow did it smell bad haha), also so so so many others.

I bought some fruit called mamon, it is something that I had an fell in love with in Puerto Rico (there they call it guinepa).   You bite the outside and it makes a split down the middle.  Then you slurp the fleshy green mess out of the inside of the semi hard shell.  There is a big pit covered in the "meat" and the meat feels like a booger but it tastes SOOO good!  So, you suck all the fruit off the pit then you spit the seed out.  It is a lot of fun to eat!

Also, I bought some very coasteño (they word for coastal people and culture here in Colombia) pictures to hang in my apartment.  It was only 5 dollars for both of them!  The guy selling them was also incredibly nice.

I also bought a sweet bag!  Every one here has one, so I figured that I should jump on the bandwagon.  It says "I love you Colombia"  I like that Colombia has two ways to say "I love you"  You can say "Te amo"  Which literally means "I love you"  This is reserved for family, significant others and very close friends.   But, then they also have "Te quiero" which literally means "I want you" or more so "I like you."  But they use it the way we say "Oh I love this movie!"  Or "You are so funny I love you."  I think that it saves face for the word "love."  I like it.

Then I bought some sweet kids books to read in Spanish!  I also finally found something that I have been looking for for a while!  An English book!  This is one that will help me with my lesson plans and teaching grammar!  I have looked in so many places.  When my friend and I first went to this persons stand he tried to charge us 25,000 pesos for this book.  It is 15 years old and in decent condition but I was in no way willing to spend that much.  He went down to 15,000 pesos but I still wasn't willing for that much.  So we left but as we were leaving the area to head home he spotted us and yelled at my firend and told her that just for her as a gift he would give it to her for 8,000 pesos (about 4 dollars).  Sometime being white native English speaker is super lame.  So many people assume you have more money than you actually do.  Finding these books made today feel more like a "work" day rather than a "free" day because I went specifically to find and English book.  So I feel at least a little bit accomplished haha.  Also, that last book is Charlie and the Chocolate factory.  I am pumped to read it!

I also found some GREAT deals on kitchen items and plan on going back sometime soon to snatch some more great kitchen deals here soon!

My friend and I had a GREAT time!  Well... I did.  I hope that she did too haha.  I know that when people tell me to post pictures these aren't really what they had in mind but I was too scared to take my camera to the center.  Maybe next time I will risk taking my iPod and use that camera.  Also, I really need to start taking more pictures!  More to come soon!

PS.  I am officially moving into my apartment in TWO days!  I am so excited!!!  I can hardly contain myself.