I have this ridiculously consistent habit of journaling my travels 2/3 of the way through. I start out writing regularly, then I get behind so that every time I write I have more and more things to include, so it starts taking longer and longer, until eventually I can spend an hour writing and still not be caught up, so that by the time the trip is over I’m two weeks behind and then I just give up because it takes the fun out of journaling a trip to do it from home. And… surprise, surprise, my last blog entry was July 22- the end of my 5th week out of 9.
So this is my attempt to catch up… I go home in 4 days. Maybe I’ll be more motivated now that my journaling has gone public.
Usaquen
What was once a quaint, remote village outside of the city has since been crept up on by urban sprawl and now simply constitutes a northern neighborhood of Bogotá- and not even the most northern. Luckily, it retains its village charm, and makes for a great place to spend a day.
Leo and I drove up on a Sunday to meet Hanna and her friend, Gustavo, for the weekly market. I suggested taking the TransMileneo- the zippy better-than-the-bus transport system here that cruises along in its own lanes in the center of major roads, but Leo insisted that driving would be faster. Normally on Sundays, many major roads are closed in one direction for the ciclovía (bicycle route), making driving tricky… and on this Sunday the rest of the roads were closed for the half-marathon being run that day. So what should have been a 20 minute drive took an hour, and that was only because we gave up and parked a 15-minute walk away from the market. Drivers. When will they learn??
Nevertheless, Usaquen was a fine place to be. The market was overpriced but still fun to browse in, and the area is beautiful.
Goodbye to Cindy
When we met in the airport and she told me she’d be in Bogotá for a month, that felt like forever. But then Monday 7/30, her last day was here and of course the time had flown. We went out to the Bogotá Beer Company and had a great time. It was great having Cindy as a friend in Colombia- always comforting to hear her Southern accent on the phone- and I am certain our paths will cross again.
Paipa and Villa de Leyva
The Foundation had scheduled a workshop retreat for all of the employees in Paipa, a town in the department of Boyacá, which is northeast of Bogotá and even further up in the mountains, so I took the opportunity to finally see someplace else in Colombia.
At 5:30 am on a Saturday morning, I took a taxi to the home of a co-worker, Maria Christina, and she and her husband took me to their amazing, almost-finished retirement home in Villa de Leyva.
After going to the market to buy things for lunch (my first time at a market with someone who was actually shopping!),
Maria Christina and I spent the afternoon walking around this beeeeauuuuuutiful village- declared a national monument in the 50s, it is cobblestone streets, small, whitewashed colonial buildings with green trim, and nothing more. The town survives on tourism, to be sure, but it doesn’t have that inauthentic, prostituted feel that places like that can get when they are completely given over to tourists.
Early the next morning, we took a bus to Tunja, Boyacá’s capital, and then another to Paipa to meet up with the workshop. We arrived at about 8:30 am, just in time for a long, long day of sitting in a hotel ballroom not understanding much of what was going on (for me, I mean- I’m pretty sure Maria Christina followed along OK).
The next day, however, we were taken to visit some Escuela Nueva schools in the region, and that was fun. The first school I visited was the biggest- a 3-classroom primary school.
I gave the kids my camera (thanks for my shock-proof camera, Dennis!) and got these:
The next school I visited was the very definition of rural. A one-classroom, one-teacher school (with a separate room for eating and a cook as the only other employee) of 21 students from preschool to 5th grade, and not another building or house in site. The class was amazingly well-behaved, with students sitting together by grade and working quietly out of their Escuela Nueva guides. They wore cloths around their shoes in the classroom to keep from tracking dirt… or anything else you might get on your shoes in a rural area. I spent a couple of hours at this school with 5 co-workers, watching the students work and talking to them. When it was snack time for the students, the cook prepared hot chocolate and giant arepas (a delicious traditional South American corn cake) for us- an amazing gesture considering the limited resources the school had.
The third school I visited was also a one-room, multi-grade school, though slightly bigger, and much more energetic. The teacher at Escuela el Carmen was clearly into her job- the walls were brightly decorated,
and the characteristic Escuela Nueva Learning Corner was the entire back half of the classroom- shelves and shelves of hand-made and manufactured learning aids.
But the coolest part about this school was they made their own paper for crafts, from recycled newspaper- and it was really, really nice!
Ever since the day I substitute-taught a gorgeous, newly built, modern Buffalo Public School filled with horribly behaved, uninterested kids, I have known that money doesn’t make a good school. Schools are good when teachers care, when the method of teaching is appropriate, and when families value education. Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but when I visited these schools, I didn’t feel sad for them. I saw students and teachers doing the best with what they had (as opposed to that Buffalo school, which was wasting what it had), living a life that I don’t think we should be so quick to “develop”. But I’ll save this for when I get back to school in a few weeks.
Anyway, Tuesday (what turned out to be the actual day of independence for Colombia- July 20 just marks an important battle that turned the war for independence in Colombia’s favor) I headed back to Villa de Leyva with another co-worker, Sara. It’s just such a nice place to be! We had a great time strolling, shopping, stopping for coffee…
…And we returned to Bogotá for a lovely 3-day work week.
Well, I’m almost caught up… I promise I’ll finish this before I leave!!!
Take me Home!
