School is Over!!

Hello again, friends and family. So Friday the 15th of June was "officially" the last day of school (at least according to our contract) in which I spent the first three hours finishing up the inventory for my Montessori classroom (the games room).  I had pretty much spent 7 hours the day before counting every single card, dice, chip, etc to every single game in that classroom, BY MYSELF (except for the 2 hours Jeni had free to come help me), but still had a few more games to count that Friday morning.  It's definitely NOT the funnest job ever. I had to have at least 100 games in that room, each with anywhere between 10 to 700 pieces.  I bet I counted at least 10,000 game pieces.  So yea, after 10 or so hours of counting stuff, I was definitely tired!  And I think total I was only missing maybe 10 items.  And luckily I wasn't told I had to replace any of them!

Carolina, Jeni and I in Parque del Perro, Cali

Anywho, so although the 15th was technically our last day, crazy Montessori of course found a way to make us come back, primarily with the fact that we had to get about 20 signatures for the Paz y Salvo, a document which proves you don't owe the school anything, whether it be money, materials, or pending curriculum. And the stupid thing was that they gave us the Paz y Salvo 40 minutes before the end of the work day, when most of the people we needed signatures from had already left.  So Jeni and I came back the following Tuesday (since Monday was a puente) to get the rest of the signatures.  It was crazy running around trying to find people and departments I hadn't even interacted with once during the entire school year. Then, once we had the Paz y Salvo signed and turned in, we could sign for our liquidación, which is our severance pay (which everyone gets even if you continue with the school).  So here Jeni and I were ready to sign our liquidation but then they told us we still had ties to our apartment until August, and thus would be taking the rent money out of our severance.  HOLD UP!  Wait a minute! We had been told back in May that we could move out of our current apartment at the end of June.  Claudia Mateus, one of the few administrators who is bilingual and can thus help the foreigners maneuver the rocky health and real estate markets here had been the one talking with our inmobiliaria (real estate) to see if we could get out of the contract early.  She said she had spoken with the main agent back in March and she had said "yes" that we could move June 30th without the penalty (equal to 2 months worth of rent).  But apparently now she was saying "no" so it was a whole week worth of Montessori talking to lawyers, talking to Claudia who was in the hospital to see if she had any written word, etc, until finally we were told we could not get out of our lease. It's okay except for the fact that we had already been in discussion with a family to rent out a new place in another, better and cheaper neighborhood.  We were in love with the new place and were really excited to move, especially since we would have saved a lot of money (the new place would be COP$770,000 or roughly $430 whereas we currently pay COP$1,250,000 or $700--each figure divided by 2, of course, which is still not nearly as expensive as the States).  It broke our hearts to have to tell this family, who had been holding the place for us for a month, that we could no longer move in.  I am praying they still will not have rented it out by August.  The freakin' lack of communication or at least the unclear communication between Montessori and the inmobiliaria just KILLED us.  At least we learned our lesson to never again go through the school for our housing contract.  I want to be in charge of my money, son!!!

Anyways, so we had to go back to the school a couple of more times to deal with all that drama and then to finally sign for the liquidation and to renew our contracts.  I'm still looking for jobs elsewhere but I decided to sign as a back-up.  Unfortunately I did not get the job with Children of the Andes.  My interview went really well and they really like me but decided to go with someone who has more knowledge of the different institutions here in Colombia, which is totally understandable.  I'm a little disappointed but everything happens for a reason and I'm not sweating it.  I'm in the running for a Latin America director position with Teach for All (the international version of Teach for America) so keep your fingers crossed for me!

Lago Calima

Well, so after all the drama ended with Montessori, Jeni, Mark and I left for Cali on Friday evening the 23rd.  The bus trip was about 10 hours, getting us to nice, warm Cali around 6:45 the morning of Saturday the 24th.  Our friend and former Montessori colleague, Carolina and her friend Juan, came and met us at the terminal.  As a native Caleña, she was to be our host for the weekend. We started off on another 1 1/2 hour bus ride to the countryside to a town surrounding the beautiful Lago Calima where Caro's family has a cute little finca right on the lake.  The house had three bedrooms, one with a full bed and the other two with bunk beds. The living area also had two beds each with trundles so there was PLENTY of room to sleep and hang out.  We spent Saturday afternoon/evening playing Uno, Rummy and Monopoly Cards while drinking a bit of rum and wine.  Then Sunday we got up, cooked a delicious egg and chorizo breakfast and set off for some paddle boating and kayaking on the enormous Lake Calima.  What we thought would be maybe an hour or two, turned into maybe four hours trying to fight strong winds to get to this far away point that Caro wanted to show us.  It was hilarious becaue Jeni and I started off in the kayak and were cruising pretty quickly but the other three in the paddle boat were barely moving. So we thought maybe we could pull it behind us since the kayak had a tow cord. Jeni and I did pretty well for a while but we decided to switch with Mark and Juan whose legs were tired of pedaling in the paddle boat.  That's when the winds picked up pretty fierce in the middle of the lake so it took forever and a day to get to the point and back to the house.  And then we saw rain clouds on the horizon.  Oh boy, it was quite a workout, particularly for our arms/legs on our stomachs (because of all the laughing). It was a great time!

Mark and I ready to boat!

After a nice pasta a veggie lunch we headed back to Cali, where we spent the next 2 days with Carolina in her father's apartment in the south end of town.  I immediatly was taken aback by the relative lack of traffic, the smallness of the city, the abundance of taxi's, the amazing weather (not too hot and humid), how the majority of people keep to the right while walking (shocking!!!), and the overall better vibe than what I experience daily in Bogota. The first night there we went to a local restaurant that specialized in platano maduro and patacon plates.  I tried my first Champus, which is a typical drink from the Valle de Cauca region (to which Cali belongs), made with whole corn kernels and fruits like lulo, pineapple, and others.  It was delicious!  After eating we walked around a bit and headed home.  Monday we spent most of the day in the apartment since Caro had a minor surgery and didn't feel up to playing tour guide that day.  It was nice just to relax and watch movies though.  Then Tuesday she gave us a tour of the surrounding neighborhoods and we had a great lunch at a restaurant downtown (I had smoked salmon for the first time in over a year...yummmm!). Then in the evening we headed over to this enormous outdoor mall to just walk around, have a few drinks, etc and then we went back closer to Caro's house where she has a family friend who owns a hole-in-the-wall bar where we sat and talked and listened to great music for another little bit.  Then Wednesday morning we lazed around for a bit until Caro's dad gave Jeni and I a ride to the bus terminal since we were heading back to Bogota that day.  All in all I LOVED Cali.  The weather was perfect, the people so much more open and friendly, and just the life and vibe there is fantastic.  I really believe I belong in a warm climate.  And if I could have a finca near a body of water like Lago Calima or an ocean or something, I would be even happier.  So I guess that's my new goal in life: to work up enough to save for a finca in a tropical climate.

South Cali as seen from Carolina's apartment

Well, that is all for this post.  Stay tuned because more adventures are on the way!


Note: For more pictures, please see my albums on Facebook.