Okay, let’s go through week 1! We got some new people last weekend – Barbie on a teacher exchange, and Ben and Sara. Seem like pretty interesting people so far.
The week itself went pretty smoothly, despite my screwing up computer room booking (twice!). The kids seem pretty good so far, although I still don’t know who most of them are. Name tags are coming out on Tuesday :) The planning has gone pretty well so far – it’s REALLY odd having to prep 2 weeks in advance and having to have photocopying in at least 2 days ahead of time (we don’t actually make our own copies), and I can very easily see some problems potentially occurring in the future, but so far it hasn’t been too much of an issue.
Friday night was the first time we actually went out to a club since we’ve been here. We’ve gone out for dinner almost every night, but never actually out for drinks afterwards. I had a great time – 2 o’clock rolled around long before I thought it should have (we could’ve stayed later, but the other Norte Americanos were getting tired, the poor babies ;)
Saturday was a dinner party at Alan’s. The food was great. We were actually going to go out (at least that was the tentative plan), but we ended up in a big socio-economical discussion of the history of Colombia with one of the Colombian teachers. I think we’re going to take a trip down to the southern end of the city one day soon; apparently we’re not getting a real idea of the living situation in this city. It will be a nice wake up call I think, we need it. Simon had worked down in that area before teaching at Nogales, so he’s seen some pretty terrible living and school conditions. Hard to learn when you have hypothermia – no roof, no warmth. Sad.
If you get a chance please fill your devoted fan(s) in on the socio-economic situation in Colubia/bogata. I would be interested in hearing about your inner city excursion.