A fun night out!

Working at ECA has its perks! Last week, Ed, my co-teachers and I were invited to a special concert given by the father of one of my students. Being new to the city, and not wanting to miss cultural opportunities, we accepted the invitation.

Well, apparently this person is a big deal in the Latin Christian music scene. We arrived at the concert and the line was out the door. We didn’t have any tickets so I was nervous about being able to get in. As we approached the door, I tried to explain to the ticket lady who I was and what I was doing. She thankfully flagged down the wife of the performer and gave us special front-section wrist bands. We were escorted to the front of the auditorium and sat down. I looked around and recognized a few of the people in front of us as families from the school. They had their children “greet their profe (teacher)” and we settled into our seats.

A little while later the concert started, and I was impressed by the performance! Apparently it was a CD release concert and was being streamed live via internet. I didn’t know any of the songs, but the blend of Christian and Latin music was fun!

Towards the end of the show, the singer got out a special award he had just been given- a Latin Grammy. That is when I realized just how legit of a performer he was and how much a treat this invitation really was.

As a way to end the show he had his family come up and sing with him. I was able to see my student, along with her family, praise God and worship together- what a fun experience!

One year

Today marks our first wedding anniversary. Not only is it exciting to celebrate an amazing first year a marriage, but it is a chance to look back and see how much God has brought us through together as a couple.

In the past year-

-We have lived in/visited 7 countries on 4 continents.

-We have started new jobs at El Camino Academy after suddenly finishing our jobs in Mali.

-We were forced to evacuate our home in Mali and have drastic changes of plans.

-We have grown closer together as well as  grown in our relationship with God.

There are so many things I am grateful for by being married to Ed. We both share a common passion for education- one that has taken us all over the world. Ed is the definition of calm amidst crazy unknown and transition. Together we have learned how to work together and encourage each other in spite of our differences.

Today as a celebration we decided to treat ourselves to a waffle maker! YUM! We had a late lunch of waffles, whipped cream and strawberries. Life in Bogota is rough sometimes

You can’t catch me!

The first unit my preschoolers did was about the Gingerbread man. For the first two weeks of school we read the book and learned a fun song!

 

As we finished the unit we made our own cookies! YUM!!

 

Mixing the dough

Cutting and decorating

And of course eating

(They don’t look too happy… maybe they didn’t like the taste OR they just woke up from their nap. You can decide.)

As part of the last lesson, I told the kids that my gingerbread man ran away as I was taking him out of the oven. Thankfully as he was running he left clues all over the school. We divided into groups and searched for the missing gingerbread man. We saw the director, the kitchen staff, the computer guy, and ended up in the nurses office, where the poor gingerbread man was resting from all that running. It was so fun to see the kiddos so excited to follow the clues AND meet many of the staff! Overall, a great first unit!

Setting up pre-kinder!

My  classroom that started off as this:

 

Ended up like:

AH- the joys of teaching little kids: lots of toys and lots of colors!

T.I.C.

Every country I have been in has had a phrase describing the foreign experience. In Spain it was “oh, Spain”. In Mali it was “WAWA” or West Africa Wins Again. Today I learned the phrase “This Is Colombia” or T.I.C.

Today all the new staff had a TIC experience when we went to register our visas. Basically the visa process is long and complicated, so we just follow directions when given to us. That has worked… mostly.
Prior to today we were told that we would need to have photos taken at a shop called “photo japon”. Roughly translated it is Japanese photo place where they wear karate uniforms and charge you too much for 8 tiny photos of yourself looking horrible. We needed them to get ID cards that basically validate our existence in Colombia.

Today arrives and everyone has their pictures and paperwork ready to turn in for this process. We head down town on a big bus and enter the immigration center.  I am first in line and hand my stack of pictures and papers to the lady behind the counter. She looks through my things then gets to my overpriced pictures and goes “no good, you need a blue background, not a white one”. TIC! Those Photo Japon people told us wrong! I turn around and ask the rest of the group what they have… everyone has the same white background. Now, what??

Well, apparently a very smart entrepreneur  has set up business outside the immigration office for situations like ours. He grabs his blue screen, throws it over the bus stop advertisement, then one at a time lines us up and takes our picture. Outside. In public. On the main road. At the bus stop. If a bunch of “gringos” were not a sight already, this definitely made people’s days!

We all wait a few minutes for the man to print our pictures from his street cart-style photo shop, then head back into the office. This time the lady accepts our paperwork and we continue on with the process of being fingerprinted and photo graphed. Finally after about an hour, all 15 of us have official numbers! We are legit!
After our adventure, we went to see a few sights in the area. Here are some pictures!

Apparently when you want to watch the Olympics, you head to the local park, grab a provided bean bag chair and watch it on the big screen! Woah!

And we couldn't help but join in as well!

Some of us "new staffers" with the Spanish teachers/tour guides!