well, i know it has been a really long time since i’ve posted anything on the blog, and for that i appologize. i have spent very little time on the internet lately – its always a fine line balancing between staying connected to my home community and being online (especially when it takes so much effort) and being present where i am. you all are so very important to me, though...you are in my thoughts constantly, even if it takes me 2 ½ weeks to post on the blog. i’ll try to stay more regular. ☺
the other difficult thing about taking so long to post is that it becomes that much more difficult to write all that i want because so much has happened. but here it goes…
the past two weeks we have focused on the economy here in Colombia, and “social dynamics”. the week on economics was exceptionally interesting and we learned a lot. it makes me so frustrated to hear about it, though…how the economy here affects the war (or how it corrupts life, better put perhaps). i had a lot of reflections after the week, wondering about fair trade options, going local, how the economy is in many ways at the root of the problem here, etc. it is frustrating to hear people talk to us about facts and seemingly have no hope for change. but my opportunities to live counter-culturally are vastly more grand than what the majority of the population has here, which is again a reminder of my privileges in the world, another frustrating proof of the inequality we experience without even being aware of it so often.
the week on social dynamics was kind of crazy. monday was a holiday (Colombia supposedly has more national holidays than most countries) so we had a day off, and friday we were given a day off as well. so it was a day of just three days, in which we covered church, gender, and indigenous dynamics here. way too much for a few hours each, but our speakers were interesting and, for the time given each topic, i think we heard a lot, which is good. covering gender in 3 hours was, for me, especially challenging since i’m so passionate about it (we’re talking about the church for a whole week sometime in april, so that will satisfy that lack of sufficient conversation). o well. i have to keep reminding myself that, actually, we’re having way more introduction than most mccers, who get like a week of orientation. so i guess we’re lucky.
outside of group time, i continue to play basketball every thursday night, which is always a highlight of the week. last week i also babysat for jess and janna (janna’s an mccer here), they have a one-year-old girl, amara, and it was wonderful to spend an afternoon on the level of a baby and give them the afternoon off for their first date in a year.
last weekend, i also went out with most of our group both friday and saturday night to play tejo one night, and bowl the next. tejo is a very old Colombian game, created by their indigenous, that actually reminds me a lot of corn hole. you stand far away your target, which is…difficult to explain…there’s a picture. each person has one solid metal (?) thing that you throw underhanded to try to hit two small triangles of gun powder amidst the clay box. the closest one to the circle on which the gun powder lies wins. or if you hit the gun powder and it explodes, your team gets two points. i am absolutely terrible at this game and we played girls on boys and the girls definitely lost. i was less than pleased. so the next night we went bowling to this tiny little place where people stand behind the barriers and put up the pins manually for you, and you have to do the adding yourself. really sweet. problem is, i cant resist a bet and after we had played two games girls on guys and came out even, an mccer challenged me to one more game and the winner paid. i lost. my problem is that i’m too competitive to turn down a bet, but i’m actually not good enough at some games to be betting on them. so i paid his last game, and again was less than pleased. but overall, it was a good night of bowling. and cheap…except for when i paid for his game. ☹
this past weekend Jordan and i went a couple hours south of bogota with leady and alejo where leady’s mom is currently working at a hospital. it is a small pueblo of about 8000 people and for a day we went outside the pueblo and walked around in the campo which was awesome. the river was really dirty and too much current to bathe in it, but it was wonderful to be in the campo. i slept in a hammok for two days, which actually felt more comfortable than the really bad mattress i’m sleeping on right now. i have been having a lot of pain in my neck lately and i think i need to buy a pillow so that is on the agenda for the week. overall, it was a good weekend, though, until we blew a pipe or something in the engine on the way home. luckily, about a mile away was a station where they had the piece and after about 2 hours delay, we got back on the road…to find out that 20 min later, the piece hadn’t fit perfectly and the engine started overheating. it was a crazy trip home. Jordan and i ended up hailing a bus on the side of this huge highway and we got home to bogota by bus, which leady and alejo stayed with an aunt of alejo’s who lived semi-close. they ended up coming home by bus this morning with the car yet unfixed. ha…why do i always have these experiences? seriously, maybe ‘m meant not to travel in car EVER. i break down even in other countries.
this week is looking really busy. it is our last week of language classes, but actually a lot of people are already done – just us English speakers have one more week of Spanish classes. so, we’re taking advantage of the fact that the majority of us do not have class, and we’re meeting all day on wednesday and friday, which means i’m busy from morning to night every day this week. i really wouldn’t mind, except i have been asked to preach IN SPANISH on sunday. ha. we’ll see how that goes. any free time i have will be devoured with this i’m sure. if any of you have inspiriations to share with me about your understandings and interpretations of palm sunday i would be glad to hear them. soon…since i have to translate everything to Spanish sometime this weekend before church. i think i’m going to invite one of my fluent-in-both-languages friends over and offer dinner if they help me translate.
it is now rainy season, which means it rains every day in bogota. for the past two weeks i don’t think we’ve had a day where it doesn’t rain at least a bit. i’m still stubborn and don’t wear my jacket, and forget the umbrella, which makes for a wet self at times, but its all an adventure. this afternoon i walked to mcc all the way in the rain, because i didn’t want to take a bus. sometimes you just need the fresh air, albeit it may be wet air.
every once in a while my stomach does crazy things and i get bug-like symptoms for a few hours or a day or so. i guess it would be a good idea to go to the doctor before i head to the coast. never sounds like a good idea at the moment, though, so we’ll see what happens with that, i guess.
as always, i have terrible pictures because i don’t ever get my camera out to take pictures. but i put a lot up last time. so anyway, here are a few....playing tejo, the car incident, sleeping in the hammock, and my cilantro plant!!! :) love and miss you all...thanks for staying in touch!