Success in house hunting and BIG GUNS
Well, we did it. Jordan and I officially have a place to live. This morning we set off in the van with Stella, Tom and Jaime to check out places. The first place that we saw was on the 11th floor of this apartment complex with a pool, sauna, and was ENORMOUS. Just to give you an idea, it was probably the same size as the ground floor of my folks house in Kakabeka and cost 1,200,000 pesos a month to rent (about $580 bucks american split two ways). It was magnificent and there will be no other time in life that I can afford a place that nice but it really didn't have any kind of neighborhood around it so we decided to check out a few more.
We ended up just cruising around Ciudad Jardin which is the neighborhood where ever one of the other new imports lives (about 15 mins from school) and looking for 'for rent ' signs. In the end we found a place that had (and match this up with the previously mentioned criteria):
1) Two large balconies
2) Two stories
3) Great neighborhood (actually, if you looks out one way from our balcony you see the place where Martin, Regan, Kate and Tim live and if you look the other way you see the 'Ball Room' where Sonia and Scott live).
We decided to take it. It has everything we want and is in a neighborhood which should help us make some more Colombian friends and really be part of a community. The drawbacks? The cupboards are a little rickets, it's a touch dirty (right now) and the ceilings are a little low and painted pink..... well, nothing that we can't live with. In the end, who needs anything else when you've got a killer balcony.
After that we went to Liz's house (a second year teacher) for lunch and had a sampling of blended fruit juices. I feel like this place was made for me. There is a ton of cheap fruit, people are all very touchy feely, and showing up late for things is not only commonplace, it's expected. Maybe mom and dad adopted me from Colombia. It's not as unreasonable as it sounds either. There is a real mix of skin colours here. Everything from the darkest dark to pale and blue eyed.
In the afternoon we went to the bank to work some things out and at one point some guys came to administer a bank machine outside, except both had flack jackets and one had a drawn pistol. The other one? He stood guard for the other guy with a SHOT GUN (this was about five feet from us). Certainly guns are more common in Colombia but for a good Canadian boy it was a tiny bit scary.
It's weird being here in a lot of ways. In Colombia we (making $22,000 US a year) are pretty rich. I find there is a huge amount of stratification. Certainly there are a bunch of rich people but there are a lot of very poor people. The middle class that I am used to is so much smaller here. It's really common (and pretty much expected) that if you teach here you are going to hire a maid to help out around the house (actually ALL of the houses we saw had maid's quarters). This has been REALLY weird for me. As a guy who's parents taught him to clean his own bathroom and take pride in the value of simple daily tasks I find that I'm really uncomfortable with this whole idea. It's certainly not so bad for me, but I'll feel weird not cleaning my own place and I certainly wouldn't want to raise kids in an atmosphere where the parents and children don't have to do any kind of cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. Since there are pretty much no washing machines though some hired help for laundry gets a lot more tempting (remember, sweating is more common in Colombia than Canada).
Some other impressions of Cali so far:
-There is a group of mountains very close to the west and no matter where you are in the city they provide a breathtaking skyline. One more reason why a balcony is so important.
-Traffic is crazy. I would die in about 5 seconds driving in Cali. When you stop at a light, motor bikes pull up through the traffic till they surround you. Not for anything sinister, it's just that they are small enough to pull up to the front. At traffic lights there are also lots of vendors hawking wares, street performers etc.
-This is a Spanish city..... no doubt. If you don't speak spanish you had better get good at charades because there is almost never someone who speaks english to bail you out. I wouldn't have it any other way though. It's the best way to learn. Thankfully so far Jaime, Tom, and Stella have been helping us through the whole was and helping us learn and trasnlating when we need it. They rock.
Sometimes this place seems familiar but other times so very different.
I'm going to post a bunch of pics so everyone can check out my digs and life here in Cali. I love you all and miss you.
Keep Smilin'
Love Matt
We ended up just cruising around Ciudad Jardin which is the neighborhood where ever one of the other new imports lives (about 15 mins from school) and looking for 'for rent ' signs. In the end we found a place that had (and match this up with the previously mentioned criteria):
1) Two large balconies
2) Two stories
3) Great neighborhood (actually, if you looks out one way from our balcony you see the place where Martin, Regan, Kate and Tim live and if you look the other way you see the 'Ball Room' where Sonia and Scott live).
We decided to take it. It has everything we want and is in a neighborhood which should help us make some more Colombian friends and really be part of a community. The drawbacks? The cupboards are a little rickets, it's a touch dirty (right now) and the ceilings are a little low and painted pink..... well, nothing that we can't live with. In the end, who needs anything else when you've got a killer balcony.
After that we went to Liz's house (a second year teacher) for lunch and had a sampling of blended fruit juices. I feel like this place was made for me. There is a ton of cheap fruit, people are all very touchy feely, and showing up late for things is not only commonplace, it's expected. Maybe mom and dad adopted me from Colombia. It's not as unreasonable as it sounds either. There is a real mix of skin colours here. Everything from the darkest dark to pale and blue eyed.
In the afternoon we went to the bank to work some things out and at one point some guys came to administer a bank machine outside, except both had flack jackets and one had a drawn pistol. The other one? He stood guard for the other guy with a SHOT GUN (this was about five feet from us). Certainly guns are more common in Colombia but for a good Canadian boy it was a tiny bit scary.
It's weird being here in a lot of ways. In Colombia we (making $22,000 US a year) are pretty rich. I find there is a huge amount of stratification. Certainly there are a bunch of rich people but there are a lot of very poor people. The middle class that I am used to is so much smaller here. It's really common (and pretty much expected) that if you teach here you are going to hire a maid to help out around the house (actually ALL of the houses we saw had maid's quarters). This has been REALLY weird for me. As a guy who's parents taught him to clean his own bathroom and take pride in the value of simple daily tasks I find that I'm really uncomfortable with this whole idea. It's certainly not so bad for me, but I'll feel weird not cleaning my own place and I certainly wouldn't want to raise kids in an atmosphere where the parents and children don't have to do any kind of cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. Since there are pretty much no washing machines though some hired help for laundry gets a lot more tempting (remember, sweating is more common in Colombia than Canada).
Some other impressions of Cali so far:
-There is a group of mountains very close to the west and no matter where you are in the city they provide a breathtaking skyline. One more reason why a balcony is so important.
-Traffic is crazy. I would die in about 5 seconds driving in Cali. When you stop at a light, motor bikes pull up through the traffic till they surround you. Not for anything sinister, it's just that they are small enough to pull up to the front. At traffic lights there are also lots of vendors hawking wares, street performers etc.
-This is a Spanish city..... no doubt. If you don't speak spanish you had better get good at charades because there is almost never someone who speaks english to bail you out. I wouldn't have it any other way though. It's the best way to learn. Thankfully so far Jaime, Tom, and Stella have been helping us through the whole was and helping us learn and trasnlating when we need it. They rock.
Sometimes this place seems familiar but other times so very different.
I'm going to post a bunch of pics so everyone can check out my digs and life here in Cali. I love you all and miss you.
Keep Smilin'
Love Matt
posted by Matt and Emily at 7:38 PM
1 Comments:
Glad to hear you have some wicked digs.
Comfort zones are strange in that way. When you step out of them you realize that the world isn't so different outside, until the subtleties start popping up.
Post a Comment
<< Home