Era Enfermo

Hi all,

Sorry to all those whom I owe email to. A lot of people have been nice enough to put in the effort to keep in touch with me but I haven't written in a while. Here is my excuse for dropping off the face of the earth. I call him earl and he is my stomach bug. I felt him coming on really bad on monday night and I spent tuesday and most of wednesday in bed. I never threw up (although I came very close many times) but still probably lost about 400 pounds.... use your imaginations and you'll figure out my problem. I actually slept on the floor for a while because my back was hurting from being in bed too long. Well, I'm in a new country and I should probably be prepared to get sick a lot. This will no doubt be the first of many.

Ok, gotta run, but much love to everyone. Thanks for writing me and I promise this weekend to write back and say hi.

Love Matt

Tear Gas again

Hi all,

I was coming out of the grocery store today and there was another big riot at the university (it's right across the street). The riot cops were out in full force and students were inside the university throwing things at the cops. We saw the canisters of tear gas explode and decided to get into a cab and make a hasty retreat. Apparently this happens regularly though (especially on thursdays) so there were lots of people standing around and watching. It's really quite interesting to see this happen....

Nothing too exciting planned for this weekend. Last night we played a game called 'Snapdragon' where you put brandy in a pan with fruit, and light it on fire and try to grab the fruit out. You do it with the lights out and the flames are all eerie blue. If you're really good (which I am of course) you can pull out flaming fruit and pop it in your mouth still burning (don't worry, much less dangerous than it sounds. It's just the brandy burning, not the fruit). I didn't get this from Colombia though, this is something from home:) Go North American ingenuity! We have a professional day today so there are no kids so that's why we decided to get together and have some fun the night before. Not too much fun though. The morning still started at 5:45am.

Caio for now:)

Love Matt

Santa Rosa - Full Story

Hi all,

Sorry that I haven't posted the full story of what I did in Santa Rosa last weekend. It's been a busy week and frankly, pictures are more exciting than my writing could ever be anyway.

On friday after school we got picked up in a mini-bus (really a big van) and drove the four hours to Santa Rosa going north from Cali. We exited Cali by going through the east side through the really poor part of town (that is about 1/2 the population of Cali) called Aqua Blanco. It was definetly a change of pace from the rich parts of town that I've spent most of my time in so far. Heaps of garbage everywhere, crumbled buildings, tin and cardboard shacks. It would be easy not to see this though if you just stayed in the other parts of town.

We spent most of the trip to S.R. talking about Colombian politics (or in my case learning about Colombian politics) and reading questions from my "IF" book (ie If you could have the mind of someone from history and remain in your own body, whose would you choose?). I'd planned to do marking on the drive but that obviously didn't get done. Santa Rosa is about 88,000 people and a really nice town. It reminded me of the town on Lago Calima (called Dorien) but in a bigger form. They even had the exact same town square, just bigger, with a bigger church. You can also see Manizales from the hills near Santa Rosa so that was neat. On the way there we saw the aftermath of a motorcycle accident that the police had cordoned off, complete with dead person still lying on the pavement....

Just outside Santa Rosa we stopped at this really nice little restaurant that served awesome trout so I had the really garlicy one....mmmmmmmm... I can still taste it. Then we drove a little further up the road and found a place to stay (shown in the pictures below). On saturday morning some people went into town but Scott, Sonia, Bonnie and myself were more eager to go hiking. The people around suggested a hike in the jungle, following a river to a 35 meter waterfall. We were also told that it was 1/2 hour hike in which usually means about an hour and a half. It was one of the best hikes that I've ever been on, just beautiful, although we got split up a few times when part of the group would cross the river. About 3 hours in we realized that were weren't going to get to the waterfall and turned back (turns out they meant that there was a point where we could SEE it, not actually get to it). All in all, it was a magnificent 5 hour hike (yes we were faster going out) but we were a little beat afterwards and went to have snacks and beer.

Next it was off to the Termales (hot springs... like 'Thermals') to soak our aching bodies in hot water..... nothing sweeter than that feeling!

Sunday morning I climbed up the hill behind the place that we were staying and got a FANTASTIC view of the surrounding area. I've posted the best of those down below but they just don't do it justice.

Whoever eventually comes to visit, I'm definitely taking you to this place...... mmmmm hot water and 100 m waterfalls!

Fourth Pics from Santa Rosa

This is the view of Santa Rosa from the top of the hill that I climbed. You can see the windy road that we took.
A view of the place that we stayed from above.
Here I am: Tired but happy at the top.
I just really liked this view. Another shot from the top of the hill.

Although climbing up the hill was a little tiring I would actually name going down "An expert course in 101 ways to roll your ankle". I also decided to take the "rugged" route down and by the time I got the the bottom I was so covered in sticks and spiderwebs I needed to take a dunk in the stream.

Third Pics from Santa Rosa

This is one of the many magnificent views from the hill that I climbed behind the place we were staying in. After our five hour jungle hike this is the hot spring that we went to. Ahhhhhh......
Above the hotsprings there is this 100m tall waterfall. You can just stand below it and listen to the pounding water.
Here is another pic from our jungle hike. I'm quickly realizing that you should read these entries bottom to top to get them in order. Tim and Bonnie are in this pic.

Second Pics from Santa Rosa

Ok, I'm having some trouble posting pics so I might have to do this one at a time.... we'll see. Here is a pic of Bonnie on our jungle hike.

First Pics from Santa Rosa

This is the view of the direction towards the hot springs.... 1/2 of our group stayed in the little hotel up ahead.
This is the place where the rest of us stayed (including myself). We were up in the loft room up top. Three beds and four people but I was the only boy and since my legs are so long I got a double bed to myself and slept diagonally on it. It was more uncomfortable than the beds at the old fort (and very comparable since it was a wooden slat bed) but I slept really well. Probably had something to do with a five hour hike followed by some hot springs.
This is the hill right behind our place that I climbed on sunday morning. I think that it looks a lot shorter in this view than it actually is. It's terraced from years and years of cows wandering up and down the hill.
Here is most of our group. Scott on the left (married to Sonia in the orange), Bonnie is next who is my new life mentor. She used to teach grade 8 at Bolivar a couple of years ago and has really helped me out. She's also one of the most interesting and positive people I've ever met. Regan is next, she lives in El Ingenio with me, then Caroline who is in her second year at the school, Sonia and finally some dashing young Colombian fellow who we met there.
Ok, first of all I swear that I don't wear that shirt every day. I just happen to really like it and wear it on the weekends so if you see it in pretty much every picture I ever post that's why. Here I'm about to try jumping from rock to rock but am a little scared that my left ankle is going to give out. Scott thought it would be good to be prepared to capture the moment just incase that happend.

It's been a while

Hi all!!!

Well it's been almost a week since I posted something so I figured I had better get something up online so people didn't start thinking that I'd died or something.

It's been a really busy week but a good one. Today in science class I did a demo for the kids where I screw a 200 Watt lightbulb into a portable socket, break the glass and then plug it it. It's great! It lights up and the filament starts smoking like crazy for about 6 seconds until it burns out. One of the kids said to me today "Meester (that's how they say it) you really like breaking things don't you?" I can't deny it.... I do like breaking things.

I went with Matt Shannon (The grade 8 History teacher who has been here for about 7 years) to play basketball in a neighborhood in the city. It was tons of fun and I got a really good run. I figure that it will be a great way to learn spanish too. There were tons of people from the neighborhood out there just hanging out and watching.

Ok, PD (professional develpment) stuff starts in about 5 minutes so I've gotta go. I'm going away to some hotsprings this weekend so I'll pack my camera and bring back some pictures to post.

Tah Tah,

Love Matt

My First Taste of Tear Gas

When the teacher bus (that takes us home) was passing the university that is near El Ingenio where I live we saw all these police in riot gear with the big sheilds and robocop armour blocking it off...... And then my eyes started to water and sting like crazy and breathing not entirely pleasant.

No worries! I was just getting the blown off residue of the tear gas that was used on the campus. Apparently crazy protests are a VERY regular thing and this tear gassing happens about once a month there. I think that people were throwing rocks over some issue....

Well, it's the first time I've had a taste of tear gas and I can attest to its effectiveness. Wow.... wouldn't want to be too near that.

I'm attaching a few pics that I took previously of the university. It's got tons and tons of left wing grafiti.

These are some houses and hills during the hike on the weekend.
This bridge leads through a bamboo grove to this gorgeous little house. The man who lives there is a friend of Bonnie and Octavio (two of the teachers at the school). This was also on our hike. I swam in that stream right below me...... ahhhhh nice and cool!

Ahhh the blissful weekends.....

Well, for all my big plans of getting tons of school work done I ended up doing the following things on the weekend.

1) Going to a party at Sonia and Scott's place.
2) Eating a whole pineapple by myself.
3) Then eating about 6 empanadas (all this at the party)
4) Hiking up the Pance (an awesome river)
5) Sleeping for 13 hours

Well, I certainly was a busy guy. I've also gotten quite addicted to 'Song of Ice and Fire' which is a series that Sky and Wendy recommended.

I'll put up some pictures of the hike (as the pinapple and empanadas never lasted long enough to have their picture taken).

So it was flying by the seat of my pants again today... oh well........

Love Matt

Gmail working again

Ok, looks like my gmail account is working again so if you get bored and want to write me I'm at matttheteacher@gmail.com

Thanks for all of the comments on the blog everyone. I've been bad about responding to them but I really appreciate reading them.

It's been a good week but a long one and I'm really REALLY excited for 2:30pm to hit so I can go play basketball with the other teachers on the school court. It's not hardwook but at least it's covered so I don't get sunburnt.

We had student council elections today for middle school.... those kids make my smile.

Well, gotta go. Much love.