lanzando!!!!

So, a new country, a new blog. I think I will be writing shorter, more regular posts than the other famous blog, noahinmendoza, since I have a much stabler situation here in Tunja. I even get free internet access at my department office in the university (yeah, and I´ve got a desk and everything). Easier than the every-other-week internet access with farmwork in the Southern Cone.
SO what can I tell you?? Well, let´s start with Tunja. It is a pretty little city of about 150,000 two hours north of Bogotá way up in the mountains. It´s the coldest place in Colombia which means it´s a shocking 45 degrees at night and usually around 70 during the day. All year round. The sun goes down at 6:30 pm. All year round. Why? Because we´re in the tropics! SO the weather is pretty nice, except for the occasional torrential downpour. And when it´s sunny you better wear a hat because it`s strong sun. I´ve had a nose burned to a crisp since I got here. The city is full of colonial churches and brick high rises in a valley surrounded by green mountains, and in which every square metre of grass, even along the main drag, is occupied by someone´s cow. The food is pretty great: for starters, there´s the tropical fruit. Papayas, mangos, pineapples, and then the ones I´d never heard of like tomate de árbol (flavor of tomato mixed with orange), and guanabana (like coconut and pinapple mixed), among others. Other than than, it´s lots of rice, lentils, chicken, eggs, beans, broth, potatoes. You can get a really filling lunch for $2 of the aforementioned, and then eat a light dinner. Maybe an arepa (like a cornmeal pancacke).

Now, what have I been up to? Well, first and foremost are my responsibilities as an English teaching assistant at the University of Boyacá. It´s a private school of about 4,000 students with very technical majors like medicine, business, ingeneering, law, and where everyone has to take English. Since I am the only native speaker at the university and the level of English is very low here, even among the professors, they have basically divided me up between all the classes of English 2 and up, 17 classes of 1 hour per week. This means I have almost half of the students in the university in class, which is fun, but makes for a lot of embarrassing, " Oh, did I have you in class? Yeah, sure, I remember you!" moments. My role is basically to help with reading, pronunciation, etc. I also give a 2 hour English club and 1 hour conversation club once a week, which is fun because we just listen to music or read a poem, or whatever I want and then practice speaking. There are very few people who can do more than form basic sentences, and I generally use more Spanish than English, but I like that anyway, and I think peoples levels will improve quickly. I really like my coworkers. They are 5 Colombian 20-somethings, all very cool and laid back and not exactly professorial. We have a good time.

The universtiy is private, and so it has a more stifiling atmosphere. The campus is 2 blocks surrounded by wire fencing and you have to pass through security every time you go in and out. Needless to say, it is very different from the feel of the huge public university down the road, the UPTC, which has 25,000 students and is complete with Che Guevara murals, guitar-players, clouds of marijuana smoke, etc. My fellow fulbrighter, Kailey, is teaching there, along with a Brit, and girls from Jamaica, from France, from Germany, and China, all teaching their respective languages. They are a good crew, we´ve already had a Jamaican independence party, complete with jerk and rum. Back to my university- the benefit is my classes have already been on for 2 weeks and start on time. At the UPTC they are still hiring teachers for some classes. That´s the beauty of public education bureaucracy. I am excited because I already starting practicing with the university band, playing guitar, singing, percussion, etc. We´re preparing some pop, cumbia, vallenato, and hopefully some US songs I´ve been preparing. There are 6 of us, including some really cool, talented kids. We will be performing and going to music festivals, so I really couldnçt ask for better. This week I will trying out some dance classes at the university.

What else?? Lots of fun to be had in Colombia. Of course, going out dancing regularly. Besides my colleagues and students at the university, I also have a great group of exchange students from Mexico, Peru, and Argentina to go out with. My salsa steps are improving, although of course it´s still hard to look smooth next to Colombians who all flawlessly execute turns and flashy steps as though it were as easy as falling off a log. But little by little . . . Also the World Cup for players under 20 has been going on in Colombia for the past 3 weeks, which has everybody wild. Although Colombia finally lost to Mexico in the quarterfinals on Saturday, so the craziness has subsided a little bit. When that´s all over, the season of the local soccer team, Boyacá Chicó begin here in Tunja. I´ve already bought a jersey and me and the guy from England are planning on going to all the games because it seems really fun to be two random gringos going crazy over a second-rate municipal soccer team, and whatever, any sport is so much better to watch live.

This weekend was the Festival de Cometas, the kite festival, in Villa de Leyva, a beautiful little hippy town with colonial architecture about an hour to the west of here. I went with the Mexicans and a friend and fellow fulbrighter from Bogotá, Katy. It was fun. Some people who can really make kites do crazy things, although I was a little disappointed because I had the impression there would be more live music, but after Colombia lost the game, the night in the plaza turned to hard drinking and not a whole lot else. So we went dancing in a normal salsa bar and the next day watched some more kites and then visited the Pozos Azules, a set of 7 little blue holes that you aren´t supposed to swim in but we did anyway and it was wonderful. The picture in the truck with Katy is on the way to the pozos. THe other is with the exchange students in a town near Tunja.

Ok, that´s the long and the short of it. Hope it was fun reading, and hope you all are well in other lands. Write soon!