jammin' witchu!!

Helloo hello!!

It's been a wild couple of weeks. Lots of stress and fun and not enough sleep, haha. Let's see, let's start with last weekend. I went with Milena to Bogota to the wedding of one of her best friends who was marrying a French guy. We arrived early in the morning at the notary for a funny bilingual ceremony, with an old Colombian man reading in very slow broken French for the groom and his mother. The reception that evening was a lot of fun though, lots of dancing and delicious free food and booze. We spent the weekend with Milena's mother and two brothers, feeling a little trapped in the apartment since it was raining and her mom was in a funky mood the last day, but it was nice anyhow.

Then this week. Uff, lot's of activity. Let's see, wednesday was a crazy day because we had a concert with the band in a little rural high school at 9 in the morning. So we left super early, loading the gear into a rickety old bus and chugging along country roads. The fellows in the band for some reason thought that rum was a good idea and so there we were singing and drinking and dancing in the bus early in the morning. We get to the little school and set up to play outside in the middle of the basketball court, surrounded by curious little kids in uniforms who probably had never seen a gringo before, so i got lots of cute questions. We played a set and then headed back, this time dancing in the aisles with the windows open and reggaeton blasting and got back by lunchtime. Then came Thursday. A day for the ages. First, it was the day of my much anticipated concert on American folk music at the university. It went well. A good turnout, an interview from the TV station. I played about 15 songs on banjo and guitar, singing, and with some accompaniment from people in the band. I had slides with lyrics and pictures of the artists, from Doc Watson, to Woody Guthrie, to Tony Rice, etc, and gave explanations of the stories behind each song.

Then it was going straight from the show back to my apartment to prepare for the Halloween party, and an epic one it was. I dressed up a Bacchus, the god of the grape harvest and debauchery in general, complete with a leaf crown, toga, and a wild fennel staff. Milena dressed as a gypsy. About 40 friends showed up, exchange students, students of mine, friends form the band and with such diverse costumes as a shark, a zombie, a preist, a lady cop, etc. One guy was supposed to bring his sound system, but didn't show, so with the band we ended up playing a great acoustic set. Luckily Rafa and Jenny from the band are walking jukeboxes and played one song after another, vallenatos, cumbias, rancheras. So hours of dancing and toasts and good fun and I actually was able to get everyone on their way by 1 am so my poor neighbors could sleep. But a great time. Above is a photo.

Then I had to get up super early the next morning to be a judge at the annual English song contest. That involved 5 hours of listening to dozens of high school students sing American pop songs, mostly with pretty decent English pronunciation, but most of them pretty out of tune. So lots of cringing and sighing and saying, "hmm, too bad, she had good style and whatnot, but oof, pretty out of tune" with the other judges. But the organizers treated us to a tasty lunch and they presented me with a certificate of appreciation with my name spelled Noam Mayers, so that was pretty good compensation.

Ok, that's all the adventures to date. Stay tuned!! Love from Tunja!