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I'm sitting in my sweet, spacious room, in my new apartment in the old neighborhood of Teusaquillo, Bogota listening to the rain fall on my skylight. I'll be leaving soon to go to a meeting with the head of the new Batuta choral program here in Colombia to discuss what exactly my roll is in the program and then I'm off to a rehearsal with a group of fun Colombian women, where we will be singing mostly songs in Spanish. (How's that for a run on sentence?) On the way to the transmilenio bus system that is located close to my apartment, (and that I have learned to use in the past month and a half of living here), I'll pass a really great and super cheap veggie and fruit market, a cute corner hole in the wall bar, tons of neat old houses, all painted in different bright colors, and of course the typical fruit, juice, snack, tamale and minutos (cell phone minutes) vendors on the sidewalk. As you can hear, I'm quite happy here, and learning and growing muchisimo!
My new aparto address is below (not on blog, email if you want it), as I think I'll be here for (lease is at least) three months. You can send me as much mail as you like- (and if you really want to go overboard, any trader joes nuts would be sweet! Joking- it's too much to mail packages, but, Colombia has got to get on this nut production thing! I need my almonds!) I've been making friends easily and have a nice core group of gringos, (mostly from either language classes, an international school here in Bog., or random connections) and also of Colombians- one of which is my spunky, fun new roommate Catalina.
I am enjoying working with a great team of music educators here- and having fun discussing everything from: how to transition an entire country of children/adults educators/composers/directors to improving on their solfege method of fixed do, and introducing chromatic solfegio, to techniques of classroom management with underprivilaged youth in the northern coastal city of Cartagena, to what system of rhythm teaching is better, and which one should we implement here in Colombia to 50 thousand young musicians? Man, is it neat!
And, yes, my spanish is improving every day- it has to, when I have meetings, rehearsals and talk with students in Spanish! Luckily, they speak pretty slow here in Bogota, but up in the Coast (Carribean), they speak so fast- even Bogotanos can't always understand their accent.
Speaking of la Costa, I was there for a little over a week going to language school and visiting the Batuta centros there, and of course, swimming the the warm carribean sea every day, eating fresh fish every day, and a few pina coladas from fresh coconuts were thrown in too. I also took the bus up to Barranquila for 2 nights and stayed with a friend's family there. Two facts about the Coast: 1. I have never sweat that much in my entire life- it was hotter than Chicago this summer, and the water is almost as hot- so your salty in the sea and salty on land 2. The people are the most open, kind, friendly, warm personalities I have ever seen in a culture. I walked into my host family's house for the first time, and my host mother, Ana walked out of her room with her shirt half on, bra hanging out, comes over and gives me a big sweaty hug and, poof, we're like family. This cultural norm made it really fun to work with the music students- they were in my hand and ready to dive into singing in a matter of seconds. :) Grateful I am for this life, and these opportunities. Words can't describe, so I'll just hope you all know without words. peace.
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