RSP, new job, gecko

We’ve actually had a lot going on in the last couple of weeks, but I’ll try to keep this brief.  Because we have 8 billion pictures, I’m just going to post pictures on Facebook and leave them out of this blog entry.

Fun experiences:

-I’ll start with the best.  Our church has been super helpful in trying to find us jobs.  Our area has a self-sufficiency center, where people can go to get help looking for jobs, learning English, etc. A few weeks ago, James and I went there so James could use the phone to call places to look for work.  As we were leaving, the maintenance guy gave us the number for someone from the church who works for the school district.  James called her, and the maintenance guy pointed us to where he thought she worked. 

                We hopped on a party bus (not all that big of a party) and went to this technical school.  It ended up being the place where her husband worked.  He gave James some good advice about salary and contracts and then called his wife and sent us to where she actually worked, which was across town. 

So at this point, we’ve already been out for a couple of hours without eating or drinking anything.  We decided to go and see the woman before eating, since she was expecting us.  We were shown into her office which she shared with her boss.  We sat on a couch and she told us she just needed to finish up some work really quick before she could help us.  So for the next 45 minutes, we sat on a couch watching them work on a spreadsheet.  By the way, she explained all of this in Spanish to James, so I had no idea what was going on.  Which made it even funnier afterwards.  Finally, she was done working and asked James for his hoja de vida (resume).  She started emailing it to people that she knew in the district, even calling a couple of them to boast about how good James’ Spanish is, and how he’d be a great English teacher for their company.  Meanwhile, James looked at his phone and saw that he missed a call from the school he had interviewed with earlier that week (Colombo).  This woman (who later told us that she was the Stake Relief Society President for another stake in Cartagena) called and emailed for about an hour, while people filed in and out of this room we were all squished into.  Then she got up and said that she wanted to take us to a university that she knew.  We went downstairs, but she forgot something and had to go back up.  While we waited for her, James called Colombo back.  They said they wanted him to come in again.  She came back down, and James told her that we actually needed to go to Colombo.  She assured us that the university wouldn’t take very long, and we could go to Colombo after, because she knew the director there and wanted to put in a good word for James. 

So we all piled into a taxi and went across town.  After she found her friend at the university and introduced James, they did a short interview with him.  Clarivel and I (for, of course, that was her name) tried to have a conversation with my next-to-no-Spanish and her next-to-no-English.  It didn’t go very well.  So we just sat in awkward silence until James was done.  She then informed us that she actually goes to this university, and she needed to pick up a couple of things.  Hmm, mighty convenient.  So we bolted to the cafeteria to shove some food down our throats while we waited for her.

Then we took a taxi back to her work and walked to Colombo (about another ¾ mile away).  When we got to Colombo, we were all shown into the office of the man that had originally interviewed James.  This man spoke English, so I understood everything, but poor Clarivel did not.  In hindsight though, neither of us should have been there for this meeting. 

But James got the job!  As we walked out, he told Clarivel this.  She was delighted!  James had to go talk to HR to get some stuff started.  So Clarivel and I had another awkward, trying-to-communicate-and-failing moment.  At this point, I’m starting to wonder why Clarivel was still here.  I mean, she was a super nice lady, and really went through a lot of work to try to help two strangers who she would probably never see again, but I wasn’t quite sure what else she thought she could do at this point. 

We left Colombo, and she started taking us a different way back to her work.  James and I kept exchanging glances, wondering if this woman was going to take us somewhere and murder us.  But she didn’t.  What she did do was take us on a spontaneous walking tour of El Centro, and she showed us a ton of stuff we had never seen before.  She explained to us the significance of buildings, statues, etc., and gave us a little bit of Cartagena history.  She also bought us popsicles and refused to let us pay for them (she had also done this for both taxi rides, by the way).  She took out her phone and took almost 60 photos of us in front of different Cartagena landmarks, sometimes giving us hilarious posing advice.  And yes, she did later text James all 60 photos.  We now have more pictures of the two of us than we have had in almost 4 years of marriage. Finally, when we were wondering how much longer this poor woman was going to show us around, she abruptly told us she had to go home and walked away.  This was the weirdest, nicest, most hilarious experience we have had in Cartagena.  I love that she really did turn out to be a super nice person who didn’t mind spending 3-4 hours with a couple of gringos.

-Like I mentioned above, James got a job!  He is an English professor for Colombo Americano.  We’re thrilled.  Right now he observes another teacher’s class from 8:30-12ish every day, until we get his work visa, which will take another few weeks.  He’s been doing it for a few weeks, and he likes it.  Occasionally, he’ll teach the class for an hour or two, and he taught the full 4 hours one day. His students are mostly rich Colombians who just graduated high school, and they speak English pretty well.  It’s fun to hear about the things his students say.  One day, he asked them to describe their classmates.  One of the things they wanted to say was whether or not someone had short or long eyelashes.  Apparently that’s a distinguishing feature to Colombians. They also asked how to specify skin tone.  They specified light, medium, and dark.  One girl also described another girl as hairy, and no one thought it was rude.  These are just acceptable things to say here.  Latinos often call each other fat, but the class at least knew that that wasn’t acceptable in English.  I would have loved to have been there when they figured that out.

-We went to Santa Marta for the weekend over Valentine’s Day.  Santa Marta is a little city about 4 hours northeast of Cartagena.  We have heard from many people that they like Santa Marta or Barranquilla (about 2 hours away) better than Cartagena.  We thought we’d check it out to see if we would maybe like to live there in a year or so.  We do not.  Santa Marta was less humid, better smelling, cleaner, and newer, with more gringos.  You would think that these would all be pluses for us, but we just really didn’t like it.  We inquired about apartments, but of the only six beachfront buildings, only one rented, and they were full.  It was also considerably hotter (something I didn’t think was possible) and even though it was newer, it was still gross.  Gross without the charm of centuries-old buildings is just gross.  The ocean was also colder and even more filled with trash (again, something I didn’t think was possible).  All in all, we had a nice weekend in a beachy city, but we don’t want to live there.  Now we know.

-I came home one day to find a tiny gecko on the floor of our closet.  I realize that having any critter or bug in your house is supposed to be gross, but he was so cute.  He was about an inch long.  I moved around him all morning, happy that he wasn’t scared when I got close to him.  Then, the unthinkable happened.  I forgot about him and went to get something from the closet.  As I walked away from the closet, I realized that I had forgot to look for him before going in.  I looked back to see if he was there, and he wasn’t.  Then I checked the bottom of my shoe.  It looked like I had stepped in a bloody booger.  I HAD STEPPED ON HIM.  I was devastated and sick for days about it.  You will always be in my heart, little gecko friend.

Differences between the States and Colombia:

-Oreos, cookies, crackers, etc. come in what we would call “lunch sack packs” in the States.  Always.  I love it.  It’s like portion control that doesn’t require any work from me, or any additional expense.  When was the last time you were able to ONLY eat 4 Oreos?  Well, that’s all I ever eat anymore, because eating more would require me to make the decision to take more than one pack, or I would have to go back to the cupboard for more.  Everything should be like this.

-When Colombians order from Subway, they put 5-6 sauces on their sandwich.  It’s so gross and hilarious to me.

-They have this spread called arequipe.  No one can explain to us what it is.  But they use it here like we use chocolate in the states.  Like at McDonalds dessert shops, we can get a vanilla, arequipe, or mixed cone. I would say it’s like-unto caramel?  But I don’t feel that I’ve had a really good sampling of it yet.  I just don’t know why it doesn’t seem to exist anywhere else in the world.

-At lunchtime, the supermarket cafeterias are busier than any restaurant. My family occasionally would get potato wedges or ice cream from Macey’s, but I never knew anyone that ate at the grocery store on a regular basis.  But all of Colombia does.  Guess we’ll have to try the food and let you know how that goes.

-Colombians don’t yawn.  Ever.  I’ve caught maybe 2 people yawning, but otherwise it's just like being in a really boring Twilight Zone episode.

-They round the money up or down.  The smallest denomination of pesos that we have seen is 50 pesos (most everything costs _mil, mil being 1000).  But sometimes, at the grocery store, something will cost 1,340.  When you total up, they will either tell you it’s 1,300 or 1,400 OR they will tell you the correct total, then give you too much or too little cash back (paid with 2000, they give back 700 or 600 instead of 660).  It’s the strangest thing.  But since 50 pesos is less than 2 cents, I’m not ever too concerned about it.  If Colombia makes me a poor woman by charging me 1 cent more at a time, I commend them.

-Let’s talk fashion:          
        Women:
                 -Scrunchies, scrunchies, scrunchies.  I have not seen a regular pony tail holder in anyone’s hair.
                 -Sexy overalls. 99% spandex, 1% denim. I really think that I see overalls as often as I see regular jeans.
                -Super sheer blouses with brightly colored/patterned bras showing through.  I saw this a lot in California too, but usually people had neutral colored bras, or those tube bras…and usually they were physically fit.  None of those are the case here.
               -Most of the women wear wedges or sandals.  Probably a safer bet on these sidewalks.
 
       Men:
               -That soccer haircut that all the boys had back when I was in high school.  You know…curly Mohawk?  I’m hoping that soccer players still have this haircut (a safe assumption…I assume that’s why all the Colombians have it?) so that you know what I am talking about.
              -Men don’t wear shorts in Cartagena unless they are tourists or poor/homeless.  We read that before we came, but it has now been confirmed by experience and James’ students.

        Both:
              -Crocs and more crocs.  Everyone wears crocs.  You can imagine my horror.

-Speaking of crocs, the maids here wear scrubs and crocs.  I thought everyone was a nurse until I realized that that isn’t nurse garb here, that’s maid garb.

 

Things we like…and things we don’t:

-They put mustard on EVERYTHING.  Seriously, who likes mustard anyways?

-I cannot find cheddar anywhere.  We found a grosser version of Kraft singles to make grilled cheese, but otherwise, our only options are mozzarella, parmesan, or weird cheeses that no one normal uses when cooking.

-The ice cream here is ultra sweet.  Like almost to the point of being gross.  But I would happily power through it, if not for the fact that a pint of ice cream costs like $10.  Seriously?! Ain’t nobody got money for that.  Instead, we just stop by McDonald’s postres and get a cone for about 70 cents whenever we have the need.

-They have a “healthy” soda called Pony Malta.  Everyone here drinks it.  James tried it and spit it into the sink.  Apparently it’s soda with malt flavoring in it?  Sounds disgusting.

Notice a pattern with the dislikes?  Food.

-VERY few people here smoke.  I’ve seen maybe 3 people with cigarettes and 5 with cigars.  It’s nice that there’s not smoke added to the urine smell.

-There are recycling bins everywhere that there are trash cans.  I would say that Colombia is greener than America, if not for the piles of trash in the street.  But clearly someone is trying.

-On a related note, most of the cars here run on natural gas, because gasoline is so expensive.  James talked to a taxi driver who said that everyone buys a converting kit when they buy their car.  Why hasn’t America done either of these things?! I have a hard time believing Colombia has more money than America…

 

Well that’s all for this week…sorry for taking up an hour and a half of your time.  We are still loving the adventure, and are happy to live here.  Once James gets his visa squared away, we will be locked into spending at least a year here, so don’t hold your breath for us to come back any time soon.  But do start looking at flight prices so you can come visit us.  A friend recently messaged me a picture of a one-way flight from SLC to Cartagena for $191, just a couple of weeks out. You can do it.