The hunt for peanut butter...and other misadventures

So once again it has been awhile since I last wrote, so it's hard to decide where to begin. I guess first of all, I have been searching for peanut butter in Ibague for a few weeks now, and it's not very easy to find. Most people don't even know what it is if you ask someone in a supermarket here. The first time I looked for it I ended up buying arequipe, which is like a caramel spread...I was very disappointed. This past weekend I was with some friends who were trying to help me find some peanut butter, and when Thomas asked an employee at the store where we could find it, she had no clue what he was talking about and kept saying that there was no restricted section in the store because she thought it was some kind of alcohol or something..hah, so frustrating. But we actually finally found it, and now my life here is complete. I actually don't know why I wanted peanut butter so much, I guess it's just nice to have a bit of a taste of home sometimes...plus it's good to have for a breakfast food here because I have to make my own breakfasts. So anyway, the past week and a half has definitely had its ups and its downs. I got really depressed for a while about the thought of staying at this place for another full 2 months, just because it's very small and there's hardly any personal space, and it's not like I can just go for a walk by myself or go downtown at night by myself whenever I want. It's a little bit like we're trapped here sometimes. Plus working 10 hour days has really been getting to me I think. By the time we're done, the sun is setting and there's not much to do, and there's always a fight for the internet, with only 2 computers, and 2 internet cables, and 5 or 6 volunteers at times. Plus the tv doesn't work...so options are very limited. But those were my thoughts in my darkest hours, heh. I am feeling much better about everything right now, which has to do with several factors. First of all, there's a lady named Joanna who comes to the house to cook the lunches for all the children everyday, and she actually has 4 kids who are here during the morning program. Sometimes she asks me to help her peel and cut potatoes and stuff like that to get ready for lunch. So this past Friday I was helping her, and she asked if I was sad or bored or something. I guess she could tell I wasn't feeling too great, and I told her that I was having a hard time being so far away from my boyfriend and family and friends and everything for such a long time, and that there's not always a lot to do here and the days are very long. So she told me that she gets sad too sometimes, and that I can come over to her house whenever I want to cheer me up, and if I want I can come stay there on some weekends, and that I can come dancing with her and her friends. It was so sweet of her to say that, and I found out that she's a single mom, and she's 29 and has 4 kids and life is very hard for her. That evening a few of us went to her house just to visit and see where she lives, and she and her 4 kids live in a 2 room space and have only 3 beds. When we arrived she sent her son out to buy some pop for us to drink. I was overwhelmed by her hospitality, and it made me realize just how blessed I really am. My life is like a walk in the park compared to her life everyday. She is such a sweet lady, and I really enjoyed visiting her, and she keeps asking when I can come back again. I will definitely go back to visit her, but I don't think I can stay overnight...I have no clue where I would sleep! Secondly, that same afternoon the guy who runs the centre where I am and the few others stopped by to check on things. His name is Carlos, and he called me upstairs during lunch to talk with me. He asked me how everything was going, and told me that often when people come here they love it for the first week, and then the second week gets a bit harder, and they often leave before they intended to. Especially girls who are away from their boyfriends and such he said, so it was the perfect timing for him to talk to me because I was feeling like I didn't know how I could stay for 2 more months. So he told me that I'm a volunteer and whatever I need I should just tell him or Berenice and they are always there to talk to. And he suggested a bunch of places that I should visit on weekends and if I ever want to I can take long weekends to travel, and that I can call him whenever I want. So that made me feel a lot better as well, just knowing that people here care about my well-being. And I also sat down and talked with Berenice yesterday about my hours, and she was very understand and told me if I want I can have Monday, Tuesday, and Friday afternoons off and if I'm tired I can just tell someone and go take a nap, or if I need to get out she can take me to a pool or just into town or whatever. So that is a huge relief! I don't know if I'll take that much time off because I definitely want to help out wherever I can, but at least I know that whenever I need I can relax and things will be much better now. A lot of great things happened this past weekend as well. On Friday night I went out with a couple of the volunteers and two of the teachers from the centre, and we met Thomas and his boyfriend Armando for dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant. The owner is Italian, so the food was actually very good. On Saturday, all the other volunteers were out at the time, so just Berenice and I went to a pool for the day. It was in a really nice recreational park, and there were several pools. One had a big waterslide, and the one we went in turned out to be a wavepool. It was awesome, I swam into the biggest waves by myself because Berenice doesn't know how to swim, so there I was, the lone white girl swimming over the big waves amongst a bunch of Colombians, mainly guys who were saying things to me that I didn't understand and I just ignored them, heh. So I finally got to swim and tan in my bathing suit...it only took a month of being in Colombia. But hopefully by the time I get back from the Caribbean coast I'll have a nice tan! Sunday was the best day of all because I met a Canadian girl from Toronto who is teaching at the same school as Thomas and she will be staying here for 4 months!!! Her name is Sylvia, she's 22, and she's originally from Korea. She moved to Canada with her family when she was 9 years old. We get along really well, and we are both so happy that each other is here...she's is definitely a Godsend for me! So Sylvia, Thomas, the other volunteers and I hiked a mountain on Sunday at the San Jorge botanical gardens, and it was beautiful but very humid that day. It took a few hours, so it was very good exercise. Then we all went out for lunch, and I went back with Sylvia to the apartment she's staying at right now. We went over to the house of this family she knows who is super nice. They offered us food, so of course we accepted. They had made some traditional Colombian soup with bread, and then they gave us some masamora...probably spelled much differently though. The soup had two different types of potatoes in it, with chicken, some green stuff, and some cream on top, it was suuper yummy. And masamora is like kernels of corn in milk sweetened with sugar cane sugar, and it can be served hot or cold, and it was delicious as well. When we left they told us to come back soon, and they are going to teach us how to make some traditional Colombian foods. I have experienced a lot of amazing hospitality lately, so that was a really great experience. Then Sylvia and I went to Juan Valdez, which is kind of like a Colombian version of Starbucks. We ordered lattes and shared a piece of carrot cake and just got to know each other some more...I'm making it sound like we're dating or something haha. Then we met Thomas and Lilian at the theatre and ordered popcorn and drinks and watched Alice in Wonderland, which was all in spanish. And in Colombia, they have assigned seats at the theatre which I found very odd, and we were a bit late, so when we got to our seats some people were sitting in them and they wouldn't move. Even when a theatre employee talked to them they wouldn't...such jerks. So for awhile we just sat on the stairs beside the seats, but my back wasn't enjoying that too much, so Sylvia and I just went and sat super close to the front. I didn't understand everything, but it was ok because it kind of spoke for itself just watching it. In a week and half I'll be heading up to the coast during semana santa, or holy week, for one week and travelling with Sylvia, Thomas, Armando, Leonardo, and another Canadian girl who lives on the coast. That is what I am looking forward to most right now. It's going to be amazing to see the beatiful beaches and architecture in Cartagena and Santa Marta. But right now, William, Berenice's son, is sick with Dengue Fever...which you get from mosquitoes. Leonardo has been really sick too and thinks that he has the same thing, but we don't know for sure. Hopefully they will get better soon, and no one else will get sick. I have hardly seen any mosquitoes here though, so it's kind of strange. I've also had a bit of tension with the volunteer from France who's here right now...I don't particularly enjoy him too much, so I'll be happy when he's gone. Caroline, the girl from Belgium just left very early this morning, so I'm the only gir here right now. It's kind of nice to have a room to myself for once though, while the boys are 3 in their room right now. Well, I have to get going as I'm going with Berenice and the others to the centre and we're meeting Sylvia for supper. Hopefully I will be able to buy an adaptor for my computer and a Colombian cell phone as well to keep in touch with Sylvia. So I hope everyone is doing well, and thanks for reading :)

catch-up time

It´s been over a week since I last wrote on here, so there´s probably too much to tell, and I probably don´t remember most of it because my memory is terrible, so I´ll do my best. I know I should write more often, but I´m just so lazy...well, ya kind of, but also by the time I´m done a 10 hour day I just have no motivation to sit and think and write about my experiences here in a somewhat intelligent manner. Even now, I wish I was doing something else, heh. But there are some people out there who read this and tell me to keep updating it, so here I go. Ok, so between last Thursday and now, what has happened? Last weekend was rather dull if I recall correctly. We went to see Valentine´s Day in the theatre for the second time because there is literally nothing else playing here that is worth seeing. And it´s a fairly small city so there aren´t that many things to do, and there is only one theatre here, so on a Friday or Saturday night half of Ibague is in the mall or at the movies. Last Saturday I don´t think we left the house at all. Oh wait, we actually went to the gym which is about a minute walk from the house, and it´s pretty ghetto looking, and it´s dark and the equipment is pretty old, and some of the machines don´t really work too well, but it´s good enough. I´ve decided to try to get in shape while I´m here...and by this I mean tone and try to build some muscle. I bought a month pass which came 20,000 Colombian pesos or about $10 Canadian which is a pretty good deal I think. My fellow volunteer Leonardo who will be here for 2 months is going to be my personal trainer, because he´s pretty in shape and knows what to do. I on the other hand have no clue, so it´s a good thing he´s here. Although on Tuesday he decided we´d work on our legs, so I did 3 sets of 30 doing squats with a bar with weights on my shoulders, and I literally could hardly walk up and down the stairs or sit down on the toilet without being in so much pain! My legs are still sore from it, and it´s been 5 days since then. But hey, at least I know I´m getting a good workout. We tried to go to the pool last Saturday as well, but it turned out to be closed, so we just had some ice cream instead. We ordered food in that evening and didn´t do much else. On Sunday we went into the centre of town and the boys really wanted to shop, and Juliette and I couldn´t have cared less. We´ve decided that they´re the girls in this house, and Juliette and I are more like guys for sure. While they ooed and aahed over shoes and preppy clothing Juliette and I were bored to tears and just wanted to go eat and go back home to watch the hockey game, haha. So finally we had lunch and bought a dozen donuts and went back to the house, and I celebrated as Canada beat the U.S. in the gold medal game. Juliette who is American was a really good sport though. That evening we watched The Fourth Kind which I never thought was real, and didn´t really enjoy too much either. This past week was long, boring, tiring, and frustrating at times, but also really good at times too. I guess I became a little disenchanted (that´s a word right?) with things this past week, and things started getting to me, but I think I´m better now. I realized that I have to change my attitude and try to be positive about everything and not complain so much. I´ve been selfish at times, and I have to remember that I´m not here to serve myself or make myself happy at all times, but I´m here to serve the children who come to the centre with a joyful heart no matter how I´m feeling on a particular day. I´m doing my best to be positive and thankful for everything I have, no matter what the situation is like. Because being here has made me realize again just how blessed and spoiled I really am with everything I have in Canada. I don´t have to worry about a place to live, or if I can afford to eat, and I have an amazing family, boyfriend, and friends. So that´s just a little window into my thoughts this week. I also started taking dance classes with the other volunteers here, althought Juliette couldn´t take them because her ankle was still pretty bad. So Anders, Leonardo, Liliana (one of the teachers), and I took a class on Monday. Our teacher is the same girl who teaches the kids at the centre to dance, so she just comes to the house to teach us which is really nice, and it´s also super cheap!! Like a buck per person or something ridiculous like that. So we started with salsa, and Leonardo and I are partners, and we´re actually picking it up pretty quickly. It´s a lot of fun, and very fast at times, so I hope by the time I get home I´ll know quite a bit. We´ve had 2 classes so far, and have another one tomorrow night. Sadly Juliette left here yesterday morning, so on Friday night we all went out for dinner together. We sat on a patio and it was pretty nice, and I had lasagna which was alright. On the walk back to the taxis Juliette had a little bowel emergency, and thankfully Berenice knew a lady who lived in an apartment on the street we were walking down. So we quickly buzzed up and she let us in and Juliette and I both used her bathroom. I didn´t have the same problems though, but it was pretty bad for Juliette apparently. She had to use it 3 times! This lady is actually the aunt of the guy who runs this organization and its partnering ones. Her apartment was really nice, and it kind of felt like I was back in Canada visiting a grandma´s house. She was such a sweet lady and she made us tea which is commonly made here to calm upset stomachs. It seemed to work and we visited with her for about an hour, and then took a taxi home, and Berenice made me some chocolate cake which was soo delicious. For some reason I´ve had quite a bit of chocolate here but it hasn´t given me a migraine yet...I have no clue why. Let´s just hope that I can keep this up! Last night we were supposed to go see Alice in Wonderland with Thomas the white guy and a few of his friends. But when we got there it was sold out, but he and his friend had a ticket, so they went, and me and the two boys and one of Thomas´s friends went and had a few drinks and some food while we waited for the movie to finish. After that they took us to a discoteca, or a club, and we danced for a while, and then the guys were hungry again so at 3am we sat outside on a sidewalk on wet seats because it had rained, and I watched the other guys eat. I just wanted to go home I was so tired. But it was a pretty fun night. Today we were supposed to go to another botanical garden and hike a mountain, but it just poured so I don´t think we´re going anymore. I´m tired anyway so that´s ok with me. There´s a new girl from Belgium coming today, so I only had to be the lone girl for one day. She´s only staying for 2 weeks though which sucks. I really want to have a girl stay longer, because it´s nice to have a girl who speaks english to talk to when I´m so far from home. Not so lonely then at times. Well, that´s all for now I guess. It turned out to be another long one...sorry to all of you who don´t like to read very much, but you don´t have to if you don´t want to. Alright, bye for now friends!

a trip to the hospital

So yesterday was quite the interesting day. It started off like any other day here. I had breakfast, and then the kids came. I helped a little girl with her homework, which consisted of watching her colour in the outline of the letter i, and trying to explain something in spanish to her, which she didn´t understand, so I gave up and just let her colour things. Then Liliana, one of the teachers here asked Juliette and I to teach the kids a song in english. So I thought the best song to teach them would be head and shoulders, knees and toes because it´s easy to translate and parts of the body are easy things for kids to learn at their age. So I wrote out the song on a large sheet of paper so everyone could see, and Juliette read it for them first a few times. Then I sang it for the kids, and they joined in after a couple of times. It was so funny watching them try to pronounce all the words correctly. Instead of knees they said mees, and instead of eyes they said aies. And they can´t pronounce the ¨th¨ sound, so mouth was a funny one to hear too. And they can´t pronounce my name either. They say Kalie, or Kachee, or Kajee, it´s so funny! So they really loved that song, and they kept asking me how to sing it. Even today when I was upstairs I would randomly hear cute little voices trying to sing it, so sweet. So after we taught the kids that song, we went to the park again. After about 15 minutes or so, I heard a bunch of kids yelling Profe! Profe! and saw them running towards me. So I looked and saw Juliette lying on the pavement at the other side of the park, so I ran over, and she had rolled her ankle really badly while playing soccer. So Liliana and I helped her up and helped her limp back to the centre. It was really swollen, so someone called a taxi and Lina, the other teacher, and I went with her to the hospital. She didn´t want to go without me, and it´s a good thing I went because I had to be the translator...or at least attempt to translate what was said. The people at the hospital couldn´t figure out her insurance, so she ended up paying, and was supposed to call the insurance company with the bill later, but it wasn´t that much so she didn´t bother. But thankfully she was admitted pretty quickly, and they gave a wheelchair for her to sit in. The doctor came and I tried to translate for her, and then they wheeled her off to another room, but Lina and I didn´t go in with her. But after about 30 seconds the nurse called us over because they were about to give her a large shot of something in her butt and she wanted to know what it was. Apparently it was for the pain and to reduce the swelling, and she didn´t want it, and it did seem very strange that they wanted to give her a shot of something for a rolled ankle...but she´s quite a loud person and only one doctor spoke some english, so lots of people were laughing at her. It was quite the experience. Then I went with her to get an x-ray taken, and after looking at it the doctor told her she needed to get a tensor bandage and wear it for 15 days. She´ll be ok, thankfully it wasn´t broken or anything, but it still kind of sucks because she´s supposed to leave here in less than 2 weeks to go to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands to hike around, and then on to Peru to volunteer in an orphanage. So hopefully it heals quickly!! And yesterday was our afternoon off, we get one per week, and all 3 of us volunteers took the same afternoon off. We were supposed to go into town and maybe see a movie and walk around, but because of Juliette´s injury we ended up just hanging around at the house, watching tv and going on the internet. Today was a pretty good day. I taught the older kids some french in the morning which was fun but also very confusing...trying to think in 3 languages at the same time is quite a task! But most of the words I was searching for came back to me so that was good. Lunch was a little hectic serving without Juliette, but alright. And I taught the younger kids some english words in the afternoon. Always a good time. We were supposed to go dancing with the family we´re staying with tonight, but I don´t know if that´s going to happen anymore. Right now there are a doctor and a dentist here and a bunch of kids getting checked out by them downstairs...and the president is here again too..apparently he likes Berenice, the program coordinator, hehe. So, that´s all for now, buenas noches amigos :)

the land of cows, salsa dancing, and not much running water

Hello all,

I must apologize for my lack of blog writing as of late. I know most of you don´t care, but my auntie Helga was already bugging me to write some more ;) So...what has happened since I last wrote..well a lot. I had my first day volunteering with the kids last Thursday, which I discovered takes a lot of energy, especially seeing as we work 10 hour days! The older kids come to the centre in the morning and arrive at 7:30. We help them finish their homework and take them to the park and do different activities with them. Then the kids leave while we get ready for the lunch program. At least 75 kids come for lunch everyday, and there´s not enough room in the house for all of them to eat at the same time, so they come in shifts. It´s a pretty crazy busy time, but it´s not much different from my serving jobs back home, so it´s alright. At 1:30 we get to sit down for half an hour and eat the same lunch as the kids ate. At 2pm the younger kids come, and we do pretty much the same activities with them. On my first day both classes made a banner welcoming me to the centre, and all the kids asked me questions like what´s your favourite colour, what´s your favourite fruit, do you have a boyfriend, what are your parents names, etc. etc. The funny thing was that both of the classes asked, out of all these questions, which one is your favourite question? I thought that was hilarious, but at the time I didn´t know what to say, but now I realize that that was probably my favourite question. Everyday here is a little different which is nice, but they are just a bit too long. Today was the day when a dance teacher comes in and teaches the kids how to salsa and meringue (did I spell that right or is that just the sugary dessert?), so we got to join in which was a lot of fun. These kids can really dance, but a lot of their dancing is pretty scandalous, especially for kids, but I guess that´s the culture here! I was kind of shocked watching one of the little girls dancing today because I wouldn´t even dance like that! Not that I can dance anyway, heh. But Jimena, the dance teacher is offering to teach us, and I think I´ll probably take some lessons from her which I´d really love to do. I also started taking Spanish lessons yesterday with Anders, one of the other volunteers. We´ve had 2 classes so far, an hour each, and they´re going pretty well. Kind of basic stuff that we already know, but it will get more intense so I´m looking forward to that. Our teacher´s name is Fanny, hehe. I´m such a child. So anyway, yesterday was a good day. First of all, when we were at the park with the kids, I was looking the wrong way apparently, and as I turned my head I got smacked in the face with a basketball. And I was wearing sunglasses so they got squished into my head which was lovely...I think I have a bruise on my nose now. Oh, and today someone threw a CD in the park and it hit my shoulder and cut it a little bit. People don´t really care about throwing garbage in the garbage cans over here, so for some reason the kids like to find CDs on the ground and just throw them into the air, so I was the lucky recipient of one of those throws. But anyway, more happened in the park yesterday. While the kids were playing futbol, otherwise known as soccer, I noticed a herd of cows entering the park and heading in our direction. Some of them were bulls and had pretty big horns, and they just started walking directly towards us. As they got closer one of the little girls screamed and mass chaos erupted. I looked around and there were children everywhere, running away up into the hills, and cows and bulls scattered throughout everyone, it was actually one of the funniest things I´ve ever seen. But they were super tame, and I actually touched one of them. They climbed up into the hills, and awhile later I saw a chubby young boy with a stick herding them together to bring them back home. So strange, it´s just a different world down here. Some of the things are just so funny, like I haven´t showered in 3 days because everytime I try there´s no water. And it´s so hot down here, that a shower is definitely needed at least once a day! So hopefully if I get up at 6:30 tomorrow morning the water will be working. One of my favourite things about being here is being surrounded by Colombian culture. Everytime the kids enter the centre to come for class or for lunch, and everytime they leave they come over and give the teachers a kiss on the cheek and say hola profe, or ciao profe, and it´s the sweetest thing in the world! The kids are so cute, even though sometimes they are so frustrating because they don´t listen and get a little crazy, and I don´t have the vocabulary yet to discipline them properly in Spanish. But these greetings make up for most of the bad things they do...usually :) One thing about being here that I don´t enjoy too much is that I´m one of the only white girls that I´ve seen anywhere, and everywhere I go people just turn their heads and stare like I´m from another planet or something. It´s so annoying, but at least they don´t whistle and cat call as much as in Guatemala. There´s a new volunteer here now. Her name is Juliette and she´s 37 and from Florida. And she´s hilarious. It´s so nice to have another girl here that I can speak English with, and I get to translate for her a lot because she doesn´t know very much Spanish. But she´ll only be here for 2 weeks so I hope another girl comes soon. But things are going really well here for the most part. A friend of the volunteer coordinator for this program contacted Anders and I this past weekend, and he´s a white guy from Australia/Austria and speaks English obviously. So he took us out into the city so we could get away from the centre for awhile which was really nice. He´s lived here in Ibague for 2 years now and is fluent in Spanish, so he has been showing us around a bit. Saturday night we went for drinks with him and a couple of his Colombian friends, and on Sunday he took us to La Martinica which is pretty much a hiking trail up a mountain. It took a couple hours, but when we got to the top we could look out over the whole city and it was beautiful. Then we went back to the mall and went to see Valentine´s Day and then out for supper with a few people. Ya, so this wasn´t the most exciting blog but I had a lot to write, and hopefully some of you will find parts of it interesting. At least I know my family is reading, heh. Hopefully the next one won´t be as long...so ciao for now!

my first days in Colombia

Ok, so even though it has only been a day or so since I last wrote, it sure seems like a lot longer, or at least a lot has happened! My flight from Toronto to Bogota was fairly uneventful, just watched a couple movies, and ate some gross airplane food. However, when I arrived in Bogota is when things started to get a little more interesting. Going through customs and getting my luggage and everything was fine, but trying to find my contact person was not so easy. You see, at the airport in Bogota there´s no terminal for people to wait in, you pretty much go through customs and immediately walk outside. So, if someone is waiting for you, they have to stand outside the building and look through the glass windows or sliding doors. So as I walked through customs I look to see at least 100 people pushed up against the glass and at least 30 or so signs with people´s names on them. So I walked up and down searching for my name on one of the signs, but I couldn´t see it anywhere. So I walked outside and walked through the hoards of people still to find nothing. And it didn´t help that everywhere I looked there were people asking me if I wanted a taxi or to go to a hotel. Nevermind the language barrier, my Spanish definitely needs a lot of improvement. So finally one of the hotel salesmen asked if I needed a hotel, and I told him that I was waiting for someone but couldn´t find them. So he offered me his cell phone and thankfully I had a number to call, but the person on the line only spoke spanish and it was too loud to hear anything. So after a few tries, finally this man spoke with her for me, and told me they were coming to get me in an hour or an hour and a half. So then of course he asked me for some money because he lives off of commission so I gave him a bit, but I was just so thankful that I wasn´t going to be left waiting all night at the airport. So probably less than an hour later, I was picked up by two young guys instead of the girl who was supposed to be there. Apparently she was studying and they thought my flight came in at 10, not 8:30. Waiting at the airport was pretty amusing though. An elderly indigenous woman was pushing a basket of snacks around and shaking something to draw attention to herself, which is fairly normal from my experience in Latin American countries. But the odd thing was that she was wearing very large underwater goggles, and I have no idea why! For those of you who know Peter at the Ellice Cafe, this could be his soulmate whom he´ll tragically never meet! So anyway, after that incident everything was fine. The two guys spoke English very well, and they dropped me off at a nice hostel and even payed for me. My roommates for the night were 3 guys, but 2 of them worked there, and the other was a nice gay guy from L.A. So pretty harmless, and it was a good night. I really needed sleep. So this morning Hernan (one of the guys who picked me up at the airport) gave me a half day tour of Bogota. We went on a cable car ride up the side of a mountain to visit a beautiful old church and look out over the whole city...Bogota is huge!! Then he took me to see the government buildings and the president´s castle, and then we stuffed ourselves into one of the most crowded buses I´ve ever been in...not too sure if it beats out Guatemala yet. But I did notice that almost everyone around me was wearing pants, shoes, and sweaters. I even saw one winter jacket. But it was 25 degrees celcius, and I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts...I really felt like an outsider then! I also forgot to put on sunscreen and now have a beautiful very red burn in the form of a farmer´s tan or burn I guess. Not so good of a start but oh well. Then I took a bus from Bogota to Ibague, and it was one of the most beautiful drives through the mountains I´ve ever been on. And as we got farther away from Bogota, the air coming through the windows got hotter and hotter. I arrived safely at the children´s centre in Ibague, and it is soo hot here. But the family that I´m staying with is wonderful. The mother´s name is Berenice, and she has two children, William, and Carolina. There´s one other volunteer here right now and he´s a Danish guy named Anos. So now I´m just settling in. I went to the bathroom and found out there´s no running water, apparently it hasn´t been working all day, so let´s hope that we have some tomorrow! I´m just going to have to hold all my bm´s til tomorrow...gross too much information. And apparently they have no hot water, so freezing cold showers here I come! Ok, I guess that´s it for now, time to try to sleep in the sweltering heat to the sounds of people whistling and dogs calling to each other. Thanks to all of you following my adventures and goodnight :)

and so it begins...

Ok, so I'm feeling pretty good right now. I just checked and it seems I have 1 follower so far. Thanks Donald! So I guess this post is for you..? Well, let's hope a few more people read it, but anyway here goes. I don't have much to say, seeing as I haven't even arrived in Colombia yet, but seeing as I was really smart and chose the longest flight duration I could, I'm bored out of my mind and need something to do. Currently I'm sitting in the Toronto airport waiting for my flight to Bogota which leaves at 2pm. Why did I choose a flight that is 26 hours in total and takes me from Winnipeg to Montreal, Montreal to Toronto, and finally Toronto to Bogota you ask? I know the destinations are completely illogical, but it was a seat sale, and when I saw Montreal was one of the places I could stop I chose it immediately thinking I'd be able to see my cousin Jenn and her husband Etienne while I was there overnight. Sadly that didn't work out, so I spent all night sitting on top of my bags on the floor by a random power outlet that was not near to any chairs or anything comfortable at all. My technological devices are a little challenged you could say. My phone is constantly dying and needs to be plugged in almost all the time, and my laptop battery is completely dead, so it doesn't work at all unless it's plugged in. I got to know one of the janitors who made me move because I was in the way of his floor cleaner at one point, but then I moved back. He also thought I was Italian...not sure why. Do I look Italian? He seemed to think so. So anyway, at this point I've been up for way too long, and have gross traveller's gut from eating only crap along the way. I can't wait to get to my hostel tonight to shower, brush my teeth, and sleep! Oh, I also really enjoyed my time on the moving sidewalks here in Toronto...they move pretty quickly and it was highly amusing to me apparently. Hmm, well after that run-on paragraph (I'm not very good at separating my thoughts) I think I'm done for now. So maybe I'll have something more interesting to say when I arrive at my real destination. Bye for now!