Do you want the good news? Or the bad news?

The bad news: Brad and I sat through almost four hours of Bingo last night and didn't win a thing. We instead got to watch children win new cell phones, ipods and plane tickets. A girl who was maybe seven won a hot water heater (?) and one of my eighth graders won a gift basket that among other things had four cans of Heineken (??)

The good news: We aren't too sad about not winning a trip to Panama because we are going to Santa Marta this weekend. We decided to make it easy on ourselves and booked a room at an all-inclusive hotel:
http://decameron.com/eng/colombia/santa_martha/overview.html
It won't be a genuine Colombian experience, but I think we've had about enough of that.

The bad news: The camera has been picky about when it wants to work. Brad did some research and found that his camera model can have wiring problems if it has spent too much time in a hot, humid environment, which of course, it has. Canon will fix it for free, but we have to ship it to them. So, the blog may be without pictures for a while. Or maybe I'll just buy myself a camera for my birthday.

The good news: The air in my classroom is back on!

Monday

Mondays are rough everywhere, but they're worse when you teach in the tropics and the air conditioner in your room stops working.
The kids wouldn't stop complaining, "Missis, it's so hot.
"I know it's hot. Don't you think I know it's hot? I've been stuck in this room all day."
That's when they realized that the heat makes me cranky.

There is, however, a bright spot in my day and that is Bingo night at school. The prizes are as follows:
a plane ticket to Panama
a plane ticket to anywhere in the USA
a trip to San Andres
the new ipod nano with video
a thousand dollar credit at one of the local casinos
and much more

Last year they offered breast augmentation as a prize, but it aroused too much controversy. I honestly don't see what's so controversial about offering a 13 year old a boob job, but TIC.

Wish me luck!

Downtown

Our camera is on the fritz so we didn't take it with us when we went downtown yesterday, but I do wish we had. Here's what we saw:
Huge piles of garbage everywhere
Cows standing in the middle of a busy street eating the huge piles of garbage
A woman wearing a suit made of garbage, it didn't cover her that well
People selling:
door knobs, at least 30 year old blenders, used plastic signs, pirated porn, 80's workout videos and so much more

Here's a close transcript of the conversation Brad and I had with our Colombian friends Gustavo and Luis:
I had just purchased two huge pineapples from a man that came up to our car as we were stopped at a traffic light:
Gustavo: "That man cheated you."
Me: "What? I only paid 4,000 pesos (2 dollars).
Gustavo: "You should have only paid 3,000 (1.50).
Me: "Oh, well."
Brad; "In the U.S. these would cost like 4 dollars a piece."
Gustavo and Luis together: "What? Oh my..."
Luis: "You don't grow pineapple in Iowa?"
Me and Brad together: "No."
Gustavo: "Bananas?"
Me: "No."
Luis: "Mangos?"
Brad: "Nope."
Luis: "So....what do you eat?"

Later, we had some hamburgers, but I couldn't eat much of mine as the stomach problems are persisting, but Brad had double cheese, double meat. In the middle of the night he woke up with a stomachache, and I was kind enough to point out that he had just eaten something that eats garbage. Mean? Probably, but I have been suffering alone for so long.

Sick and Homesick

Well, I'm sick again. Send clean water!

Go Hawks! updated

When the student went down to get Brad to hear the song he made it sound like I was having an emergency. Somehow Brad's kids interpreted this to be that I was pregnant and when Brad walked back into the room, they asked, "So, Ms. Straw has a baby?"

Go Hawks!

All week I've been concocting a plan to teach the 8th graders the Iowa fight song and have them sing it to Brad, who for those of you that don't know, is a Cyclone fan.
Here's how it went down:
Today is the Colombian Valentine's Day (Love and Friendship Day) and the kids are all jacked up on sugar. When they come into class I have the fight song written on the board, which they quickly learn. Then I we all sing along to the youtube version. Really loud. After I'm sure they have it I send a kid down to Brad's class to tell him that I need him in my class. When "Mr. Paul" opens the door he is hit with some very hyper Hawkeye spirit. We pulled it off perfectly.
Later, Brad comes into my room, which we'd anticipated, to say that his 6th graders had something for me. So I, along with the 8th graders, went to Brad's room where the kids were standing on tables and chairs chanting "ISU!" We were ready to fire back with "Let's go Hawks!" and it's a miracle anyone made it out with eardrums intact.

This is where I spend my days...

The commute

Here are some pictures I took on the way to school yesterday. The arroyo sign is the best, someone had been saving their stickers for a while.

The man in the Iowa shirt REVEALED!

Here he is!! This couple lives two doors down from us and they have a daughter that has lived in Des Moines for five years, she works at Blank Children's Hospital. They're going to visit her in October.

GOT IT!

I have the picture and the details of the man in the Iowa shirt. But, I can't find the thingy that connects from the camera to the computer, so I'll try to post it tonight, I know you'll all be anxiously awaiting the scoop.

Payin' cash, first class, sittin' next to Vanna White

Brad and I are coming home for Christmas! We bought our tickets on Saturday night. We'll leave the 15th of December, but we won't actually make it to Des Moines until 9 am on the 16th. We'll go back to Colombia on the 6th of January.

I had some frequent flyer miles that were going to expire on the 15th of December and since they weren't enough to buy my ticket I used them to upgrade myself to first class. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough to upgrade Brad and I only had enough to go one way, so I'm back with the regulars in coach on the return trip, I don't know how I'll cope.

get this...

There's a guy that does his exercise in the morning in front of our apartment that wears an IOWA shirt. I'm going to try to take his picture tomorrow. And figure out where he got that shirt. Brad and I were pretty giddy about it this morning, we're easily excited I guess. Or, we just really miss Iowa.

So...Brad and I are both feeling some homesickness about now, thinking about fall and football games and comfortable couches. Maybe you can send us emails saying that life is miserable there and we'll feel better :)

In other news...as some of you know my cousin Erica recently got enagaged! But sadly her fiancee had to leave for Iraq yesterday. We're all thinking of you Erica and Allen and sending you lots of love and good wishes.

AND congratulations to Michaela, faithful reader of this blog, on her recent engagement!

Suan

Okay, I'm feeling better now and I'm ready to tell you about our weekend adventure to Suan, a small town about an hour and a half south of Barranquilla. We went there with our friend Gustavo, who teaches English to the children of Suan every Saturday. We left around 6 on Saturday morning, which made me a little cranky, but it was worth it.

I have never in my life seen anything like Suan: dirt roads, dirt floors in houses, chickens and cows running through the street, thatched roofs, kids in their underwear, street cart butchers...Most people in Suan had never seen an American before and seemed pretty curious about us. Gustavo was so excited that he could bring us, "What's better than one gringo?" he asked. "Two gringos!"



Gustavo eating a roadside arepa


This was my breakfast. The arepa is made of corn flour, and it is delicious! I don't think that this is what made me sick, but if it was it was almost worth it.



Suan taxi services


Suan students


The River Magdalena


Suan's butcher


Curious children


They only recently got electricity in Suan so the people obviously don't have dryers. Of course, Barranquilla doesn't either, or most of Europe for that matter.


These kids were playing soccer in their underwear, but they gave that up for throwing sand at a cow that wandered onto the soccer field.


This makes Britney Spears look like a good parent.

sickO

I'm so sick! I pulled a back muscle throwing up, and I had to leave school in the middle of the day. Then, I was sick and dying in the back of the cab when the driver told me that unless I gave him more money he was going to make me get out. He was asking for 1,000 pesos, which is only about 50 cents, but I was pissed. So I crumpled up the money and threw it at him! He didn't like that. I probably shouldn't have done it, but I made it home safe and our maid, Trini, was here and she took care of me until Brad got home.

I have some pictures to post from this weekend, but I've run out of energy, so I'll do it tomorrow.

I miss food that doesn't make me throw up.