wedding

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The Devil Wears Feathers

A pigeon has made its nest in our windowsill. But this is not any ordinary pigeon, it's a devil pigeon! It's black and it has red eyes. It's horrible. And it's hatched two devil babies that are so sick looking that even writing about them is making my stomach churn.

In other news I've joined a gym. For quite some time I've had Colombians telling me that I'm getting fat, "Aye, estas gordita!" So I decided to do something about it. The gym is nice, very modern. Plus, they provide trainers at no extra cost. And the people watching is worth the price of admission: fake boobs and butts ensconced in fluorescent body suits, unnaturally thin women hunched over a treadmill going one mile an hour while talking on their cellphones, men openly leering everything that walks past...

Today we are having an inservice because the school has decided to start standardized testing, which is....thrilling. I've spent the day drawing pictures of the people sitting around me and making snide comments about the inservice leader. I'm beginning to understand why my students draw pictures of me all over the desks with captions like, "Straw, we hate you!" But they love me...don't worry.

Brad and El Bosque

The week before Semana Santa we took the middle school students on a field trip to El Bosque, a school in the poorest part of the city.
The boys there took an instant liking to Brad and he had them hanging around him the whole afternoon. They kept asking, "Can you touch that?" and pointing to high objects. They went wild when he played basketball.
Brad and I planned to kidnap Oscar, the one to Brad's left with the big chubby face, but he escaped.

April Fool's Day

7:10 A student offers me a piece of gum, "No thanks, Sebastian."
"Aye missis, take it, it's goood."

7:15 A stink bomb goes off in my room.

7:20 A fake pile of poop appears on my chair.
I stand with my hands on my hips, "I feel sorry for the person who spent money on this poop because it's mine now." The students think this is the funniest thing they've ever heard.

7:25 A student asks me to write a note to his mom, I oblige. When I open the pen he gave me ink gets all over my dress.

7:30 I make a series of empty threats about April Fool's Day jokes.

Help!

The air in my classroom isn't working. It's so hot....I'm melting....

More Easter

While I was writing that last post I heard a brass band start up outside the window. I hadn't even realized that a couple hundred people had gathered outside the church.
I've been watching for about twenty minutes, hanging way out of the window to get the best view. Don't worry I hooked the hammock around my waist to make sure I wouldn't fall.
I really have no idea, but here's what I think I see:
Two statues, each one carried by ten people swaying back and forth. The statues are about 50 feet apart, and moving toward each other. One looks, for sure, like a grown Jesus, the second is facing away from me so I have no idea what it is, but it could be a baby Jesus because it's small. While the people carry the statues together two alter boys stand in the middle swinging incense. When the statues meet the people in the crowd go crazy and the priest rushes out to bless the now joined statues.
Now people are milling around the statues and dancing.

Easter Two

I forgot this:
Our maid came in as usual on Friday and when I asked her why all of the stores and restaurants were closed she told me that Good Friday is the holiest day of the year, bigger than Easter Sunday. I kept apologizing, "I'm so sorry, you should go home, I'm sure you want to be with your family." And then I offered our excuse for making her come into work on the holiest day of the year, "We didn't know, we're not Catholic."
"That's OK," she said, "at least you're not Roman."