November Notes

11/9
 Brennan’s big birthday bonanza; Bogota Brewing’s beautiful bubbly black beer bids bvl’s blues bye bye. 1, 2

11/18

A cloudy and overcast day, absolutely beautiful.  We went to Junior's first playoff game.  Junior is the local futbol club, and the won, 2-1.

Checklist for going to futbol game:

Bus pass, cash, camera.  No wallet, no ring, no belt.

But the highlight of the day was something smaller, a simple photo of 9,131’ peak on the back of a bus.   A glimpse of home and the mountains in the middle of Barranquilla.

Kevin T. and I on the top of the very same mountain, May 2009.

Mt. Shuksan for those of you who are still wondering=)

11/25
Colombia doesn't celebrate american thanksgiving, not surprising.  Our school however does, so we are at the end of a 4 day weekend!  Which included a thanksgiving dinner with some friends and two days of going into school to catch up, plan ahead, and start writing exams.  Three more weeks and the semester is over, and I still need to finish putting together my 2013 calendar.

Footnotes 3
1 - Note, the blues were not drowned out, it is just really good beer, and something to celebrate when you are missing fall and good beer.
2 - I may like alliteration too much, but you have to admit that a 15 word complete sentence with every word starting with 'B' is pretty good.
3 - Footnotes are fun, thank you David Foster Wallace.

Turning the pages

11/1/12

Notes from the 6^th floor

It is November 1, time to change my calendars.

It is November 1, and Christmas decorations have been out for one month.

It is November 1, and it is still summer here.

It is November 1, and I voted today.  

School is canceled for tomorrow.  Several diagnosed cases of influenza A, and the 3 day weekend becomes four.  I think I might walk to the zoo, after my morning coffee and Wendell Berry poetry.

The newness has worn off here, and the comfortable familiarity has not yet set in.   We arrive at the weekend tired, worn out and unsure of how to rest and refresh our spirits.  Sometimes all it takes is a few minutes to watch the sunset and see the beauty of this treed city.  Other times our best efforts fall flat, and the break we anticipated is a bigger let down due to the expectation, the perceived need.  Teaching has its rewards but they are rarely immediately realized.  Rather it is the rough spots that are more regular now.   Yet in time we will grow past these difficult days as our roots here continue to develop; even if now our most visible roots are in a bottle of dirt.  So we keep moving forward, one class period, one day, one week at a time, and eventually it adds up to a month, and time to change the calendar. 

November's Calendar photo.  Black cottonwood leaves at Holden

My Garden

Orange tree and Pretty pilfered perennials

Pineapple and Avocado

Mango

-bvl

livin’ la vida loca 

by: Tara 

Over two months ago, we packed up our life together and moved to Barranquilla. Since then, it’s been a whirlwind of planning and prepping for school, and settling into our life here. Monday through Friday have a similar pattern: alarm goes off at 4:45 am, catch a taxi at 6am, get to school at 6:20, school starts at 7:30 and ends at 2:30, work until 4:30-5pm or so, maybe get some groceries, and come home. We’re putting in really long days at this point, but hopefully things will settle down eventually. 

Brennan has been the primary cook in the family, and I’ve been the primary dish-washer. He’s already learned to make a traditional “costena” (coast) meal with a Van Loo twist: Creamy Avocado Shrimp with Coconut Rice and Patacones (fried plantains). YUM! I am a lucky girl. By the time we finish dinner and clean up, and maybe correct some papers, it’s 7:30 or so. Often we’ll watch an episode of CBC’s “Little Mosque on the Prarie” or stream an episode of The Daily Show or Colbert Report (if the internet gods are smiling on us…) It’s become an unofficial tradition that Brennan slices up a fresh mango after dinner and that’s our dessert. And by about 9pm, it’s time for bed. 

Weekends have been fun! Usually we spend a good part of one weekend day at school prepping for the next week/unit/ect. Then we might meet up with friends for dinner, B might go fishing on the Rio Magdelena, or we just explore Barranquilla a bit more. We’ve been to three beaches, and took a day trip to the lovely Cartagena, whose ‘old city’ brought me back to Sevilla in a heartbeat. We also visited a small pueblo called Usiacuri, where we purchased some traditional weavings and watched local artisans make them. Needless to say, I was in heaven. 

If our weekend doesn’t involve an “excursion,” we enjoy exploring Barranquilla. Sometimes the slower pace of these weekends is just what we’ve needed. Awhile back, some friends invited us to the Junior game, Barranquilla's team, and after the game we got some great street food. The next day we hung out at the pool, I finished knitting my “gingko shawl” (yes!) and we went out for more street food, this time shrimp cocktail. It was relaxing, and good to become more familiar with our city. We also went to the Colombia v. Uruguay futbol game here in Barranquilla on September 7, which was a world-cup qualifying match! Colombia won 4-0, and the game was amazing! We bought Colombia jerseys, so we fit right in. (Yeah right…I’ve grown accustomed to being one of probably five freckled blondes in this city! On the other hand, since Barranquilla isn’t a tourist town, people pretty much assume that any gringos who are here know their way around, and we aren’t treated like tourists.) 

Today is Sunday again. We went in to school yesterday and spent a few hours prepping for the week ahead, and spent the afternoon exploring the city. This morning we have been streaming “Choral Concert” on our beloved CBC Radio 2, and now we’re thinking about walking to “La Baguette” for brunch. This evening Junior is playing, so some friends are coming over to watch the game and make pizza. This week we have two days of classes followed by three days of professional development. I will be headed to Cartagena for the Tri-American Educator’s conference with a few other teachers from the school. B will stay here in Barranquilla and have some PD plus work time at school. It will be a nice change of pace. October 5, first quarter ends. Hard to believe! But when I think about all of the time and energy we’ve put into the year already, it makes sense that we are looking at Week 8 of classes. Yikes! 

So, little by little, we are finding our “new normal” here. Sometimes it’s two steps forward, one step back. Just as I think my Spanish is getting clearer, our waiter will return with a dish that is completely different than what I thought I’d ordered. You know it’s a rough day when this happens twice in one night- Friday we ended up with different fish than we thought we’d ordered, and later at a pastry shop, ended up with two pieces of chocolate cake when we thought we’d ordered one. At that point, you pull a Doris Day, say “que sera sera,” and eat chocolate cake for breakfast the next day.

-tvl

Puerto Valero

Cartagena- Fortress of San Felipe

 

Cartagena- The Old City

Colombia 4- Uruguay 0!

Usiacuri

Catching up - Pictures

Photos from Spring and summer as somewhat promised in my last post
-bvl

A few shots from the Wapta




A few pics of me from the Upper Entiats, photos courtesy of Kyle Miller


Backcountry Breakfast in Bed



Last good byes at Holden




Sahale Climb and Ski - Photos of Tim Terpstra






Sahale photos of me, Courtesy of Tim Terpstra


I showed this photo to my students when I showed them some photos of my life, they all thought it was photoshopped


Ross Lake Kayak trip - Photos courtesy of Tim Terpstra




Port Townsend trip - Scott smoking Indian Pipe, Tara and Kari, Tara and Benjamin

los primeros dias

By: Tara

Here we are! We’ve already spent four nights in our new home. We have been overwhelmed by the support the school has given us, the kindness of our Colombian co-workers, and the instant camaraderie with our fellow “new import” teachers.

For those of you just catching up with us, we are at the beginning of a two-year committment teaching at an international school in Barranquilla, Colombia. Brennan is teaching HS Biology and I'm teaching 7-8th English Language Arts. School starts in a week and a half!

I have been speaking Spanish a lot, and am really excited about how much is coming back to me. I try to find opportunities to keep quiet and let Brennan practice, too. He’s still working with Rosetta Stone and then practicing with fellow teachers and people we meet in restaurants, etc.

The climate here is hot and humid, but we are adjusting better than we expected! Often there is a nice breeze coming in from the Carribean Sea. We’ve been told the weather these past few days is not typical for July here- much cooler- but perhaps that is what is easing our transition! If so, we’ll take it! Our bedroom is air conditioned, and the rest of the apartment is cooled with fans. All of the floors are tile, so that helps.

The night we arrived, Wednesday, we were exhausted from about 24 hours (on and off) of travel. We were picked up at the airport (along with four of the five other new import teachers) and taken to our apartments, where we were greeted by snacks and food in the fridge! That night B and I unpacked our boxes, again creating piles around the house- agh with the piles!!!- but knowing these would be our last moving piles for a couple years.



Thursday and Friday we were picked up by a school chauffer, and spent most of the day in orientation, meetings with our principals, meeting new Colombian co-workers, getting a physical, filling out paperwork for banks and immigration, and having our photo taken for school ID. Each day we enjoyed a delicious breakfast and lunch at the school, and after school they took us shopping so we could get some things for our home, like trash cans, towels, blankets, lamps, etc. It felt like freshman year of college all over again! We spent those evenings walking around our neighborhood and eating dinner at local restaurants, and adjusting to the Colombian peso. A Costo-sized package of toilet paper costs 26,000 pesos! But, converted, that is roughly $15 US dollars, so on the whole, it seems like prices are similar.



Saturday was our first free day, and the import teachers unanimously agreed we wanted to spend it at the beach. We spent the day at a beach about 20 min. outside of Barranquilla. We had a great afternoon of swimming and relaxing, and our lunch was AMAZING- fried white fish with fried plantains and coconut rice. Top it all off with a couple glasses of sangria, and you have yourself a lovely afternoon with new friends.







The new import teachers had decided to meet up at 7:30pm back in Barranquilla to get some pizza at a local restaurant, but at around 7:00, there was a ring at our door, and B and I were greeted by two fellow teachers from the states who have been here four years, as well as their friend. So we chatted for awhile and ended up going out for pizza together, along with a couple more teachers who’ve been here up to 10 years, and the other new imorts. It was a great evening.

Now it is Sunday. Brennan and I plan to do some schoolwork and maybe some grocery shopping- we haven’t had to cook for ourselves yet. Mostly we are looking forward to a quiet day around the house with some time to settle in and get ready for the week ahead.

Ciao!
tvl

i don't know why you say goodbye, i say hello

…thoughts from Tara…

8:25 pm, Sea Tac Airport Gate A9

The sun is setting on this our last day in WA for awhile. The past months have been rich and full, and now we are ready for Colombia!

It is probably impossible to put into words what our two years at Holden meant for me. In fact, I still don’t know. What I do know is how it felt to leave. We left our community, our “family”, our new pattern of daily work and play and prayer, and we left the mountains, which we love so much.

One of the ways I process changes and seasons is by making playlists to capture my feelings and energy. I made a somewhat erratic playlist during our goodbyes and the transition from Holden and the title track was “Hello, Goodbye,” recorded by the Beatles. Other tracks (just to give you an idea…) included:

Change of Time, by Josh Ritter
Hoy Me Voy, by Juanes
Bye, Bye, Bye, by *N’Sync
Thank You, by Alanis Morisette
The Parting Glass, recording by The Wailin’ Jennys
Be Good To Yourself, by Journey
The Way It Is, by Bruce Hornsby


You can see that it was all over the map. Just like my emotions. Our last months at Holden were full of good gifts. Many friends returned for visits who had been an important part of our time at Holden, including Alisha Nelson, our “daughter” who boarded at Holden and graduated from Holden High School in 2011, and her mom and twin brother. My Grandma Ten Kley and Grandma Bajema visited with my dad during our last weekend at Holden. And even as we said goodbye, we knew we’d be saying hello again.

We made our home in Mount Vernon, WA for about four weeks after we left Holden. We lived in an big, old farmhouse out on the Skagit flats, surrounded by fields of corn, raspberries and pasture. It was a great place to spread out our belongings and sort them into “Colombia” or “storage” piles.

Although we were based in Mount Vernon, we spent a lot of time in other NW Washington places as- Brennan took a professional development class in Bellevue, and we spent a few days on Lake Samish in Bellingham with the Van Loo’s. Soon wedding bells were ringing for Brett and Lindie up in Lynden and we were able to spend some quality time with the Bajema’s during wedding week. A couple days later we took a kayaking trip with dear Skagit friends on Ross Lake. We also explored Port Townsend with beloved Holden friends just past weekend. Then we made a final trip up to Lynden to say goodbye to our families there. Monday we packed, and had a lovely send-off dinner with friends in Mount Vernon. Today we finished packing and put the farmhouse back into working order after our piles had been moved into storage or into the 4-Runner that would take us to the airport. Now here we are. I don’t know why you say goodbye. I say hello.

I wouldn’t describe the past month as relaxing. Living in the middle of a transition between Holden Village and Barranquilla, Colombia, has been strange, exciting and overwhelming. But it has been rich, full, and fun. We have been blessed with family and friends who love us and support us, and all of our experiences this summer in the Northwest affirmed us as we head into the unknown. To those of you who have journeyed with us: THANK YOU. We love you and look forward to sharing our new adventures with you, whether in spirit or here in Colombia (we have guest rooms in our apartment!).

Hello, Goodbye.

Peace,
Tara