Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Colombia Bogota: Day 7
We just finished flying over a patch of the Caribbean & we are now looking down at (I am guessing) the shoreline of Mexico. Along the edge the water is shallow & intensely turquoise. In 2 hours, if all goes well, we should be landing in Houston.
We were up early this morning because we had to catch the cab to the airport no later than 6 am. I can see that my colleagues are both sleeping right now & I’m drifting in & out of sleep myself. So tired! It’s been an intense week for me & the 2 colleagues I’m travelling with were in Bogota a week before me.
It’s surprising just how much mental loading is added by working in more than one language. It’s somewhat harder for me, I think, with such a limited working ability in Spanish: I have to listen so carefully in order to collect short phrases & words I understand & then put them together (often incorrectly) to create a cohesive sentence or statement. By then, of course, the conversation has galloped far beyond.
It seems to be far less difficult for someone like Xavier, a member of the CEGEP St. Laurent team whose ability with languages is a bit of a legend among his peers. He speaks 5 (or is it 6?) different languages, fluently. The story goes that he was being assigned to a project in Mozembique & so wanted to understand Portguese. So he studied it for a couple of months, several hours a day & by the time they landed in the country he could speak it so well, he was able to translate for others who had been learning it much longer. I’m going to try to employ a few of his tips for learning a new language: always carry a little notebook which is indexed alphabetically (like an address book) & write down any new words you learn. Carry a standard phrase book too & highlight words you think will be handy. And most important: read ALOUD in the target language. Read aloud a lot. As long as you have the pronunciation more or less right you will learn it a lot better from hearing it, even from yourself.
So now I am almost dozing in my seat on the airplane, listening to the mix of Spanish & English conversation going on around me, & thinking about when I might see Colombia again - hopefully with better Spanish.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Colombia Bogota: Day 6
To tell the truth it's hard to find things to write about this trip. We have been spending pretty much all day, every day (& sometimes the evening too) in meeting rooms struggling over Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoints, & big complex tables. Marking up pieces of paper, scrapping them halfway through, & starting again on another draft of the same document. Really, except for the intense racket of working in 3 languages, we could be anywhere.
And it's hard to make the work itself sound exciting. Curriculum development, project work has its own drama, intrigue & suspense but unless you're part of it, such aspects are difficult to convey. This project has been full of shifts in direction, new & revised data, backtracking & jumping forward, a bit of a Snakes & Ladders game. But here we are at the end of the inception mission & we do have a plan for the first year of the project & we do have a really solid relationship with our Colombian partners so in many ways it has been a success.
To celebrate, we went out for dinner with our counterparts from CEGEP St. Laurent. All 8 of us ended up at a restaurant called Andres DC. I have never seen anything like it. It is actually like a 3-storey department store except each & every department is a restaurant speciality. The menu alone is 66 pages long! We took our time ordering (what else can you do with a menu that's bigger than many mail order catalogues), drank beer, & watched a troop of Colombian dancers perform in an open space beside our table.
An extra bonus for me was being able to walk to & from the restaurant, about 2 km each way. We will be sitting all day tomorrow on flights so the walk is appreciated.
And it's hard to make the work itself sound exciting. Curriculum development, project work has its own drama, intrigue & suspense but unless you're part of it, such aspects are difficult to convey. This project has been full of shifts in direction, new & revised data, backtracking & jumping forward, a bit of a Snakes & Ladders game. But here we are at the end of the inception mission & we do have a plan for the first year of the project & we do have a really solid relationship with our Colombian partners so in many ways it has been a success.
To celebrate, we went out for dinner with our counterparts from CEGEP St. Laurent. All 8 of us ended up at a restaurant called Andres DC. I have never seen anything like it. It is actually like a 3-storey department store except each & every department is a restaurant speciality. The menu alone is 66 pages long! We took our time ordering (what else can you do with a menu that's bigger than many mail order catalogues), drank beer, & watched a troop of Colombian dancers perform in an open space beside our table.
An extra bonus for me was being able to walk to & from the restaurant, about 2 km each way. We will be sitting all day tomorrow on flights so the walk is appreciated.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Columbia Bogota: Day 5
After days of presentations, tours, lectures, etc. today was the day that we were finally able to knuckle down & get some work done towards our project implementation plan. Completing the project implementation plan is one of the main reasons why we're here in Colombia so getting down to work was very satisfying. Nevertheless, it was still a day somewhat like going to the dentist: you know you will feel better when it's done but it's still painful to undergo the process. It's the sort of day that reminds you why you are getting paid to do this, or at least having your expenses covered.
It is very hard to work on a complex process, completing a detailed document, in a team with a language barrier. Our little group of 7 included 4 Canadians (2 with good Spanish, 1 with so-so Spanish ability, & one neophyte - me), & 3 Colombians (whose English was about as bad as my Spanish). Unfortunately, this handicap means that the 2 linguistically-stronger members of our team get stuck with translating duties. So they are trying to listen to the rapid, sometimes-emotional discussion with one side of their brains, & trying to translate out of the other. It is equally difficult for those of us with monolinguistic ability: trying to mentally translate words & phrases while the conversation speeds past us. It becomes a treat to converse in just plain English.
Not much else to report. After we wrapped up our work on the implementation plan we had 45 minutes to kill before heading out for dinner so I went on a short walk, just straight down the street from the hotel. I walked one way (south?) for 15 minutes, & then 15 minutes back. It's amazing: Bogota is a big, busy city like just about any other big, busy city. I could have been in Vancouver or Toronto except for one storefront business identified as (something like) "Buscar a las Personas Desaparecidas" (search for disappeared persons). The half-century of violence is never far from the collective memory here.
It is very hard to work on a complex process, completing a detailed document, in a team with a language barrier. Our little group of 7 included 4 Canadians (2 with good Spanish, 1 with so-so Spanish ability, & one neophyte - me), & 3 Colombians (whose English was about as bad as my Spanish). Unfortunately, this handicap means that the 2 linguistically-stronger members of our team get stuck with translating duties. So they are trying to listen to the rapid, sometimes-emotional discussion with one side of their brains, & trying to translate out of the other. It is equally difficult for those of us with monolinguistic ability: trying to mentally translate words & phrases while the conversation speeds past us. It becomes a treat to converse in just plain English.
Not much else to report. After we wrapped up our work on the implementation plan we had 45 minutes to kill before heading out for dinner so I went on a short walk, just straight down the street from the hotel. I walked one way (south?) for 15 minutes, & then 15 minutes back. It's amazing: Bogota is a big, busy city like just about any other big, busy city. I could have been in Vancouver or Toronto except for one storefront business identified as (something like) "Buscar a las Personas Desaparecidas" (search for disappeared persons). The half-century of violence is never far from the collective memory here.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Columbia, Bogota: Day 4
Today was a very solid working day. We had hoped we would get some time to work in our project groups, get some planning accomplished & some thoughts down on paper, but it didn't work out that way. Compassionately, I will spare you the blow-by-blow story of meetings & powerpoints & discussion of point-by-point complex tables.
So instead I will give you a step by step guide about how to visit the Canadian embassy, which is what we did in the afternoon. Now, it is quite likely that Canadian embassies are not exactly the same the world over so the knowledge I am sharing with you here may not be generally transferable. But if ever you find yourself in Bogota, with some reason or requirement to visit the embassy, you will be ready!
Here are the steps:
So instead I will give you a step by step guide about how to visit the Canadian embassy, which is what we did in the afternoon. Now, it is quite likely that Canadian embassies are not exactly the same the world over so the knowledge I am sharing with you here may not be generally transferable. But if ever you find yourself in Bogota, with some reason or requirement to visit the embassy, you will be ready!
Here are the steps:
- Make an appointment. The embassy is not a casual drop-in sort of visit.
- Dress up. Most of the women in our group changed into a dress & changed casual shoes to heels. Most of the men wore a suit jacket, & several wore ties as well.
- Bring your passport! This cannot be stressed enough, it seems. We were each warned at least half a dozen times about this & amazingly we all succeeded in bringing it along the first time ;-)
- Once you arrive at the embassy you must hand your passport over to the fellows at the front desk. Once they have gathered all the passports of those in your group, you will be led to wait a little while they .... ? Probably look up your name in some big secure database.
- If your name is not redlined in the big secure database, after 5 minutes or so you will be called up to the counter. You will be required to look into a webcam 'orbit' still camera before you are handed back your passport along with a visitor's card on a lanyard.
- Once you have all been fitted out in this way, you will be led to the other side of the entrance area where your purse will be opened & checked. You are also checked for cameras & less friendly technology. You are told to turn your cell phone off.
- Now you are ready to pass through the turnstiles. Each person had to be told (but not you, dear reader, because now you know!) that you need to wave your visitor's card in front of a little sensor in front of the turnstile. That will make the little access light turn green & allow you in.
- Next you are guided to an elevator by a security guard, smiling in a friendly way all the time; nevertheless, he doesn't leave you out of his sight until he sees the elevator doors close.
- On your designated floor you get out & are met my someone from the embassy at a locked glass door (bullet proof glass?)
- She lets you in & leads you down to a meeting room where you are seated & served tea or coffee. In case you ever need to know: cafe con leche = coffee with (hot) milk; cafe tinto = black coffee; te = tea, & tea aromatica = herbal tea. I recommend the coffee: Colombian coffee is truly the best I have had anywhere in the world.
- Be ready for an interesting & informative conversation. At this point in our meeting schedule we were half-expecting another powerpoint showcasing the superlative work of the Canadian embassy in Colombia but instead the 2 aides showed an impressive familiarity with our project plans & goals & offered some really useful advice for moving forward & locating additional future (& present) partners.
- Leave the embassy absolutely no later than 5 pm. Leave at least 15 minutes earlier if you can. We pushed the meeting a bit past 5 (feeling badly about that now) & were tied up in rush hour traffic for almost an hour.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Colombia Bogota: Day 3
Today was spent almost entirely in & around Sogamosa. Sogamosa is an interesting little city -- & not so little, either: Wikipedia says it has a population of over 100,000. Wikipedia also says that Sogamosa has great archeological significance since it was the location of a very important Temple of the Sun.
We were able to verify this just across the street from the hotel. While waiting for our bus this morning several of us decided to take a quick look at the plaza. As it turns out, the focal point of the plaza is a huge, dramatic sculpture of 4 naked women in various poses of prayer or supplication, all facing a large, elevated representation of the sun in highly iconic form. It was an interesting sculpture but perhaps the most interesting aspect was its position directly & immediately across the street from the cathedral. It is an interesting juxtaposition: surely this positioning, this contrast between "pagan" & Christian, was not designed by accident.
Another interesting contrast presented itself as the morning continued. A small group of our Canadian colleagues walked back from the plaza among beautiful palm trees, their fronds curving upwards like fireworks, children playing, the air cool & pleasant. One of our group commented that it seemed so nice: "maybe we should just stay in Sogamosa". Later, on the bus, one of our Colombian colleagues explained to us how Sogamosa was in a valley in a heavily industrialized location in Colombia & that is why it has the second most polluted air in all of Latin America (only Mexico City's air is worse).
We left Sogamosa through very twisty and narrow streets. Several times the fit was so tight that we could have easily touched buildings on either side of the bus had the windows been open. One street turn required that our driver perform a 20-point turn to make the 90-degree change in direction.
We spent the rest of the day touring the mine training centre operated by SENA, our partner organization. It is an incredible training centre - complete with a functioning mine for training purposes. But I have run out of time & energy for tonight. Another early start tomorrow, back in Bogota.
We were able to verify this just across the street from the hotel. While waiting for our bus this morning several of us decided to take a quick look at the plaza. As it turns out, the focal point of the plaza is a huge, dramatic sculpture of 4 naked women in various poses of prayer or supplication, all facing a large, elevated representation of the sun in highly iconic form. It was an interesting sculpture but perhaps the most interesting aspect was its position directly & immediately across the street from the cathedral. It is an interesting juxtaposition: surely this positioning, this contrast between "pagan" & Christian, was not designed by accident.
Another interesting contrast presented itself as the morning continued. A small group of our Canadian colleagues walked back from the plaza among beautiful palm trees, their fronds curving upwards like fireworks, children playing, the air cool & pleasant. One of our group commented that it seemed so nice: "maybe we should just stay in Sogamosa". Later, on the bus, one of our Colombian colleagues explained to us how Sogamosa was in a valley in a heavily industrialized location in Colombia & that is why it has the second most polluted air in all of Latin America (only Mexico City's air is worse).
We left Sogamosa through very twisty and narrow streets. Several times the fit was so tight that we could have easily touched buildings on either side of the bus had the windows been open. One street turn required that our driver perform a 20-point turn to make the 90-degree change in direction.
We spent the rest of the day touring the mine training centre operated by SENA, our partner organization. It is an incredible training centre - complete with a functioning mine for training purposes. But I have run out of time & energy for tonight. Another early start tomorrow, back in Bogota.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Colombia Bogota: Day 2
Today, the plan was for us to have meetings in the morning & then leave just after noon for an overnight field trip. We did indeed have meetings all morning -- a series of presentations by our Colombian host organization actually -- but for one reason or another they took longer than expected & it was after 4 pm before we finally got away. We all climbed aboard a bus & headed out of the city towards Sogamosa.
Sogamosa is along highway 55, about a 4 hour drive northeast from Bogota. The drive is a pleasant one not only because highway 55 is a relatively well-maintained throughfare but because the scenery is beautiful. For most of the trip we were winding our way between the Andes which are very high in this area & green all the way to the tops. They do not present such a solid wall of rock as the Rockies do: you could almost believe you were travelling through a series of large hills if you didn’t know you were at nearly 10,000 ft.
This being the tropics, night arrived shortly after 6 pm so the scenery was less obvious. We stopped somewhere on an extreme downhill grade where some little roadside cantinas were serving food. Apparently this is something of a tradition & I can see why the tradition is popular. The speciality is a pastry called arepas: small balls of dough (corn dough? doesn’t quite taste like wheat) stuffed with fresh cheese, patted down to the size & thickness of a hamburger, & gently fried on a grill. Tan deliciosa! They also serve big wedges of fresh cheese along with a sort of soup which looks like consomme but tastes more like a diluted fruit juice, mildly sweet. I had an arepa & tasted somebody else’s fresh cheese & soup.
We got into Sogamosa later than expected, almost 9 pm. By the time we found an open restaurant & got a bite to eat, it was already past my bedtime. Tomorrow is another early start.
Sogamosa is along highway 55, about a 4 hour drive northeast from Bogota. The drive is a pleasant one not only because highway 55 is a relatively well-maintained throughfare but because the scenery is beautiful. For most of the trip we were winding our way between the Andes which are very high in this area & green all the way to the tops. They do not present such a solid wall of rock as the Rockies do: you could almost believe you were travelling through a series of large hills if you didn’t know you were at nearly 10,000 ft.
This being the tropics, night arrived shortly after 6 pm so the scenery was less obvious. We stopped somewhere on an extreme downhill grade where some little roadside cantinas were serving food. Apparently this is something of a tradition & I can see why the tradition is popular. The speciality is a pastry called arepas: small balls of dough (corn dough? doesn’t quite taste like wheat) stuffed with fresh cheese, patted down to the size & thickness of a hamburger, & gently fried on a grill. Tan deliciosa! They also serve big wedges of fresh cheese along with a sort of soup which looks like consomme but tastes more like a diluted fruit juice, mildly sweet. I had an arepa & tasted somebody else’s fresh cheese & soup.
We got into Sogamosa later than expected, almost 9 pm. By the time we found an open restaurant & got a bite to eat, it was already past my bedtime. Tomorrow is another early start.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Colombia Bogota: Day 1
I'm sitting in my hotel room in Bogota. It is a nice room: small, clean, efficient, and modern. In spite of its attractions I am firmly facing the wall, trying to ignore the beautiful soft bed behind me. I really want to write something - just a little bit - but the bed is difficult to ignore. With less than 4 hours of sleep last night, a full day of travelling followed (almost immediately) by a 2-hour meeting & a delayed supper, I AM TIRED.
Bogota is a big city. From the air, it seems to completely fill a broad plain among the Andes in northwest Colombia, and at 2625 meters you can feel the altitude. We are almost on the equator here but the day's temperature seldom goes much beyond 20 & at night it can dip into the single digits. We had a rainshower, short & sharp while driving from the airport to the hotel, but tonight the sky is almost clear & the air is fresh. Like Canada in early fall.
Our 2-hour meeting was pretty intense. The 3 colleges who will be working in this area met with the ACCC (coordinating group) reps and we discussed project planning. Our 3 projects have considerable overlap in their goals and timings so we must work together from the beginning. The information available is very, very plentiful but it is not yet coordinated into something that fits into a cohesive plan. That cohesion will come! For me, the meeting was complicated a bit by the fact that conversation was conducted in 3 languages & sometimes it was hard to tell when the group had switched from one language to another.
Ok, I think I am going to give in to that bed now...
Bogota is a big city. From the air, it seems to completely fill a broad plain among the Andes in northwest Colombia, and at 2625 meters you can feel the altitude. We are almost on the equator here but the day's temperature seldom goes much beyond 20 & at night it can dip into the single digits. We had a rainshower, short & sharp while driving from the airport to the hotel, but tonight the sky is almost clear & the air is fresh. Like Canada in early fall.
Our 2-hour meeting was pretty intense. The 3 colleges who will be working in this area met with the ACCC (coordinating group) reps and we discussed project planning. Our 3 projects have considerable overlap in their goals and timings so we must work together from the beginning. The information available is very, very plentiful but it is not yet coordinated into something that fits into a cohesive plan. That cohesion will come! For me, the meeting was complicated a bit by the fact that conversation was conducted in 3 languages & sometimes it was hard to tell when the group had switched from one language to another.
Ok, I think I am going to give in to that bed now...
Colombia Bogota: Day 0
This last 24 hours has been a day of airports: Cranbrook, Calgary and Toronto. A brief sojourn in Toronto (but without leaving airport culture) at the Delta Airport Hotel. Now I am back at Pearson airport where I have almost 3 hours to kill.
Good thing I enjoy airports so much & (this may sound crazy) Pearson International is one of my favourites. It’s big, it’s global, and (compared to Cranbrook anyway) it’s kind of Canadian leading edge. New styles, colours, architecture. iPads at every seat in my part of the waiting area (...and yes, I realize that not everybody sees this as a step forward ;-) Unfamiliar new products & technology.
But a lot of the global feel comes from the marvellous mix of languages, & the way language is used. Walking past welcome manikins in - how many? 10? different languages. Standing in the queue for airport security, overhearing a mother scold her child in Korean while the man beside me talks into his bluetooth headpiece in Spanish “Escuchame, no quiero nada, entiendas...” An Estee Lauder poster ad, in English & Chinese (why those 2?), promoting the incredible benefits of their facial night serum. And it promises in fine print at the bottom “Effective for all ethnicities”. More accurate, I suppose, to admit only that it is equally effective for all ethnicities. And I love hearing all the announcements & warnings in both official languages although I realize that is very un-British Columbian of me.
We should be boarding the flight for Bogota any minute now. I think I can see my colleague-to-be, Anthony, in the crowd on the other side of the gate.
Good thing I enjoy airports so much & (this may sound crazy) Pearson International is one of my favourites. It’s big, it’s global, and (compared to Cranbrook anyway) it’s kind of Canadian leading edge. New styles, colours, architecture. iPads at every seat in my part of the waiting area (...and yes, I realize that not everybody sees this as a step forward ;-) Unfamiliar new products & technology.
But a lot of the global feel comes from the marvellous mix of languages, & the way language is used. Walking past welcome manikins in - how many? 10? different languages. Standing in the queue for airport security, overhearing a mother scold her child in Korean while the man beside me talks into his bluetooth headpiece in Spanish “Escuchame, no quiero nada, entiendas...” An Estee Lauder poster ad, in English & Chinese (why those 2?), promoting the incredible benefits of their facial night serum. And it promises in fine print at the bottom “Effective for all ethnicities”. More accurate, I suppose, to admit only that it is equally effective for all ethnicities. And I love hearing all the announcements & warnings in both official languages although I realize that is very un-British Columbian of me.
We should be boarding the flight for Bogota any minute now. I think I can see my colleague-to-be, Anthony, in the crowd on the other side of the gate.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Pre-Colombian travel time
Of course I meant to get in here earlier, air the place out and generally re-acquaint myself with this blog. But here I am: with less than a day before take-off and I am only just re-discovering how to add a new post.
Another trip! This time our project is centred in Bogotà , Colombia, where we will be working with the organization SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje = Colombia's National Training Service) on a project to develop training for artisanal gold miners. For the uninitiated, 'artisanal' miners are individuals, families and small groups who conduct very small-scale mining efforts. Many artisanal gold mining activities are marginally or downright illegal and for good reason since they can involve extensive use of mercury and other toxic chemicals, dangerous to human health and destructive to the environment. Not surprisingly, the Colombian government wants to change this. Artisanal gold mining can be done more safely without compromising productivity so that will be the focus of training. We Canadians won't be doing any direct training in the field -- that will be done by SENA trainers whose presence is not nearly so politically charged in sometimes-contested mining areas as that of Canadian nationals. We will be working at arms' length to train-the-trainers in learner analysis and curriculum development skills.
This trip marks the very beginning of the project: the 'inception mission' in which we meet our partners, sort out project details, and come up with a Project Implementation Plan. I have never been on an inception mission before so it will be different, attending meetings rather than delivering workshops all day and frantically developing or revising them every night in preparation for the following day's work.
Can you tell I'm excited??! Sure wish my Spanish was better...
Another trip! This time our project is centred in Bogotà , Colombia, where we will be working with the organization SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje = Colombia's National Training Service) on a project to develop training for artisanal gold miners. For the uninitiated, 'artisanal' miners are individuals, families and small groups who conduct very small-scale mining efforts. Many artisanal gold mining activities are marginally or downright illegal and for good reason since they can involve extensive use of mercury and other toxic chemicals, dangerous to human health and destructive to the environment. Not surprisingly, the Colombian government wants to change this. Artisanal gold mining can be done more safely without compromising productivity so that will be the focus of training. We Canadians won't be doing any direct training in the field -- that will be done by SENA trainers whose presence is not nearly so politically charged in sometimes-contested mining areas as that of Canadian nationals. We will be working at arms' length to train-the-trainers in learner analysis and curriculum development skills.
This trip marks the very beginning of the project: the 'inception mission' in which we meet our partners, sort out project details, and come up with a Project Implementation Plan. I have never been on an inception mission before so it will be different, attending meetings rather than delivering workshops all day and frantically developing or revising them every night in preparation for the following day's work.
Can you tell I'm excited??! Sure wish my Spanish was better...
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