We left Cartagena yesterday. The hotel and streets were very quiet because the big game - Colombia's chance to shine in Mundial - started in the morning. All of the hotel staff were wearing bright yellow sports shirts with navy trim - the Colombian team colours. We saw the same yellow sports shirts on people everywhere, including a very cute toddler learning to walk in the airport lounge.
Bogota is beautiful as you approach it from the air. The surrounding hills have a geography very similar to those we see flying over the more northern Rocky Mountains, except that in Colombia they are not snowy or rocky but amazingly green & lush.
By the time we disembarked from our flight & found our gate in the international end of the terminal, we had very little time to kill. I find it interesting how the sense of language gets diluted so quickly! At the gate while waiting for our flight to Toronto, it was refreshing to hear a few pockets of English here & there after a full week of very intense Spanish. Once contained within the airplane, it seemed almost half the conversation was in English. And as soon as we disembarked at Toronto, the Spanish thinned out so quickly that within a half-hour it was a novelty to hear it nearby.
As it turned out, I had plenty of time to hang around the airport & listen to the Spanish peter out of the background noise. My suitcase did not arrive with me but it takes a long time to confirm that that is indeed the sad truth & it takes even longer to fill out all the paperwork to start the baggage trace.
At this point, we have another hour or so before landing in Calgary. It's been a successful assignment, although somewhat frustrating at times. It would be helpful for me to a) learn to work efficiently with a translator; b) learn to work more effectively in a bilingual situation; or c) learn to speak & understand more Spanish.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Colombia Cartagena: Day 9
Friday, June 13, 2014
Colombia Cartagena: Day 8
It was our last day of work here in Cartagena, and only a half-day at that. Many of the participants in our workshop have to travel to get to where they live so we wanted to wrap it up early enough to allow for travel time.
The workshops have been somewhat frustrating for me. For the most part I feel as if I'm sunk at the bottom of a hot pool of Spanish, totally immersed by (what sounds like) random words & phrases, several conversations at once, all spoken very, very fast. Occasionally I can pull a scrap of meaning out of it all but in general I can't tell whether the impassioned debate is about the workshop at hand or whether it's an argument about who will win the Mundial.
But during the small group discussion about gender inclusion, one of the participants who has a bit of English-speaking ability invited me to sit with his group. He translated the gist of the conversation for me & translated back my occasional comments. It was a very interesting discussion. For the most part, it seems, women in Colombia enjoy a much stronger position in the community and even in the family. Of course, a certain amount of machismo is obvious but as Brian points out, that's only a thin veil over the fact that this is a matriarchal society. Or it may be a reaction to the fact that women hold most of the real power.
The man who invited me to join his discussion group pointed out another interesting example. He asked me if I had noticed the women selling fruit along the wall in the Old City & in the park squares. I told him yes, I had noticed them (in fact it's hard to NOT notice them). They are all very dark-skinned, obviously of African origin, & they all wear brightly coloured 'chiquita banana' style dresses. He explained that they are part of a distinct ethnic group called the Palenquera, who speak their own language & live in a community not far from Cartagena. The Palenqueras are descended from a group of African slaves who escaped & created this community in the 17th century. According to my friend, it's only the women who sell the fruit; the men do very little. Women create & manage the wealth. When a girl child is born, the family rejoices but when a boy child is born, the reaction is more subdued ("another boy, hm. What shall we do with him???")
While I don't think the gender roles in Palenquera are ideal, I appreciate encountering yet one more surprise in how things are done.
Tonight I will start packing. Our flight leaves Cartagena at 11:24 am & although I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Old City, I am ready to leave the heat & humidity for a while.
The workshops have been somewhat frustrating for me. For the most part I feel as if I'm sunk at the bottom of a hot pool of Spanish, totally immersed by (what sounds like) random words & phrases, several conversations at once, all spoken very, very fast. Occasionally I can pull a scrap of meaning out of it all but in general I can't tell whether the impassioned debate is about the workshop at hand or whether it's an argument about who will win the Mundial.
But during the small group discussion about gender inclusion, one of the participants who has a bit of English-speaking ability invited me to sit with his group. He translated the gist of the conversation for me & translated back my occasional comments. It was a very interesting discussion. For the most part, it seems, women in Colombia enjoy a much stronger position in the community and even in the family. Of course, a certain amount of machismo is obvious but as Brian points out, that's only a thin veil over the fact that this is a matriarchal society. Or it may be a reaction to the fact that women hold most of the real power.
The man who invited me to join his discussion group pointed out another interesting example. He asked me if I had noticed the women selling fruit along the wall in the Old City & in the park squares. I told him yes, I had noticed them (in fact it's hard to NOT notice them). They are all very dark-skinned, obviously of African origin, & they all wear brightly coloured 'chiquita banana' style dresses. He explained that they are part of a distinct ethnic group called the Palenquera, who speak their own language & live in a community not far from Cartagena. The Palenqueras are descended from a group of African slaves who escaped & created this community in the 17th century. According to my friend, it's only the women who sell the fruit; the men do very little. Women create & manage the wealth. When a girl child is born, the family rejoices but when a boy child is born, the reaction is more subdued ("another boy, hm. What shall we do with him???")
While I don't think the gender roles in Palenquera are ideal, I appreciate encountering yet one more surprise in how things are done.
Tonight I will start packing. Our flight leaves Cartagena at 11:24 am & although I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Old City, I am ready to leave the heat & humidity for a while.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Colombia Cartagena: Day 7
It's been another long & busy day. We started work at the same time & in the same classroom at SENA, but it seems the staff must have started that badly underpowered air conditioner hours earlier because the room was actually almost cool when we first arrived. Gradually our students trickled in & we spent the next 6 hours delivering workshops, drinking coffee, & sweating. This is not a pattern one could keep up indefinitely.
Fortunately, however, the Soccer World Cup started this afternoon & Brian decided that since nobody would be able to focus on pedagogical workshops under such conditions, class would be dismissed at 2 pm so people could get to where they needed to be to watch the game. By 1:35 the classroom was empty.
The World Cup is incredibly popular here. They call it the 'Mundial' - the word means 'worldwide' but it is understood that it refers to world cup soccer. The popularity (bordering on frenzy) of the Mundial makes our Stanley cup finals look like an entertainment afterthought. It seems every other man is wearing a Mundial-related garment. There are Mundial posters, souvenirs, trinkets, ads, marginally-related menu items, etc. everywhere. This morning, each table in our hotel restaurant was decorated (?) with a strange fake-gold Mundial piggy bank though I have no idea who would put money in, or why.
The streets were pretty quiet in the Old City where I went walking after class. Outside many of the tiendas (little shops), a handful of men stood on the street, clustered round a TV set & watching the game. Younger men sat on the city wall in groups of 2 & 3, huddled close together so as to share a smartphone display of the game. I walked past a blind man sitting on a park bench, listening to the game on an ancient transistor radio.
As it turned out, Brazil won the game today so everybody here was happy. Apparently Colombia didn't have a chance at this level of the games but they all cheer for the nearest Latin American team. We didn't have time to celebrate too much: still 2 workshops to go plus some certificates to get ready.
Fortunately, however, the Soccer World Cup started this afternoon & Brian decided that since nobody would be able to focus on pedagogical workshops under such conditions, class would be dismissed at 2 pm so people could get to where they needed to be to watch the game. By 1:35 the classroom was empty.
The World Cup is incredibly popular here. They call it the 'Mundial' - the word means 'worldwide' but it is understood that it refers to world cup soccer. The popularity (bordering on frenzy) of the Mundial makes our Stanley cup finals look like an entertainment afterthought. It seems every other man is wearing a Mundial-related garment. There are Mundial posters, souvenirs, trinkets, ads, marginally-related menu items, etc. everywhere. This morning, each table in our hotel restaurant was decorated (?) with a strange fake-gold Mundial piggy bank though I have no idea who would put money in, or why.
The streets were pretty quiet in the Old City where I went walking after class. Outside many of the tiendas (little shops), a handful of men stood on the street, clustered round a TV set & watching the game. Younger men sat on the city wall in groups of 2 & 3, huddled close together so as to share a smartphone display of the game. I walked past a blind man sitting on a park bench, listening to the game on an ancient transistor radio.
As it turned out, Brazil won the game today so everybody here was happy. Apparently Colombia didn't have a chance at this level of the games but they all cheer for the nearest Latin American team. We didn't have time to celebrate too much: still 2 workshops to go plus some certificates to get ready.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Colombia Cartagena: Day 6
From time to time at the college when people hear that I am going (or have been) abroad for an international project, they say things like, 'lucky you! How'd you arrange that?' in a tone of voice that suggests I am about to go (or have been) on holiday. I explain to them that the opportunity was advertised & that I applied for it & was accepted; a fairly simple process open to all. And I also try to make it clear that this was not a HOLIDAY, that most days on international assignments are WORKING days, not holidays.
Like today, for example. Our work day began with a breakfast meeting by 7:30, in the taxi by 8 am. We started our day at a SENA training facility inside the Old City. This facility was in an amazing building constructed in the 16th century. It started out as a private home, but was later occupied as a convent & operated as such for many years (there are still many religious icons all over the place), & later converted to a Catholic school. The school went bankrupt & SENA acquired the facility. They run a little hotel of 14 rooms on the top floor as a hospitality training facility. Most of the rest of the building has been converted to classrooms.
We occupied one of the classrooms for most of the day. It was a small room with barely enough space for the 25 desks jammed into it. People sat elbow to elbow & knee to knee for the entire day. The windows were shuttered against the sun but with 20-something bodies in there we generated our own heat. It would have been warm at sub-zero temperatures I think but the ambient air was well over 30 & the humidity was probably close to 70 or 80 percent. At some point, someone brought in a small portable air conditioner which worked hard all day: towards the end of the day the pail, set up to catch condensation, reached the overflowing point & had to be carted away before it flooded the floor. Two ceiling fans spun feverishly the whole time: one of them had worn a hole in the ceiling tiles & jiggled at least an inch either way with every rotation. I'm glad I didn't have to sit underneath it as I'm not at all sure my health insurance would cover that kind of death.
The air was incredibly stifling. It was bad enough for me, sitting in a desk at the front & handing out papers from time to time & forwarding the slides on the powerpoint presentations. It was much more difficult for my colleague Brian who did the active teaching all day, an athletic event even in cool weather. We were all wiped by the end of the day.
We wound down for only a short time, then had a working supper, then worked afterwards getting things ready for tomorrow. It's 11 pm now & I still have a few things to do.
Not my idea of a holiday but it sure makes life interesting. And tomorrow will be easier.
Like today, for example. Our work day began with a breakfast meeting by 7:30, in the taxi by 8 am. We started our day at a SENA training facility inside the Old City. This facility was in an amazing building constructed in the 16th century. It started out as a private home, but was later occupied as a convent & operated as such for many years (there are still many religious icons all over the place), & later converted to a Catholic school. The school went bankrupt & SENA acquired the facility. They run a little hotel of 14 rooms on the top floor as a hospitality training facility. Most of the rest of the building has been converted to classrooms.
We occupied one of the classrooms for most of the day. It was a small room with barely enough space for the 25 desks jammed into it. People sat elbow to elbow & knee to knee for the entire day. The windows were shuttered against the sun but with 20-something bodies in there we generated our own heat. It would have been warm at sub-zero temperatures I think but the ambient air was well over 30 & the humidity was probably close to 70 or 80 percent. At some point, someone brought in a small portable air conditioner which worked hard all day: towards the end of the day the pail, set up to catch condensation, reached the overflowing point & had to be carted away before it flooded the floor. Two ceiling fans spun feverishly the whole time: one of them had worn a hole in the ceiling tiles & jiggled at least an inch either way with every rotation. I'm glad I didn't have to sit underneath it as I'm not at all sure my health insurance would cover that kind of death.
The air was incredibly stifling. It was bad enough for me, sitting in a desk at the front & handing out papers from time to time & forwarding the slides on the powerpoint presentations. It was much more difficult for my colleague Brian who did the active teaching all day, an athletic event even in cool weather. We were all wiped by the end of the day.
We wound down for only a short time, then had a working supper, then worked afterwards getting things ready for tomorrow. It's 11 pm now & I still have a few things to do.
Not my idea of a holiday but it sure makes life interesting. And tomorrow will be easier.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Colombia Cartagena: Day 5
It was another very full day of work, pretty much all the way from our breakfast meeting at 7:30 until after 10 pm, when I finally finished a roughed-out draft of the certificate that we'll be presenting to our workshop participants. There's not a lot to tell - work is work after all.
The nature of business work may be similar wherever you go but not all business meetings are created alike. The Colombian-style meeting is almost nothing like its counterpart in Canada. Imagine yourself in a building more than 100 years old, in a large room with ceilings almost as high as the room is wide. Air conditioners are running full blast & a couple of fans push the air even harder. There is no carpeting so every sound echoes. Most of the meeting participants arrive within an hour of each other but there are exceptions. The day starts with an extended period of greeting each other (hugs, kisses & handshakes at the beginning of each day), selecting a place at or near the meeting table (which is usually too small to accommodate everybody), and hunting down an outlet to plug in the laptop. Coffee arrives in a carafe. There's a lot of visiting and It's hard to tell when the conversation finally morphs into the meeting proper.
The meeting style is amazing. Everyone talks at once & if you want to add something, interruption is the rule. From time to time participants may appear to be typing with concentration but in the middle of that they will interrupt the meeting conversation to offer their opinion or argue a point. Cell phone conversations compete with the conversation in the room: in the middle of debating a choice of grammar in the project plan, for example, a participant will check an incoming text on her cellphone, distracted only a fraction of a second before continuing to make her point. Phones ring, people respond (even if they are the main speaker/presenter at the time) & it's no problem; the other participants immediately fill the vacuum with conversation. People come & go, getting coffee, going outside for a few minutes, moving to the other end of the room to talk with somebody else. I have no idea how they manage so many auditory channels at once. Imagine the confusion when you add a second language to the mix: Canadians talking with Canadians, Canadians talking with Colombians, Colombians with each other, the translator adding her two-way input, others making corrections or additions to the translator's input.
Really: it's amazing that anything gets done but by the end of the day it seems as much work has been completed than would have been done if we had met Canadian-style, arriving all on time (more or less) & moving through the agenda in a linear style with hands raised to take our turns.
Monday, June 9, 2014
Colombia Cartagena: Day 4
Today was a very solid day of work. Those of us in our College of the Rockies team started at 7 am with a breakfast meeting in the hotel cafe. By 8 am we were all in the Old City filing into the SENA building, filling little paper cups with coffee & scrambling to find outlets to charge our laptops, like a business meeting most anywhere in the world.
There's really not much else to say. We worked until 12:30, took a break for lunch, then worked until almost 5 pm. Fortunately it was a successful day, with a great deal of time on task & a sense of real progress made. If you have ever been involved in a massive challenging project with an (over?) abundance of intelligent, passionate people you will appreciate the nuances.
To celebrate, we all went to drink beer together in a patio cafe near la Torre del Reloj (Clock Tower) at the edge of the Old City. We toasted & took endless photos of each other with cameras & cell phones while the afternoon slipped away into night.
It is intensely satisfying to be moving forward on this! But it is already 10 pm & I still have some prep work to do before tomorrow so this will be a short blog post. Hasta manana!
There's really not much else to say. We worked until 12:30, took a break for lunch, then worked until almost 5 pm. Fortunately it was a successful day, with a great deal of time on task & a sense of real progress made. If you have ever been involved in a massive challenging project with an (over?) abundance of intelligent, passionate people you will appreciate the nuances.
To celebrate, we all went to drink beer together in a patio cafe near la Torre del Reloj (Clock Tower) at the edge of the Old City. We toasted & took endless photos of each other with cameras & cell phones while the afternoon slipped away into night.
It is intensely satisfying to be moving forward on this! But it is already 10 pm & I still have some prep work to do before tomorrow so this will be a short blog post. Hasta manana!
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Colombia Cartagena: Day 3
It was a hot sticky day with a bit of work.
We met up with our technical people, Hernan & Oseas, at breakfast & spent the morning catching up on their work & vision of how the project could continue. We talked on the rooftop patio until the heat became unbearable, at which point we decided to find a) a place where we could buy some cold beer, & b) something to eat with it. After lunch we were on our own so I set out to walk along the seawall & slowly trickle my way back through the Old City.
The seawall, exposed as it is to the wide open Caribbean, was beautiful but it's hard to beat the Old City for its richness of little snapshot events:
We met up with our technical people, Hernan & Oseas, at breakfast & spent the morning catching up on their work & vision of how the project could continue. We talked on the rooftop patio until the heat became unbearable, at which point we decided to find a) a place where we could buy some cold beer, & b) something to eat with it. After lunch we were on our own so I set out to walk along the seawall & slowly trickle my way back through the Old City.
The seawall, exposed as it is to the wide open Caribbean, was beautiful but it's hard to beat the Old City for its richness of little snapshot events:
- stepping in to view the beautiful old cathedral, watching a pigeon fly far above in the cuppola (does it have a nest in there??), a little feather fluttering down to the pews below
- a young policeman, giving directions to a couple of tourists. Immediately after they leave he pulls a brush out of nowhere & shines his shoes
- the wall surrounding the Old City has regularly-placed openings where sentinels once watched the harbour. Now they are places for young lovers to sit or stretch out together & neck
- a taxi driver, pulling up slowly behind a sidewalk coffee vendor, leans towards the passenger window. He stretches his hand out with thumb and forefinger held about 5 cm apart, the sign to order an expresso, 500 pesos (about 30 cents).
But I think the holiday is over! We had a working supper with one of our project coordinators & tomorrow, early, we will begin the main part of the job we came for. I am hoping for a successful start to the work & an air-conditioned meeting room most of all.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Colombia Cartagena: Day 2
Today was a True Holiday. With no formal meetings scheduled until tomorrow, the three of us in our little Canadian contingent spent the day like tourists. Left to our own devices, we each followed our own schedule until later in the morning, when we got together & arranged for a proper sightseeing trip with a taxi driver recommended by the hotel clerk. It was a good idea. We saw many historic locations & although I couldn't understand much of the Spanish, I was able to make out that the city is OLD. Many of the fortifications, churches, & other establishments pivotal to a colonizing population were built in the 1600's.
We spent some time wandering fascinated and lost inside the Old City. It is a magical place, enclosed in 9 km of walls, full of tiny shops strung together along narrow streets. The streets crisscross each other in an eclectic grid but they change their names with every block. We were looking for a couple of restaurants, possible dinner choices recommended by the hotel, but found it almost impossible to find an address. In the end we settled into a crepe restaurant & enjoyed another fantastic meal.
The food really is amazing. A food critic would go crazy here. It seems that every restaurant serves prize-winning food in incredible presentations. While eating our dinner we watched the restaurant staff prepare desserts on the counter across from us. The desserts of the house were constructed on a base of gelati, storybook creations with gelati of many different flavours arranged in artistic colour combinations & garnished with all sorts of fruits and nuts.
And have I mentioned the coffee??? I am not a coffee affectionado -- I prefer Tim Horton's to even Starbucks for heaven's sake -- but it's as if the coffee here has an extra dimension to it. It's not that it's strong: it's ... deeper somehow.
We spent some time wandering fascinated and lost inside the Old City. It is a magical place, enclosed in 9 km of walls, full of tiny shops strung together along narrow streets. The streets crisscross each other in an eclectic grid but they change their names with every block. We were looking for a couple of restaurants, possible dinner choices recommended by the hotel, but found it almost impossible to find an address. In the end we settled into a crepe restaurant & enjoyed another fantastic meal.
The food really is amazing. A food critic would go crazy here. It seems that every restaurant serves prize-winning food in incredible presentations. While eating our dinner we watched the restaurant staff prepare desserts on the counter across from us. The desserts of the house were constructed on a base of gelati, storybook creations with gelati of many different flavours arranged in artistic colour combinations & garnished with all sorts of fruits and nuts.
And have I mentioned the coffee??? I am not a coffee affectionado -- I prefer Tim Horton's to even Starbucks for heaven's sake -- but it's as if the coffee here has an extra dimension to it. It's not that it's strong: it's ... deeper somehow.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Colombia Cartagena: Day 1
We landed in Cartagena at 5:30 this evening, tired and relieved to be here. We recuperated a bit with cold beer & hot food & now I am winding down in the hotel room, reflecting on all the little clues that remind you, even after only a few minutes in a tropical country, that you are not in Kansas any more. Or (in our case), not in Canada. There's the temperature clue, of course. Cranbrook was cool when I left, Southern Ontario even cooler these past few days, & our brief stopover in Bogota was chilly enough for me to keep my jacket on the whole time. But as soon as I emerged from the airplane doorway on the tarmac in Cartagena the heat settled down like a weight & suddenly my little jacket felt unbearably heavy. By the time I got to the end of the disembarking stairway I was damp with sweat.
And tropical countries - in developing nations anyway - just smell differently. The air is not only warmer but richer & more full with sensory information. It seems to take longer to breathe it. Pavement, car exhaust, fruit, street food, & countless unidentifiable odours all add their data to the mix. The language, too, socks in like a thick blanket. For the first few minutes it's all just noise but it doesn't take long for individual words to stand out & take meaning & a little later phrases emerge from the soup of chaos. If this visit is like others I know it will be several days at least before the environment starts to make any kind of sense.
There's the sudden-ness of sunset. When we arrived at the hotel it was still day, late afternoon. I went into my room to unpack for 15 minutes & when I returned outside it was night. Just like that! But the streets get livelier as the night gets darker, and by the time we all strolled out to the Old City looking for a bite of supper the place was hopping with people, music, waiters hawking restaurant food, vendors selling baskets, and horses drawing tourists in carriages.
Tomorrow we have a day off! We are going to explore the Old City some more & maybe hire a taxi to show us the sights. Cartagena is a UN World Heritage Site & it would be criminal to come all this way & not see what makes it so special.
And tropical countries - in developing nations anyway - just smell differently. The air is not only warmer but richer & more full with sensory information. It seems to take longer to breathe it. Pavement, car exhaust, fruit, street food, & countless unidentifiable odours all add their data to the mix. The language, too, socks in like a thick blanket. For the first few minutes it's all just noise but it doesn't take long for individual words to stand out & take meaning & a little later phrases emerge from the soup of chaos. If this visit is like others I know it will be several days at least before the environment starts to make any kind of sense.
There's the sudden-ness of sunset. When we arrived at the hotel it was still day, late afternoon. I went into my room to unpack for 15 minutes & when I returned outside it was night. Just like that! But the streets get livelier as the night gets darker, and by the time we all strolled out to the Old City looking for a bite of supper the place was hopping with people, music, waiters hawking restaurant food, vendors selling baskets, and horses drawing tourists in carriages.
Tomorrow we have a day off! We are going to explore the Old City some more & maybe hire a taxi to show us the sights. Cartagena is a UN World Heritage Site & it would be criminal to come all this way & not see what makes it so special.
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