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Wow, wow, wow so much has happened since I last wrote! I'm not going to write it all, as the blog would be even longer than the others (yes it is possible)! I'm going to write about the things that I feel have been the most exciting and fun. Since my last blog post I've caught up with other friends for lunch and frozen yoghurt (always a winner), been away to new places and had a random chat with a man on a bus who was selling his handmade products.
After having had a lovely lunch with my friend Felipe I got on the transmilenio to go home and for once there were loads of seats! I sat at the very back of the bus which I never do and to my right was a guy making things out of aluminium cans. I was transfixed but had to do that thing where you really want to look at what someone is doing but you don't want it to be too obvious. I didn't do a good job of being inconspicuous because I was so fascinated by what he was doing. He was making a push bike model out of bits of the can! It had a saddle and everything! He showed me it when he had finished and was very pleased with himself. He then showed me others that he had made…he had a beach scene and a fighter jet made out of a beer can. Well I was hooked and decided to buy the fighter jet, as a gift for someone. We then started chatting, as he clocked that I wasn't Colombian, and had a nice chat. Other people on the bus gave me some funny looks, but I was having a great time. We spoke a bit about England, and about why I was here, and then I asked him a few questions about himself. I honestly had such a lovely 15 minutes talking to this guy, and was struck again by the creativity of the people here and their openness. How many times in England have you had a random conversation with someone on a bus or the tube without them attempting to stop the conversation? I don't think I ever have! Anyway seeing the ease at which he was making his things really impressed me. I loved also how I was just sat on the bus and hey presto; I found the present I had been looking for without knowing it! In England you wouldn't find anything nearly as creative on a bus, or be able to buy anything on the bus…how boring! I was also struck by how, despite the difficulties this culture has been through, there is a sense of freedom here and a real pride for this culture and for the things they produce. In England we do seem to have a problem being proud of what we do because it's seen as arrogant. I know there is an aspect of pride which isn't good, but when we've done or made something that is good, why don't we just say, "Actually you know what, this is pretty good". Anyway, I just wanted to put it out there that that was possibly my favourite transmilenio journey to date.
Over the next few days I taught as normal and have now started teaching a colleague very basic English. We had the first class and just did how to present yourself and ask the basic questions like "What is your name?", etc. The plan is to teach her as much as possible and get her the basics. This is proving harder than planned due to work commitments, but we shall see how we get on. So two weeks ago on the Saturday night I had Abi, Dani, and two others (Felipe (different) and Jason) over, as we were having our first Santa Marta planning meeting. There are others who will be coming but they couldn't come on the Saturday. We had such a funny evening and all seemed to gel really well. We didn't get much planning done, but we figured out the dates that each of us can go…it's a good start! It was a good time of just getting to know each other a bit and laughing, laughing and laughing. I reckon we're going to have a really great time together, hopefully be able to contribute to the community in some way and learn from them to.
The following day, as I was walking to church, I remembered that a friend had said that her and her friends were thinking of getting out of Bogota for a bit. I got in touch and she said that yes they were going away for the night. So trying to be a bit more spontaneous I said that I would go. After church I got home, had lunch, packed and off I went to meet Angela. We then met her friends, got on a bus and off we went to a place called Melgar, which is about 2 hours from Bogota. We arrived at about 5.30 and met with a friend of one of the friends, uncles (I think). He then helped us find somewhere to stay for the night, and we got a room in a little hotel above a little shop. It was perfect! The weather was warm, it was quite, it was chilled and it was what we needed. We got into our shorts and wandered into the little town, which was buzzing with people all enjoying being away from the city. The town is really cute and we walked around for a while, got some food, found a swimming pool to go to the next day, then headed back to our room where we spent the next two hours chatting (in Spanish). We were all exhausted so crashed out about 11.30 and didn't wake up until about 9am the next morning. After getting ready we headed back to the town for breakfast and then went to the swimming pool. We managed to get about 30minutes to an hour of sun before it decided to rain! Typical! Anyway my tan got topped up so I was happy. We walked around some more and then found a place to have coffee and subsequently lunch. We decided to head back to our room, get changed and try and get a bus. The traffic was mental, we managed to get on a bus having been told there were seats to then find out there were no seats, but we were too far down the road to get off. So, two of the friends sat up from and Angela and I sat at the back in the aisle. I tried to stay positive…it's all part of the adventure. However, the journey back took about 4 hours due to traffic. At one point I fell asleep, and when I woke up, we were still in the same place! My heart sank slightly, but I laughed a bit thinking that there I was sat in the aisle (pasillo in Spanish) on a bus. Leading up to this weekend I had wanted to get away from Bogota and God had answered that prayer, so I couldn't really complain about my situation. We made the most of it, chatted, swapped seats, chatted, laughed, almost cried, chatted, slept, chatted and boooooom we arrived in Bogota. Needless to say, I slept well again that night.
That week was a good one. Work was standard, but I managed to find lots more supposedly 'missing' books in the library. Tuesday I decided to go to dance class, as needed motivation to do exercise. Abi was there to, which was great and we ended up dancing together…I was the man. Who would have thought that on your Stride placement you would get to dance not just with your short term co-ordinator but with your friend. Team Colombia literally is the best, and later you will find out more why.
At the Mennonite church on Wednesday, the speaker was a German guy who worked for the church in Amsterdam. He spoke in English and someone translated into Spanish, so for once I understood everything! He spoke about World War 1 and the reasons for it and how there were actual attempts to stop the war before it started. He said the reasons weren't actually reasons, and the Kings of each country were actually related. The main point really was about communication, and how within families we can have conflict that is all due to us being too stubborn to back down or forgive or say sorry. I had a chat with him afterwards and found out that he does a lot of work with restorative justice, which is something that I was involved in, in England when I worked in the Prison. He was a very interesting man, and had a good sense of humour!
Now Thursday, what a day! This day included Skyping a very good friend who I have not spoken to in ages, packing to go away for the weekend, going to dance class and then going to Abi's house in order to go away. Why were we, Dani and Alex (new latin link missionaries) going away? For the Latin Link, Team Colombia (best team) retreat! We were going to a place called Circasia (pronounced Sircasia), which was a small town outside of another town, more well known, called Armenia, which is also coffee country (where they produce the coffee). So to get there we took the bus, all 8 hours of it, over night. I didn't sleep very well on the way, as it was cold on the bus due to the air conditioning and the driver having his window open, the fact that the driver had his music on loudly, and the fact that I was getting thrown about in my seat. I did manage to doze, but certainly knew that I hadn't slept well when we arrived. We had the morning and some of the afternoon to get to know Armenia. After breakfast, we left our bags at the restaurant, as they kindly said that we could, and had a stroll through the town centre, and to a park. We didn't know what to expect of the park but it was amazing! To make it better it was hot, so we sun creamed up. The park was huge, beautiful, and peaceful. We had so much fun taking photos and exploring and had a moment where we went into a bamboo forest. I asked Dani and Abi to pose pretending to be scared, and just as I took the photo, a killer leaf (not actually a killer leaf) fell from a tree towards Dani causing her to squeal in fright and demonstrate her actual fear face (see photo)! I think we laughed for a good 10 minutes at this point and I almost wet myself from laughing so much. After this excitement we carried on walking round and saw a local animal called a Guatin, which is like a big Guinea pig (size of a cat). After having our park fix, we went back to the restaurant, had lunch, got the bus to Circasia, and then we were picked up by the owner of the farm that we were staying at.
We arrived at the farm and oh my goodness, it was incredible. The farm has 12 acres of land; they have cows, a horse, a dog, a cat and chickens and peace. They sell the milk from the cows to a company called Colanta which is popular here, so it means it is good milk and we got to have it! We got the tour of the house, had a drink, settled down and waited for the other members to arrive who were coming from Medellin and one other from Bogota who was flying. It literally felt like paradise, and you could really feel the presence of God there, I instantly felt relaxed. That evening, once everyone had arrived, we introduced ourselves and then had an ice breaker led by Abi which was hilarious. At 10pm everyone was fading so it was bed time. The sleep was welcomed and needed.
Saturday after breakfast we had a devotional. We did this partly individually and then got into groups of 3 to discuss what we had thought, felt, etc. Abi had planned 3 different topics to look at, so each person had one of these 3, which meant we got into the groups with those who had the same topic. It was good to spend time studying a passage with questions to think about. I had 'Seeking the Wisdom of God', which was very relevant to my state of mind that weekend. In my group we spoke in Spanish, which was great for me. Later on we had a time of praying for one another, again in groups. I spoke openly about what I needed prayer for; the future and something more personal, again I spoke in Spanish. I had set myself a challenge to speak in as much Spanish as I could over the weekend and to pray in Spanish. It was a really special time to be able to pray for one another, and God is giving me confidence to pray out loud in Spanish and even though I know it's not perfect what I say, He knows what I mean, so on I go. After lunch we had a few hours to just chill, so I went for a nice walk with Dani and we had a really good chat. It was good to share with her about my first few months, as she is experiencing some of the stuff that I experienced. Even though it was hard, it was horrible in fact, I feel privileged to be able to now share this with someone and tell them that they will be okay, and that it will pass. After this time we had a business meeting (yawn). However, Fiona did it really well and it wasn't death by paperwork and protocols, which was good. We then had dinner and then had the International evening of fun, laughter, tears of laughter, sillyness, being big kids, and enjoying each others company and being a team…the BEST team! Each country (Colombia, Bolivia, Switzerland, England and Scotland) had to do something from their country. Colombia- we played their form of the game 'Orange and Lemons', Bolivia- we learnt some Bolivian facts and then had a quiz, Switzerland- the chocolate game! England- well we said an English thing like Fish and chips and the two teams had to act it out…hahahaha….Scotland- We stripped the willow! (It's a dance). I honestly laughed so much my face hurt. I love these times when as a team you can just let your hair down. We also asked the couple who own the farm to join us, and oh my days, they were hilarious to. What a fun night.
Our final day and I led the first session, which was prayer for our ministries. I did this in Spanish and I think it went okay. We went round and said a bit about our ministries and what the prayer requests were. We then split into groups of 3 and had a time of prayer. I was quite tired, the Spanish was starting to affect my brain and it was shutting down, but God gave me the strength to pray again in Spanish and concentrate as much as I could. Before lunch we had a time of worship, a mini sermon and then a time of communion, which again was really special. The time of worship was quite emotional, and it was in this time, that God revealed to me His plans for my future once I return to England. I'm going to keep this quiet for now, and just tell those that it could personally affect, but the rest of you will know soon enough. I'll give you a bit of a taster though…I'll be in England J (I'm grinning right now, as I write this).
But wow look this blog is just as long as the others! Good job I haven't written everything! There is so much more I could say, but I'm going to save it for the next blog. As for now, I am waiting the arrival of my dad who arrives at 4am tomorrow morning (yes I know 4am!).
Until the next update!
Chao xxxx
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