A rainy view of Bogotá from the top of Montserrat. It rains most days in the afternoon, but hasn't gone above 65 or below about 50.
It's only been 12 days, though it feels like longer. My feet are finding the ground, and I am happy, overall. some highlights...
High-altitude truce
On Sunday, I climbed up Montserrat...the one in Colombia. The mountain is only safe to climb on Sundays - there is a kind of informal agreement between the pick-pocketers and the city residents that if you walk up the almost 2,000 feet to the top of this pilgrimage site on Sundays, you will be left alone. The rest of the week, you most probably will come down the mountain shoeless, peso-less, and a little shaken up! The city of Bogotá resides at a comfortable 8,530 feet, and Montserrat rises up on the eastern side, visible, from almost anywhere at 10,367 feet. I was grateful for my bike “training,” as I could barely keep up with my more-seasoned Bogotá friends. Overall, I don’t notice the altitude too much, except that I am hungrier than I have ever been. The steady rain also helped keep me cool!
The path up to Montserrat, with a Christmas start that lights up at night.
The restaurant at the top of Montserrat. Pilgrims come not for the food...but to visit the "fallen Jesus," whose likeness resides in the nearby church, and who is said to respond to favors from those who make the journey up the mountain. Though you can get up the mountain by cable car or train, we decided that you're way more likely to get your prayers answered if you make the steep, hardcore climb.
Bureaucracy...
wow. This entire country seems to have been trained by the DMV architects in how to make what could be single-step processes not only multi-step, but multi-locational and many-hours-consuming.
1: Last week I said I was off to confront the bureaucracy...and I did so for 7 hours. Before coming to Bogotá, I had already mailed my passport away, done some paperwork, and gotten my visa. Now that I’m here, I need a cédula, or identification card. So, naturally, that took 7 HOURS at the equivalent of the FBI offices...where I had to wait on one line to tell them why I was there, another one to tell me what I needed to do, then I had to go outside the office and get my picture taken, go 15 minutes down the street to a specific bank to pay the fee, go to the hospital, where they took my blood, and I waited 45 minutes so they could record my blood type (B+), and then wait for another hour so I could submit this important documentation. And, I have to back in two weeks to pick up the cédula. The laminating machine was out of order.
2: There is a pool down the street where I have started swimming. It is Olympic-sized, in a modern, fieldhouse-like structure. And it is way nicer than any pool I have ever seen in the US. So...Gilberto and I went to go swimming there. Our miscalculation was that we got there at 2:20, and of course we are allowed in only on the hour. Granted, the pool was empty, but we would need to wait, since that was the system. Upon entering, I was told that I would be allowed to wear only my bathing suit (none of this sarong business), my bathing cap and goggles. Towels have been deemed not appropriate for the pool area. When you have your correct bathing uniform on, you go through a tunnel with automatically-activated showers, then must step through a shallow pool to wash your feet off. You may swim for only an hour, then you must shower before leaving. No exceptions. That said, I had a really nice one-hour swim.
La mujer de la luz
On Tuesday night, I went to help out fellow FOR volunteer Trish, whose place I will be taking on the team. She , along with her compañero, have rented a big performance space in Bogotá to use for just-beginning musicians for night performances, and eventually as a space for NGOs and community-based classes or programs to happen during the day. I helped paint the space, typically getting as much paint on my shoes, nose and elbows(?) as on the wall, and all was well until the lights went out. Luckily, always prepared-ish, I had my headlamp with me, and so enabled the painting to go on, as I followed the painters with my light. They renamed me La mujer de la luz: the woman of light.
Small world
I have met amazing people since I got here. Part of the key, of course, is that other internationals in Bogotá inherently have a huge amount in common. Perhaps unsurprising, then: I was hanging out with a Witness for Peace volunteer, who a friend from the States had put me in touch with, and she took me to meet her friend...who it turns out I met last year at a PBI (Peace Brigades International) information weekend. The whole experience feels a little like college, in that we’re all away from home, a little giddy about the work we are doing and all we have to learn, and we are all looking for community here. Yesterday I attended Fulbrighters’ presentations of their work...and ran into a Harvard grad student who knows my good friend Andrew Kinney, who I have known since middle school. Of course.
I am happily getting into the office work here in Bogotá, enjoying the challenges of starting a new job, and am looking forward to going to Medellín, the second-biggest city on the country, soon. I will attempt to publish this on Sundays or Mondays in the future. Besotes y Abrazotes!
Jan y sus amigas nuevas
